Indian Strategic Studies: 09/01/24

1 September 2024

Could Modi turn out to be Ukraine’s peace guru?

Konstantinos Bogdanos

There is a long tradition of Westerners resorting to India to find peace. As the world now seems to agree that it is about time we found a peaceful solution to the Ukraine war, could an Indian political guru manage to achieve reconciliation?

In theory, everyone wants peace in Ukraine. But in order for this to happen, both sides need to sit at the negotiating table. Many so far have tried to mediate and all have failed.

Turkish President Erdogan, who has been playing both sides in the conflict, has attempted to act as a middleman, but without success. China has also sent an envoy to Moscow and Kyiv. Even Pope Francis offered his services, to no avail.

Peace summits and meetings have been held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in Malta, Qatar and Switzerland. Both the UN and the EU have been supposedly active in seeking to broker some sort of agreement between the two fighting sides. Nothing has been achieved,

Enter India’s prime minister. Last week Narendra Modi visited Ukraine in what was the first visit ever of an Indian leader to Kyiv. He literally embraced Volodymyr Zelensky, expressed his desire to see the war end and offered his services to assist in making it happen.

Can India broker peace between Russia and Ukraine?

Sanjay Kapoor

Ahead of India’s recent national elections, misinformation pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) backfired, instead exploding into a meme that went viral globally.

The claim — that Modi had managed to engineer a halt in Russia’s war in Ukraine to help evacuate thousands of stranded Indian medical students — was denied by India’s own foreign ministry. The BJP’s assertion was mocked in memes on social media and even by British comedian John Oliver on one of his shows.

Now, months later, Modi will be visiting Ukraine on an unprecedented trip to try and bolster India’s status as a potential peacemaker in the conflict, even if he cannot turn those previously mocked claims into reality. On Wednesday, Modi flew to Poland for a state visit. From there, he will travel by train Thursday night to Kyiv, where he is set to arrive in the early hours of Friday. No Indian prime minister has visited Ukraine since the modern formation of the country following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Government Contractors Are Not The Problem

Howard R. Lind

Last month’s initial public hearing of the Afghanistan War Commission featured several discussions that touched on the role of contractors for both military and development projects during the war. We agree that the commission must take a clear-eyed view of the use and performance of contractors along with the policies and strategies associated with their work. In conjunction with this, however, we believe it is important to address some common perceptions and misperceptions about contractors.

The Afghanistan War Commission was established by Congress in 2021 to conduct a comprehensive review of key decisions related to U.S. military, intelligence, foreign assistance, and diplomatic involvement in Afghanistan from June 2001 to August 2021. As Co-Chair Shamila Chaudhary noted in her introduction, the commission intends to bring an unflinching and rigorous approach to assessing the twenty-year war, identifying lessons learned, and making recommendations with the directive to reflect, learn, and heal.

Notably, the Afghanistan War used the most contractors in the history of U.S. military engagements. This resulted from the military drawdowns following the first Gulf War. The fact that we were fighting two simultaneous wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, also increased the need. After the first Gulf War, the U.S. made a strategic decision to maintain an all-volunteer force and outsource much of its defense service support capability. Today, the U.S. cannot fight a war without their support. As an integral part of the defense industrial base, contractors provide significant capabilities both from a services and defense manufacturer perspective. These capabilities not only supported the warfighter during the conflict but also represented a deterrence to war and defense of freedom.

Myanmar’s Junta Deploys The White Elephant To Defeat Rebels – Analysis

P. K. Balachandran

Buddhists and Hindus believe in the power of the White Elephant to subdue enemies.

Myanmar’s military junta, facing powerful armed insurgencies in the North Eastern part of the country, has decided to use Buddhist symbolism to defeat the enemy.

According the Myanmar daily Irrawaddy, the junta is preparing to launch a major offensive code-named “Operation Sin Phyu Shin” or “Operation Lord of the White Elephant” – to retake the areas of northern Shan State captured by the “Brotherhood Alliance” and its allies late last year.

The Irrawaddy reported that the junta had set up a committee to lead the operation and placed Vice-Senior General Soe Win in control of it. Three recently promoted Generals have been assigned to command the troops.

