Hybrid Warfare (merged thread)

[Ken White]

...it won't be a littoral combat ship or a Stryker MGS that will save your / our ass, but determined, creative, well educated and at last but not at least well paid grunts who will know what to do at the right time at the right place...This is likely true:
and it won't be a targeted kill by a Hellfire or a collapsing building by a Tomahawk cruise missile, much rather a well placed video in a filesharing site or one single shot through a window by a good ol' 7,62×51 NATO round put into the right person and not into some bystander or even a one line news on the stock exchange billboard heralding the untimely death of an overzealous broker.This could also be true if the west does not awaken...
...Well it is broke. If not now then in 2-5 yrs all of you will see exactly how REALLY broke it is in the very moment when your semi-competent clowns will kick our NATO/US/UK/Israeli a$$.We have a brief window and we'd better take advantage of it...

[William F. Owen]

With all respect Wilf it is Ursa Maior, the stellar constellation meaning big bear. Being 190 cms with 130kgs it is my nick since ages.
Apologies. I just assumed the spelling was for the constellation - Ursa Major (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major) - Maj, and me having studied Latin for 8 years! My mistake.


I was told by a senior hungarian (70+) general that between 1973 and 1982ish it was common belief that WP can break through the Fulda-gap.
Cannot speak for the Fulda Gap. My turf was the 1 BR Corps area and his views were not shared by the GSGF/WGF planing Staff between 1985-1991. The Soviets had very real concerns about 3 Shock Army even being able to reach the Rhine, without pre-emptively using nuclear weapons (x 48-9 in the 1 BR Corps area alone) - not sure where this gets us?


I can put something valuable on it that your "semi-competent clowns" will not be a regular army....
With respect, I doubt your powers of prediction. You simple cannot tell me "who, why, when or where." My guess is that High explosive, and small arms rounds will be what will cause the most casualties.

Of course ICBMs, YAL-1s, MLRSs and JDAMs and F-22s are good against some future advesary once in a decade, but it won't be a littoral combat ship or a Stryker MGS that will save your
F-22, MGS, and Littoral Combat ship = massive waste of time and money. Read my last 2 years of posts.
MLRS and JDAM are good. Tanks are always good. Well trained infantry are always good. Thermobaric is always good.

/ our ass, but determined, creative, well educated and at last but not at least well paid grunts who will know what to do at the right time at the right place,
...and that won't happen if all his skill sets and combat applications have been eroded by silly ideas and concepts. What you are saying works, worked in Korea.

much rather a well placed video in a filesharing site or one single shot through a window by a good ol' 7,62×51 NATO round put into the right person and not into some bystander or even a one line news on the stock exchange billboard heralding the untimely death of an overzealous broker.
Tom Clancy School of Military Thought? Sorry, but do you want to train for that or another Rwanda, Somalia, or Korea ?


Sorry Wilf these are the words of Echevarria, col. Gentile and others who say 'if it ain't broke don't fix it!'. Well it is broke.
So what you are saying is do not listen to military historians? - and neither man is saying 'if it ain't broke don't fix it!' - and if they are, I certainly am not!

All your SODs, EBOs, MW, 4GW and "Complex adaptive" stuff is a bunch of folks pumping personal agendas for their own sake to sell books, get PhDs whatever. Personally, I only see Tom Hammes as well intentioned. They all rely on a child like understanding of military history.

As concerns "Hybrid," I do not doubt the sincerity of my friend Frank Hoffman. I know why he came up with Hybrid. I just think it's a very bad solution to the problem, because like MW is has damaging flow down effects!

The rest is the worst kind of Snake Oil, "claiming to cure all known ills." - on the basis of no evidence. I have watched first hand, all these wooly ideas get one army in deep trouble. Rejecting them has done it no harm.

Why seek to be clever and inventive, when the entire history of warfare shows that simple and effective works better than all else?

There is nothing in Warfare we do not know how to do better - we just choose not to do it because in making that choice, a lot of human organisational and bureaucratic needs get trampled.

We can have serious, useful and detailed debate about future doctrine, training and equipment, but that cannot start until basic, fundamental, and enduring aspects of warfare are recognised. If it is a more dangerous world it's because we are becoming stupider.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Wifl,


As concerns "Hybrid," I do not doubt the sincerity of my friend Frank Hoffman. I know why he came up with Hybrid. I just think it's a very bad solution to the problem, because like MW is has damaging flow down effects!

Wilf I agree with your comments about a child like understanding of warfare and the snakeoil salesmen, but I don't get you're point about Hybrid being solution?

