The Problem with Hybrid Warfare
The Problem with Hybrid Warfare by Nadia Schadlow, War on the Rocks
Europe is now a petri dish for hybrid war. Events of the past decade, not to mention the last few years, have reaffirmed the value of a concept that sought to explain a range of diverse, coercive instruments across the operational spectrum of war. Hybrid warfare is a term that sought to capture the blurring and blending of previously separate categories of conflict. It uses a blend of military, economic, diplomatic, criminal, and informational means to achieve desired political goals. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, has referred to these hybrid threats as an “inflection point” in modern war. Indeed, in the disordered post-Cold War world, hybrid warfare remains an excellent framework for understanding the changing character of war…
Re: NATO and hybrid warfare, which appear as central matters in this thread, I found the following analysis to be interesting:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/12/02/a-preclusive-strategy-to-defend-the-nato-frontier/
What I found especially interesting here was the fact that this strategic analysis was undertaken based on the idea that (1) the Russian borderlands are, in fact, (2) “NATO’s frontier.”
(Thus, the title of the article as “Preclusive Strategy to Defend Nato’s Frontier.”)
If this depiction is accurate — for not only OUR Russian fronts/frontiers but OUR Middle Eastern and OUR Asian fronts/frontiers also — then might we, instead of studying “hybrid warfare,” be better served by studying “frontier/border warfare?
(Hybrid warfare, herein, being only seen as an element/aspect of the broader, more correct and more accurate concept of “frontier/border war.”)
In this way, to better understand how we actually view these territories (as our “frontier”) and, thus, how we might deal with those that stand in our way, and deal with those that seek to defend/re-assimilate territories/populations/interests that they feel — geographically, ethically, culturally and/or resource-wise — belong more to them than us.
Herein:
a. “We” being seen — by the indigenous people herein — more as aliens, interlopers and aggressors.
b. And “they” being seen more in terms of being the true, historic and natural owners and defenders of these lands? (China’s, Russia’s and the Islamists’ argument exactly?)
Thus, and accordingly, frontier/borderland warfare (not hybrid warfare) as our strategic, etc., focus?
The article is interesting for the simple reason–I have raised often in my comments on the hybrid warfare thread the single question—will NATO trigger Article V for a group of ethnics of any language who are demonstrating for more civil and equal rights —even if they occasionally run around with AKs and take a few administration buildings OR will they view it as an internal issue for the member nation to handle?
My answer based on the current actions taken by western civilian leaders as well as NATO–no they will not trigger Article 5.
What if the Russian military moves out their garrisons and inside two days occupies territorial areas of a member state that reflects the ethnic language areas inside that member nation–will then the entire NATO go to war over two day old land grab using military force—not really regardless of what NATO is saying today.
By the way it appears Putin is actually leaning in that direction if one actually watches his actions.
Look at the recent NATO statement on cyber attacks–does it trigger Article 5 and the NATO response–it could if the member nation calls for it–but NATO needs 28 members all voting for war and I doubt that would happen over a cyber attack that did not impact the other member nations.
I literally hate the use of the term hybrid warfare as it does not accurately reflect the actual Russian use of their own term non linear warfare and if we are going to discuss Russian doctrine then their terms should be always used and creating just another term causes a smokescreen and multiple different conversations.
I would like to see far more discussions on how to counter the various elements the Russians have shown us concerning their non linear warfare than the discussions on what is and or is not “hybrid warfare”.
While some elements of their non linear warfare have been successful other elements have shown themselves to be single points of failure if pushed back on far earlier than we have seen say done by the Ukrainians and even they are holding back in reacting as they should have reacted.
In some aspects the Baltics together with Poland and Sweden seem to be far better at understanding what the Russians are doing than Obama, his entire NSC and the entire US IC.
QUOTE:
Hybrid tactics are not a random sequence of improvisations but reflect an order behind the spectrum of tools used. That makes it incumbent upon political leaders and strategic thinkers (not always one and the same) to fit such activities squarely within the political objectives discussed by Carl von Clausewitz, who explained that war was an extension of politics by other means. In thinking through the ongoing competition with Russia, we must keep in mind that “hybrid” refers to the means, not to the principles, goals, or nature of war. There is nothing inherent about the concept that prevents this. Indeed, the Russians have it down. We do not.
