Introduction
Hybrid warfare has become a point of interest of military strategists and theorists in the 21st century. This essay aims to describe the concept of hybrid warfare and its relation to asymmetric warfare. It will be argued that hybrid warfare is often utilized by insurgents to offset their weaknesses in military capabilities. Further, this paper will discuss the challenges that hybrid warfare poses to combatants from both the insurgents’ and the external power’s sides and to civilian populations.
The Concept of Hybrid Warfare
The concept of hybrid warfare appeared in the US military theory in the middle of the 2000s. It is used to denote an approach to warfare that combines both military and non-military tactics. As Renz points out, a war becomes hybrid when it involves “the coordinated and combined use of different modes of warfare, both military (use of force) and non-military (irregular tactics, criminal disorder, terrorist acts, and so on), to achieve ‘synergistic effects in the physical and psychological dimensions of conflict’ within the main battlespace.” Unconventional tactics used in hybrid warfare often include information warfare, the involvement of proxy fighters, sabotage, and psychological operations. For example, the surge in Iraq in 2007, described by Kilcullen, is an illustration of hybrid warfare. This is because, in their tactics, the Iraqis combined insurgency, sectarian and communal conflicts, domestic terrorism, and nation-building that was followed by dictatorship and war. Thus, hybrid warfare is distinguished by the use of unconventional tactics and may even involve unrestricted warfare.
Although the concept of hybrid warfare is not new, it has received much scholarly attention recently in view of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Researchers regarded this concept as the most appropriate term for describing Russia’s military modernization. Some scholars believed that Russia succeeded in Crimea because of its newly-developed and effective information warfare, and it now poses a significant threat to Western countries. For example, one researcher argued that “Russia has built up a highly developed information warfare arsenal NATO and EU are currently unable to compete with.” However, Russia’s annexation of Crimea can hardly be considered hybrid warfare because its success was attributed to very favorable conditions rather than well-developed non-military tactics. In particular, these conditions included the prior stationing of Russian soldiers in Crimea, weakened military and political leadership of Ukraine, and strong pro-Russian sentiments among the Crimean population, consisting mainly of Russians. These favorable circumstances made the use of military force unnecessary.
Hybrid warfare is often characteristic of asymmetric warfare, in which one party to the conflict is weaker than the other. Sometimes, these terms are used interchangeably, along with such expressions as “new wars” or “fourth-generation warfare.” Asymmetric warfare is described by the existence of several asymmetries between belligerents. One such asymmetry is the difference in relationships between belligerents, when one of them has no capability of invasion, and the other poses a direct threat of invasion or occupation. Further, in asymmetric conflicts, the weaker party has a “grand and powerful purpose,” while the stronger party lacks such powerful motivation to wage war. As a rule, asymmetric warfare occurs when the external power interferes in the domestic affairs of another country that suffers from the insurgency. Thus, it often involves two parties to the conflict: insurgents and the external power, as well as other population groups that can take either side depending on the circumstances.
In asymmetric conflicts, hybrid warfare is often utilized by insurgents because it can be the only way for them to overcome the militarily superior external power. It is argued that the concept of hybrid warfare helps explain how relatively weak non-governmental actors such as Al Qaeda or Taliban managed to defeat strong opponents possessing the technological and numerical advantage. This happened, for example, with the Israeli forces in the Lebanon war in 2006 and US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. Insurgents’ use of hybrid warfare is dictated by the necessity because, “lacking the technological capability or the basic resources to destroy the external enemy’s military capability, they must of necessity aim to destroy his political capability.” If insurgents manage to destroy the opponent’s political capability and the will to continue the war, they will not be defeated. As Henry Kissinger once rightly stated, “the guerilla wins if he does not lose.” Thus, insurgents use all the tactics available to them, both conventional and unconventional, to destroy the opponent’s will and make his further military efforts impossible because of political constraints, domestic opposition, or extremely increased costs of war.
Challenges of Hybrid Warfare Presented to Insurgents
As insurgents are often weaker than their opponents, they are presented with the challenge of building their strength in areas other than military capability in order to offset their weaknesses. Therefore, they have to find substitutions for conventional means of warfare, and this is what their use of hybrid warfare stems from. In their tactics, “propaganda might substitute for weapons, subversion might substitute for airpower, manpower for mechanization, political mobilization for industrial mobilization.” As the case of the Vietnam war shows, insurgents often wage war on two fronts: the first is military, occurring on the ground and in forests; the second is political and social, taking place in society. The aim of this twofold hybrid warfare is to protract the war in order to make the opponent incur extremely high costs in terms of human and material resources. Increasing costs will break the opponent’s political will and cause domestic opposition, making the opponent retreat and leading to either military stalemate or insurgents’ victory.