The operation’s name refers to Burmese King Hsinbyushin (1763-76) of the Konbaung dynasty who is revered among the generals for waging wars against Qing China and Siam. Hsinbyushin was the third king of the Alaungpaya, or Konbaung dynasty in Myanmar. He had pursued a policy of expansion at the expense of practically all his neighbors, especially Siam (Thailand).

China Isn’t Poised to Invade Taiwan – But Beijing Might Benefit From That Perception

Thiago de Aragao

The ongoing tension between the United States and China has been a focal point in international relations, with Taiwan often at the center of these discussions. However, despite the frequent portrayal by the U.S. that a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan is imminent, the reality within China suggests a more nuanced strategy. China’s leadership is acutely aware that an invasion of Taiwan would not only risk demolishing the country’s economic machinery but could also destabilize the Chinese Communist Party of China (CCP) in ways never before seen.

The CCP’s legitimacy has long been tied to the economic prosperity of the nation. This prosperity has been the bedrock of stability in China, allowing the government to maintain control without the need for widespread repression. However, in times of economic fluctuation, nationalism becomes an important tool to maintain internal legitimacy. Taiwan, therefore, becomes a recurring, highly symbolic issue, evoked to rally nationalistic sentiments among the Chinese populace.

There are three primary ways an undemocratic government can impose itself on its people: economic prosperity, nationalism, and repression. China is fully aware that an invasion of Taiwan would likely force it to lean more heavily on nationalism as a mechanism of social legitimacy. However, such a move would simultaneously disrupt the very economic stability that underpins the CCP’s rule.

How Innovative Is China in Semiconductors?

Stephen Ezell

Introduction

Semiconductors represent one of the world’s most important industries, the core technology that powers the modern digital world.1 Recognizing this vital role, China’s government has prioritized the sector, investing hundreds of billions of dollars to catalyze the development of an indigenous semiconductor ecosystem and to ideally cultivate globally competitive semiconductor firms across virtually all segments of the semiconductor value chain, from semiconductor design and fabrication to assembly, test, and packaging (ATP).

Thus far, those efforts have met with uneven success. With regard to the fabrication of leading-edge logic semiconductor chips, China’s flagship competitor, the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), likely stands about five years behind global leaders such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).2 As G. Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of research firm TechInsights, explained, “Ten years ago, [Chinese companies] were two generations behind. Five years ago, they were two generations behind, and now they’re still two generations behind.”3 Chinese competitors are even further behind with regard to semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME), such as the lithography tools that make semiconductors: One commentator noted that Chinese firms might be as many as five generations behind in this field.4 As one analyst explained, “The best machinery a Chinese company can produce makes chips that are 28 nanometers wide; the industry’s cutting-edge equipment can make 2-nanometer chips.”5

The Rise and Coming Fall of Chinese Manufacturing

Yi Fuxian

Chinese overcapacity is raising concerns worldwide. It is easy to see why: China accounts for nearly one-third of the world’s manufacturing value-added, and one-fifth of global manufacturing exports. But there is good reason to believe that the decline of China’s manufacturing sector is imminent.

To understand what is happening now in China, it is worth recalling Japan’s recent history. After World War II, Japan’s manufacturing sector grew rapidly, thanks largely to access to the massive US market. But the 1985 Plaza Accord (which boosted the yen’s value and weakened Japanese exports), together with an aging population and a shrinking labor force, reversed this trend.

From 1985 to 2022, the share of Japanese goods in US imports dropped from 22% to 5%, and Japan’s share of global manufacturing exports declined from 16% to 4%. Moreover, Japan’s share of global manufacturing value-added fell sharply, from 22% in 1992 to 5% in 2022. And the number of Japanese companies on the Fortune Global 500 list dropped from 149 in 1995 to just 40 today.

