As has often been pointed out, the term “hybrid war” is used imprecisely enough that it could be (and has been) attached to any combination of irregular and regular armed conflict, going back to the American Revolution and even the Napoleonic wars.11. See, for example, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/hybrid-war-old-concept-new-techniquesand http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2015/Also-in-2015/hybrid-modern-future-warfare-russia-ukraine/EN/.View all notes And in the twentieth century, the United States certainly used covert and sometimes lethal action by its security services and various proxies to influence events and governments around the world, from Iran22. See http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/#_ftn1.View all notes to Chile33. See http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB470/.View all notes to Vietnam44.http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/.View all notes and beyond, in what some might call hybrid ways.
The current sense of “hybrid war,” however, was introduced in 2005, when James N. Mattis, now the US defense secretary, and National Defense University researcher Frank Hoffman called it “a combination of novel approaches – a merger of different modes and means of war.”55. See this issue’s “Thinking clearly about China’s layered Indo-Pacific strategy” by Zack Cooper and Andrew Shearer and (Mattis and Hoffman 2005Mattis, J. N., and F. Hoffman. 2005. “Future Warfare: The Rise of Hybrid Wars.” Proceedings 131: 11. [Google Scholar]).View all notes The term reached wider prominence in the aftermath of the 2006 war between the state of Israel and the Shiite militia group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. There, Hezbollah fighters experienced remarkable success, using rockets and other arms supplied by the Iranian and Syrian governments, advanced communication systems, and a vast network of tunnels to attack advancing Israeli tanks and infantry units. “Hezbollah fighters use tunnels to quickly emerge from the ground, fire a shoulder-held antitank missile, and then disappear again, much the way Chechen rebels used the sewer system of Grozny to attack Russian armored columns,” the New York Times’s Steven Erlanger and Richard Oppel Jr. wrote.66. See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/world/middleeast/07hezbollah.html.View all notes
But this conflict involved more than guerrilla tactics and asymmetrical armaments. It was also a battle for world public opinion. “[N]ot until this war have networks actually projected in real time the grim reality of the battlefield – pictures of advancing or retreating Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, homes and villages being destroyed during bombing runs, old people wandering aimlessly through the debris, some tailed by children hugging tattered dolls, Israeli airplanes attacking Beirut airport, Hezbollah rockets striking northern Israel and Haifa, forcing 300,000 to evacuate their homes and move into underground shelters – all conveyed ‘live,’ as though the world had a front-row seat on the blood and gore of modern warfare,” veteran journalist Marvin Kalb and international security expert Carol Saivetz wrote. “To do their jobs, journalists employed both the camera and the computer, and, with the help of portable satellite dishes and video phones, ‘streamed’ or broadcast their reports from hotel roofs and hilltops, as they covered the movement of troops and the rocketing of villages – often (unintentionally, one assumes), revealing sensitive information to the enemy. Once upon a time, such information was the stuff of military intelligence acquired with considerable effort and risk; now it has become the stuff of everyday journalism. The camera and the computer have become weapons of war” (Kalb and Saivetz 2007Kalb, M., and C. Saivetz 2007. “The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict.” Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government. Presented at the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, February 18. Available at:https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2007islamforum_israel-hezb-war.pdf. 10.1177/1081180X07303934 [Google Scholar]).
In little more than a decade, the use of hybrid warfare techniques has expanded dramatically as technology has advanced at what sometimes seems light speed, roiling international affairs on a constantly shifting basis. Russian, Chinese, and US security experts have all noted this new form of international conflict, which can combine Internet-enabled propaganda, a global “dark web” of encrypted communications, cyber attacks, positive and negative economic pressure, espionage, irregular military action, and other efforts that aim to advance political interests without progressing to full-scale war. Sometimes also called “new-generation warfare,” “non-linear war,” “ambiguous war,” or “gray-zone conflict,” hybrid war is perhaps best illustrated by the Russian government’s efforts to undermine the government of Ukraine via a combination of cyber attacks on electrical, banking, and other infrastructure, sophisticated propaganda, and support for irregular forces known as “little green men” (efforts that some suggest are responses to perceived US hybrid support early in this century for so-called “color revolutions” in parts of the former Soviet Union and the Balkan Peninsula). But governments and terror groups alike have seen that advantage can be sought and gained, just below the threshold of open war, and many countries – including, beyond Russia and the United States, China, Iran, Israel, and North Korea, among others – and non-state groups – such as the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and Hezbollah – are using hybrid or “gray” strategies to push their international agendas.
In this issue, top experts look at the hybridized strategies of Russia, China, and Iran and, more generally, at a militarization of the Internet that seems to foreshadow a continued increase in global conflict just below the level of full war. The hybrid tactics used in Ukraine have already raised tensions between Russia and NATO, leading to nuclear saber-rattling and large-scale military exercises that include simulations of nuclear attacks.77. See http://www.politico.eu/article/trump-russia-putin-us-army-chief-presses-on-military-exercises/.View all notes According to recent reports, hackers have targeted computer systems at US nuclear power plants.88. See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/technology/nuclear-plant-hack-report.html?_r=0.View all notes Western authorities have complained about Russian propaganda and cyber efforts that appear aimed at subverting elections in the United States and several European countries.99. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/europe-has-been-working-to-expose-russian-meddling-for-years/2017/06/25/e42dcece-4a09-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html?utm_term=.edcaf1a16088.View all notes The question is obvious: What can be done to reduce the risk that simmering hybrid conflicts will escalate into open – and perhaps even nuclear – warfare? The answers in this time of unparalleled technological change are less easily seen.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
1. See, for example, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/hybrid-war-old-concept-new-techniques and http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2015/Also-in-2015/hybrid-modern-future-warfare-russia-ukraine/EN/.
5. See this issue’s “Thinking clearly about China’s layered Indo-Pacific strategy” by Zack Cooper and Andrew Shearer and (Mattis and Hoffman 2005Mattis, J. N., and F. Hoffman. 2005. “Future Warfare: The Rise of Hybrid Wars.” Proceedings 131: 11. [Google Scholar]).
7. See http://www.politico.eu/article/trump-russia-putin-us-army-chief-presses-on-military-exercises/.
References
Kalb, M., and C. Saivetz 2007. “The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict.” Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government. Presented at the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, February 18. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2007islamforum_israel-hezb-war.pdf. 10.1177/1081180X07303934
Mattis, J. N., and F. Hoffman. 2005. “Future Warfare: The Rise of Hybrid Wars.” Proceedings131: 11.
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