Let’s see what “X,” and his interviewer Thomas Friedman, thought, in 1998, of the idea of NATO expansion — the matter that, arguably, has us now discussing such things as “hybrid warfare,” “defense-in-depth,” “frontier warfare,” etc.:
“His voice is a bit frail now, but the mind, even at age 94, is as sharp as ever. So when I reached George Kennan by phone to get his reaction to the Senate’s ratification of NATO expansion it was no surprise to find that the man who was the architect of America’s successful containment of the Soviet Union and one of the great American statesmen of the 20th century was ready with an answer.”
”I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,” said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ”I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.”
”What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,” added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ”X,” defined America’s cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ”I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.”
”And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia,” said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ”It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”
“One only wonders what future historians will say.”
“If we are lucky they will say that NATO expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic simply didn’t matter, because the vacuum it was supposed to fill had already been filled, only the Clinton team couldn’t see it. They will say that the forces of globalization integrating Europe, coupled with the new arms control agreements, proved to be so powerful that Russia, despite NATO expansion, moved ahead with democratization and Westernization, and was gradually drawn into a loosely unified Europe.”
“If we are unlucky they will say, as Mr. Kennan predicts, that NATO expansion set up a situation in which NATO now has to either expand all the way to Russia’s border, triggering a new cold war, or stop expanding after these three new countries and create a new dividing line through Europe.”
“But there is one thing future historians will surely remark upon, and that is the utter poverty of imagination that characterized U.S. foreign policy in the late 1990’s. They will note that one of the seminal events of this century took place between 1989 and 1992 — the collapse of the Soviet Empire, which had the capability, imperial intentions and ideology to truly threaten the entire free world.”
“Thanks to Western resolve and the courage of Russian democrats, that Soviet Empire collapsed without a shot, spawning a democratic Russia, setting free the former Soviet republics and leading to unprecedented arms control agreements with the U.S.”
“And what was America’s response? It was to expand the NATO cold-war alliance against Russia and bring it closer to Russia’s borders.”
“Yes, tell your children, and your children’s children, that you lived in the age of Bill Clinton and William Cohen, the age of Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger, the age of Trent Lott and Joe Lieberman, and you too were present at the creation of the post-cold-war order, when these foreign policy Titans put their heads together and produced . . . a mouse.”
“We are in the age of midgets. The only good news is that we got here in one piece because there was another age — one of great statesmen who had both imagination and courage.”
“As he said goodbye to me on the phone, Mr. Kennan added just one more thing: ”This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opinion/foreign-affairs-now-a-word-from-x.html
Note: You can’t say this guy Kennan is not able to “smell the wind.” He was right in 1947 and he appears to have been right again in 1998 — 17 years before we were to find ourselves in this contemporary delimma of, as Mr. Kennan and Mr. Friedman make clear, our own making.
P.S. and for Bill M’s consideration:
If I have counted correctly, Mr. Kennan and Mr. Friedman together made nine (9) references to some version of the word “expansion” in this short article. Herein, refering exclusively to actions taken by the West — not actions taken by Russia.
I keep going back and reminding myself that to fully understand the current Russian form of fascism which has been developing since 1991 we really do need to go back and reread Orwell’s 1984 which was a condemnation of fascism.
The words he uses ie the concept doublespeak and a number of his comments in 1984 match perfectly to the current Putin lead Russia and Putin’s inner circle of advisors as well as to a number of recent remarks made by religious leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Outlaw 09 I agree with one of your comments highlighted below:
“I would like to see far more discussions on how to counter the various elements the Russians have shown us concerning their non linear warfare than the discussions on what is and or is not “hybrid warfare”.”
In this comment thread there is an excerpt from an article I just drafted entitled “Grading Gerasimov”. I would also like to see discussions involving understanding and identifying non-linear and “ambiguous” approaches to war. I feel the same way that alot of people in the community do with regard to a whole of government and multinational approach to countering unconventional warfare.
