In the article “The Changing Nature of the Modern Warfare,” Thornton (2015) discusses how in contemporary environments, warfare happens not only on the battlefield. Information war, for example, is something successfully utilized by Russia and is not yet used by NATO members as a tool for defense. Russia was able to justify the occupation of Crimea in 2014 through its information war tactics with little resistance from the global community. Since NATO members are not as skilled in information warfare, this lack of expertise can cause serious harm in case of a conflict between NATO and Russia. This paper is a review of the article by Thornton titled “The Changing Nature of Modern Defence.”
The central claim made by the author of “The Changing Nature of Modern Warfare” is that NATO has to change its military doctrine and adopt information war and hybrid war methods. According to Thornton (2015), “Russia has ‘won’ in Crimea by affording subversive information campaigns primacy in its military operations” (p. 41). The central military doctrine of the Western States has been the irregular warfare principle. This approach means that the armies of the states had to become smaller but better equipped and more agile (Thornton, 2015). This is an effective approach when fighting against terrorist organizations, such as Al-Quaeda, the Taliban, or ISIS. However, the current international environment, and especially the recent events, show that the NATO states have to be prepared to fight against not only terrorist organizations but also against states. Moreover, unlike terrorist organizations, which primarily focus on attacks and fights on the battlefield, states such as Russia utilize tools outside of the battlefield to justify their actions or gain support from the global community.
Russia won Crimea in a campaign based primarily on propaganda warfare (Thornton, 2015). Consequently, the country’s military perceives the coast as a force multiplier and a crucial benefit for winning the war. Western governments and militaries must respond to Russia’s accomplishments through their own use of information. Any such replies must be appropriate and sound in character.
The author of the article focuses on providing specific examples of Russia’s military activities that happened in recent years. Thornton (2015) cites Russia’s military policy and the way the state managed its sphere of influence within the recent decade as the main argument to support the idea that NATO has to change its approach to warfare. More specifically, the 2008 battle with Georgia was viewed as a ‘loss’ in terms of the flaws it exposed and the shortcomings that were obvious to top military leaders (Thornton, 2015). Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, was the major critic of this dismal performance and the main driver of reform, hoping to establish a force that would be a far more effective instrument of Russian influence on the world scene. Russia has been unsuccessful in expanding its influence on the neighboring states, and its president believed that the Western capitalists invested in revolutions in these countries to make them pro-Western. This could have been a danger to Russia and its government, and therefore, the state needed to act. A simple approach would be to create a bigger and stronger army to ensure that wars such as the one in Georgia in 2008 were won by Russia (Thornton, 2015). However, this approach has proven to be impossible to execute in Russia, and its government turned to other methods.
Within the discipline of warfare, this reading is very important because it highlights an understudied element of warfare. Information wars, as seen by Russia’s example, as something that allows weaker and less equipped armies to win and politicians to pursue their interests. Yet, NATO’s officials have ignored this factor, focusing primarily on strengthening their armed forces and equipping their soldiers better. This approach can lead to detrimental consequences if faced with a conflict with a state that successfully employs information war tools, such as Russia.
The theoretical underpinnings of this article are the asymmetric approach to crafting a military strategy. Such an approach allows one to turn the enemy’s strength into their weakness (Thornton, 2015). Hence, the author expands the existing warfare and political science theories by citing the importance of information wars and employing tools that allow the management of information. The article is structured in a manner that provides an overview of Russia’s warfare tactics in recent years, followed by a discussion of hybrid wars and information wars. The author concludes by providing several suggestions to NATO states in terms of policies and warfare doctrines that should help them restructure their military powers in a way suitable for the current environment, where information war allows them to gain a substantial advantage on the battlefield.
The strengths of argumentation include the variety of facts based on Russia’s wars in Georgia and Ukraine. The author bases their arguments on data and historical facts, as opposed to assumptions. As Thornton (2015) suggests, the most effective way to confront Russian operations in Ukraine and the Baltics is unlikely to be military in nature. Western countries must “think about security in a far more complex way” and “create a reaction as nuanced as the attack” (Thornton, 2015, p. 41). It is necessary to develop a complicated asymmetric strategy to weaken the ‘power vertical’ Russian forces use for strengthening their tactics. Indeed, applying sanctions to all people who influence Putin’s decision-making would enable them to lobby for ending the military operation. For instance, banning these individuals’ businesses and prohibiting traveling or living in foreign countries can force them to convince the president to reconsider the terrible act he has initiated.
The weakness of the argumentation is that the author does not analyze the information policy and hybrid warfare strategies that NATO states have utilized. Although, as opposed to Russia, NATO states have not used this approach in full scare conflicts, the comparison of methodologies could have provided a more comprehensive overview of how the tactics of the two opponents differ. Additionally, it would allow one to see the gaps in NATO’s military doctrine more clearly, as information war is not something the member states can avoid.
Thornton’s “The Changing Nature of the Modern Warfare” reveals that today’s conflicts have a complicated foundation and require different approaches to developing resolutions and influencing the key decision-makers. This article focuses on the appraisal of NATO’s and Russia’s military strategies, and the author suggests that the latter has been more successful in employing novel tools as a part of their military doctrine. The latter state has been using hybrid and information war in its campaigns to win new territories without providing much attention to the army forces. NATO, on the other hand, has been largely ignoring the hybrid and information war tools in its doctrine. This issue can become a serious disadvantage for the alliance in the future.
Reference
Thornton, R. (2015). The changing nature of modern warfare. The RUSI Journal, 160(4), 40-48. doi: 10.1080/03071847.2015.1079047