Why it matters: Dirty Civilian's latest video takes a framework from military theory, the generations of warfare, and applies it to the phones in its viewers' pockets. Its conclusion turns that theory into a case for household preparedness and training.
Dirty Civilian posted "5th Generation Warfare | The Battle You Were Born Into" to YouTube on November 7. The video runs about 37 minutes. The host pitches it as the course most viewers never got: "Unless you went to West Point, you will probably never have a crash course given to you on the five generations of warfare." The plan is to walk through each generation, then explain "how and why it affects you and me and every single American family here at home."
The video opens on a montage of archival audio, including Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall," John F. Kennedy's 1961 warning about "a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy," and an interview clip describing a "demoralization" process that takes "from 15 to 20 years."
Five generations of warfare, from manpower to maneuver
The host credits the framework to "a bunch of really smart military guys" who wrote books on how war changes, and stresses its scale: shifts measured "not across 3 to 5 years, but 3 to 5 centuries or more." Each generation gets one word. The first is manpower: lines and columns of smoothbore muskets, with reloads the host puts at up to 30 seconds, turning inaccurate weapons into "accuracy by volume." The second is firepower, which the host says peaked in World War I, when artillery, machine guns and high explosives drove armies into trenches and left decisions to commanders alone.
The third is maneuver, tied to World War II and the German Blitzkrieg. The host says it depended on two developments: trucks, tanks and aircraft that could resupply units on the move, and "trust and decentralized command." To illustrate the second, the video tells the story of David Stirling and Paddy Mayne's L Detachment in North Africa, which the host says began with 65 men raiding Axis airfields on little more than a target and a deadline, and grew into the British SAS.
The host notes that a new generation does not retire the old ones; each adds "a new complexity" to the whole system. The video also acknowledges that some argue there are no distinct generations at all, only technology and tactics developing over time.
Fourth generation insurgency and fifth generation forced perspective
The fourth generation is insurgency, with Vietnam as the main example: a guerrilla force, backed by outside partners, that did not need to defeat the U.S. military and "just needed to outlast." The host says this is where the enemy becomes harder to identify and where nation states lose their monopoly on swinging "the tides of history."
The fifth generation's word is "forced perspective," which the host also calls manipulation. The distinction offered is that people usually know when they are being manipulated in fourth generation conflict, while the fifth is "when you really can't point a finger at who is pulling the strings." The host again concedes that some treat it as a continuation of the fourth, but argues that phones, AI and autonomous drones make the present different. The video cites Unrestricted Warfare, a 1999 book by Chinese military officers, for the idea that anything, from banking to jobs, friendships and churches, can be used as a weapon. The result, as the host lays it out, is that you do not know your enemy, cannot confirm your allies, and end up in a society where "no one really trusts anyone, maybe not even themselves."
January 6, water plants and the French supermarket cyberattack
The host gives a hypothetical first: a ransomware attack on a water treatment plant that looks like extortion could also push residents to move or vote differently, benefiting a corporation buying property or seeking a security contract. The point, the host says, is that fifth generation actors need not be nation states.
“Fifth generation warfare, as the video defines it, is the kind in which no one can say who is pulling the strings.”
Tess Marlowe, The ReticleThe video then turns to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The host cites later footage of police holding doors open and asks, "How many of those people that were inside of the crowd were FBI." The assassination of John F. Kennedy, 9/11 and "who shot Charlie Kirk" are listed as other events the host wishes there were better information on, and the host says the lack of answers suggests it is "probably just fifth gen warfare." The host then qualifies that those events "might not" be, and says the real concern is small, incremental influence, adding: "some may say that everything that we're doing here on the channel, that's fifth gen warfare. Maybe it is."
For fragility, the video points to the October cyberattack on French supermarket refrigeration. The host says more than 700 stores saw freezers and refrigerators driven to 120 degrees Fahrenheit overnight, destroying food and starting fires, and that no one had claimed the attack at the time of filming. If someone shut off water, power and the grid, the host says, "We would be measuring how much violence ensued within hours."
Dirty Civilian's takeaways: maybe, training and faith
The close sets out three reminders. First, every generation of war is still in play, with Ukraine offered as an example of trench lines, massed artillery and drones, maneuver and an information war running at once. Second, "everyone is fighting to influence you," with viewers as both weapon and target. Third, the world is fragile. The prescription is skills: procuring food, purifying water and living without power, which the host says separates chaos from "calm cool and collected people."
The host adds two personal action items. The first is to answer anyone who claims to know who is behind an event with "maybe," since the claim itself could be part of the manipulation. The second is to find "the rock of absolute truth," which for the host is "Jesus Christ, his word and his scripture." The host advises against panic stockpiling while urging viewers to train and get good equipment.
The video carries a sponsor segment for a Brandon, Florida, night vision shop, an apparel brand's summer combat hoodie, Ammo Squared and RifleSpeed's adjustable gas block, and points viewers to Patreon and the channel's web store. Between segments, the host shoots and checks the zero on a thermal optic.
For context
- The generational framework comes from "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation," a 1989 Marine Corps Gazette article by William S. Lind and four co-authors; "fifth generation" is a later and disputed extension of it.
- A December 2024 Justice Department inspector general report found 26 FBI confidential human sources in Washington on January 6, 2021, three of them tasked by the FBI to attend, none authorized to enter the Capitol or break the law, and no FBI undercover employees in the crowd.
- Utah prosecutors have charged Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder in Charlie Kirk's September 2025 killing; the case has not gone to trial.
- French officials said about 700 of the country's roughly 10,000 supermarkets were hit in the October 2026 refrigeration attack; the Paris prosecutor's cybercrime unit opened an investigation, and no perpetrator has been publicly identified.
