As defined by Wikipedia;
Fifth-generation warfare is conducted primarily through non-kinetic military action, such as social engineering, misinformation, and cyberattacks, along with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and fully autonomous systems. Fifth generation warfare has been described by Daniel Abbot as a war of “information and perception”.
If you look at the world in terms of money, something as nearly as old as the oldest profession of trading favors. Then you’ll see that we’ve been engaged in fifth generational warfare for a long long time. Fifth generational warfare being that of monetary and financial warefare arrangements, which may or maynot directly lead to explicit violence.
In terms of modern arrangements,
Venture capitalist and wealth fund managers are similar to mercenary companies. Where the goal is to make living and surviving another day fueled by monetary interests and arrangements through contracts and distributed ledgers, both cooked and half-baked.
The Soldiers are those that perform corporate takeovers disguised under the name of ‘Mergers and Acquisitions’, those lawyers and corpo grunts that do the desk office paperwork while analyzing data and also the data management companies.
Large swathes of people lose their livelihood turning their mechanical plows in, to be laid off and let go for corporate numbers to attempt flight and of course the appeasement of the Grand Council Nobilities or ‘Board’ of directors to thus appease the ‘shareholders’ and ‘investors’ as if everyone is entitled to something from the sweat of another man’s (and women in modern times) Brow.
The Kingdoms and Cities are known as Banks and Trusts. Because let’s be honest, banks in a fiat world can literally print money through loan generation, much like a Country or City-state could back in the bygone eras before. I mean, technically Countries still can print their own money, but let’s not dig too much and involve Libya and their Golden Dinars.
Banks and corporations are thus waging war to generate, take over, and remove entire ‘markets’. That is the battle field, the warzone, these markets of space occupying a territory of priced in consumerism and distractions from consumers and the masses. Buying things they don’t need or buying into ideas they don’t care about.
The Empires are Central banking institutions and Larger Gubernational Trusts. The ones that control international and national interests by controlling a imaginary number called ‘interest rates’ and issuing out trillions of dollars of loans or monetary control. To include The Treasury of each kingdom, by that I mean, Government.
And really, the war is always about some form of money or profit driven by a higher desire or value that transcends 5th generational warfare. Which I touch about in the closing.
It seems that money is a mere inaccurate quantitative measurement of influence and power, willpower to justify the movement of ideals or progress towards some ascertained play in the kingdom of man. Money buys beliefs. Money buys liberties. Money puts food on the table.
For as long as people need money to survive, there will be a demand for such a thing. And all things that can be bought via money will be plotted on a spectrum and viewed through that lens of duality, whether it be food or war.
In another light,
The cost of a soldier from training, logistics, and bullets and armaments can range and vary from $50,000 to a million or so. It’s even more pricier to afford the better equipment like tanks and fighter jets. Coupled with the logistic supply chain and technological developments gambling on luck and paying for informational warfare, it gets rather costly.
On the other hand, the cost to bribe and buy out a politician, is much cheaper. It’s more cost effective and cheaper, a lot more like the ‘market has it priced in’ to buy out political interests and influence politics than it is to hire a small army to station, house, and then have them hell march up a beach for unjustified political theater with more ensuing political fallout and turmoil leading to more costly endeavors for damage control.
In another Dark,
With the informational warfare and the exchange of money in financial warfare, one can make the argument that less people are dying directly due to conflict and attrition.
On the other hand, one could argue that entire nations are starving and dying and crime being leveraged from poverty and artificial trade restrictions to hurt ‘trade’ and ‘economies’. All for political gain and clout. Economic ware fare is still warfare and there are indeed casualties.
The Pen doth kill more than a single sword, policy and edicts spill the blood gulch. Who then is mightier? The answer is, it depends.
As a Side Joke
Private security, armed guards, personal militaries and-the-like are all Mercenary groups with different names and different cultures associated with their unique labels. In other words, every militant for hire is a sell sword.
Thus every mercenary group is technically a merchant group. They just sell their swords and ask where the client would like them to ‘deliver’ the sharp tip. Perhaps it’s rented since the swords would be delivered from one ‘delivery spot’ to the next in the times of heated battle. Some Sellswords also sold big rocks that were aerially delivered through medieval mechanisms of flight, you know, catapults and trebuchets. In modern terms, selling missiles would be the term, whether we’re selling projectile bullets or Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, would depend on the capacity of the Seller, be it ‘allied’ Nation or Corpo.
Thus, one can argue, that money is the sinews of war, obviously, and that war is just another ‘business’ in the enterprise of ‘being busy’. Busy being another term for ‘Play’ which is what humans do, whether or not you see war as play, depends on where your beliefs and morals are, and how close you are to the front lines coupled with your pedigree.
In Closing,
All Warfare could be argued as Spiritual warfare. And Material things are spiritual if viewed in the right light. Inversely and in alignment with duality, all Spiritual warfare could be construed as material, especially when viewed from the 3D representation of the world, where, gosh, everything happens to be quite material.
If I were to guess, 6th Generational warfare would be that of values, morals, and beliefs.
In other words, Principalities. The Princes of Principalities are fighting for Principles. A War of values and belief systems that usher in the ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and ‘gods’ and ‘demons’ fighting that dualistic point of view.
Eh, this is just a blurb of insight I had while looking at the world through money, whether or not this affects your views, I’m going back to eating shitty food and enjoying the modern qualms of being a modern 2024th year living Bohemian man.
*Not Valid Financial, Legal, Life, or Any Advice
P.S.
Modern warfare is getting pretty advanced out there, you better watch out.