The article excerpt is below:
“Wars are not declared but simply begin”, said General Valery Gerasimov during a late 2013 closed speech. General Gerasimov is the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and made this remark at the Russian Academy of Military Sciences. The primary topic of this speech was “The Role of the General Staff in the Organization of the Defense of the Country in Correspondence with the New Statute about the General Staff Confirmed by the President of the Russian Federation.”
This speech was important because it elucidated the strategies that would become Russian military doctrine in 2014. Gerasimov Doctrine codifies the emergence of a new kind of war facilitated by 21st century technologies and multiple actors employing combinations of conventional and unconventional instruments. In short, “the very rules of war have been fundamentally changed”. The current situation in Ukraine and to some extent the Baltic States highlights the application of ambiguous warfare.
Is it working?
The intent of this article is to “grade” specific applications of non-linear warfare in Ukraine, based on military doctrine, strategy and previous conflicts in Europe in order to assess current and future threats to European security and methods to counter them.
21st Century Warfare
“What we see in Russia now in this hybrid approach to war is the use of all the tools that they have to reach into a nation and cause instability.”-General Philip M. Breedlove, Munich Security Report 2015.
New generation, ambiguous, hybrid, non-linear, unrestricted, irregular, unconventional and asymmetric are all terms associated with 21st century warfare. The United States Army currently recognizes two forms of warfare: Traditional and Irregular. Irregular Warfare can be defined as a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations 1 Irregular Warfare favors indirect approaches and asymmetric means. A central component of Irregular Warfare is unconventional warfare, which employs activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government. This application of unconventional warfare relies on external parties aiding indigenous actors against governments. Some examples of aid involve training, equipping, advising and employing kinetic action to seize terrain or increase the advantage of irregular forces. The term “irregular forces” applies to non-state paramilitary forces which include: insurgents, guerillas, extremist groups, mercenaries and criminals. In Ukraine, there is also more ambiguity regarding Russian professional military forces acting in unconventional and asymmetric roles.
Contemporary “Hybrid Warfare” or “Hybrid Aggression” has been used to describe potent and complex variations of warfare in the 21st century. Although Hybrid Warfare is not new, contemporary threat actors are creating a new type of warfare through blurring the traditional lines of war, employing 21st century technologies and combinations of diplomatic, information, military and economic means in various domains to include cyberspace. What complicates this form of warfare further is the persistent fluctuation and manipulation of political and ideological conflict which extends past traditional coercive diplomacy and unconventional war.
Russian road to hybrid war: 1989-Present
“Unrestricted war is a war that surpasses all boundaries and restrictions. It takes nonmilitary forms and military forms and creates a war on many fronts. It is the war of the future.”-Colonel Qiao Liang and Colonel Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted War, Beijing, 1998.
Gerasimov Doctrine has some concise similarities to the Chinese doctrine outlined in Unrestricted Warfare published in 1999 and historical roots in Maskirovka doctrine. Both strategies intrinsically involve using proxies or surrogates to exploit vulnerabilities in low intensity conflict to prepare for future operations which may involve high intensity conflict. Other strategic themes involve applications of low and high tech asymmetrical means and engagement in many forms of war. Unrestricted Warfare describes 13 forms of “total war” and methods to consciously mix “cocktails” on the battlefield or apply combinations of forms to find innovative and effective approaches. In Ukraine, the notion of consciously “mixing cocktails” highlights the unpredictable effects, in the same way that alcohol affects individuals differently. The end result is still the same with regard to de-stabilizing results. The effective application of combinations in four categories to reach the desired political outcomes acts as the assessment tool for this article.
Excerpt End
The four categories referenced in the excerpt are: supra-national, supra-domain, supra-means and supra-tier from the book Unrestricted Warfare. Those categories are directly applied to the current conflict in Ukraine.
I suspect the problem is more one of “hybrid Peace” than Hybrid War.
