Five generations of warfare explained, from musket lines to fifth gen

Key points: Five generations warfare explained

• First-gen warfare ran on manpower: inaccurate smoothbore muskets and slow reloads meant victory came from massed lines firing volleys in unison.
• Second-gen warfare added firepower; machine guns, artillery and high explosives drove armies into World War I trenches where only commanders were allowed to make decisions.
• Third-gen maneuver warfare in World War II depended on mechanized resupply and on trust, illustrated by the SAS, which grew from a small desert raiding unit given only the commander's intent.
• Fourth-gen warfare is insurgency: from Vietnam on, smaller forces backed by outside economies win by outlasting a larger state rather than defeating it.
• Fifth-gen warfare is forced perspective, influence where the target cannot tell who is pulling the strings, drawing on the 1999 Chinese book Unrestricted Warfare's idea that anything can be a weapon.
• The host argues every earlier generation still runs at once, pointing to Ukraine's trenches, artillery, drones, maneuver and information war.
• His practical advice: answer confident claims about who is behind events with a measured maybe, and train to procure food, purify water and live without grid power.

About this Tactics and Training video

Five generations of warfare explained by Dirty Civilian: manpower in musket-era line battles, firepower in the World War I trenches, maneuver and decentralized command in World War II, insurgency from Vietnam on, and fifth-gen warfare built on forced perspective and information. The host closes with what he says civilians should take from it: treat confident explanations with a measured maybe, and train now to procure food and water and to function without grid power.

Transcript: Five generations warfare