The red star returns

Gary Saul Morson

Just when everyone at the monastery has heaved a sigh of relief that the repulsive villain of The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Pavlovich, has at last gone home after behaving scandalously, he reappears. “They thought I had gone, and here I am again!” he chortles maliciously, devising fresh disgraceful actions. In much the same way, Marxism, which we had all thought over and done with, has returned in new forms among the woke intelligentsia. Antifa, “occupiers” of this and that, anti-Semitic college mobs, and other American versions of Red Guards keep emerging, each outdoing the last. The slogan “Death to America!” is now heard not only in Tehran and Pyongyang but also on campuses across the West. Marx and Engels famously began The Communist Manifesto (1848) proclaiming that “a specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism,” but today it is more like a zombie, unexpectedly risen from the dead. History did not end, it just had taken a brief nap.

Refurbishing the old ideology was easy. It was only necessary to substitute other, more up-to-date oppositions for “proletariat” and “bourgeoisie” so the world could still be divided into virtuous oppressed and evil oppressors. Far from betraying Marxism, this flexibility was just what Marx and Lenin had recommended. Lenin, who adapted an ideology focused on workers to a country still composed largely of peasants, deemed the rigid refusal to grasp present opportunities an “infantile disorder.” Marx himself had described a constant change of hostile classes: “freedman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed.”

Forget Hypersonics: China’s Cruise Missile Threat is the Stuff of Nightmares

Brandon J. Weichert

China’s Cruise Missile Arsenal: The Hidden Threat to U.S. Forces

It is easy for Americans to get caught up in the next big thing. This holds especially true when speaking about defense and military technologies. Those of us who analyze military developments professionally often fall prey to this bias. You can see that play out in the fixation, for instance, on the rising threat of hypersonic weapons and the newfangled ways for countering them. Indeed, these are threats.

But sometimes there’s nothing quite like a classic.

Cruise missiles have been a staple of the arsenals of modern militaries for decades. Now, China has begun a rapid program of modernization and expansion of their cruise missile arsenal.

China’s rapidly growing cruise missile arsenal is probably one of the single greatest threats to the safety of U.S. forces operating within range of the things.

The Growth of Chinese Cruise Missile Capabilities

In just a couple of decades, the Chinese cruise missile capability went from rudimentary to highly complex. That threat is still growing, too. Indeed, China has progressed to precision-guided munitions.

How Significant Is Iran’s Influence In The Middle East? – Analysis

Richard Rousseau

Over the past few years, Iran has been increasingly exerting its influence in the Middle East, particularly on Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. How real is Iran’s influence?

After the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in Tehran, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the commander of the Houthis in Yemen, affirmed the inevitability of a response to the Israeli attack, adding that “the response is certainly coming, with its own trajectory, preparations, tactics and dedicated capabilities.”

As a result, the head of the Houthis made the announcement that an entire region has been anticipating: a major attack on Israel by Iran and its allies, which they believe is responsible for the killing of the Hamas leader.

The U.S. and Israel share a common enemy

The so-called “Axis of Resistance” (mainly the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, the Syrian government, the Lebanese political party Hezbollah, the Yemeni political and military organization Ansar Allah, and Hamas) has the potential to launch attacks on Israel from a variety of directions, including the Houthi in Yemen from the south, Hezbollah in Lebanon from the north, Hamas carrying out operations in the Gaza Strip from the west, and Iran from the east. On top of that, there are Islamic militias in both Iraq and Syria.

Netanyahu is dragging the US down a dangerous path on Iran

Ami Ayalon, Gilead Sher and Orni Petruschka

The struggle in the Middle East is not between barbarians and freedom seekers, nor between those who sanctify life and those who sanctify death, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted in his recent address to Congress.

Rather, it could be better characterized as a struggle between radical messianic groups that are fighting in the name of God, and the majority who aspire to a secure life of personal and national freedom.

The suffering and hatred produced by the Gaza war has blinded eyes on both sides. That’s why this is the time for visionary statesmanship, not for hollow speeches and political games.

Over the last 20 years, the Iranian nuclear threat has been the main driver of Israel’s policy in the region, and of Netanyahu’s attempts to influence American administrations. While hoping that the limited preemptive strike Israel’s air force launched on Hezbollah targets early Sunday morning doesn’t trigger a regional war, the Biden administration must not allow Netanyahu to sway U.S. foreign policy decisions that relate to Iran. Doing so carries the risk of American entanglement in a conflict with unpredictable consequences — even to the point of dragging the U.S. into a destabilizing regional war that could become a ruinous global conflict.

