In February SWJ posted an entry “Are We Ready for Hybrid Wars?”
From that post: This new model argues that future conflicts will blur the distinction between war and peace, combatants and noncombatants.
Rather than distinct modes of war, we will face “Hybrid Wars” that are a combination of traditional warfare mixed with terrorism and insurgency.
Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars, by Frank Hoffman, summarizes the background and analysis of the changing character of warfare in our time.
Examining the debate over the past decade about the evolution of modern warfare in the post Cold-war world, several thinkers have claimed that we were in the midst of a “Revolution in Warfare.” Hoffman takes this discussion to a new and much more mature level by recognizing that we are entering a time when multiple types of warfare will be used simultaneously by flexible and sophisticated adversaries. These adversaries understand that successful conflict takes on a variety of forms that are designed to fit one’s goals at that particular time - identified as “Hybrid Wars” in Conflict in the 21st Century.
Hoffman notes that it is too simplistic to merely classify conflict as “Big and Conventional” versus “Small or Irregular.” Today’s enemies, and tomorrow’s, will employ combinations of warfare types…
This short roundup – more of a compilation of hybrid threat and environment items - revisits this issue for several reasons. The assumption that our future adversary will employ multiple types of warfare simultaneously - state or non-state- is gaining traction amongst those charged to develop concepts, doctrine and capabilities to confront future threats – and – regardless of traction and the trend for the buzz-word crowd (see EBO) to be temporarily enamored with the latest – well, buzzword – hybrid is exactly what we will encounter on the battlefields of the 21st Century.
There is much work to be done in regards to maturing the concept of hybrid wars and the threat associated with that environment. And, much like the current and potential hybrid threat adapts to counter our efforts; we must be honest, adaptive and creative as we push through defining the national security and foreign policy capabilities required to defeat this threat. It won’t be easy – but it is a critical necessity. So now I’ll get off my SWJ soapbox and offer up several items regarding hybrid war and enjoin our readership to add to the discourse.
Thinking about Modern Conflict: Hybrid Wars,Strategy, and War Aims - Dr. Erin Simpson, Midwest Political Science Association
How should we understand the current war on terror? As the US continues to engage non-state actors like al Qaeda, sub-state actors like the Iraqi insurgents and any number of potential state targets, it is increasingly important to understand the underlying elements that drive modern conflicts. But what is the nature of “modern” conflict? Is the “war on terror” fundamentally different from previous forms of violence? Or can we see elements of it in previous eras? I believe the many of the current and future conflicts are different from the traditional conceptions of both interstate and civil wars; but I do not believe they are being cut out of whole cloth. Rather, by investigating colonial wars and internationalized civil wars we can begin to understand the dynamics of these “modern” conflicts and their implications for American national security.
How Marines are Preparing for Hybrid Ears - Frank Hoffman, Armed Forces Journal
British historian Michael Howard observed long ago that during extended eras of peace, military planners are like sailors. He meant true sailors, those who use sextants and abhor the Global Positioning System. Likewise, military leaders must navigate into the future without crystal balls, using “dead reckoning” off of small conflicts and technical advances to gauge the nature of the next enemy and the next war.
Because such periods are not without risk, generals often are accused of fighting the last war. Howard suggests that despite this risk, military leaders must “sail on in a fog of peace” until the last moment: “Then you find out rather late in the day whether your calculations have been right or not.”
There are those who would like the Marine Corps to sharply reverse course, focus on the near-term threat and return to its small-wars legacy. This is a legitimate argument but reflects some bad sightings for future navigation. That course would only deepen the chances that we would find our calculations to be in error, and only further increase the chances that the Marines would not be best positioned for the next war.
Training a “Hybrid” Warrior at the Infantry Officer Course by Captain Scott A. Cuomo and Captain Brian J. Donlon, Marine Corps Gazette
Speaking at the International Seapower Symposium on 17 October 2007, General Conway discussed the Marine Corps’ role in the new maritime strategy. Looking from the present to the years 2020-2025, the Commandant echoed oft repeated trends: that the average age in developed nations will continue to grow older while underdeveloped nations will grow younger, creating a population of military age males for whom employment opportunities will be scarce; that 75-80% of the world’s population will move towards an “urban sprawl” adjacent to a sea coast; and that state conflicts will continue to grow more rare as transnational and regional conflicts increase in scope and frequency. Largely due to these trends, the Commandant also spoke about the continuing likelihood of Marines being involved in complex irregular wars or what multiple experts have begun calling “hybrid” wars.