I read hybrid, 4th GW, and irregular warfare (this one is weaker) as being a description of a type of conflict that is different than conventional conflict. It's useful is its narrative, it tells a story about a type of conflict and hopefully helps Soldiers and their leaders focus on the appropriate training and tactics to deal with the threat.

A lot of conventional armies fared poorly against guerrilla tactics because they failed to adapt their tactics or understand the context of the fight they were in. There is a big difference between conventional armies waging a major battle for a piece of turf, compared to a conventional army waging battle against insurgents who are in various degrees protected and enabled by certain elements of the populace.

I wish we didn't have to use these terms, but my interpretation of history is without them we will default to training our army to only fight conventional wars. How many times in our history have we developed a capability and the knowledge to respond effectively to irregular threats and then discarded that capability?

While 4GW, Hybrid and IW are poorly defined and don't offer that much which is new, they still serve a purpose.

[William F. Owen]

If we can’t find the Afghan Inglorious Bastards and figure out why criminals without money, air support, artillery, armoured vehicles or large training centers can be compared to the Marines, we will never win this fight. We need to ask tough questions and stop making up the answers that please us.
LCol JJ Malevich, Canadian Exchange Officer, COIN Branch Chief US Army/ USMC Counter Insurgency Center.
I think this question is very germane to the issue under discussion.

[UrsaMaior]

Apologies. I just assumed the spelling was for the constellation - Ursa Major (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major) - Maj, and me having studied Latin for 8 years! My mistake.

Null problemo. I also corrected it in Wiki.


Cannot speak for the Fulda Gap. My turf was the 1 BR Corps area and his views were not shared by the GSGF/WGF planing Staff between 1985-1991. The Soviets had very real concerns about 3 Shock Army even being able to reach the Rhine, without pre-emptively using nuclear weapons (x 48-9 in the 1 BR Corps area alone) - not sure where this gets us?

We were talking about true peers. And yes in the period you mentioned they were desperate cuz they knew they are seriously disadvantaged in high tech.


With respect, I doubt your powers of prediction. You simple cannot tell me "who, why, when or where." My guess is that High explosive, and small arms rounds will be what will cause the most casualties.

I don't have a crystall ball so I am not predicting. I am guessing the possibilities and these are for something which is organised violence yet hardly even a small war.


F-22, MGS, and Littoral Combat ship = massive waste of time and money. Read my last 2 years of posts.

My bad I was not paying attention.


MLRS and JDAM are good. Tanks are always good.

Not always. In a HIC (btw why do't you like this expression?) they are priceless. In a metropolis they are a burden. (with the exception of MBTs developed for urban combat)


Well trained infantry are always good. Thermobaric is always good.

Concur.


...and that won't happen if all his skill sets and combat applications have been eroded by silly ideas and concepts. What you are saying works, worked in Korea.

If we agreed that CvC is right then there should be also no debate on "the trial of will". A good light infantryman (the symbol of hybrid/4gw/iw but not the onyl asset of it) is creative, a good marksman, excelling in MOUT, has cultural understanding (ie does not think he is a crusader to convert the locals etc.) and is able to handle the media well. He (sorry gals!) operates on foot, pays the locals for food (ie not logistics intensive) etc.
I don't see any contradiction with classical infantry requirements. Yes he is less likely to be a good subordinate, and definitely not someone the current NATO hierarchy will promote (see Nagl's comments in his book on SF officers) but he can win us those pesky wars which are ahead of us.


Tom Clancy School of Military Thought? Sorry, but do you want to train for that or another Rwanda, Somalia, or Korea ?

Glad that you brought him up. In William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) he has predicted a similar kind of war (lotsa SOCOM, economical maneuvers and counter satellite war). But this is not new. Reagan has used the USA's econimical power to defeat the soviets. Why is it impossible that other actors are doing the same? Sometimes people from the outside see better than people inside limited by their own priorities.


So what you are saying is do not listen to military historians? - and neither man is saying 'if it ain't broke don't fix it!' - and if they are, I certainly am not!

Why are Lind, Creveld, Hoffman and others not military historians? I say listen to ALL of them even to the strangest ideas and let us see what we can come up with. You know thesis+antithesis=synthesis. IMHO and please correct me if I am wrong most of them says WMDs + CVBGs + RMA gadgets = unchallanged US superiority. I am saying that you must add media and free global markets into this equation.


All your SODs, EBOs, MW, 4GW and "Complex adaptive" stuff is a bunch of folks pumping personal agendas for their own sake to sell books, get PhDs whatever. Personally, I only see Tom Hammes as well intentioned. They all rely on a child like understanding of military history.