Sure, it is easy to sit about and wring our hands over how the Russians are exploiting opportunity to advance their interests in ways that are designed to not trip clear triggers for war, but that also are clearly beyond the norms of proper competition – but we should not lose sight of the fact that it is the US and Europe who created the conditions Russia exploits.
We have forgotten, or simply ignore, fundamentals of geostrategy. When one has neighbors who might reasonably want what is yours, one must take on the personal responsibility of doing what is necessary to secure those things. When one is faced by a much more powerful neighbor who wants what is yours one must create alliances as well.
Europeans have relied on all alliance, and no personal responsibility. That was foolish. They convinced themselves that war is an obsolete concept. That was foolish. Foolish people usually come to foolish ends.
We live in the real world, and beyond our foolish fantasies reality still exists. Today that reality comes to Eastern Europe in the form of Russian hybrid war – where is it coming next?
Hybrid peace – overly relying upon others for what should do one’s self.
I am reminded of the final scene of “unforgiven” when Clint Eastwood’s character kills an unarmed man in the pursuit of what he perceives as his interests. “You just killed an unarmed man”! says English Bob. “He should have armed himself…”
The world is indeed changing, but some things are not so different as many would like to think.
I have commented here a number of times that the Russian “end state” has three geo political goals that their non linear warfare and remember non linear warfare does not exclude the financial and political side of “political warfare”.
One of those goals has been the discrediting of the EU as an economical and political bloc using what Putin clearly dislikes–neo liberal economics.
Kwasniewski: Russia’s policy aims to break up EU
http://www.unian.info/politics/1064001-kwasniewski-russias-policy-aims-to-break-up-eu.html … pic.twitter.com/X6x98oZFqJ
“Russia earlier conducted not one European policy, but ‘28+1’: The 28 – these are bilateral relations with the EU member states, and the one policy was the most unimportant – it was with Brussels,” he said.
According to Kwasniewski, the European Union and the leaders of European countries should make every effort “so that this does not work.”
“This Russian policy in relation to the European Union can be explained by the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the EU is an artificial structure, that it will not stand, and that he has to work with different EU member states in order to split the EU, just as the Soviet Union was split before,” Kwasniewski said.
AND if one really thinks through the Russian aims inside the Ukraine there is an inherent “financial and business side” we do not talk much about as we in the US would not believe one would go to war over it.
I have made the comment here to the effect that Russia might in fact be fighting the 21st centuries’ “first raw resources and globalization effects war”.
Really read the link on the dependence of Russia on the Ukraine and notice that Rostec their leading defense industrial complex is laying off 40K.
http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.nl/2015/02/russia-needs-ukraine-to-fulfill-its.html
Russian Defense Industry’s Rostec to Lay Off 40,000 Managers
http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-update-april-6-2015/#7805 …
These are a few of the live comments today from a former Putin advisor who has become his most serious critic not residing in Russia.
So all the initial “myths” feed to the West –humiliation, NATO expansion, wanting to stop Russia were evidently all falsehoods to cover they true intentions starting in 2000.
Notice the first comment on the length of time it took for the prepping for the Ukrainian war.
AtlanticCouncil ✔ @AtlanticCouncil
.@AnIllarionov: preparation for the Russia-Ukraine war took 11 years, with some aspects of prep up to 14 years
AtlanticCouncil ✔ @AtlanticCouncil
In 2000, it was Georgia. In 2010, it was Kyrgyzstan. The hybrid war in Ukraine began many years ago. — @AnIllarionov
AtlanticCouncil ✔ @AtlanticCouncil
.@AnIllarionov on Russia-Ukraine war: Essentially the main target is the West, rather than just war against Ukraine.
