Jordan Robertson, Jeff Stone, and Kati Pohjanpalo
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was visible to the world in news reports that included eyewitness accounts and images of missile strikes shared on television and social media. By contrast, a cyberattack around that time on satellite systems used by Ukraine to coordinate troop and drone movements — systems that also provided broadband service to more than 100,000 internet users in at least 13 countries across Europe and North Africa — was cloaked in mystery for weeks. To this day Russia’s government denies any involvement in it.
Such is the nature of the modern form of combat known as hybrid warfare, which marries unambiguous brute force with stealth, subterfuge and heaps of plausible deniability.
1. What is hybrid warfare?
It refers to the mixing of conventional and unconventional tactics — violent and nonviolent, virtual and real-world, overt and covert — to attack another country. The toolkit includes state-on-state cyberattacks — cyberwarfare — as well as disinformation, economic pressure, propaganda, sabotage and the use of irregular forces, such as uniformed soldiers with no identifying insignia. Even weaponizing immigrants and jamming global positioning system (GPS) signals have become part of Russia’s strategy. Hybrid attacks are “used to blur the lines between war and peace, and attempt to sow doubt in the minds of target populations,” according to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
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