Very well could be. Yet you cannot deny there is some truth in what they say and some jealousy behind their refusal on the other side. If they were not telling some truth it would be immediately evident that they are fake. If you dont like Fuller see what happened to Guderian or Tuhachevski. At the end they were right. Not 100%, but right.


As concerns "Hybrid," I do not doubt the sincerity of my friend Frank Hoffman. I know why he came up with Hybrid. I just think it's a very bad solution to the problem, because like MW is has damaging flow down effects!

IMHO the idea was to sell the change in the circumstances to those who normally close their eyes in the very first moment they see something which do not fits in their universe.


The rest is the worst kind of Snake Oil, "claiming to cure all known ills." - on the basis of no evidence. I have watched first hand, all these wooly ideas get one army in deep trouble. Rejecting them has done it no harm.

Those who claim to found the philosophers' stone deserve this kind of treatment. But I don't see any of the above mentioned theoriticians doing it. Maybe a small percentage of spin offs yes but some 'B' class copy cats should not discredit a honest and forward looking concept. If you mean IDF with the above it was not the ideas but their misunderstanding which lead to trouble. Like you wrote not preparing against an enemy which was well known and not making calculations about our actions' effects was a disaster from the very beginning. And it is not connected to any acronyms. It is a pure simple and often human mistake.


Why seek to be clever and inventive, when the entire history of warfare shows that simple and effective works better than all else?

YEs. IMHO it is simple and effective to talk to locals, to eat their food and look into their eyes without sunglasses opposed to inventing new tortures, reinventing the MGS wheel (see C1 Centauro), or using an air superiority fighter as AWACS.


There is nothing in Warfare we do not know how to do better - we just choose not to do it because in making that choice, a lot of human organisational and bureaucratic needs get trampled.

Good point. But this kind of systematic laziness -remember Teutoburg?- or infighting and incompetence at Adrianople can lead to serious and lasting defeat. Why on earth should I stand in silence watching some people with good intentions, a huge ego and almost zero knowledge of the real world
leading the legions into obliteration?


We can have serious, useful and detailed debate about future doctrine, training and equipment, but that cannot start until basic, fundamental, and enduring aspects of warfare are recognised. If it is a more dangerous world it's because we are becoming stupider.

Concur. Our (the west's) dominance is coming to its end. We can rush it or we can delay it. The basics of war are the same whatever kind of approach we are talking about. It is us who make us weaker.
I don't understand the debates e.g raging about Obama's nobel prize. If we don't find a solution to transatlantic issues soon others will find a way to exploit this breach. No matter how they deny it the russians have a complex plan using all their resources to exert their influence over Europe again, the chinese have since more than a decade a "Grand strategy" to overcome their weakness in conventional weaponry (and are working hard to close this gap) and we are having our 35437th 'whose is bigger' contest. You are right Wilf the means are not new (diplomacy, economics, military etc.) but this kind of interdisciplinary, complex approach is not something we have seen before. And we are lagging behind in this very area.

[Taiko]

A little late but none the less:


Those who resist that a fundamental change is occuring in the international system does not accept any of these new 'schools'.

Interesting, so what has changed?

Despite the best efforts of liberals, and their international institutions, human nature has not changed. For the majority of the earth's population life is poor, nasty, brutal and short. The international system is still a permissive environment that is dominated by fear, honor and greed. Wars are still a continuation of politics by other means, even the one happening in Afghanistan right now. The struggle for power is still the only game in town. State's still convert economic growth into military power, or did you miss China's 60th anniversary celebrations? Great powers still rise and decline. Other powers are more than eager to stake their claim to regional hegemony and great power status. Nope, not much has really changed since Thucydides put pen to paper.


Our (the west's) dominance is coming to its end

Myself and some 5000 odd nuclear tipped ICBM will disagree. The problem with 'hybrid warfare' is that it conflates the actual threat potential of the adversary to a delusory level. When a country can meet or exceed nuclear parity with the West, that is when we will be facing a true threat to our existence. Otherwise, in many cases, the West is just attempting to get involved with conflicts that have little to no real strategic value, and pose little to no real strategic threat. This is the point that Enchevarria et'al are making and they are correct.

[Fuchs]

A little late but none the less:
For the majority of the earth's population life is poor, nasty, brutal and short.

That's quite a mischaracterization.

"poor" - most are poor by Western standards, but human perception of wealth is relative. Half of the population has by definition above-average wealth and they feel like it. Absolute material wealth is improving in much of the world as well.

"nasty" - ?

"brutal" - there' peace in most places. War and violent crime are the exception. The world looked very different in this regard in 1830.

"short" - 143 of 224 countries/territories in the CIA World Factbook have a life expectancy of 70 years or more. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/rawdata_2102.text That is certainly a huge change!

