Hybrid War and What to Do About It

Jeffrey Bristol

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The National Security Strategy (NSS) dictates America’s transition to “Great Power Competition.” While the 2017 NSS fails to define the term and uses it only once, the tone of the document is rife with its essential idea: The United States is no longer the hegemon and must operate in a global milieu of rising nations whose interests only sometimes align with the United States’ own. Within this context, the NSS dedicates itself to “preserv(ing) peace through strength.”[1] In no environment since the Cold War has the adage si vis pacem, para bellum--if one wants peace, (prepare) for war--rung louder or truer. Perhaps nothing is more essential in this effort than asking the question “What is hybrid war?” and then answering the follow-on: “what should we do about it?”

WHAT IS HYBRID WAR?

The Russian General Valery Gerasimov articulated the best-known articulation of hybrid war in his article “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight.”[2] According to Gerasimov, hybrid war combines military activities with the “protest potential of the population.”[3] Local politics provide entrée to the Russian military. Information operations shape the environment initially. Once organized protest solidifies, military operators infiltrate covertly. Conventional forces then invade, finalizing the conquest. This cycle, presented by Gerasimov as the result of new technologies and political realities, is hybrid war. Despite this 2016 article’s claims to innovation, the Russain use of hybrid war is much older. In fact, Russia’s Cold War strategy was hybrid war avant la lettre.[4]

…THE SOVIET UNION USED THE COVER OF PEACEKEEPING, ENSURING DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND CIVIL STABILITY AS COVER TO INSERT MILITARY FORCES TO PRESERVE ITS CONTROL OVER RESTIVE POPULATIONS.

The Soviet Union used hybrid war strategies regularly to confront adversity where conventional warfare was impossible. The Soviet Union exploited hybrid war-like doctrine for interventions in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, indicating continuity of armed revanchism in the “Near Abroad.”[5] In each of these uprisings, led almost entirely by local populations, the Soviet Union used the cover of peacekeeping, ensuring democratic government and civil stability as cover to insert military forces to preserve its control over restive populations. Other notable examples include Ethiopia and Somalia where Soviet diplomats used trade agreements, propaganda and advisers to advance regime-change and forge tight alliances leading directly to an expansion in Soviet power and influence, often at the expense of the local population.[6] Earlier, the Soviets used the international COMINTERN to push local party cadres in forming fifth columns to accomplish a version of hybrid war, which they called socialist revolution.[7]

THE U.S. DOES MORE THAN HIDE HYBRID WAR IN ITS MILITARY DOCTRINE, SHE ALSO EMPLOYS IT.

Notional Phasing for Military Activities (Joint Publication 3.0)

Hybrid war is therefore far older and far more common than assumed. It owes its ubiquity to the fact that it is repressed war that happens when open invasion is too costly. Hybrid war’s indirectness, introducing military forces only after shaping the local environment, provides operational cover where the aggressor seemingly maintains peace while really effecting war, allowing revanchist nations to flout norms while appearing to respect them and wage war while ostensibly supporting peace.

While hybrid war seems exotic, the Phases of Joint Operations from American military doctrine explain it. Phase 0 is the shaping phase where Russia uses IO to create favorable conditions. In Phase 1, Russia supports lawful protest movements. Autochthonous cadres use extra-legal political opposition and increasingly direct Russian involvement Seize the Initiative in Phase 2.[8]

Next in joint operational phases comes 3, Domination: military defeat of the enemy. In hybrid war, Stabilize and Enable Civil Authority--Phases 4 and 5--preempt Domination. In these phases, Russian proxies fully replace local government. This replacement presents Russia as liberator. When this stage resolves, if conflict remains, Russia enters Domination where she inserts armed forces. Finally Phase 0, Shaping, returns where Russian conquest succeeds as a fait accompli with Russia governing the territory in fact even if without recognition.

DESPITE THE LACK OF ACTUAL NATO INVOLVEMENT, RUSSIAN OFFICIALS HAVE CONSTRUED LESSONS LEARNED FROM WHAT THEY IMAGINE NATO’S ROLE TO HAVE BEEN.

