Topic: Didn't know where to put this- want to bounce some ideas around

and I got cut off by the character cap.

To fully understand the capabilities of a 4GW-conditioned military group it is imperative to understand that there are degrees of conflict. In its purest form, war is in fact terrorism. Terrorism, with its desire for complete and total submission of an established foe, fulfills the accepted neo-Clausewitzian definition of war while satisfying the current fourth-generation situation. Terrorism is a gratuitous action- it is wanton destruction, a senseless struggle that happens to contain political ambitions. Once warfare enters the realm of a society which is either unused to such commitments or is advanced in its political structure, the motives and cause for the proliferation of conflict become increasingly clouded in the murky waters of ambition and public opinion.
That is not to say that we are not at war- the coalition are simply fighting a less-distilled form of conflict, while in general our principal opponents are waging a pure and simple violence, with a simple purpose- to kill and maim infantrymen in order to force their removal from their country. This has already been covered in “The Bureaucratic Bungle”.
Because of the constantly shifting political winds, we are not able to conduct a pure conflict- the goal of which is total destruction or subjugation of an enemy. So in order to use violent means to achieve a more palpable political end, we change both semantics and operating procedures to fit the current scenario. It’s essentially business language applied to combat. It helps appeal to the American public (A war for “freedom of the Iraqi people”, rather than “a war to depose and dispose of Saddam Hussein and his cronies”) and create a public sense of moral purpose and pride in partaking in the conflict. This is the creation of a public support base for engaging an enemy- it is the first step towards a secure operational environment, and therefore tantamount for complete success of an operation.
Once a clear majority support is established, it must be sustained. This is all assuming that the political powers are pleased with the current case for war- if the ruling governmental powers are not in relative agreement with the cause, then the political system is unstable and will collapse upon itself, creating a quagmire.
The connotation of “political connections” refers here to the ability of our current administrative and military assets to function in unison with the necessary foreign powers to sustain war efforts- banks, governments, other militaries, and the like. Take, for example, the political finagling required to use Turkey’s airfields during the early stages of the second Iraq conflict. These kind of political actions are the ones that need to occur for success. The constant media deluge on leaks, spoiled operations, and other government fallout affect the operational status of the army at home and abroad. Therefore, careful political actions are required to keep operational security and morale high for all concerned.
Simply put, if we have a support base for war but cannot acquire the necessary political objectives prior to engaging in combat, we are a combat-ineffective system. If we lack home support but have support abroad, we are still combat ineffective. The concrete goals of the operation must be stated; the decision-making bodies must be able to act unilaterally to ensure mission success. Minor differences are relatively inconsequential to operational integrity provided that they have little political bearing or effect on operations abroad. Severe fissures in the chain of command or political bodies create massive problems for an army conducting any kind of operation abroad.
Because of such factors as mass media and the natural tendency within higher levels of political authority to promote power struggles and possibly extreme partisanship, the communication and political tools available today do little to ensure a complete form of operational success. Relative superiority must be achieved in two places- abroad and at home. Otherwise, de-stabilization becomes almost an absolute certainty at some point of a military procedure.
Civilian Reaction to War: The Mixed Blessing of Mass Media
Under fourth-generation procedures, the media has been a boon to both the US and its contemporary enemies. Each day we are kept up to date with CNN reports of combat deaths, new operations, and other developments. We also are assaulted with images of battle footage, interviews with infantrymen, and the occasional appearance of Osama bin Laden or underling, or that of another, less notorious cell.
Mass media keeps the public appeased with combat successes; by merit of human nature, it can also show us skewed versions of the conflict being reported. Objective reporting in a pure form is absolutely impossible in today’s society. In its base, purest form, it’s easy to find such writing bureaucratically styled, dry, and not of interest to the layman. Newspapers and magazines have to print and sell to an audience- hence subjective reporting, no matter how slight it is.
It is not difficult to sympathize with a terrorist once we are given a good literary picture of him. The psychological term for such empathetic behavior towards terrorists or an enemy is “Stockholm Syndrome”, and often becomes a great muddier of battlefield waters. Having been desensitized on all fronts by mass media, might the American public as a whole be displaying a form of Stockholm Syndrome in its ever-decreasing support for necessary preventative operations abroad? The prospect is frightening. This is the result that a subvertive group wants- empathy for its cause. A terrorist leader would want the general public to say “ The man’s been reduced to living in a cave, hole, etc.; let him be.” One of the defining aspects of any form of warfare is that one side wants total subversion of the other. This has proven, in low-intensity conflict, to be way to go about doing it. In a nutshell, this attitude is the modern application of Ghandi’s protest, only the nonviolent effect stems from the populace on the homefront- spurred by the struggle of the insurgency.
The media is, of course, the engine which helps to produce these negative results in the modern army. Consider that the media’s purpose in reporting news items is to attract viewers, readers, and money. It was remarked to the author recently that the media can and sometimes will attempt deliberately to vilify a subject to garner ratings and sales- as long as the truth is told, all’s fair in love and war.
Imagine that a home owner uses deadly force to defend his family and himself from a home invasion by two men, killing one and wounding the other. Two or more very different headlines can develop on the incident afterwards.
• One Dead, Another Injured in Shooting
• Man Shoots Two in Self Defense
Notice the connotations that may be drawn from either of these possible headlines. The great chance is that the headlines is all a passerby will see. The average American’s attention span is exceedingly short- nearly every facet of our everyday life manipulates this, and the media therefore can cast the story in whatever subjective light it desires, get the message out there, and have the bulk of said message either misinterpreted or misused as the author and his superiors see fit. The first headline quickly draws negative connotations towards the shooter, while the second lionizes him- and “self-defense” doesn’t often garner as much attention as a verbal depiction of a death which is seemingly random at first glance .
However, either can draw further, unsubstantiated negative conclusions. Why was the owner a victim of a home invasion? Was there some other criminal activity gone awry (a large percentage of home invasions are drug-related crimes)? Was deadly force legitimate under the circumstances? The possible conclusions or unsubstantiated claims that can result from either headline are unlimited.