Russia’s ‘Hybrid War’ - Washington Post Editorial
… Some have called the new approach “hybrid war,” a conflict waged by commandos without insignia, armored columns slipping across the international border at night, volleys of misleading propaganda, floods of disinformation and sneaky invasions like the one into Crimea. In this hybrid war, a civilian airliner was shot down by surface-to-air missiles, but the triggerman or supplier of the missile was never identified; artillery shells are fired but no one can say from where; Russian military material and equipment appears suddenly in the villages and fields of eastern Ukraine. While people are being killed, as in any war, and while Ukraine has mustered its forces admirably to push back, this hybrid war features an aggressor whose moves are shrouded in deception…
Comments
Thanks. On Pat Lang's blog, I had asked about the border because I find this issue continually perplexing given the West's post Soviet relationship with Ukraine and a commenter replied:
<blockquote>Kiev did launch an operation to try to seal the southern border of Donetsk and Lugansk last month. It ended in disaster last week with the loss of 50%-75% of the forces involved - surrounded in a pocket similar to say the Falaise Pocket battle in France in 1944 or many others on the Eastern Front that same year.
Sealing the border is militarily important - no doubt about that. The problem being that Kiev lacked the forces to do that and carry out other operations at the same time. Perhaps they didn't realize their strength shortfall until too late.</blockquote>
Were they egged on--and became overconfident--by the behavior of Fogh-Rassmussen and Nuland and Brennan and the President's shrieking advisors?
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2014/08/hear-me-now-…
Whenever I read any article about this topic, there is always a sentence or two about how the Ukrainian border guards are overrun or completely overwhelmed, and then there are pictures of someone like Poroshenko posing in a tank.
The economic situation is a mess. I don't understand what Brennan was doing visiting the place, or the bragging by NATO about upcoming meetings, or the shrieking by Madame I-wrote-a-book-on-Genocide at the UN, or what NATO thinks it is doing by pointing out Russian support to the rebels/"terrorists"? In Afghanistan, we said that the Karzai government was a problem and so were outside sanctuaries. And when I focus too much on sanctuaries in South Asia around here, people caution me that governance matters. But when it comes to Ukraine, it's all sanctuaries all the time.
Everything we have done only seems to have weakened Ukrainian sovereignty on the ground rather than strengthened it, just like many of our actions in Afghanistan.
1. Attaching ourselves to one faction within the country.
2. Pushing for aggressive military action when the resources aren't there, and, even if they were, wouldn't change the fault lines within the country.
3. Ignoring what banning languages like Russian means (hello, Punjab insurgency and ethno-linguistic identity!)
4. Throwing tons of money around internally for democracy promotion which generally creates internal fiction,
5. Confusing our desires for Ukraine and its future democracy with our desire to punish Russia and Putin.
6. Arguing--a la Zbig--that a big guerrilla war will turn out okay for the Ukrainian people.
I posted an excerpt from a British diplomat's memoirs around here some time ago about Zbig's view of the Persian Gulf and I remember joking, "we will build an arc of containment on an arc of instability!"
What is up with that DC consensus types? And the silly tweeting PhD analysts with their bad advice about how the Ukrainians can guard their sovereignty. It's too emotional and I have been taught over the years that emotionalism makes for bad analysis.
Weird.
And most of the blogs or papers I've read over the years have gone into almost 2003 propaganda mode with analysts only spewing a party line. It doesn't mean I have to automatically believe RT or that I follow along with everything by Stephen Cohen at the Nation but I just don't see me learning much from the sources I have traditionally followed for much of anything.
So the search for good information continues....
I guess if Hillary Clinton might be President, and NATO represents a good source of funds, I can expect a return-to-the 90's from the great PhD think tank class with its finger-in-the-wind dynamics.
Madhu,
A number of times references have been made in the media and on Small Wars Council about Russian dependence of Ukrainian industrial production of key weapons systems and part, in particular aero engines.
Yesterday the BBC reported that a 'A Ukrainian firm has moved the contents of its engineering factory from the war-hit city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine to central Russia....There was no indication of how the contents of the Luhansk machine-building plant had been moved'.
Maybe the long convoy of partly empty 'white' trucks had another purpose, so back to the BBC report: 'The revelations emerged after Ukraine claimed a Russian aid convoy had been used to move equipment from a factory that made parts for helicopter engines'.
See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28951437
I wonder if the current incursions, no invasion, amidst its aims includes the relevant factories and an opportunity to rescue them for Russia?
And this is interesting. Don't close that border too tightly, and remember, it's white hats versus black hats, a perfectly simple morality play, isn't that so?
<blockquote>ZAPORIZHIA, UKRAINE — Deep into a conflict that has sundered decades-old ties between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine is still selling military gear over the border to its neighbor, Ukrainian defense industry officials say.
Ukraine’s new leaders have vowed to stop the flow of these defense products, which include key parts for ship engines, advanced targeting technology for tanks and upkeep for Russia’s heaviest nuclear missiles. New laws passed this week bolster their powers to do so. Kiev says helping to arm Russia is tantamount to equipping an enemy during wartime when Moscow is sending support to separatist rebels, a charge the Kremlin has denied.</blockquote>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ukraine-factories-equip-russ…
The defense industry is where and supplies jobs for what group of people in Ukraine?
I thought the following links were interesting:
<blockquote>Raytheon, MSPO 2013
June 30/14: Finalists. Poland’s MON announces the Wisla program’s finalists: Raytheon’s ‘PATRIOT with options’ offer, and EuroSAM’s SAMP/T Mamba system that uses the Aster-30.
Poland won’t become part of the MEADS program, nor will it buy Israel’s David’s Sling. The 2-stage technical dialogue led Poland to conclude that they <strong>required an operational system that is deployed by NATO countries. </strong></blockquote>
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/if-necessary-alone-the-shield-of-po…
<blockquote>Poland's agriculture minister went on television to announce the country was taking action against Russia's new import ban.<strong> "We believe Russia has broken international law in both its embargo against Poland and its embargo against the EU," Marek Sawicki said.</strong>
BREAK
Greece also hard-hit
.
Although about 70 percent of the Russian population approve of its sanctions, Pickett said the odds are good that the complex WTO mechanism will uphold Poland's complaint.
"In my view, war-like conditions must either prevail or be imminent. Russia argues that this is a matter of food safety. I doubt that will be legally sufficient."
.
Lithuania, Germany and Greece also benefit from trade with Russia: Last year, Germany exported agricultural products worth almost 600 million euros, while Lithuania sold more than 900 million euros of food to Russia. Greek farmers export large quantities of peaches and fish, especially during the summer months.
.
According to the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" daily, if the WTO mechanisms do not work, or do not take effect quickly enough, this could mean a loss of 178 million euros for Greek vegetable and fruit farmers. <strong>Athens has therefore already begun to hold bilateral negotiations with Moscow.</strong></blockquote>
Drucker would like to ask Kraemer how this all is supposed to work?
And what ever happened to the investigation regarding the Malayasian flight over Ukraine? There were daily articles in the American press....and, then, they mostly stopped.
I often wonder if I will find a source interested in a 360-degree take on the situation, interested in neither Russian nor EU/NATO/US propaganda, and the varied messaging-toward-publics?
Anyone interested in Hybrid Warfare ought to ask themselves Drucker's questions....Small client states will still trade with the big bad enemy, and supply the big bad enemy, and then Western arms suppliers will step in to protect the client states that are filling the big bad enemy coffer. Same as it ever was.