AtlanticCouncil ✔ @AtlanticCouncil
.@AnIllarionov on why Russia-Ukraine war is worse than ‘old Cold War’: US reluctant to act, Europe not united, nuclear blackmail
Eurasia Center @ACEurasia
Russia started stockpiling gold in the mid-2000s in preparation for the war in #Ukraine
AtlanticCouncil ✔ @AtlanticCouncil
.@AnIllarionov explains the many facets of the Kremlin’s hybrid propaganda & aggression in Ukraine which began as early as 2004
Eurasia Center @ACEurasia
#Kremlin changed official documents to refer to Ukraine as a territory rather than a country in 2004 @AnIllarionov http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/aillar/1525824-echo/ …
The separatist war was planned in #russia by the #Kremlin starting in 2004 http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/events/upcoming-events/detail/how-putin-prepared-for-the-big-war …
Eurasia Center @ACEurasia
#Russia started military preparations for the war in Ukraine in 2008 days @AnIllarionov #ACUkraine
AtlanticCouncil ✔ @AtlanticCouncil
‘Kremlin’s alarm’ was Merkel removing obstacles for Ukraine’s association with EU in June 2013 — @AnIllarionov
Everyone might enjoy this related (April 7th) “War-On-The-Rocks” article also:
http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/america-did-hybrid-warfare-too/
Excerpt:
“The last time Russia and the United States grappled indirectly as adversaries in ‘the gray areas’ during the final phase of the Cold War, it was the United States that put a hybrid ‘blend of military, economic, diplomatic, criminal, and informational means’ to effective use, notably in Central America. Of course, there were important differences between the character of that confrontation and today, but much about the goals and the means were comparable, only it was the United States that seemed to ‘have it down.'” …
“The purpose of all this? Defending America from hostile foreign interference — the Monroe Doctrine. But it was also a “forward strategy for freedom,” as Secretary of State George Shultz called it, which above all served to demonstrate that America had revitalized its will to oppose the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Whether or not hybrid war as employed in Central America was a good thing or bad is a matter of political judgement. It associated the United States with unsavory allies and terrible human rights violations, while the misguided evasion of Congressional restrictions on covert action led to the Iran-Contra scandal that nearly wrecked the Reagan administration. Certainly the consequences of protracted war were very costly to the people of the region, even if they could be said to have benefited from the advent of democracy. Objectively, the United States did achieve its stated aims, specifically containing the spread of leftist revolution elsewhere in Central America and reversing it in Nicaragua; lasting peace coincided with the end of the Cold War itself, but it cannot be said that the wars in Central America made any contribution to that outcome.” …
“Employed as part of a broader strategy, what hybrid warfare did was allow the United States to carry out open-ended competition and signal certain confidence that the value of protecting the U.S. sphere of interest was greater than any opponent’s interest in upsetting it.”
Today, the shoe simply being on the other foot?
As per my role-reversal (Cold War v. today) thesis?
Bill C—there is also other countries driving on “hybrid warfare”.
This Qassem Soleimani Instagram was deleted minutes after it was posted. The Mideast as Iran vs Saudi pic.twitter.com/0a7cio4HkU
Dr. Schadlow makes the same category error Dr. Marin Strmecki made with the initial nation-building proposals for Afghanistan in 2002: nation building while in the middle of an insurgency/outside proxy affair by an outside power is a recipe for failure.
I am not sure I know what NATO is today, it seems to function as many different things, as a militarized arm of EU trading blocs, as a democratizer and bringer of “Western values” and a proxy for anti-Russian forces, AND A DEFENSIVE alliance. The same problem we are having in Afghanistan as we build national institutions, fight a proxy war, fight a localized insurgency, and deal with larger regional and global power politics in South Asia.
Same category error which will only leave ordinary Ukrainians in a dire situation. They, because of very rational fears, will hear only the defensive part. Well, some will and some won’t. Those that don’t, don’t get much play in the Western press.
There are many agendas in DC and while some would genuinely like to help, others view the alliance in a variety of ways. On the ground, this is a recipe for endless conflict.
Everything is being called warfare when we have a mix of governance and military issues. Why then should all solutions be military or military-lite, such as information operations?
Did Dr. Schadlow write the War and Art of Governance paper? This mixed up nation building, military defense stuff doesn’t work and that confusion not only can be seen on the ground today in Afghanistan and Ukraine, but the problem can be seen in Strobe Talbott’s work in the early 90s. He calls NATO many different things, including a democratizer.