U.S. Arms Ukraine’s F-16 Fighters With Cutting-Edge EW System In Record Time; Ex-Air Marshal Explains Its Use

Sakshi Tiwari

A key US Air Force unit reprogrammed the electronic warfare (EW) system of the F-16 combat jets delivered to Ukraine, enhancing the protection of Fighting Falcons against contemporary and evolving Russian threats.

In early August, Ukraine received the first batch of F-16s from NATO partners.

“F-16s in Ukraine. We did it,” President Zelensky said at an unidentified base with two F-16s on his sides. These aircraft were observed equipped with a series of specialized pylons, indicating that they were outfitted with certain self-defense electronic warfare measures. However, that’s not the whole story.

The US Air Force (USAF) bolstered the EW capabilities of these combat aircraft. The 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing of the U.S. Air Force, which includes the 68th Electronic Warfare Squadron (EWS), spearheaded the reprogramming operation in coordination with its counterparts in Denmark and Norway, according to a press release published by the wing on August 26.

The service emphasized the importance of Electronic Warfare in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, stating that both Russia’s and Ukraine’s armed forces rely heavily on unfettered access to the electromagnetic spectrum to achieve their objectives and have continuously employed EW tactics, such as spoofing and jamming, to obtain spectrum superiority.

In Praise of Central Asia

Stephen Blank

When Central Asian states gained their independence in 1991, the expert consensus predicted a high likelihood of war among them. Thirty-three years later, not only has that war not occurred, those states have also visibly stepped onto a trajectory of regional integration and peace. One prominent example of this peaceful trajectory is the treaty making Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (CANWFZ) that commits all the regional governments to exempting their states. Equally, if not more importantly, this 2009 treaty led to a protocol signed by all the members of the P5 at the UN in 2014.

This protocol provides for legally binding security assurances by all the signatories that they will neither threaten nor use a nuclear weapon or nuclear explosive device against any of the parties to the treaty. Since then, all the members of the P5 have ratified the protocol except for the U.S. The U.S., however, arguable should ratify the protocol as soon as it can. There are many reasons for doing so. First, it remains the case that both Russia and China continue to depreciate the independence of Central Asian states and subject them to their neo-imperial policies and perspectives. And since Moscow has made clear its utter disregard for the arms control and nonproliferation treaties it has previously signed, the validity of its signature on the protocol is highly questionable and in doubt. A U.S. ratification of the protocol therefore deprives Moscow of potential excuses for leaving the protocol.

Army Preps for “Transparent” Future Battlefield – Nowhere to Hide

Kris Osborn

There will be an urgent and pressing need to “hide in plain sight” on a “transparent” future battlefield due to ubiquitous, multi-domain sensors, according to Army intel researchers, who clearly explain that … in a future combat environment … “if it can be seen … it can be killed.”

Deception, jamming, spoofing, camouflage and “hiding” heat, electromagnetic and light signatures will be the key to survival and prosperity in future war, explains an interesting new research study by the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Command G2 called “The Operational Environment 2024-2034 Large-Scale Combat Operations.”

The essay, which involved research and analysis of current and expected future warfare dynamics, tactics and concepts of operation, sought to anticipate future warfare and best position the Army to fight and win in a hyperconnected, multi-domain, high-tech combat sphere.

The Crisis in the Armed Forces

Will Thibeau

In August 2021, the world watched as American forces scrambled to evacuate Afghanistan as the Taliban reclaimed power. The panicked withdrawal reached a tragic climax on August 26, when 13 American service members (and more than 100 Afghan civilians) were killed by a suicide bomber in the Kabul airport, where security was a U.S. responsibility. Four days later, when the last military planes took off from that same airport, hundreds of American citizens were left behind. A month later still, when the secretary of Defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the CENTCOM commanding general were called before Congress to account for the failure, they neither offered explanations nor accepted responsibility. The message was clear: Incompetence would be the new norm for the U.S. military — a predictably lethal status quo.

