Attack the System: Fourth Generation Warfare, Part Two

Keith Preston continues his discussion of fourth generation warfare. Topics include:

• The characteristics of each of the four generations of war that have emerged since the Peace of Westphalia and how these developed;
• How the U.S. Civil War was a prototype for the ideologically driven total wars of the twentieth century;
• The origins of modern terrorism in the French Revolution and the anarchist assassinations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries;
• The prevalence of terrorist groups in Europe and Latin America during the postwar era and how these were prototypes for fourth generation warfare forces;
• How fourth generation warfare grew out of the anti-colonial movements of the mid to late twentieth century;
• The role of Islamic revolutionary forces such as Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood as definitive fourth generation forces.