# William S. Lind **William S. Lind** (born 1947) is a paleoconservative military theorist who coined the term "[[Fourth Generation Warfare]]" (4GW) in a 1989 *Marine Corps Gazette* article and who spent decades as a strategist inside [[Paul Weyrich]]'s organizations. In [[Dave Troy]]'s "[[The Big History Behind January 6th]]" Part 3, Lind is the theorist who translated the military logic of getting "inside the enemy's decision loop" into a template for Republican political organizing. ## Fourth Generation Warfare Lind's 1989 framework periodized warfare into four generations, arguing the modern era is defined by decentralized, non-state networks that target an opponent's *political will* rather than its military capability — blurring the lines between war and peace, soldier and civilian. He drew heavily on the work of Air Force colonel [[John Boyd]] and the [[OODA Loop]] (observe–orient–decide–act): the idea that whoever cycles through decisions faster can paralyze an opponent's ability to make sense of events. (See [[Fourth Generation Warfare]] for the full doctrine.) ## The political turn The reason Lind matters to this knowledge base is not the military theory itself but its transfer into culture-war politics. Lind partnered with [[Paul Weyrich]] — founder of the [[Heritage Foundation]], the [[Free Congress Foundation]], and the [[Council for National Policy]] — to bring 4GW thinking to conservative strategy in the early 1990s, including the deliberate cultivation of a future generation of media and political leaders (the pipeline that produced figures like [[Tom Fitton]]). Lind is also a principal popularizer of the "[[Cultural Marxism]]" conspiracy theory, framing feminism, multiculturalism, and LGBTQ rights as a [[Frankfurt School]] campaign of warfare against Western civilization. He co-authored, under the pseudonym "Thomas Hobbes," the 2014 novel *Victoria*, which depicts cultural conservatives waging literal 4GW to overthrow a "politically correct" federal government — making explicit the fusion of military doctrine and culture war that Troy traces toward January 6. ## See also - [[Fourth Generation Warfare]] · [[John Boyd]] · [[OODA Loop]] · [[Paul Weyrich]] · [[Cultural Marxism]] · [[The Octopus]]