The Afghanistan debacle was dramatic, but it was only one small part of a much larger picture. The United States Armed Forces were once the envy of the world, in large part because we selected the best of the best, and instilled in our fighting men an unshakeable military ethos. Both the ethos and the selection, however, have been in steady decline as the Department of Defense succumbs to a dangerous ideology: that of group quotas, or forced outcome equality for identity groups based on race and sex.

Critics of the current state of affairs in our Armed Forces waste precious breath on disturbing but minor issues like reading lists, drag shows, and TikTok trends. This paper serves as a call for focus and precision on the prevalence of race and sex-based quotas, and the accompanying collapse in professional standards, in the fight to reclaim the integrity of the institution of the military.

A New Army Air Force

R.D. Hooker, Jr.

After 75 years, it is time. The U.S. Army needs its own airplanes for sound reasons that deserve careful consideration. This bold assertion should draw a strong reaction from Airmen, but the simple truth is that close air support (CAS) for the Army runs counter to everything an independent, strategic air force stands for. In war after war, bitter inter-Service rivalry recurs over the use of airpower. In the end, the Army needs fixed-wing combat aircraft for the same reasons that the Navy and Marine Corps do. Moreover, the Army cannot get reliable CAS from the Air Force, and its unique needs are Service-specific.

Make no mistake. Airpower is the crown jewel of the U.S. military; it can move faster, strike harder, and generate greater effects than all other forms of military power. In theory, we operate as a joint force, synergistically applying military capabilities in all domains to achieve effects greater than the sum of the parts. In practice, we are far from this ideal.

This claim is most apparent in airpower doctrine. Close air support has occupied the lowest priority for the Air Force since its inception in 1947; almost the first act of the newly independent Air Force was to disestablish the Tactical Air Command.2 From the beginning, Air Force leadership argued that “centralized planning and decentralized execution” represented the best way to apply airpower.3 While “strategic” missions maximize the employment of Air Force assets under Air Force commanders, CAS requires close coordination and integration with ground commanders, violating the tenets deemed essential for the optimum employment of airpower.4 Conflict over the use of airpower in what the Army calls the “close” fight (that is, in close proximity to ground troops) is a recurring feature in all wars.5 The synergistic use of both air and ground forces in this medium can produce striking effects, as the enemy is forced to fight in multiple domains simultaneously.

The Limits of British Populism

Mitchell Foyle-York

As a member of Generation Z from Britain, my entire adult life has been marked by political upheaval. When I awoke on the morning of June 24, 2016, the day after the Brexit vote, I felt as though I had followed Alice down the rabbit hole and into a new country. Though I was happy that my side of the referendum had won, I was shocked by the palpable sense of social tension I could feel everywhere I went—from my street to the local grocery store, it felt like an eruption was about to take place. It was evident back then, even to a young eighteen-year-old like myself, that something was about to fundamentally change—if it hadn’t done so already—in British politics. Particularly on the political right, a new beast was forming in the wake of Nigel Farage’s UKIP (UK Independence Party) and Brexit successes. Right-wing populism had arrived, and it did so with a bang. Little did I expect, however, that in 2024 I would be watching riots that were fuelled by misinformation, predominately spread on social media by right-wing populist accounts and figures, unravel up and down the country. But how did this all happen?

In his latest book, Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics, Matthew Goodwin argues that the reason Britain has experienced a short flurry of populist uprisings in recent years—UKIP, Brexit, the 2019 General Election—is because there has been a political realignment across the entire country. Members of the working class are, on average, sceptical of mass immigration, supported Brexit, and lean left on many economic issues. A core political issue here, Goodwin correctly notes, is that the “elites,” politicians, and bureaucrats tend not to reflect these people’s interests or desires. If anything, they strongly oppose them. Immigration is an obvious example of this, where consecutive governments have been elected on the promise of lowering net-migration, only for net-migration to continuously climb to record-breaking highs. The result of this realignment has been bursts of populism, and it appears as though it is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

In France Macron helps fanatics and socialists fight authentic Right

Conrad Black

It was a widespread assumption that French president Emmanuel Macron called the unnecessary parliamentary elections in June and July on the assumption that the Rassemblement National (RN) of Marine Le Pen would win and he would then have the three years that remain in his presidential term to torment the government and improve the chances of his own party winning the next presidential election, which he is term-limited from contesting himself.