Lessons from Lebanon: Hezbollah and Hybrid Wars - Frank Hoffman, Foreign Policy Research Institute
The war in southern Lebanon revealed significant weaknesses in the posture of the Israeli defense force - and it has important implications for US defense policy. The amorphous Hezbollah, led by Hassan Nasrallah represents a rising threat. Mixing an organized political movement with decentralized armed cells employing adaptive tactics in ungoverned zones, Hezbollah affirms an emerging trend. Highly disciplined, well trained, distributed cells can contest modern conventional forces with an admixture of guerrilla tactics and technology in densely packed urban centers. Hezbollah’s use of C802 anti-ship cruise missiles and volleys of rockets represents another advance into what some are calling “hybrid warfare.”
Hezbollah lost a tremendous amount of its offensive firepower and a substantial amount of its infrastructure and trained fighting force. However, Israel failed to rout the Iranian-backed force, and may have lost the strategic battle of perceptions. Certainly, the Israeli Defense Force won the tactical battles, and Hezbollah’s arsenal of rockets is badly diminished. Claims about a victory for Nasrallah are a bit dubious in strictly military terms. But one thing is certain, the Israeli Defense Force’s credibility has been weakened and Hezbollah will come out of the conflict stronger in ideological appeal.
Winning Hybrid Wars - Max Boot, Commentary's Contentions
What is the future of war? In this report, Frank Hoffman, a retired Marine colonel and one of our most incisive strategic analysts, argues that we are seeing the “rise of hybrid wars” that blur the boundaries between conventional and unconventional conflict. The prototype, he argues, was Hezbollah’s war against Israel in the summer of 2006, in which this terrorist group skillfully fought the Israeli Defense Forces to a standstill by combining missiles and small unit tactics with information operations.
There is good cause to worry that the American armed forces may be as unready as the IDF for this type of foe. To reorient our military for the challenges ahead will require a recognition that conventional combat skills, while hardly obsolete, will no longer suffice. Apparently the new version of the Army’s Field Manual 3.0 (“Operations”), last updated in 2001, reaches precisely that conclusion.
The New Normalcy - Frank Hoffman, Foreign Policy Research Institute
Today’s security environment can be described as “the New Normalcy.” Robert Kaplan has a fine article in the April 2006 Atlantic Monthly titled “The Coming Normalcy?” But his use of the future tense is a bit optimistic. In the New Normalcy we already face an implacable, cunning enemy who is completely ruthless, constantly learning and altering his tactics to secure any advantage he can. We have to be prepared to face this adaptive enemy, and be equally prepared to out-think and out-adapt an elusive opponent. There are no simple solutions or templates against such adversaries. Rigid approaches and non-adaptive institutions fare poorly against this protean form of enemy.
This is a committed enemy. He is serious in his beliefs and his willingness to die for them. He is not a backward or distant threat, nor is he going away any time soon. There can be no doubt that this dangerous form of Islamic extremism will characterize our future for some time, perhaps a decade or more. This opponent is dedicated to his cause as much as we are to preserving freedom. He will continue to look for vulnerabilities, and if he can get his hands on some form of weapon of mass destruction, he will try to use it, possibly here in the United States. This is what we face and why we must succeed.
The Coming Normalcy? - Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic
When the 1-25 "Lancers” arrived in Mosul, in September of 2004, the city and its environs were a violent no-go zone, having seen several thousand insurgent attacks, not to mention more than a thousand explosions from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. The local police had largely deserted, dropping from an on-paper force of 10,000 to an irrelevance of 300. But by the time 1-25 left Mosul, a year later, mortar attacks alone had fallen from 300 a month to fewer than ten. Other forms of insurgent activity dropped to the point where international journalists no longer considered Mosul an important part of the ongoing Iraq story - a fact evidenced by their thin presence in the city. Meanwhile, the local police force was now back up to 9,000, and the number of police stations had expanded from five to twenty-four. More important, the number of intelligence tips called in by the local population had risen from essentially zero to some 400 per month.
