Hybrid Warefare
Hybrid Warefare
Hybrid Warefare
conventional and irregular
military forces in conjunction with psychological, economic, political, and
cyber assaults. Confusion and disorder ensue when weaponized information
exacerbates the perception of insecurity in the populace as political, social,
and cultural identities are pitted against one another.
The unipolar moment that has persisted since the fall of the Soviet Union has given
rise to an international system in which unconventional challenges to the idea of
traditional state-on-state war are increasingly prevalent. The preponderance of
American military power has tempered conflicts in Southeast Asia, the Indian
subcontinent, and the South China Sea, but has given rise to a method of war that
attempts to leverage the weaknesses of conventional military structure. Where
wars traditionally have regular and irregular components in different areas of
operation, modern hybrid war has the tendency to combine these aspects. Modern
hybrid war practitioners apply “conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and
formations, and terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence, coercion, and
criminal activity” simultaneously.[ii] Under this model, war takes place in a variety
of operating environments, has synchronous effects across multiple battlefields,
and is marked by asymmetric tactics and techniques.[iii] These tactics are difficult
to defeat for militaries that lack the flexibility to shift mindsets on a constant basis,
especially since the interconnected nature of modern society is such that hybrid
war takes place on three distinct battlefields: the conventional battlefield, the
indigenous population of the conflict zone, and the international community.[iv]
Major powers have historically sponsored irregular fighters and non-state actors in
the execution of broader military campaigns, and modern examples such as Iranian
support to Hezbollah and other Shia militant groups are continuations of these
policies. The Israel-Hezbollah War of 2006 showed that although the concept of
hybrid war in this fashion is not novel, some of the sophistication and lethality of
non-state actors, along with their ability to persist within the modern state system,
is a new occurrence.
Hybrid organizations such as Hezbollah are well armed and equipped due to the
availability of technologically advanced weapon systems at low prices and pre-
existing commercial technologies such as cell phone and digital networks.[v]
During the Israel-Hezbollah War of 2006, decentralized cells composed of guerrillas
and regular troops armed with precision guided missiles, short and medium range
rockets, armed unmanned aerial vehicles, and advanced improvised explosive
devices executed an irregular urban campaign against a conventional Israeli
opponent.[vi] With Iranian Quds Force operatives as mentors and suppliers of
advanced systems, Hezbollah cells downed Israeli helicopters, damaged Merkava IV
tanks, communicated with encrypted cell phones, and monitored Israeli troops
movements with night vision and thermal imaging devices.[vii] Hezbollah leveraged
information technology as fighters immediately uploaded and distributed
battlefield pictures and videos in near real-time, dominating the battle of
perception throughout the operation.[viii] The Israeli military did not lose the war
in 2006 on the conventional battlefield, but did little to alter the strategic
environment in Southern Lebanon and lost the information campaign as the
overwhelming perception within the international community was of Israeli military
defeat at the hands of Hezbollah.
Apart from the increased effectiveness and lethality of non-state actors within
hybrid war, the symbiotic relationship between sponsor and client is another
variable that differentiates modern hybrid war from traditional forms of conflict.
The Syrian Civil War and spread of Islamic State (IS) presents a complex strategic
challenge to Iran and Hezbollah as modern hybrid war practitioners. Iran cannot
afford to lose its link to its non-state proxy in Lebanon as its means by which to
accomplish foreign policy goals in the Levant if forces not amiable to Iran dominate
Syria. At the same time, Hezbollah cannot afford to lose that same link to its
principle supporter, lest it forfeits its ability to remain relevant as a pseudo state
within Lebanon. Therefore, while Iran has been supplying advisors, weapons, and
equipment to Shia groups in Syria, it also compelled Hezbollah to send 2,000
fighters into the conflict zone as it simultaneously orchestrates a modern hybrid
war within Syria.[ix]
The Israel-Hezbollah War and the Syrian Civil War also show how modern hybrid
war increasingly focuses on non-state entities within the state system. Just as
Clausewitz made an assumption that the belligerents in war are hierarchically
organized states, the dominant force within traditional hybrid war examples has
been the state.[x] However, non-state and sub-state actors are the focal points in
modern hybrid wars as proxies for state sponsors at certain times, but also
executing their own independent policies. It was the policy of Hassan Nasrullah,
rather than Iran, of kidnapping Israeli troops that led Israel to war with a non-state
actor. Furthermore, the spread of IS to Iraq was initially a non-state executing a
hybrid war against a conventional Iraqi military. However, this has transformed to
the state of Iraq executing its own version of hybrid war utilizing non-state, sub-
state, and international actors to counter IS advances. In addition, one of the arms
of Iraq’s hybrid war, the United States, is executing its own hybrid war against IS
through a combination of traditional air power, advisors to Iraqi government
troops, Kurdish peshmerga, and sectarian militias, and training opposition forces
within Syria. In the end, the Iraq-Syria hybrid war is not one hierarchical entity
against another, but rather an interconnected group of state and non-state actors
pursuing somewhat overlapping goals where the “social and political context is
complex and the state is weak.”[xi]
Hybrid warfare – conducted by state or non-state actors – are typically tailored to remain below obvious
detection and response thresholds, and often rely on the speed, volume and ubiquity of digital
technology that characterizes the present information age. It concludes that hybrid warfare is already
prevalent and widespread, is used by state and non-state actors, and is likely to grow as a challenge,
justifying new efforts by nations to understand the threat it presents.