PS: It takes quite a lot of background work to get to this point. You don’t have to agree, but my comment won’t make sense if the work is not done. If I had the time, I’d try and boil things down to a few bullet points to make it easier as I do when I “round” or teach but I just don’t have the time.
Actually, I do have a simplified way to explain my last comment: just substitute population-centric COIN for hybrid and you have the same process playing out, the same focusing on tactics without thinking about the larger strategy, without thinking about what is really going on, the exact same process where nation building and military capacity building become mixed up with other agendas. It’s just the same thing from the same crowd.
If States and/or Alliances can start diagnosing the symptoms of non-linear war, they can apply preventative medications before they are in an intensive care situation. Whole of Government preventative measures are the method to counter non-linear war.
Let’s be honest—this is taken from the President’s comments during an interview concerning his Iran nuke deal:
So let’s be honest: Everything depends on Obama’s hope that nuclear detente will change Iran. “If in fact they’re engaged in international business, and there are foreign investors, and their economy becomes more integrated with the world economy, then in many ways it makes it harder for them to engage in behaviors that are contrary to international norms,” is the way he put it to National Public Radio.
NOW let’s be really honest–one could apply the same Obama logic to say Russia and did it stop Russia from using non linear warfare to annex Crimea and to invade eastern Ukraine??????????
So again WHY is it suppose to work against Iranian non linear warfare???????
Not really.
Russia is at war with the West. Ukraine may be bearing the brunt of RU’s military aggression, but Russia’s hybrid war extends well beyond the UA.
To build on the previous comment.
We have been discussing the Russian non linear warfare more in the line of actual combat UW BUT Dave Maxwell might in fact state that non linear warfare also supports what and when —- when Russia defines what it’s geo political goals are to be via political warfare which can be non violent.
If we look at these specific phases of Russian’s eight phase non linear warfare one might in fact “see” and “understand” Russia’s foreign policy moves referencing Syria and Iran and how Iran intertwines their form of non linear warfare with the Russian moves.
IE the constant Russian blocking of any UNSC decisions and humanitarian aid to Syria at the same time trying to hold political meetings between the factions in Moscow that never go anywhere to yesterday’s announcement that Russia will deliver S-300 missile systems to Iran all the while “claiming” they are defensive while they are in fact nuclear capable to resisting any US ATMs being delivered as they are “offensive”.
Why do if both mistrust each other–why then do they cooperate together?
They are bound by a deep hatred of the West and perceived “western intentions” and both might in fact be tied via two distinct forms of “fascism” if we look hard and they themselves will never admit in fact exists.
So the inherent question is in fact Russian foreign policy just another form of “non linear warfare” and not really what we in the West refer to when we speak of foreign policy???????
Taken from the Russian eight phase non linear warfare doctrine.
First Phase: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological,ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup).
Second Phase: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies by leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions.
HAD Obama and his NSC paid far more attention to the Russian non linear warfare coupled to the Russian political warfare instead of his “legacy”
they might have anticipated this Russian move and countered it before it even occurred—
Transfer of S-300 missiles to #Iran reverses Obama’s foreign policy achievements, says Abrams:
http://on.cfr.org/1zar0fr pic.twitter.com/CQ0SmqG7fo
I would like to make three points:
First, about revolutions and “Hybrid War” as practiced in the Ukraine. Clauswitzian war pits two nations against each other – not two elements that are strictly internal to a single country against each other, even it one of those elements is receiving external support. You should use a “but for” test – “but for the intervention of the external nation, would the events have unfolded as they did?” If the answer is no, the events would have unfolded even without the external support, then it is a revolution. If the answer is yes, external support was required to cause the hostilities to commence, then it is war. This does not mean that what starts as revolution cannot transition to war, but whether the events are internally driven with external support, or externally driven with internal cooperation, makes all the difference between revolution and war.
Second, assuming you accept the idea of Hybrid War, it is unfair to say that the U.S. is not engaged in conflict. It is currently sanctioning many members of the Russian elite. That would meet the definition of hybrid warfare. So these statements that NATO and its allies are not currently engaged in war are false as long as you accept the “total war” definition Hybrid War offers.