The kind of chaos that 1-25 had alleviated in Mosul has been an abiding interest of mine. Twelve years ago in this magazine, I published an article, "The Coming Anarchy,” about the institutional collapse of Third World countries owing to ethnic and sectarian rivalries, demographic and environmental stresses, and the growing interrelationship between war and crime. Was it possible that Iraq, of all places, might offer some new ideas about how situations of widespread anarchy can be combated? It certainly was the case that, despite a continuing plague of suicide bombings, significant sections of the country were slowly recovering from large-scale violence, as well as from the effects of decades of brutal dictatorship. The very US military that had helped to bring about the anarchy in Iraq was now worth studying as a way to end it, both here and elsewhere in the Third World.
Hybrid Wars - Colonel John J. McCuen, Military Review
We in the West are facing a seemingly new form of war - hybrid war. Although conventional in form, the decisive battles in today’s hybrid wars are fought not on conventional battlegrounds, but on asymmetric battlegrounds within the conflict zone population, the home front population, and the international community population. Irregular, asymmetric battles fought within these populations ultimately determine success or failure. Hybrid war appears new in that it requires simultaneous rather than sequential success in these diverse but related “population battlegrounds.” Learning from the past, today’s enemies exploit these new battlegrounds because the West has not yet learned to fight effectively on them. We still do not fully appreciate the impact and complexity of the nuanced human terrain.
One need only read our daily newspaper headlines or listen to TV and radio news about the insurgencies being fought within the populations of Afghanistan and Iraq to understand the validity of the above observations. Insurgencies rage within these conflicts’ penetrated and often alienated populations in spite of our having first defeated the enemy’s conventional forces. Our population at home usually wearies of the protracted struggles, waged, until recently, with little apparent progress. We are in danger of losing if we fail to fully understand the human terrain in these conflicts, as well as, perhaps, the even more decisive battlegrounds of public opinion at home and abroad.
In the context of hybrid wars, especially at the population level, outcomes should be approached in terms of success or failure rather than the usual military distinctions of victory or defeat. In this regard, the goal or end state sought should be something like “secure improved normalcy,” not “defeat the enemy forces” or “overthrow the enemy regime.” The critical point is that to win hybrid wars, we have to succeed on three decisive battlegrounds: the conventional battleground; the conflict zone’s indigenous population battleground; and the home front and international community battleground.
Hybrid Wars - Greg Grant, Government Executive
The October 1973 Arab-Israeli War featured some of the largest set-piece battles fought since the end of World War II. For American defense planners, the conflict provided a bounty of information on the performance of the latest military hardware from Western and Soviet arsenals that had been sold to the Israeli and Arab armies, respectively. After the war, US defense officials went to Israel and picked over the battlefields, searching out lessons from the fighting.
The United States was busy extricating itself from the disaster of Vietnam, and many in the US military, particularly in the Army, saw the big battles fought on the Golan Heights and in the Sinai as an opportunity to refocus their intellectual efforts away from fighting shadowy guerrillas in jungles and back to the conventional, big battles they preferred. The 1973 war displayed the lethality of new precision weaponry. It was the first war to feature large numbers of guided missiles, launched from both the air and the ground. Egyptian and Syrian troops, for example, used vast numbers of Soviet-built Sagger portable anti-tank missiles to savage attacking Israeli tanks.
Now, in a touch of déjà vu, American defense planners are examining another Arab-Israeli clash - this one from 2006, when Israel's army faced off against fundamentalist Muslim organization Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. In a war that lasted 34 days, Hezbollah fought the vaunted Israeli Defense Forces, considered one of the most technologically advanced militaries, to a standstill. The outcome sent shock waves through the world's military establishments, particularly the Pentagon. Ever since, Defense Department planners have been trying to discover how Hezbollah guerrillas could have defeated a conventional army outfitted with US equipment.
Small Wars Council discussion on hybrid wars.