Whether this was the strategy or not, the result of the election was to put the left-wing coalition of parties, the New Popular Front (NFP), with the almost nihilistically extreme France Unbowed (La France Insoumise) Party principal among them, in as the largest parliamentary force. Thus came after an extraordinary agreement of joint withdrawals between the president’s party, Ensemble, and the NFP to sandbag the populist conservative RN. The French system provides for a second election between the two front-runners where there is no majority on the first ballot, but withdrawals of first and second candidates in tactical exchanges between parties for the second ballot are permitted.

Is the Russian Army a Spent Force?

Peter Suciu

Ukraine’s Invasion of Kursk: What It Means for Russia’s Military Future

On Tuesday, Kyiv claimed that in the ongoing operation in the Kursk Oblast in Russia, it had captured nearly 600 Russian soldiers, while Ukrainian forces now control more than 100 settlements. Launched on August 6, it was the first invasion into Russian territory since the Second World War – and while on a much smaller scale, comes 81 years after the infamous Battle of Kursk, one of the largest battles in military history.

"As of today, we have taken control of 1,294 square kilometres of territory, which is 100 settlements... We have also significantly replenished the exchange pool: 594 servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces have been captured on this front," Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine told reporters during the Forum of Heads of State Institutions.

According to Syrskyi one of the key objectives of the incursion into Kursk was to force the Kremlin to divert forces from other fronts.

"At the moment, we can state that about 30,000 Russian servicemen have been redeployed to the Kursk front, and this figure is growing," the military chief continued.Follow PeterSuciu on Twitter

The False Promise of Ukraine’s Deep Strikes Into Russia

Stephen Biddle

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has provided Kyiv with extensive military aid. But that aid has long been subject to restrictions. Some have to do with the type of equipment provided, such as limits on transfers of long-range missiles or aircraft. Others constrain how U.S. weapons can be used. Washington has designed many of these restrictions to limit Ukraine’s ability to hit targets far behind the front, fearing that deep strikes would be unduly escalatory.

That position has been controversial. Both Ukrainian officials and outside critics argue that the Biden administration exaggerates the risk of Russian escalation, needlessly denying Kyiv critical military capabilities. Before making an assessment, it is important to consider just how militarily valuable deep strikes would be for Ukraine—how, if at all, the war’s prognosis would change if the United States were to lift its restrictions and Ukraine were to acquire the necessary capabilities. Only then would it be possible to judge whether the military benefits are worth the escalatory risk.

Utopia or Oblivion?

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Madison Urban

Introduction

This report is part of a broader project on wargaming and futurism that included the design and execution of a futurism-focused wargame, Utopia or Oblivion?, that was cohosted by the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) and Johns Hopkins University, and ran from March 25 to April 10, 2021.[1] The game that Valens Global designed and ran helped to inform this report’s understanding of best practices for leveraging insights derived from wargames for the practice of irregular warfare and futurism. This report makes two overarching contributions:

The practice of futurism can be nettlesome, yet it is of grave importance to defense planners—and, indeed, to everyone with substantive decision-making power. The twenty-first century is characterized by rapid pace of change and dense interconnectedness of major issue sets. The challenges posed by strategic competitors using irregular means to undermine U.S. interests are complex and often opaque. Thus, the report contends that well-designed wargames are a valuable tool for advancing the practice of futurism within governments for reasons related to the structure and function of games. Of particular relevance is games’ three-dimensional nature, their tactile characteristics, and the way they make participants consider issue sets through multiple frames.
Having established this baseline argument, the report provides a set of best practices for using wargames to advance the practice of futurism.

Hybrid Warfare is Less Than Warfare: A Dangerous Illusion

Prof. Alina Bârgăoanu and Dr. Elena Negrea-Busuioc

“Hybrid warfare”, “information warfare,” “cyber war” are popular buzzwords or catch-all phrases frequently used in the international discourse, especially in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022 and continues to this day. However, despite the hype, neither scholars nor practitioners have agreed on a consensus definition of the hybrid warfare phenomenon, in particular, that would add substance to the debate over the informational and public opinion dimensions of contemporary conflicts, diplomacy, and security issues.