[William F. Owen]

I don't have a crystall ball so I am not predicting. I am guessing the possibilities and these are for something which is organised violence yet hardly even a small war.
If it's not war, why are we worried? Only wars can effectively set forth policy using violence. The lesson of 911 is that it didn't work. More US troops now in the ME than when he started and AQ is not doing so well.

(btw why do't you like this expression?)
Because it neither accurately or usefully describe the condition it attempts to. I merely differentiate between Regular and Irregular actors, not their means or methods.


A good light infantryman (the symbol of hybrid/4gw/iw but not the onyl asset of it) is creative, a good marksman, excelling in MOUT, has cultural understanding (ie does not think he is a crusader to convert the locals etc.) and is able to handle the media well.
Just say infantryman (not light) and develop all the reasonable levels of skills and education and I agree with you. I just think Hybrid and 4GW are actually blocks to doing that well.


He (sorry gals!) operates on foot, pays the locals for food (ie not logistics intensive) etc.
Again, operates on foot - WHEN REQUIRED, and has the necessary logistic support. Local food can wipe out a platoon in 2 hours! Eat only what is necessary to build useful contacts, and only some eat, not everyone! - Lessons from the 1890's.

Glad that you brought him up. In William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) he has predicted a similar kind of war (lotsa SOCOM, economical maneuvers and counter satellite war).
As a once published novelist, I am sceptical of fictions utility in this domain. Story is not a good medium for technical discussion.

Why are Lind, Creveld, Hoffman and others not military historians?
Van Creveld is a military historian. Lind has never published any military history that I have seen. Yes he has an MA in History. Not sure I would describe Frank Hoffman as an historian either. - but this misses the point.

Military history is the primary guide to military thought as concerns identifying what actually took place, what worked, what did not and why. NOT coming up with concepts and then using history to prove them!

I say listen to ALL of them even to the strangest ideas and let us see what we can come up with.
...or let's study history and the art of warfare as we know it to be the evidence supports.

IMHO and please correct me if I am wrong most of them says WMDs + CVBGs + RMA gadgets = unchallanged US superiority.
Yes, idiots are part of the problem.

I am saying that you must add media and free global markets into this equation.
OK, but tell me why.

If you dont like Fuller see what happened to Guderian or Tuhachevski. At the end they were right. Not 100%, but right.

There is a pervading myth that Fuller "influenced" Guderian and Tuchaschevsky. It is a myth mostly spread by Liddle-Hart. Yes they read his work, and rejected it. Triandifillov, Tuchaschevsky and Guderian were old-school guys working with tools they understood or could reasonably develop, to solve immediate and pressing problems in warfare. It is very debatable as to how much the detail of their writing actually survived WW2.

IMHO the idea was to sell the change in the circumstances to those who normally close their eyes in the very first moment they see something which do not fits in their universe.
So sell rather than use evidence and argument based on facts?


If you mean IDF with the above it was not the ideas but their misunderstanding which lead to trouble. Like you wrote not preparing against an enemy which was well known and not making calculations about our actions' effects was a disaster from the very beginning. And it is not connected to any acronyms. It is a pure simple and often human mistake.
They understood SOD. They invented it. They also had a perfectly good understanding of EBO. They had studied more than most people. It just didn't work when employed against someone who thought it strategically irrelevant.
The lack of Land Warfare preparation, based on what was clearly known, is mostly attributable to beliefs that flowed from the above combined with a misallocation of funds caused by much the same reason.

YEs. IMHO it is simple and effective to talk to locals, to eat their food and look into their eyes without sunglasses
There was never a time on the last 100 years, and some time before that, the British Army was teaching that very stuff.

Good point. But this kind of systematic laziness -remember Teutoburg?- or infighting and incompetence at Adrianople can lead to serious and lasting defeat. Why on earth should I stand in silence watching some people with good intentions, a huge ego and almost zero knowledge of the real world leading the legions into obliteration?
Answer that and you have a place in history.

Our (the west's) dominance is coming to its end.
What dominance?
Mogadishu 93 - a bunch of khat chewing morons, who couldn't shoot straight defeated a US Policy with 18 KIA. I doubt Farah Idid ever read CvC but he knew how to apply him perfectly. Pity Clinton did not.
There is no evidence we had any dominance apart from assertions that we did. That's my starting point. Not the "oh god! It's all changed and is very complicated" routine.

[Taiko]

That's quite a mischaracterization.

"poor" - most are poor by Western standards, but human perception of wealth is relative. Half of the population has by definition above-average wealth and they feel like it. Absolute material wealth is improving in much of the world as well.