Third, the tactics involved may be more complex than open war, but Hybrid War is the wrong way to define this conflict. This is a war of Identity, and it will only extend as far as required for Russia to protect what it feels are ethnic Russian. So Estonia and some of the other former Eastern Block countries could have real concerns as they have significant ethnic Russian populations, but to pretend that this is a Russian war with the West ala the Cold War, overstates what is happening. Yes, Russia will rattle the nuclear sabre to get what it wants, but I doubt they would be self destructive enough to actually use it against America or any other Western nation.
Bill’s C and M; Outlaw
Bit of a “Chicken or Egg” argument going on. Truth be told, the fortunes and limits of Sovereignty ebb and flow like the tide. When US sovereignty was “flowing” – often through what we are now calling “hybrid warfare” it was not a problem. Now, as our sovereignty ebbs a bit in this natural cycle, we see ourselves surrounded by “threats” and “enemies.”
For me the simple perspective is this: “Sovereignty follows power.”
It is that simple. Most recognize that there is a tremendous re-balancing of global power taking place. This is true between states, and also true within states. It is only natural that sovereignty will re-balance as well. This can happen in three broad ways. Pick one.
Way one: Those who’s relative power has ebbed recognize they claim too much in the world they live in now, and make concessions to share more effectively the rights and duties of sovereignty they claim. Perhaps allowing Russia more influence in Eastern Europe, or sharing a greater burden of securing the global commons of the eastern Pacific with China. But there is no right answer as to what to hold and where to give, so this approach is always met with powerful debate.
Way two: Gray zone competition, or hybrid warfare to nick away at the edges of the status quo of sovereignty in ways that expand one’s own. This is what challengers do. The US, Japan and Germany a century ago; others today. It flirts with war. As Spain atrophied within their sovereignty box, the US burst at the seams of our own – so we broke into their box and took what we felt was now better owned by us. Russia and China play a similar game today.
Way three: War. Two and Three blur and blend. Does not make it all war, but if one focuses on the why over the how one maintains a clearer perspective, IMO.
Seen in a most positive light, Gray zone activity and hybrid war reduce the likelihood for major war by reducing the Jus ad Bellum. Or, they can lead into war. Depends on how the situation is addressed.
The US owns two parts to the areas where we feel challenged in this way. We need to re-assess what we claim to be our right and duty around the globe; and we need to shore up our deterrence to approaches that actually create a deterrent effect in the world we live in today. Focus on our part of the equation, and stop the hand wringing over what the other side of the equation is doing.
So, we did not cause this by over reaching in our sovereignty, or by overly compressing others – but that did have a contributory effect.
Good news – if we fix our deterrence now, then there is a good chance that fortunes will change and China will implode, and Russia will fall off of the false summit they currently stand upon. But they naturally seek now to expand their sovereignty while their hands are hot.
Russia and Putin have truly decided on war in the Ukraine–there will be no compromise.
US and western diplomacy is literally a waste of time and the language of “hard power” is about the only thing he will understand.
This President cannot change his approach at this late of date that makes any impact at all going forward–just reinforces the idea he has swapped the Ukraine for Iran and also reinforces Putin’s image that this President is basically weak.
[B]”Waste of time and nerves” – #Steinmeier acknowledges it was difficult to speak ‘language of diplomacy’ with #Lavrov[/B]http://joinfo.com/world/1001982_
NATO is firming up their counter UW strategy in the Baltics:
#NATO will use #SpecialForces in case #hybridwar in #Baltic region.|PL|http://zwojska.pl/4446/nato-wojska-specjalne-wojna-hybrydowa/ … #NSHQ #SOF #NRF #VJTF pic.twitter.com/G2hM0RMVe7
Seems the Russian military are quick learners when they notice a single point of failure within their own UW doctrine or what should be improved.
Russia’s army of bots & trolls is getting reinforcements: Moscow plans a special “information ops” military unit.
https://meduza.io/en/news/2015/04/17/russia-to-set-up-information-forces-in-crimea …