In the wars of the first generation, we travelled through time to the year 480 BC, and we stood watching the terrifying Spartan forest of spears, or the "Phalanx" formation, with shields whose edges were braced against one another like fish scales, or a serpent's scales, in a way that made breaking through them almost impossible..

And then we jumped through time in a giant leap, and we watched a reconnaissance squad — "Daniel Theron" — as it spied on the English camps through the jungle.. and we learned what the makeup of second-generation warfare was...

The talk about these two generations of war is in the first and second references, for anyone who wants to go back to them...

Today we jump a wide leap across time and place, so we can get to know third-generation warfare.. the generation of wars in which technology took a terrifying, tremendous leap.. so there came powerful vehicles with steel armour, protecting them as they manoeuvred and opened fire.. and there came "portable" missiles against these vehicles..

Destructive power increased violently.. and its range and accuracy increased.. there was freedom of movement and manoeuvre.. and aviation developed enormously and began bombing in depth, and its development required that air defences develop too, so with time heat-seeking missiles appeared; the ones that chase the heat of an aircraft's engine.. and launch after it no matter how it manoeuvres...

In third-generation warfare, individual confrontation, soldier against soldier or man against man, became very rare.. and despite that, human losses increased because of the increase in destructive power...

In all generations of war, victory belongs to whoever possesses information, and keeps his morale high.. but in the third generation, there came another element.. one that can make the difference in victory..

For on 6 August 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb; on the Japanese city of "Hiroshima".. without engaging in the war in any effective way, and without committing forces or soldiers or submarines or anything else.. with a single bomb.. the war effectively ended.. and it announced the birth of the new element that makes the difference in this generation of war.. technology..

The dropping of this bomb, and the bomb that followed it on 9 August of the same year on Nagasaki, was one of the greatest acts of psychological warfare in the world; because it cemented the idea of "I am the new master.. I can annihilate entire cities with one bomb".. and "by the way, I have plenty of them.. not just one"...

Meaning that in third-generation warfare, it became possible for a feeble, inexperienced state to win merely because it possesses extremely high technology that its enemy has not reached...

The role of the media machine increased in strength and appeared clearly in these wars.. among examples of these wars are the Second World War, the Tripartite Aggression, the War of Attrition, the October War and the Vietnam War...

It seems that necessity really is the mother of invention.. because a method of responding to this extremely high technology was developed by states that did not possess it.. and successful intelligence work, the efficiency of individuals and the quality of their training, and smart tactics, could surpass it...

And the strange thing that the media does not tell us.. is that the first country in the world.. to innovate this matter in order to stand up to high technology it did not possess.. successfully.. was Egypt...

For on the fourth of November 1956, the Egyptian Navy spotted; the jewel of the French Navy and the pride of the French fleet; the battleship "Jean Bart" as it approached to pound the cities of the Canal.. the hull of the "Jean Bart" was fitted with strong plating that resisted torpedoes and shells; in addition to 8 heavy 380 mm guns in two turrets.. and quadruple guns in two mounts at the bow.. and 9 heavy 152 mm guns in three triple turrets on the stern mount.. and 24 100 mm anti-aircraft guns also in twelve twin-gun turret mounts (6 on each side).. and 21-inch torpedo tubes and numerous mines and depth charges against submarines.. and on the deck of the "Jean Bart" was a load of 40,000 tons of ammunition.. and worse.. the British Royal Air Force was flying above it and protecting it in the air...

In short, the "Jean Bart" was technology for which Egypt did not possess counter-technology to fend it off.. and worse still.. that Lieutenant Colonel "Galal El-Dessouki", commander of the Egyptian fleet in Port Said, had only 3 boats, with instructions from the late leader "Gamal Abdel Nasser"; to prevent the advance of the "Jean Bart" whatever the cost...

And with smart tactics, and a sudden surprise attack.. one of "Galal El-Dessouki's" officers succeeds, the Syrian Lieutenant "Jul Jamal", in blowing up the "Jean Bart" with the hull of his boat.. and he is martyred in the operation...

And for the first time a new principle appears in third-generation warfare...

It is possible that you, with well-trained men, a studied plan and smart tactics, can defeat an opponent who surpasses you in technology...

And Egyptian intelligence picks up the lesson, and begins one of the most complex wars of the third generation, one that has not taken its historical due, namely the War of Attrition..

And for the first time also, it merges psychological warfare and actual operations into a single scope.. so the enemy's soul is affected and his morale weakened by lightning operations on the ground.. and men shine before high technology and defeat it with planning and good training.. so the role of airborne landing by helicopter flying low, below radar level, behind enemy lines, stands out.. and in the thick of it the role of frogmen stands out, with their good training and their endurance, along with a smart plan, in the successive "Eilat" operations...

The intelligence role became unprecedented.. and we saw a spy like "Kamel Amin Thabet".. whom we know by the name "Eli Amin Shaul Cohen" as he drew rapidly closer to becoming president of Syria.. before Egyptian intelligence exposed him and Syrian intelligence then besieged him with an extremely clever plan.. to the point that neither he expected, nor did Israel expect, that his affair would be uncovered, until he was taken by surprise one night in cold January, by a number of men storming his home, aiming their pistols at him, and ordering him not to move, and despite that, he rose up against them, as a Syrian public figure.. and he tried to make his calls to Syrian state officials by telephone, until he became certain that he had fallen and been exposed.. when Lieutenant Colonel (Ahmed Sweidani), head of the counter-espionage department in Syrian intelligence, entered his office, addressing him by his real name..

There is an important note amid the growing role of intelligence in the third generation.. which is that this treacherous spy is something of a "disgrace", and the worst description you can attach to anyone is that he is a "traitor" trying to destroy his homeland.. whether through media propaganda or psychological warfare or espionage.. this distinction will later dissolve.. and change in an astonishing way.. we will get to it later...

And because the talk about third-generation wars runs a little long, with the technology, the intelligence role and the psychological warfare it contains, we will continue the talk about third-generation wars a second time, and there is more to say...

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References

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1 - https://goo.gl/hAAtYn

2 - https://goo.gl/T5N4NS

3 - Thomas, Gordon: Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.

4 - "Bart, or Baert, Jean". The American cyclopedia. p. 343.

5 - Guerin, Leon (1851). Histoire Maritime de France (in French). Paris: Dufour & Mulat. p. 479.

6 - Lind, William S. (January 15, 2004), "Understanding Fourth Generation War", antiwar.com, retrieved February 7, 2010.

7 - إغراق إيلات، تأليف عبدة مباشر، دار التحرير للطبع والنشر..

8 - مذكرات (ملحمة بطولة علي أرض سيناء) ، لواء بحرى محمود فهمي، 1990.