"nasty" - ?

"brutal" - there' peace in most places. War and violent crime are the exception. The world looked very different in this regard in 1830.

"short" - 143 of 224 countries/territories in the CIA World Factbook have a life expectancy of 70 years or more. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/rawdata_2102.text That is certainly a huge change!

The international system is still a permissive environment that is dominated by fear, honor and greed. Wars are still a continuation of politics by other means, even the one happening in Afghanistan right now. The struggle for power is still the only game in town. State's still convert economic growth into military power, or did you miss China's 60th anniversary celebrations? Great powers still rise and decline. Other powers are more than eager to stake their claim to regional hegemony and great power status. Nope, not much has really changed since Thucydides put pen to paper.

[Fuchs]

The international system is still a permissive environment that is dominated by fear, honor and greed. Wars are still a continuation of politics by other means, even the one happening in Afghanistan right now.
The struggle for power is still the only game in town. State's still convert economic growth into military power, or did you miss China's 60th anniversary celebrations? Great powers still rise and decline. Other powers are more than eager to stake their claim to regional hegemony and great power status. Nope, not much has really changed since Thucydides put pen to paper.

The international system is coined by cooperation and restrictions. Those who violate the system and seed fear are exceptions.
I would use "prestige" instead of "honor" in the context of an "international system".
Greed - well, that's kinda how we keep us fed.

Isn't much of the fighting in Afghanistan a produce of revenge and professional behaviour (mercenary insurgents)? That's something different than politics.
Institutions wage war for political ends, but not all groups do so.

About China's parade:
http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2009/10/air-power-of-peoples-republic-of-china.html
Not really that exceptional if compared to Third World 60's parades.

[UrsaMaior]

Of couse I am not suggesting that infantry should walk ALL the times, also not suggesting that you should sell rather than argue. As long as the weapons stay the same there is not major leap forward in infantry tactics. Please treat each other as reasonable (is this the correct word?) people.

As a classical mechanised maneuver would cost too much even for the winner (imagine Georgia 2008 on a bigger scale, and please don't tell me it is not relevant. It is the closest to relevant.) there are other ways a state must pursue in reaching its goals. You know it much better than I do, that there is a certain level in wars when there are political decisions with military effects. And these are usually not covered in mil hist books. We are talking about grand strategy where the military is only one if many aspects. Since the normal modus operandi of the armed forces is seriously restricted other means must step forward. Media and global trade can have the same or better results than outright violence with much less hassle. Just like the carrier replaced the battleship. You keep asking me why I think media is that important. Because it is THE weapon in the clash of wills. While the US is not affected by an embargo say of muslim fashion designers it would hard hit by a media-led stoppage of weapons import. In the present time of cheap (and small!!) videocameras/mobile phones capable of recording (see that girl shot dead by a basiji in Iran) and filesharing sites you cannot leave the media (public opinion) out of quotation. That one single video of no more than 5 minutes caused more harm to Ahmedinejad than his mumblings. Or see the quoted case of Fallujah.
As of global markets you don't need anymore to destroy your opponent's armies and occupy some important turf as someone said to bring it its knees. One small secret maneuver with its currency and it is begging for mercy. Russia has bought off half Austria controlling more of it than it had between 1945-1955. Thanks to global markets it does not matter that it does not have a single soldier on austrian soil. It continously denies even the existence of the "energy weapon" yet it uses to strangle a west orientated Ukraine, to influence EU decisions etc. And believe me they are doing it in according to a complex master plan, where politics, economy, culture and military all play their part. That's the least you can expect from a nation whose national sport is chess.

Sad or not war is getting out of fashion just as major epidemies have vanished. Yet interests remain. What is the solution? I don't exactly know. I only can guess that age old, in the west long forgotten methods will be combined with new technolgies and concepts. And if we don't continously strive to be ahead of the competition we can loose our advatage (real or not but since the others also believe that it exists we can accept its existence). I am sorry Wilf but clinging to the notion that there is no significant change on the way IMHO is more damaging than examining such wild theories as 5GW, nanoterrorists and stuff.

[Fuchs]

That energy weapon is in fact still holstered.

The Ukrainians failed to pay bills at less than half the price per unit that Western Europeans pay for the same good.
So they basically get their terribly inefficient energy sector subsidized by Russia, are in no way cooperative about legitimate Russian interests in regard to Russian majority regions in Ukraine and generally didn't behave as we would want states to behave in the EU, for example.

I don't want to think about what the Bush government would have done to the Ukraine if it had been in Putin's position.

Cutting off the supply as a gas company does to your household if you don't pay their bills was no use of a weapon in my opinion.

