5GW, Invisible Borders, and the Politics of Swarms

Introduction

Technology in warfare can certainly evolve and develop in ways that do not disrupt our basic understanding of what is going on. From the day that two tribes were throwing rocks at each other to the time when two nation states were launching missiles at each other, with the era of trebuchets in between, everyone understands the basic concept involved. All of it is right-handed warfare, with the projectiles simply differing in weight, speed, and behavior on impact.

But there have been certain developments in war that require a complete paradigm shift even to understand what is happening. We might take the Clausewitz dictum—that war is the continuation of policy (or politics) by other means—and invert it. We have entered an era where comments on X can be the continuation of warfare by other means.

Which means, in principle, that a nation can be under a concerted and premeditated attack and not know anything about it.

Nothing Like Pearl Harbor at All

Before the Japanese planes struck Pearl Harbor, we didn’t know about it, and were utterly unprepared. But try to imagine a scenario in which it was three weeks after the attack and we still didn’t know that it had happened.

The 5GW in my title above refers to Fifth Generation Warfare.

In 5GW, there is no clear distinction between combatant and non-combatant, and it is warfare that utilizes non-kinetic means. Using information systems, advanced technologies (like AI) are used to shape perceptions, conduct cyberattacks, manipulate narratives, disseminate disinformation, and so on. Where the battlefield begins and ends is pretty blurry. In fact, when successful, there is no battlefield, no kinetic action at all, this accounts for that line being so “blurry.” There is no such line. So 5GW is Tokyo Rose writ large, a lot sneakier, and way more effective.

Two of the principles of old school warfare were security and surprise, and both of them of course depended on deception. When Gideon attacked the Midianites with his 300 men, the whole thing depended on “weaving a false narrative.” But that sort of thing was always the run-up to the denouement, which was an actual battle.

What we are dealing with now is large scale psychological and emotional manipulation, such that the nation under attack doesn’t realize they are at war, or that they were just conquered. They didn’t think there was any deliberate strategy involved. They just believed they were telling the world what they thought about Netanyahu in a You Tube comment thread. “This is not a war. This is just me exercising my First Amendment rights. This is just me being an American.”

Yes. The chumpiest of Americans. And, just in passing, the way you can tell a chumpy American from an astute and intelligent critic of Netanyahu is that the former affirms the consequent and thinks that I am maintaining that the only way to avoid becoming part of an op is by never ever criticizing Netanyahu. Let the reader understand.

We have always had instigators, and we have always had riots. What is new is that nobody knows about the instigators now, and nobody knows that there even was a riot. No city official tells all the Ephesians to go home, and that they should be ashamed of yourselves. And when people talk about it afterwards, they merely say, “Man, that guy sure got ratioed.”

There are numerous examples in Acts of riots being instigated, but this is a really clear example. Certain fellows of the baser sort—agoraioi, or marketplace rabble—are employed by George Soros to prime the riot pump. The end result was an amphitheater full of shouting citizens, not quite sure about why they were there. “Who called this meeting?”

We have to think about this carefully. When it comes to “detecting an op,” there is a ditch on both sides of the road. Let me change the metric, and use a scale of 1 to 10. At 1 we would have the James Lindsay approach, which is “anything I disagree with is an op, and all in Hegel.” Or maybe a 1 is the kind of thing that some conservative crunchy moms think, like vinegar being a psy-op . . . although vinegar has nothing to do with Hegel. At the other end, we would find the glaringly obvious, which would be “If Candace Owen is not an op, then I am a Hottentot”—which, incidentally, I am not, which makes her an op. So when viewing the goings-online, I would encourage thinking Christians watching the turmoil to have their default setting to have the needle bouncing between 7 and 8.

Old School Borders Are Visible

The Southern border under Biden was an old school problem. Millions of warm bodies were coming across a defined border. Some of them might apply for a job at your company, or you debate with one of them at a city council meeting, or one of their families starts attending your church. Regardless of what you think about it all, there is nothing mysterious about it. You see them standing there, you know where the border is, and there was a time when they came across it.

Now, think back on the last 100 Twitter exchanges you have had with various randos, whether they were responding to you, or you to them. What percentage of them were Americans? And how do you know? How many of them were actual people? And how do you know?

For all you know, you were in a heated exchange over the influence of international Jewry with a Chinese bot.

When it comes to the public square that is the Internet, where is the border? Where is this comment coming from? Such a good question. There was a feature added to X last year which more people should know about. If you read something that smells like something died behind the refrigerator and so you suspect something, click on the profile. One of the things that will appear is a link that says something like Joined December 2023. Click on that, and it will tell you where the account is based. Not 100% accurate, but pretty good. So if you are in a flame war online over your county’s race for commissioner, and the person you are mixing it up with is being outrageous, go through this simple process. If your interlocutor is based in Singapore, you might need to readjust your plans for the day, with your new plans including ignoring that guy.

The suggestion above about the refrigerator was not meant to imply that if a comment is rancid, it probably came from overseas. We have plenty of domestic rancid, and there are brilliant and wholesome comments about our current situation that can come from over the water, and even from Canada. Keep an open mind. But also remember that bot swarms are a thing, and they are a thing because they work.

Have you ever gotten the email from the Nigerian prince, stranded in the Manila airport, and he needs someone reliable to help him figure out where to put all his gold? Have you ever sat there, scratching your head, wondering why on earth anybody would send out a transparently obvious scam like that? I hate to disappoint you with bad news about human credulity, but emails like that are sent out because they work.

5GW is effective. If it were not, it wouldn’t be happening.

No One Raindrop

No one raindrop feels responsible for the flood.

It is not true that instigators of unrest have to do everything themselves. They are simply the catalyst, the spark that sets it off, the dislodged rock at the top of the avalanche. The point I am making here is that the initial disturbance is frequently deliberate, and not a happenstance. There really are foreign actors involved in all of this, and they play an adroit game of “let you and him fight.” They don’t do everything, but they have been doing an awful lot.

If a tradkink Mormon lady can become an influencer, then what would ever prevent the CCP from becoming an influencer? The technology is there. The opportunity is there. The motivation is there. The gullible Americans are certainly there.

What About You Guys Then?

If I have encouraged you to have your suspicion-meter calibrated somewhere between a 7 and an 8, then why would that not include the Moscow project? For those who just arrived, and you only know us from online stuff, raising that question is certainly legitimate. There is an answer however . . .

The brief answer is that the Moscow project began decades before Internet was even a thing. The Moscow project is no longer a sapling, and the roots are already deep. We were teaching the basic outlines of our proposals for American renewal when Putin was still an operative in the Soviet KGB. We were saying sensible things about the Lordship of Jesus Christ well before Steve Jobs regained his position at Apple. And one of the reasons why so many Christian leaders have declined to come visit us is because a brief visit would reveal something substantive here, something not made out of ones and zeros at all. Having an online presence is not the same thing as being an online reality. You can have a web page without being a web page. You can have a Twitter account without being a Twitter account. There is such a thing as reality outside of reality shows.

The resurgence of classical Christian education in America was not the work of bot farms.

Okay, yes, you caught me. This whole thing was actually a build up to a pitch to come visit us for this year’s Grace Agenda. Make sure to stay for the Block Party. The tri tip served there should be considered as a complete refutation of every form of political dualism and the gnosticism it rode in on.