Policy recommendations •
Hybrid warfare is designed to exploit national vulnerabilities across the political, military, economic,
social, informational and infrastructure (PMESII) spectrum. Therefore as a minimum national
governments should conduct a self-assessment of critical functions and vulnerabilities across all sectors,
and maintain it regularly.
Hybrid warfare is designed to exploit national vulnerabilities across the political, military, economic,
social, informational and infrastructure (PMESII) spectrum. Therefore as a minimum national
governments should conduct a self-assessment of critical functions and vulnerabilities across all sectors,
and maintain it regularly
Hybrid warfare uses coordinated military, political, economic, civilian and informational (MPECI)
instruments of power that extend far beyond the military realm. National efforts should enhance
traditional threat assessment activity to include non-conventional political, economic, civil, international
(PECI) tools and capabilities. Crucially, this analysis must consider how these means of attack may be
formed into a synchronized attack package tailored to the specific vulnerabilities of its target. • Hybrid
warfare is synchronized and systematic – the response should be too. National governments should
establish and embed a process to lead and coordinate a national approach of self-assessment and threat
analysis. This process should direct comprehensive cross-government efforts to understand, detect and
respond to hybrid threats. • Hybrid threats are an international issue – the response should be to.
National governments should coordinate a coherent approach amongst themselves to understand,
detect and respond to hybrid warfare to their collective interests. Multinational frameworks –
preferably using existing institutions and processes – should be developed to facilitate cooperation and
collaboration across borders.
Given this view, understanding a hybrid warfare adversary does not lend itself solely to a traditional
threat analysis based on its capability and intent for a number of important reasons. • First, hybrid
warfare uses a wider set of MPECI tools and techniques that one usually will not look at in traditional
threat assessments. • Second, it targets vulnerabilities across societies in ways that we do not
traditionally think about. • Third, it synchronizes its means in novel ways. For example, by only looking
at the different instruments of power an adversary possesses, one cannot necessarily predict how and
to what degree they might be synchronized to create certain effects. Thus, the functional capabilities of
a hybrid warfare adversary, although important, will not necessarily provide the right information to
understand the problem. • Fourth, hybrid warfare intentionally exploits ambiguity, creativity, and our
understanding of war to make attacks less ‘visible’. This is due to the fact that they can be tailored to
stay below certain detection and response thresholds, including international legal thresholds, thus
hampering the decision process and making it harder to react to a hybrid warfare attack. • Fifth,
relatedly, and arguably more than conventional types of warfare, a hybrid warfare campaign may not be
seen until it is already well underway, with damaging effects having already begun manifesting
themselves and degrading a target’s capability to defend itself. The issues described above provide the
basis for expanding the traditional enemy-centric threat analysis.
Effects and non-linearity. Figure 2 depicts effects by illustrating how a military event in the information
sector can be related to an effect in the political sector which in turn can create an effect in the
infrastructure sector. The graphic also identifies how first and second order effects stem from these
events. Although not depicted here, a key aspect of the potential effects of hybrid warfare is ‘death by a
thousand cuts’ caused by a series of synchronized, low-observable or unobserved events operating
below the threshold of what would normally constitute ‘war’. Moreover, they normally only become
apparent once their cumulative and non-linear effects begin to manifest themselves.
Critical functions and vulnerabilities The case study identifies two types of vulnerabilities that represent
enabling factors for facilitating the implementation and execution of a specific synchronized economic
attack package as part of the hybrid warfare campaign
• Vulnerabilities created intentionally by Russia. - Gas supply and transit contracts between Russia and
Ukraine. - Russian loan structure to Ukraine. - High levels of Ukrainian dependency on Russian gas.