This essay seeks to shed some light on two prevailing paradigms in theoretical treatment of hybrid warfare. Clear analysis of these two approaches will enhance reflection on society’s systemic vulnerabilities, and have practical consequences on planning and delivering adequate responses. This essay is premised on an understanding of hybrid warfare as a new type of warfare, waged with novel weapons made possible by the hyper-connectivity of the information space, as described by Mark Leonard in his book The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict. This new type of warfare lies at the hazy intersection between war and peace, and its “battlefield” is constituted both by formal governance processes, and by public perceptions of the legitimacy and relevance of these processes. In this battlefield, both weapons and their intended targets are non-military in nature, and thus appear to be “soft.” However, this does not necessarily make hybrid warfare a lesser, softer form of warfare in terms of its real-world consequences, which is the most consequential error in both understanding and countering it.

Russia’s war against Ukraine: Lessons on infrastructure security and new technologie

Maria Martisiute & Auriane Técourt

In 2022, Russia hit Ukraine with a major cyberattack and unleashed a full-scale war of aggression. This includes new technologies and AI-enabled capabilities such as the Bylina electronic warfare command-and-control system. Nord Stream and the Balticconnector also fell victim to sabotage attacks by hostile actors.

In this Policy Brief, it is highlighted that the EU has stepped up its resilience and cybersecurity of critical infrastructure. However, the capacity to leverage innovative technologies and defensive AI remains underdeveloped. Furthermore, the protection of industrial control systems (ICS) remains unaddressed. As Russia upgrades its 2030 National AI Development Strategy, there is an urgency to integrate the security of industrial controls into the EU’s approach to the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure before Moscow strikes with deadlier offensives. It is also time to start building a measured, albeit scalable, deployment plan for new technologies that may be AI-enabled for European critical infrastructure in connectivity with Ukraine and Moldova.

Building on Kursk

Lawrence Freedman

In my previous post I described the Ukrainian move into Kursk as intended to shift the narrative around the war. Prior to the invasion the view was that Ukraine was on the defensive, making Russian advances as painful as possible without actually stopping them, and so looking for other ways to hurt Russia. The core strategy was to hang on until Russia’s losses reached the point where its offensives petered out and its leadership started to look for a way out. The advantage of the Kursk operation was that it showed that Ukraine could take military initiative and as a result make serious gains while catching Moscow by surprise.

On 27 August, three weeks after the start of the incursion, President Zelensky and his Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi provided an update on its progress and what they hope to achieve. According to Syrskyi, Ukraine now controls 1,294 square kilometers and 100 settlements. He reported that 594 Russian soldiers have been captured. More importantly, in terms of the desire to encourage Russia to move troops out of Ukraine to deal with the Kursk situation, he spoke of the redirection of about 30,000 troops from other sectors to Kursk, adding that ‘this number is growing.’ The number required for a Russian counter-offensive in Kursk is assessed to be around 50,000. Yet, as was anticipated, Russia still persists with its dogged advance in the Pokrovsk sector. This is its top priority, to which it has assigned its most combat-ready units.

Army using ‘transformation in contact’ to make case for new weapons, formation decisions

Ashley Roque

Following a 500-mile air assault from Ft. Campbell, Ky., down to a heavily wooded training site in Louisiana, soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division spent a chunk of August testing out new tech and formations against an opposing force dubbed Geronimo.

The early verdict: More equipment is needed to prepare for a drone-riddled battlefield, while the division needs to relook its logistics footprint for an island-hopping campaign in the Indo-Pacific.

“We just do not have the density or the quality of our counter-UAS [unmanned aerial systems] that we would really need … for the future fight,” 101st Commanding General Maj. Gen. Brett Sylvia, told reporters Aug 22.

“I believe that we’re moving in the right direction, that the limited capabilities that we’ve gotten are better than they’ve been, but we just don’t have the density … we would want,” he later added.

Likewise, Sylvia said he is walking away from the event knowing that as his division prepares for a long-range air assault in an area like the Indo-Pacific region, it needs to be prepared to better spread out its forward arming and refueling points — more of a training and manning task.

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