The U.S. does more than hide hybrid war in its military doctrine, she also employs it. The ideal-type Special Forces mission, doctrinally defined as unconventional war, where teams enter denied areas, train partisans while engaging in psychological operations is hybrid war by another name.[9] American operations employing this doctrine include those in Southeast Asia, Central America and elsewhere.[10]

Complicating U.S. involvement in hybrid warfare are those hybrid wars without American action. Russia considers the various “Color Revolutions,” usually bloodless revolutions coinciding with political unrest especially the end of Communism, as NATO Information Operations. Gerasimov indicates these “operations” inspired hybrid war theory despite the fact that such revolutions were entirely the product of local political activity and involved no U.S. or NATO intervention.[11] Despite the lack of actual NATO involvement, Russian officials have construed lessons learned from what they imagine NATO’s role to have been.

Morocco’s operations in the Western Sahara show even minor powers using hybrid war. After being fought to a standstill with the POLISARIO in 1991, the Moroccan king drafted a policy encouraging Moroccan immigration into the territories to dilute the native population, derailing a UN-organized independence referendum. The plan succeeded wildly. The referendum was delayed indefinitely. Meanwhile, Morocco governed the territory under military occupation.[12] Thirty years later, Moroccan hybrid warfare seems to have succeeded with American recognition of the annexation.[13]

Hybrid war, despite the hype, is old wine in new bottles.[14] While new media and cyberspace, which supposedly makes hybrid war different from previous forms of war, does change the conflict environment, the heralds’ prophecies of heralds foretelling great change in warfare, like most eschatological predictions, are hyperbole at best. Despite changing circumstances, war remains a human phenomenon and human nature never changes. This is why Thucydides and Sun Tzu remain relevant despite their ignorance of contemporary domains of warfare. Nations now, as then, wage war for “fear, honor and interest.”[15] Viewed in this lens, hybrid war is really conventional warfare modified to suit the peculiar milieux of our time.

HYBRID WAR IS THEREFORE HYBRID BECAUSE ITS TACTICS ARE JANUS-FACED, SHOWING CONVENTIONAL AGGRESSION TO ONE FOE AND CANNY ASYMMETRY TO ANOTHER.

The primary characteristic of this milieu is the dominance of the U.S. and her allies, especially the NATO alliance. Without their stabilizing effect, actors like Russia and China would engage not in limited warfare with asymmetric aspects--e.g. hybrid war/“Grey Zone” operations--, but in conventional war. Hybrid war is a placeholder for broader conflicts, conflicts which will re-emerge when the system weakens enough that revanchist powers can use fitter strategies to counter expansionist ends.

AMERICAN HEGEMONY, DECLINE AND HYBRID WAR

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CJCS Meets with Turkish and Russian Counterparts (Petty Officer 2nd Class Dominique Pineiro)

Given the international system, countries like Russia face a variety of actors with both greater and lesser power than itself, putting her in an asymmetrical world. This difference is important because many consider hybrid war asymmetrical.[16] While partially true, asymmetry isn’t universal, but relative and so the label obscures as much as it reveals. The same force may be asymmetrical against one party and symmetrical against another, necessitating strategic dynamism. Russia benefits from this differential, engaging the global stage asymmetrically where she’s weak and symmetrically locally where she’s strong. She uses arms when attacking targets in her “Near Abroad” that are easily susceptible to Russian pressure but hard for her enemies to defend, places like the Crimea and South Ossetia, while simultaneously refusing to directly engage enemies in the NATO alliance where open Russian aggression is certain to end in military defeat. For these latter targets, Russia engages in information and cyber operations like propaganda, hacking and political interference. This difference explains why countries outside the NATO block like the Ukraine and Georgia are subject to direct military attack while those within it, like Poland and the Baltic states, are subject only to indirect measures. Hybrid war is therefore hybrid because its tactics are Janus-faced, showing conventional aggression to one foe and canny asymmetry to another.

The current international system necessitates hybrid versatility. While one of Russia’s main goals is expansionism, an absolute prohibition against changing national borders through aggression forms one of the primary mandates of the postwar order. Decolonizing powers originated this mandate to prevent the very kinds of territorial aggression currently sought by Russia from affecting relations between decolonizing states.[17] After decolonization’s completion, the U.S. and USSR supported this prohibition in order to avoid turning the Cold War hot through the competition of proxy states. After the Soviet Unions’s collapse, Russia’s personal interest in maintaining the peace ended with its imperium of Communism, but America and her allies continued to preserve the rule, in order to ensure the Pax Americana and encourage the survival of the global commons.