Synchronization of means and escalation patterns The case study identifies two different SAPs. •
Synchronized attack package 1 (SAP 1) represents the adversarial actions undertaken by Russia and its
proxies (mainly Gazprom and Gazprombank) within the Ukrainian gas domain during the conflict period.
Synchronized attack package 2 (SAP 2) represents adversarial actions undertaken by Russia within
Ukraine’s foreign debt domain during the conflict period. During the period leading up to the conflict the
Russians used a combination of political pressure and compensation in the form of cheap gas and loans
via the SAPs to encourage president Yanukovych to abandon the signing of the European Union (EU)-
Ukraine Association Agreement. As the conflict evolved and the strategic environment changed, Russia
started using different MPECI instruments and adapted the SAPs accordingly to synchronize the effort
through different patterns of vertical and horizontal escalation and de-escalation.13 With the identified
vulnerabilities still in place, Russia was able to use both coercive and escalatory, and compensatory and
de-escalatory tools – offering and cancelling loans, and increasing and decreasing gas prices and supply –
to pressure the new pro-Western government in Kiev. They reduced prices while keeping the
unfavorable indexation formula unchanged and restored gas supplies while filing a multibillion-dollar
claim to international arbitration. This was done in synchronization with other tools such as military and
informational instruments. Escalation in military force was, for instance, synchronized with
compensatory or coercive use of the SAPs – offering cheap supply of gas and loans or threatening with
supply shortage and debt repayment – prior to the Minsk agreements. Ambiguity played an important
role in the conflict. Ukraine was generally aware of the risks associated with the energy and economic
deals with Russia. However, it was unable to correctly grasp how the gas contracts and loan structures
were designed in a premeditated fashion as baits that would lead to further strategic entrapment that
would allow Russia to use them with a pure adversarial intent should the need arise. Effects The effect
of the political pressure, combined with the cheap gas and loans, was the abandonment of the EU-
Ukraine Association Agreement by President Yanukovych. With the benefit of hindsight, it can be said
that this set off a number of non-linear effects in all of the PMESII sectors of which the Maidan protests
and the eventual ousting of the President are key examples. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the
non-linear effects resulting from Russian actions was that Moscow showed great flexibility and
adaptability in capitalizing on the unpredictable events that followed the social and political chaos in
Ukraine. Without speculating on Russian intentions, Moscow did capitalize on the turmoil in Ukraine to
annex Crimea and adapted to the changing circumstances by refashioning their SAPs from
compensatory to coercive instruments (for example, acceptance of the loan offer provides a temporary
relief for Ukraine but over the medium to long term it leads to financial and political dependence).
Concluding observations Throughout the conflict period, the Russians were active in tactically and
operationally switching between escalation and de-escalation across various instruments of power.
Although compensatory measures played an important role, Russia was able to keep the overall level of
strategic escalation high and stable. By synchronizing various elements such as the gas supply and
pricing and the loan offers, the Russians expanded the number of potential tactical combinations that
could be utilized for strategic utility. The SAPs were designed in a way that they could be simultaneously
used to escalate or de-escalate and used for compensation or coercion depending on the changing
circumstances of the conflict. Both SAP 1 and SAP 2 is indicative of Russia’s deliberate and highly
structured and flexible approach to shaping potential future conflict space. While the decisive moments
of the conflict (for example, annexation of Crimea, Minsk 1 and Minsk 2) were dictated by hard military
power, SAP 1 and SAP 2 likely provided escalation dominance for a limited military campaign. The
instruments of power used by the Russians were tightly linked to their capabilities and the
vulnerabilities of Ukraine, all orchestrated in escalation and/or de-escalation patterns according to their
political goals. In addition, they were used in ambiguous ways, hidden
from view or conducted with unclear intentions making it difficult for the Ukrainians to understand and
respond until the instruments had already taken effect. The case study shows clearly how a hybrid
warfare attack in one sector has effects in different sectors
As we have seen, responding to a hybrid warfare threat requires it to be contextualized according to the
specific capabilities and vulnerabilities of the target system. Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to
anticipate the location of an attack, the means that will be used, or the vulnerabilities that will be
exploited (or indeed even ‘created’) by a hybrid warfare actor, persistent monitoring of one’s critical
functions is necessary. Only by estimating the target system’s status (critical functions and
vulnerabilities) and mapping the actions taken by the hybrid warfare actor can one understand how the
threat evolves and where the target system is in terms of its state (normal, crisis or emergency). This
monitoring process involves identifying events as potential risks to one’s critical functions, possible
attempts to exploit specific vulnerabilities, and then ‘connecting the dots’ which enables the target to
identify, react, respond and ultimately counter a hybrid warfare attack.