Another challenge presented to insurgents is to gain sufficient public support. In Mao Tse-tung’s theory of revolutionary warfare, gaining support was an essential element of the first preparation stage of guerilla war. During this stage, insurgents could coerce and intimidate the population to make them serve their goals, thus creating a climate of civil disobedience, dissent, and economic turmoil. Acquiring public support is crucial for at least two reasons. First, it is a necessary condition for defeating the enemy because “if the totality of the population can be made to resist surrender, this resistance can be turned into a war of attrition which will eventually and inevitably be victorious.” Second, the opponent is also likely to search for the support of the local population, so a failure to incline certain groups to support insurgents may lead these groups to aid the enemy, thus undermining insurgents’ chances for success. It is important to note that the influence of globalization and the emergence of mass communications have significantly facilitated gaining support. Therefore, the use of these means has begun to play an important role in insurgents’ hybrid warfare.
Challenges of Hybrid Warfare Presented to External Power’s Combatants
The US often serves as an external power attempting to impose order in countries experiencing insurgencies or other political unrests. This is because it is the most powerful country and the only nation that has the appropriate mindset and capacity to establish a global order. Therefore, it is important for the US to effectively respond to challenges posed by hybrid warfare. One challenge presented to such big nations in a fight with insurgents is that the former are often convinced of their victory because of their technological and numerical superiority. However, Mack argues that relying on military superiority may not only be ineffective but even counterproductive because insurgents are willing to “absorb costs.” As a result, they protract the war, increasing the cost of war for the external power.
As the cost of waging war elevates, the external power experiences the rise of the domestic opposition that presses it to withdraw from the war. Domestic opposition emerges in asymmetric conflicts because the parties have different motivations to participate in war and different issues at stake. The weaker party can materialize all its power because their whole nation is at stake. The stronger external power, on the contrary, has political restraints placed on the number of forces it can mobilize and relocate to the opposing country because it has no direct threat of invasion. Further, because the nation is not at stake in the external power’s country, the population prioritizes issues other than war, which leads to the emergence of domestic opposition. As Mack formulates it, “in contrast to the total-war situation, the protagonists of a limited war have to compete for resources – human, economic, and political – with protagonists of other interests – governmental, bureaucratic, ‘interest groups,’ and so forth.” Thus, the external power is faced with a challenge to combat on two fronts: the one on the battlefield with the enemy and the other at home with the opposition.
Another challenge presented to the external power is, like in the case of insurgents, to gain public support, as well as protect the local population. Kilcullen described how the US took a population-centric approach in the Surge of 2007 in Iraq and explained why this approach was justified in the conditions of hybrid war. First, securing population prevents insurgents from infiltrating communities and protects innocent people. Next, if insurgents managed to infiltrate the community of the local population, the external power’s forces made it harder for them to attack civilians by controlling who was and who was not meant to be in a particular city. Protecting the population also allows the external power’s forces to deter insurgents’ attacks by continuously patrolling the vulnerable areas. Finally, overcoming the challenge of protecting the population is necessary to reduce the intimidation experienced by civilians and succeed in gaining their support, thus making them unavailable for insurgents’ recruitment efforts.
In addition, in asymmetric conflicts, the external power may encounter the challenge of the emergence of national solidarity in the opposing country. If this happens, it will be more difficult for the external power to defeat the enemy. Mack argues that there have to be several necessary conditions for national solidarity to occur in a country. First, the country has to experience an external threat to the nation as a whole, not a particular group within it. Second, the external power’s use of occupation and military repression is likely to lead to national unity, but the local population will only resist if it is perceived as a feasible alternative to surrender. Thus, the external power is faced with the problem of winning public support among the local population under the circumstances of national cohesion.
Challenges of Hybrid Warfare Presented to Civilian Populations
Hybrid warfare poses challenges to civilian populations because it may involve unrestricted warfare. Innocent people may fall victims to terrorist attacks, tortures, and other atrocities. For example, Kilcullen notes that during the Surge of 2007, they “often seemed to arrive just seconds too late to protect the local population, and innocent noncombatants bore the brunt of violence that was often savage quite literally beyond belief, from an enemy who was used to benefiting from our self-imposed restraint.” Thus, innocent populations in the insurgents’ country were faced with the challenge of mere survival.
Civilians in the external power’s country also experience certain challenges related mainly to the allocation of resources. Since the nation has to spend resources on waging war, it cannot allocate more resources to public welfare projects and other issues that would benefit its domestic population. In addition, civilians are likely to experience adverse effects of war: “Tax increases may be necessary to cover the costs of the war, a draft system may have to be introduced, and inflation will be an almost certain by-product.” Hence, hybrid warfare in asymmetric conflicts negatively affects civilians in all involved countries.
Conclusion
Hybrid warfare is an approach to war in which combatants use both military and non-military tactics, including terrorism and information warfare. This method is characteristic of asymmetric conflicts, in which one party has a significant military superiority over the other. Hybrid warfare poses challenges to combatants from both sides, as well as the civilian population. The external power’s forces are limited in the amount of force they can mobilize and are pressed by the domestic opposition. Insurgents have to devise methods that would offset their military weaknesses and gain public support. Finally, the civilian population in the insurgents’ country suffers from terror, and that in the external power’s country experiences the burden of war in terms of resource allocation.
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