The Citizen's Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare
By Michael T. Flynn, LTG, U.S. Army, (Retired)
Boone Cutler, SGT, U.S. Army, (Retired)
US Army Sergeant Boone Cutler and I decided to write a series on “Fifth Generation Warfare” and Session I, The Citizens Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) became an instant bestseller. We were obviously pleasantly surprised but what we learned was there was a hunger coming from principally American citizens to better understand what it was that was happening around us. 5GW is a form of warfare that has components of psychological operations, intelligence and information operations, deception, out and out lies, and a manipulation of the cultural and political narratives to shape the behavior of everyday citizens. We wanted to get people something they could use to fight back.
As we watched the responses and held many discussions with readers over the early months after the 5GW book came out, we decided to write Session II, The Citizens Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare, How to Fight AI (Artificial Intelligence). AI is exploding on the scene globally and doing so in ways that most Americans aren’t prepared for nor truly understand. AI comes in a variety of different flavors and packaging to hide the realities of the impact it is having on our behavior and more precisely on the behavior of our youth.