[William F. Owen]

Of couse I am not suggesting that infantry should walk ALL the times, also not suggesting that you should sell rather than argue. As long as the weapons stay the same there is not major leap forward in infantry tactics. Please treat each other as reasonable (is this the correct word?) people.
Concur. Apology if I seemed unreasonable - not my intent.


In the present time of cheap (and small!!) videocameras/mobile phones capable of recording (see that girl shot dead by a basiji in Iran) and filesharing sites you cannot leave the media (public opinion) out of quotation. That one single video of no more than 5 minutes caused more harm to Ahmedinejad than his mumblings.
a.) Who is still in Power?
b.) Was it that she was killed, or that the killing was filmed?
c.) There is virtually none/if any live footage of any atrocity in Darfur. Any less relevant for the lack of footage?


As of global markets you don't need anymore to destroy your opponent's armies and occupy some important turf as someone said to bring it its knees. One small secret maneuver with its currency and it is begging for mercy. Russia has bought off half Austria controlling more of it than it had between 1945-1955.
Maybe so. That is not a military problem. It is entirely diplomatic/political. Lack of funds is only relevant if it prevents a military acquiring resources. Resources - fuel, ammunition, weapons and manpower are still useable even if the economy has been wiped out. Men with guns will always predate men with bank accounts, and no guns.

Sad or not war is getting out of fashion just as major epidemies have vanished.
Really? Where is the evidence? Going out of Fashion for who, when and where?

I am sorry Wilf but clinging to the notion that there is no significant change on the way IMHO is more damaging than examining such wild theories as 5GW, nanoterrorists and stuff.
I'm not clinging to it. Where is the evidence? More over you cannot predict that change.
Noble said Dynamite would end warfare. Historically the vast majority of predicted RMAs have failed. I can cite you many many examples and they far outnumber the RMAs that were actually predicted and actually came to pass. War
Show me a major Military development in the last 15 years, that has caused seismic shifts in military affairs?
All we have seen is strategic developments. The applications of force which worked in 1994 still work today.
Any point in looking more than 15 years into the future?

[UrsaMaior]

Concur. Apology if I seemed unreasonable - not my intent.

No problem. Me no native speaker ;)


a.) Who is still in Power?
b.) Was it that she was killed, or that the killing was filmed?
c.) There is virtually none/if any live footage of any atrocity in Darfur. Any less relevant for the lack of footage?

You are right I should have written Iran instead of Am'jad. The fact it was shown all around the world which counts. And yes the reason why Darfur continues is that there are no videocameras not to mention mobilphones around. The are rumours of a NATO mission there for more than TWO years!! yet for lack of media coverage it is still not launched.


Maybe so. That is not a military problem. It is entirely diplomatic/political. Lack of funds is only relevant if it prevents a military acquiring resources. Resources - fuel, ammunition, weapons and manpower are still useable even if the economy has been wiped out. Men with guns will always predate men with bank accounts, and no guns.

I believe there are less and less solely military problems. Men with guns are a tactical problem not strategic so to say. Just like Taiko you seem think that force (pphysical or muilitary) has a solution to any problem. I am not so sure about it. You cannot bomb a stock exchange or trade center for acquiring a company of your no matter how sneaky methods they used.



Really? Where is the evidence? Going out of Fashion for who, when and where?

C'mon Wilf fashion is what you see everyday on the streets. War in our countries -even in Israel thank God- is less and less commonplace.


Noble said Dynamite would end warfare. Historically the vast majority of predicted RMAs have failed. I can cite you many many examples and they far outnumber the RMAs that were actually predicted and actually came to pass. War Show me a major Military development in the last 15 years, that has caused seismic shifts in military affairs?
All we have seen is strategic developments. The applications of force which worked in 1994 still work today.

Concur, yet what I am talking about is not a military phenomenom. It is in the system supporting, underlying it. Society, economy, politics.


Any point in looking more than 15 years into the future?

No. Still have not found my crytsal ball yet.

[UrsaMaior]

That energy weapon is in fact still holstered.

The Ukrainians failed to pay bills at less than half the price per unit that Western Europeans pay for the same good.
So they basically get their terribly inefficient energy sector subsidized by Russia, are in no way cooperative about legitimate Russian interests in regard to Russian majority regions in Ukraine and generally didn't behave as we would want states to behave in the EU, for example.

I don't want to think about what the Bush government would have done to the Ukraine if it had been in Putin's position.

Cutting off the supply as a gas company does to your household if you don't pay their bills was no use of a weapon in my opinion.

