Hybrid Warfare

Instructor: Ammar Gul

Conceptualizing the Hybrid Warfare:

 Hybrid wars can hence be defined as coordinated and often

simultaneous deployment of multiple instruments of power and
influence aimed at exploiting the adversary at every level from leaders
to citizens.
 Concept emerged 1000 years ago: Sun Tzu book Art of War: indirect
tactics to weak rival.
 The Art of War’s focus on deception and intelligence, the mixed use of
regular and irregular troops and the emphasis on defeating the enemy’s
will to fight the war.
 Gerasimov doctrine’ of maskirovka, of operating below the threshold of
open, conventional warfare while maintaining plausible deniability of
involvement.
 Frank Hoffman (2009) – arguably hybrid warfare’s leading theorist – has
expounded a vision of hybrid warfare as a purely military concept.
 He defines hybrid warfare as the blending and fusing of “the full range of
methods and modes of conflict into a single battlespace”
 Conventional methods – conventional tactics, formations,
and organisation
 Irregular methods – irregular tactics, formations, and
organisations; including terrorism, guerrilla and proxy
warfare, indiscriminate violence, coercion, and criminal
disorder
 Various actor types – varying between traditional, irregular,
catastrophic, and disruptive; can include state and non-
state actors
 Advanced weaponry and high-technology – such as network
technology, cyber tools, and advanced conventional
weapons
 Discourse on the global threat Environment:
  Military means – both conventional and irregular
methods
 Diplomatic means – using or influencing processes in
international law (e.g. treaties, conventions, and
frameworks) to exert diplomatic pressure upon a
competitor or adversary
 Economic means – generate economic pressure
through sanctions, access to markets, energy policy
or otherwise disturb a competitor’s economic and
commercial activity
 Cyber tools – espionage, manipulation, influence,
attack, and sabotage
 Propaganda – (dis)information campaigns and fake
news


 Russian attack on the Ukraine.
 NATO Summits 2014 and 2016: Hybrid Fusion Cell, Start com Taskforce.
 The very rules of war have changed significantly. The use of non-military
methods to achieve political and strategic objectives.
 We are living in a nuclear age: nuclear weapons, chemical weapons,
therefore avoid direct confrontation: costly: US interventions: a threat of
nuclear war: so adopt the path of hybridization of war.
 Aims of Hybrid Warfare:
 Indirect warfare.
 Destabilize your rival.
  Disturb the policy makers of rival country.
 Instruments that make hybrid warfare lethal:
 Prevalence of poverty.
 Weak structure of state.
 Deteriorating law and order situation.
 Presence of different ethnic identities.
 Lack of trust and bonding between the government and the
masses.
 Theoretical Perspective of hybrid warfare:
1. Global Dominance Theory or Heartland Theory by sir
Halford Mackinder: a British geo-strategist.
 If America wants its global dominance then it
has to weaken its biggest rival Russia by
indirect warfare.
 Eurasian region or pivot zone is the way to
control the world.
 This pivot zone is rich in natural resources,
located in a pivotal geo-strategic position and
connects the East with the West.
 Currently controlled by Russia and Its
peripheries.
 It is covered with security ring.
 So, Halford Mackinder opines that whoever
controls the pivot zone controls the world.
 His suggestions to America are based on
hybridization of war:
 Control the Eastern Europe:
gateway to the Eurasian region:
Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey
etc.
 Weaken Russia through creating
ethnic anarchy in its neighbouring
countries: Kazakhstan, Ukraine,
Romania, Georgia etc.
  Try to weaken the buffer zone of
Russia: Civil wars, chaos and ethnic
violence.
 All these actions should be
performed clandestinely.
 Include also China.

2. Warden’s Five Ring Theory or Airpower theory:

 Weaken the five rings of the rival state.
 Leadership: Regime change and
suppression of population.
 System essentials: paralyse the
system.
 Infrastructure: Violent protests
destroy the infrastructure.
 Population: influence the
population through the
disinformation, turn it against the
leadership and military.
 o Military and
leadership will try to
suppress the
population: civil war:
Syria.
o Leadership quits the
government due to
the pressure of
population: regime
change.
 Fielded Military: Change in regime
and suppress the population.

 Tools of Hybrid Warfare:

1) Colour Revolutions:
 Instigate population, mass protests, and violent
civil wars against government for corruption,
economic crisis or political instability.
Examples: Tulip Revolution: President of
Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev's fall from
power.
Orange Revolution: Ukraine: power
change.
 Rose Revolution: Georgia.
Blue Revolution: Kuwait: Women
suffrage.
Arab Spring, Lebanon crisis: what’s app
tax.
2) Insurgency, Unconventional warfare, Proxy warfare:
 Terrorism, separatist movements, suicide
bombing through non-state actors.
 Sponsor terrorist activities against rival
country.
Example: Pakistan: TTP, BLA, BLF, PTM.
Indian: against Pakistan: Kulbhushan
Yadav: Dossier by the FO and ISPR, Johar
Town Attack.
Iran Proxy warfare in Yeman, Iraq,
Lebanon and Palestine: Houthi, Hizbollah
etc.
3) Economic coercion of the rival country:
 Sanctions, loans, economic isolation, IFI: IMF,
WB, Foreign aids, military assistance.
Example: India: Pakistan: FATF.
US: North Korea, Iran, Russia, Syria,
Belarus etc.
4) Utilization of Cyber attacks to devastate cyber
infrastructure of the rival country:
 Using software to damage the digital
infrastructure of the rival state.
 Phone tapping, hacking websites and
controlling nuclear launching system.
Example: Israel: Pegasus, US: Eternal
Blue.
Case study of Snowden
Modi: PM Khan: Blackberry.
Russia: Ransomware.
 Electoral interventions of Russia in the
US
US and Israel used Stuxnet: Iran.
5) Information Warfare:
 Social media warfare, propaganda, false
theories, misinformation, creating a narrative
against the rival country.
Example: Propaganda Ministry of Hitler.
Islamophobia, India portraying Pakistan
as terrorist country: EU’s Disinfo leb
report.
Russia against Europe during corona
virus
6) Political and diplomatic isolation:
 Isolate the rival state from the political and
diplomatic channels of the world.
 Political coercion through world Institutions:
UN, HRW, UNHRC.
 Realist theory: utilization of state power.
 Nuclear assets of Pakistan are in danger: Indian
propaganda.
 Strategies to counter Hybrid Warfare:
A. DDR approach: Detect, deter, and respond.
B. Generating trust between ruling elite and common
masses.
C. Improving governance to strengthen national integration.
D. Pursuance of aggressive foreign policy to deter political
isolation and coercion.
E. Strengthening economic structure to eradicate economic
dependency and coercion.
F. Constituting global initiatives and devising global
strategies to curb hybrid warfare.
G. Establishing institutions to counter propagandas on social
media.
H. Creating strong cyber security system to counter cyber
attacks.