WHILE ANTI-EXPANSIONIST NORMS REMAIN VALID, RUSSIA CANNOT OPENLY INVADE TERRITORY WITHOUT RISKING UNWINNABLE WARS.

With the beginning of the War on Terror, American international control slipped from hegemony to dominance. While a general policy of border protection remains ensconced in international custom, many countries, including newly resurgent Russia and China, find it in their own interest to challenge it. As a result, the international system stands at crossroads. On one side, powers supporting the status-quo hold the balance of military and diplomatic power, desiring frozen borders. On the other assemble the revanchists. The international system is sufficiently imbalanced that revanchism has a window, but the system remains powerful enough to stop direct aggression. The tension created manifests most clearly Europe and sets the framework for what we call hybrid war.

NATO opposes Russian expansionism, but the bloc is disunited. While the treaty’s formal commitments remain fixed, different countries regard Russia differently. France is friendlier to her than Germany, cleaving the central EU axis.[18] This tension leaves countries like the Ukraine in a suspended state with NATO, neither in nor out of the bloc, rendering all weak. Making things more complicated, many countries’ national policies vary from popular sentiment. While Germany remains committed to NATO, its people do not feel so devoted.[19] Sweden remains outside the bloc yet conducts military exercises with members.[20] These fractures open geo-political chinks in the alliance's armor for Russia to exploit.

CONFLICT EXISTS AT MANY LEVELS WITH MANY VARIATIONS AND POSSIBLE USES, RUNNING THE GAMUT FROM INFORMATION OPERATIONS TO ECONOMIC PRESSURE TO OPEN WARFARE.

Hybrid war’s dual-level strategy infiltrates this gap. While anti-expansionist norms remain valid, Russia cannot openly invade territory without risking unwinnable wars. Russia knows if it operates surreptitiously, it can create environments where invasion transmutes into “peacekeeping,”[21] making de facto expansion palatable in an environment with many conflict-adverse opponents. Russia affects its exploitation of this gap by altering strategies throughout the course of conflict, shifting from asymmetrical to symmetrical strategies as needed.

While Russia relies on asymmetric strategies during initial operational phases, she engages in symmetric action for the Enabling Civil Authority, Stabilizing and Domination phases. During these two periods, Russia inserts military personnel under increasingly open guises, escalating, as in the Crimea, from “little green men,” to whole units “on leave,” to uniformed troops. When the cycle ends, Russia actually controls the territory it invaded even if it lacks international recognition. This de facto government exists in both South Ossetia and the Crimea. Given that no major powers are willing to risk conflict to oust Russia, possessing actual control over territory matters more than international recognition for Russia’s purposes, possession, it seems, is nine-tenths of the law in both power and property. Challenging this possession where it is made and preventing it elsewhere is the major challenge the Russian strategy poses to the NATO bloc.

WHAT TO DO?

Peace never reigns when great powers compete. Conflict exists perpetually. The Phases of Joint Operations recognizes this truth by describing times of peace as “shaping phase(s)” where military operations obtain at all times.[22] Ubiquity of conflict does not mean ubiquity of violence, however. Conflict exists at many levels with many variations and possible uses, running the gamut from information operations to economic pressure to open warfare. Russia understands this well. She uses a range of operations from quiet, non-attributable cyber operations to outright military invasion depending on which tool is appropriate to achieve her ends. Hybrid war, therefore, is a formal strategy with discrete parts. So long as the US and her allies understand this, they can defeat it.

Understanding Russia’s intention variation of strategy allows us to interpret her thoughts and intentions based on her actions. If Russia engages in open military operations, she feels strong. If she engages in purely information warfare, she feels weak. Given that Russia feels the need to mix her strategies between the covert and the overt, one infers that she does not feel generally confident of her strength beyond certain confined areas. In other words, the fact that Russia relies on hybrid warfare is a sign of her weakness, not of her strength.

