Fourth Generation Warfare in London

Fourth Generational Warfare as defined by Col. William Lind is the world’s new status quo in which war is waged by entities other than the traditional nation state in other words non state entities operating like the state waging war, making laws, collecting taxes etc.
That is only half the story, the other half of the story in Fourth Generation Warfare is the state acting like a non state player. Governments finding traditional methods of war and diplomacy ineffective will turn to other methods.
A perfect example of a state waging Fourth Generational Warfare was the assassination of former Russian spy Paul Klebnikov in London. Klebnikov was poisoned with radioactive isotopes quite possibly by Russian secret agents. Klebnikov was a well known critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin who openly sympathized with Anti Russian Islamic rebels in Chechnya he apparently converted to Islam so there’s more to this story than we’ve been told.
Scotland Yard detectives are now knocking around Moscow talking to ex KGB agents in a futile attempt to find Klebnikov’s killers. I doubt they’ll find any answers and they won’t dispel the many conspiracy theories being flung about.
Most of the conspiracy theories point to the Kremlin and Putin and that’s entirely possible. It’s totally in keeping with Fourth Generational Warfare, Russia a weak state is besieged by all manner of Fourth Generational warriors. In such a situation Russia has to strike back with everything at its means including assassination and treachery. A former Russian agent making common cause with Russia’s enemies is a legitimate target in such an environment. He’s a traitor and a turncoat, the Russian government like a Mafia family then has to eliminate anybody who sells them out.
Of course, Vladimir Putin may have had nothing to do with Klebnikov’s death. Klebnikov may have been eliminated by the Russian secret police or some faction thereof perhaps for reasons of their own. If this is the case, the situation is more complex and frightening than we had thought, the Russian government is fragmenting into different factions pursuing different agendas.
Klebnikov’s death may then be the opening act in a disturbing new round of Fourth Generational Warfare, a war of covert operatives. In the new war groups of spooks will fight each other in the shadows, some of them will be pursuing political goals, others will simply be mercenaries and entrepreneurs seeking money and personal gain. Perhaps Klebnikov was killed because he betrayed one covert faction, the former KGB and joined another the Chechyan rebels.
One frightening aspect of all this is that laws may be meaningless in this new world of Fourth Generational Warfare. Russians can murder a man in London and get away with it. The British police are powerless to do anything about it, they can investigate but can they do anything? Will any Russian Court or judge extradite a KGB man to stand trial I doubt it. Will any Russian in his or her right mind cooperate with a British police inspector, of course not? The British police will go home empty handed and the Russian spooks will order their agents to eliminate the next enemy living in London.
The only recourse Her Majesty’s Government have here could be to order its legendary spy agency MI-6 to activate a real life James Bond an agent licensed to kill and send him or her out to deal with the Russians behind this. That may not happen right away but if bodies start piling up in London there’s a good chance the Prime Minister will ask the head of MI-6 to take such action.
Fourth Generational Warfare has come home to the streets of one of the world’s great cities in a truly frightening way. A man has been murdered for simply exercising his freedom of speech, worse he’s been murdered in a particularly cruel and sadistic way that threatens the life and health of many other people. The historians of the future may never know who killed Klebnikov but I have a feeling that many of them will mark his death as the first of many.