A Strategic Amplifier for World War IV

Now what? After the Hezbollah terrorists successfully held off the Israeli armed forces in southern Lebanon, where do we go from here?

An answer comes from Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales, (Ret.), writing in the Armed Forces Journal.

Think of World War I as the chemists’ war. The way that Germany kept going was by synthesizing nitrates for explosives when the supply of natural nitrates was exhausted in 1915.

World War II was the physicists’ war. It ended with a nuclear bang but the real breakthrough was in radio and radar. It transformed military operations from the very beginning of the war.

World War III, the cold war, was driven by information technologies.

But it is obvious that information technology is not going to win World War IV. The war we are in today will be won by application of the human and social sciences.

That is the theory of historian Alan Beyerchen of Ohio State University. What does it mean for the current war? Writes Scales:

World War IV will cause a shift in classical centers of gravity from the will of governments and armies to the perceptions of populations. Victory will be defined more in terms of capturing the psycho-cultural rather than the geographical high ground. Understanding and empathy will be important weapons of war... Culture awareness and the ability to build ties of trust will offer protection to our troops more effectively than body armor. Leaders will seek wisdom and quick but reflective thought rather than operational and planning skills as essential intellectual tools for guaranteeing future victories.

This will mean soldiers with much more training and education. For our goal in the Middle East is not to conquer territory. It is to midwife a cultural transformation from tribal mistrust to civil harmony. And that is not so much a military as a cultural goal.

World War IV can only be won by harnessing the social and human sciences as the essential amplifiers of military performance, just as the physical sciences were the amplifiers of past world wars.

It’s a tall order. The military mistrusts the practitioners of the social sciences and the feeling among most social scientists is mutual. Over the last century the social sciences have been deployed to amplify the power of government in domestic policy. And the social scientists loved the power and the prestige they obtained. But now we are talking about research and development to amplify and support US foreign policy. Can generals talk to social science professors? Will social scientists agree to work for the Pentagon?

It all points to an interesting future.