AS RUSSIA SUCCEEDS USING ITS HYBRID WAR STRATEGIES, SHE WILL GAIN CONSEQUENT CONFIDENCE, LEADING TO HYBRID WAR’S OBSOLESCENCE AND THE RE-EMERGENCE OF CONVENTIONAL WAR.

One must remember, however, that success begets success. This poses hybrid war’s greatest risk. If its successes succeed too well, the extant conventions against aggressive territorial expansion, the very conventions which help hold the NATO alliance together, will lose force through subversion. As Russia succeeds using its hybrid war strategies, she will gain consequent confidence, leading to hybrid war’s obsolescence and the re-emergence of conventional war. Russia will then target a wider range of states with direct military power. If nations continue to ignore NATO treaty obligations and do not form a solid front, popular reticence within NATO countries will make even diplomatic objections to revanchism, let alone armed contest, impossible.

As it stands, France already looks the other way when Russia engages in expansionist action. Britain, America’s staunchest ally is now disengaged from the EU and could support American efforts only with difficulty. In a world with a fractured NATO, Russian armies could operate freely, able to attack the Baltic states and to skirmish on the borders of Finland and Poland (potentially using Belarussian proxies against the latter). Such a state of affairs, which Russia can achieve incrementally via hybrid war, would collapse the postwar order at relatively little cost to Russia.

The U.S. and NATO must answer hybrid war’s challenge with measures as serious as the stakes. This means not only having the right strategy, but also the right personnel and bureaucratic structures in place to counter the Russian threat. A proper mentality is equally important. While never precipitating armed conflict, NATO must never appear unwilling to finish a war once started. It must even be willing to finish wars that Russia only half starts, knowing that Russia fears NATO and has more to lose in a war than NATO itself does. This determination means NATO forces must be willing to train troops to fight Russian invaders whether in uniform or out. Training is especially essentially when a country is being invaded, not just before or after. A failure to engage in either preemptive training or training support post-invasion was NATO’s greatest failure in the Ukraine crisis. While the U.S. especially is heavily engaged in preemptive military training, such as in the Baltics, it has shied away from training missions in countries engaged in active conflict with Russia.[23]

WHEN DIRECTLY ATTACKED, AS HAPPENS REGULARLY, RETALIATION IN KIND MAY BE NECESSARY, ESPECIALLY WHEN MINIMAL CIVILIAN IMPACT IS POSSIBLE.

The international component of hybrid war relies on both military and diplomatic action. Countermeasures must include both. Russia uses media like RT and Facebook as well as direct cyber-attacks.[24] While NATO mustn’t respond to every cyber-attack in kind it can make use of excellent media operations, like Voice of America, developed in the Cold War.[25] NATO must update these for the current media landscape and deploy them as countermeasures to combat the Information Operations portion of Russian hybrid campaigns.

NATO should publish information about Russian cyber-attacks widely and provide, free of charge or request, antidotes to Russian malware. NATO countries do this, but such measures should be explicated as responses to Russian aggression, declaring her activities as criminal. When directly attacked, as happens regularly, retaliation in kind may be necessary, especially when minimal civilian impact is possible. Publishing the details of Russia’s attacks makes deniability more difficult, thereby forcing Russia either to desist or suffer the consequences of its actions, making the covert aspect of hybrid war overt.

Diplomacy is a key ingredient in defeating hybrid war just as soft power is a key element in hybrid war’s success. Firm, heavily engaged diplomacy will help to solidify the NATO alliance as well as bring new countries into the American-led alliance. An expansion of NATO’s reach is a reduction of Russia’s. Realizing the opportunities of such diplomacy is difficult, however. In the U.S. particularly, diplomacy and military forces often oppose one another in practice. This results from a cabinet structure separating the two departments and pitting them against each other as budgetary adversaries. Diplomats and military officers should operate in tandem, attending each other’s schools, gaining credentials in each department. Diplomats should serve in the Reserves; military officers as diplomatic staff other than as attachés. State should include them in diplomatic missions, not merely for military expertise, but as active diplomats in exchange programs. This will increase their interoperability and allow each to leverage the talents of the other, creating hybrid defense to hybrid aggression.