Well yes that's the surface. In the meantime they have bought off Austrian oil and natural gas companies incl the ex-state company OMV. They were trying to do the same with the hungarian one too. At the same time they succesfully hindering Nabucco etc. This is way more than a simple resource. It is about who controls Europe and the EU is disunited and losing.

[William F. Owen]

You are right I should have written Iran instead of Am'jad. The fact it was shown all around the world which counts. And yes the reason why Darfur continues is that there are no videocameras not to mention mobilphones around. The are rumours of a NATO mission there for more than TWO years!! yet for lack of media coverage it is still not launched.
So what you are saying is that the media creates the political will to act. It did that in Victorian times.
Politically relevant. Not militarily effective.

I believe there are less and less solely military problems. Men with guns are a tactical problem not strategic so to say. Just like Taiko you seem think that force (pphysical or muilitary) has a solution to any problem. I am not so sure about it. You cannot bomb a stock exchange or trade center for acquiring a company of your no matter how sneaky methods they used.
There have never been any solely military problems. Taiko and I both read Clausewitz. We see the solution to force as being force, not force being the solution to every problem.
Acquiring a company is not military activity.

C'mon Wilf fashion is what you see everyday on the streets. War in our countries -even in Israel thank God- is less and less commonplace. Fashion comes and goes. Currently there is a lull. So what?

[UrsaMaior]

The next conflict be it another 9/11 or another Georgia will decide our discussion.

[JMA]

Colonel (ret) Doug Macgregor sent to me via personal email his thoughts on this discussion on the "hybrid war" concept and gave me permission to post them on the SWJ blog.

[snip]

In addition, the IDF embraced the use of armor, artillery and fuel air explosive in the conduct of urban operations with the object of minimizing the exposure of dismounted IDF troops to enemy fire. While the Hamas enemy may qualify as one of Frank Hoffman's hybrids, the IDF wasted no time in fighting for hearts and minds because the IDF knows there are none to win in the Islamic World.

[snip]

That Israel knows where their are "hearts and minds" to win and where not is relevant to Afghanistan where a careful analysis of what is possible and what is not in this regard and where.

[Rex Brynen]

I'm recently back from a NATO conference/experiment on "countering hybrid threats (https://transnet.act.nato.int/WISE/ACTIPT/JOUIPT/20102011CH/Experiment/PlanningCo/CHTExperim)." In military-security terms I remain rather doubtful about the term, which I think both exaggerates the newness of "hybridity" (is that a word?) in conflict, and is a little too enemy- and intent-centric for the sorts of issues that it is supposed to address.

On the other hand, I did come away with a sense that it works rather well at a terminological level to get NATO thinking about "all that messy stuff other than conventional force-on-force" war. Certainly the discussions were very rich. With apologies with the long cut-and-paste, my major take-aways from the week were:



