ABSTRACT
Days before the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, five US Army and Marine Corps officers introduced the concept of ‘fourth-generation’ warfare in an article published in the Marine Corps Gazette. Its basic outlines were as follows:
In broad terms, fourth generation warfare seems likely to be widely dispersed and largely undefined; the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between ‘civilian’ and ‘military’ may disappear. Actions will occur concurrently throughout all participants’ depth, including their society as a cultural, not just a physical, entity.