RUSSIA FEARS NOTHING MORE THAN A THREAT TO ITS NUCLEAR ARSENAL. AEGIS ASHORE OPENS THE POSSIBILITY OF NEUTRALIZING A RUSSIAN NUCLEAR STRIKE.

The recent U.S.-facilitated rapprochement in the Middle East shows informal cross-over and America’s successes in uniting Israel with its erstwhile enemies shows how she might build alliances to confront Russian aggression, but such ad hoc integration happens too often at the State Department’s expense.[26] Far from collaborative and supportive, such uncoordinated action hampers America’s influence by undermining diplomats, creating duplicative chains of authority and teaching other countries that diplomats mightn’t have the final diplomatic word. This confusion undermines unity of effort and sunders hybrid action into discrete, uncooperative parts.

NATO must learn aggressive diplomacy. Aggressive diplomacy involves using allies in co-operation to pressure, isolate and diminish threats while simultaneously increasing one’s own strength. Establishing Aegis Ashore in Poland exemplifies aggressive diplomacy.[27] Russia fears nothing more than a threat to its nuclear arsenal. Aegis Ashore opens the possibility of neutralizing a Russian nuclear strike. It also provides Poland a position of strength vis-a-vis a potentially hostile neighbor. Linking the establishment of Aegis in Poland with Russian aggression will send a clear message both to Russia that her actions have consequences as well as communicating to Poland and America’s other allies about our enduring commitment to mutual defense. Moreover NATO must not take this action secretly. The alliance must communicate to Russia that its installation is a consequence of hybrid operations. The establishment shouldn’t be transactional, but irrevocable. Otherwise, allies become bargaining chips, a utilitarian mindset whose exploitation Russia understands too well. The Aegis system should inform Russia that when she aggresses, she suffers irreversible consequences.

Far from deterring discussion, as commonly believed, consequences are the only way to bend Russian calculus towards cooperation. Without them, Russia learns she can gain her desires unilaterally through aggression, which is faster and surer than diplomatic discourse. NATO has thus far taught the easy lesson. Now, the allies must force Russia to the table to end hybrid war.

ONLY THE FIG-LEAF OF DENIABILITY, THE LACK OF AMERICAN CASUALTIES AND THE DECIMATION OF RUSSIAN FORCES PREVENTED THE ASSAULT FROM CONSIDERATION AS HOSTILITIES.

NATO expansion remains the ultimate deterrent to Russian expansionism precisely because Russia knows it cannot win a war with the alliance. Embracing Ukraine or Georgia sends signals Russia can’t ignore, shaking Russia as deeply as her invasion of the Crimea shook Eastern Europe. This step is difficult and may forestall diplomatic discussion, but if Russia takes further action against a country in its ambit, admitting one or more of these countries may be necessary to communicate the limits against her behavior. The present immunity of the Baltic states, all NATO members, from Russia’s hardest manipulations proves membership’s value.

Non-military means of dissuasion also exist. Diplomats should negotiate favorable trading agreements with countries bordering Russia since economic interdependence is a gateway to Russian intervention and ultimate invasion. NATO should endeavor to sell the countries in Russia’s “near-abroad” subsidized petroleum products, build pipelines from Scandinavia to the Baltics, in direct response to Russia’s going the other way, i.e. Nord Stream, and reform regional infrastructure to eliminate dependence on Russia, permanently reducing her sphere of influence and making hybrid operations more difficult.[28]

These actions will disturb Russia. She has indicated previously that she considers them nearly a declaration of war. One wonders, however, what hybrid war actions in the Crimea, Syria or Georgia constitute other than acts of war? In Syria, Russians have already engaged U.S. troops directly.[29] Only the fig-leaf of deniability, the lack of American casualties and the decimation of Russian forces prevented the assault from consideration as hostilities. Imagine what would have happened if Russian troops had been, not victorious, but just more successful? If the U.S. had suffered casualties? War would have been likely.

Displaying strength, something NATO has yet to do, is in NATO’s and not Russia’s interest. With Russia slowly eroding NATO’s strength, Russia can only stand to gain from delayed action and NATO can only lose. Strength wins nothing if not used. By remaining passive and engaging only in sanctioning activity that Russia easily evades, NATO accomplishes little but making revanchism successful and its own defeat inevitable.