I’m not convinced that “hybrid threats” works very well as a military concept—it focuses too much on the idea of a clear and identifiable foe who is trying to hurt you, and not enough on contextual conditions, or harm done as a byproduct (rather than an intended effect) of local conflicts, which I think is often the case. I also agree that, historically, a great many threats have been hybrid, so this isn’t necessarily new.
Despite my comments in #1, it may not matter if CHT meets the abstract standard of theoretical conceptual rigour. It seems to work fine as a shorthand for “all that messy, non-conventional war stuff NATO might do.” I’m not sure the alliance could agree on anything that would work any better.
Ideas matter. Normative concerns matter (and indeed played important roles in driving the alliance into military operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Libya.) The political and media environment in NATO countries matter. This is the unspoken “walrus in the room” in any discussion of NATO’s future, and we need to spend more time thinking about it. Goodness knows that NATO’s political masters do.
I have a sneaking feeling that many national politicians have a more inclusive and integrated sense of national and security interests than do some senior military personnel. Politics is not a bad word, even if it does mess up advance planning.
Unity of command is impossible to achieve in complex peace and stabilization operations. Indeed, efforts to achieve it likely alienate important partners, and can be the very antithesis of partnership. Instead, one needs to strive for a modus vivendi that works, even if imperfectly.
The “next” NATO operation is unknowable. No one would have predicted NATO’s involvement in Bosnia or Kosovo in 1987. No one would have predicted NATO’s operations in Afghanistan in 2000. Certainly no one—and I mean literally no one, of the 7 billion people on the planet—would have predicted NATO operations in Libya in November 2010. NATO has never in its history entered into a conflict as a matter of measured advanced planning. Rather it has fallen into them sideward, driven by unstable conditions and shifting politics. Much as it might want to be the “George C. Scott-as-Patton” of international alliances, its actual path to military engagement rather more resembles a Jim Carey comedy. There’s no point bemoaning this, moreover—it is probably unavoidable.
Consequently, NATO needs to prepare against a very broad spectrum of things, rather than a particular thing. The flexibility of the CHT concept might actually be quite useful here, regardless of whatever quibbles one can raise about it.
Afghanistan, Libya, and the Balkans can inform reflections, but they shouldn’t drive them. How likely is it that NATO would be doing industrial-strength COIN (Afghanistan-style) any time soon?
The broader COINdinsita vs COINtra debate was largely absent from the Tallinn meeting. It shouldn’t have been, since not everyone is convinced that the primary contemporary COIN emphasis on non-kinetic elements is appropriate. Heretics and iconoclasts can be useful people to have in a room.
Because of #6, NATO also needs to think more about changing the way it works and develops relationships rather than focussing on material capabilities. It needs to have established, rich, and enduring interactions with a range of actors so that when a crisis occurs it has both a network of contacts and a degree of pre-established trust and understanding. It needs to strategize how it develops and sustains relationships. I think the experiment made major contributions in this respect.
One needs to be careful of the top-down/command-and-control/campaign plan style of problem-solving. Some of the discussions in Tallinn seemed to imply that peacebuilding is like making a cake, with the cook or cooks deciding on the appropriate mix of steps and ingredients to “counter the cake problem.” This in turn led to a lot of discussion of how many cooks there should be, how they should decide on a CHT recipe, who brings the eggs, and so forth. However, in the real world of stabilization operations these are self-mixing cakes with minds of their own. Some of the ingredients hate some of the others. Some change as you stir. Sometimes stirring makes things worse if you aren’t careful. Indeed, occasionally the cake batter tries to kill you. We need to be appropriately humble about how much true understanding and leverage we have.
On the subject of self-mixing cakes, never underestimate the ability of the locals to manipulate the outsiders. Increasingly from 1993 onwards, NATO became a military adjunct to Bosnia’s efforts to secure independence. In 1999, NATO found itself acting as the air force of the Kosovo Liberation Army (admitted largely due to Serbian miscalculations). In 2011, NATO is providing air cover for the Transitional National Council’s regime change efforts in Libya. I supported all three operations, so this isn’t a critique—rather, it underlines once again that the locals get a vote too.
Lots of people have been doing (or trying to do) conflict prevention and stabilization a very long time, and usually doing it without any NATO presence. Don’t reinvent the wheel, but rather think partnership. In many cases NATO could be a very junior partner.
Things can be made better, but the perfect can be the enemy of the good. A sort of cynical optimism is therefore important. Hubris is fatal (sometimes literally so). Be aware of the law of diminishing returns, and know when something is a “good enough” solution and we should move on to the next problem.
Perhaps because they’re locked together in small steel cylinders for long periods of time. submariners can really tell jokes wickedly well.
Think about emerging and hybrid opportunities too, not just the threats—the “Arab Spring” being a case in point. (This was a comment actually made by Jaime Shea in his excellent speech, but I thought it was worth repeating. He said a lot of very sensible things—it was a shame he didn’t open the conference.)



There's more at PAXsims (http://paxsims.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/countering-hybrid-threats-aar/), but most of that discussion is about the scenario-driven experiment methodology used for the meeting.

On a side note, Tallinn was a great place to hold the conference.

[SWJ Blog]

Irregular Adversaries and Hybrid Threats (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/07/irregular-adversaries-and-hybr/)

Entry Excerpt:

Irregular Adversaries and Hybrid Threats (http://publicintelligence.net/u-s-joint-irregular-warfare-center-irregular-adversaries-and-hybrid-threats-2011-assessment/) - 2011 unclassified handbook by US Joint Forces Command's Joint Irregular Warfare Center and posted at Public Intelligence.



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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/07/irregular-adversaries-and-hybr/) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[SWJ Blog]

Hybrid Warfare and Transnational Threats (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/hybrid-warfare-and-transnational-threats)

Entry Excerpt:



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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/hybrid-warfare-and-transnational-threats) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[SWJ Blog]

Review Essay: Fighting and Learning Against Hybrid Threats (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/review-essay-fighting-and-learning-against-hybrid-threats)

Entry Excerpt:



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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/review-essay-fighting-and-learning-against-hybrid-threats) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
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[SWJ Blog]

Review Essay: History and Hybrid Warfare (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/review-essay-history-and-hybrid-warfare)

Entry Excerpt:



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[SWJ Blog]

The Network vs the BCT: Organizational Overmatch in Hybrid Strategies (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-network-vs-the-bct-organizational-overmatch-in-hybrid-strategies)

Entry Excerpt:



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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-network-vs-the-bct-organizational-overmatch-in-hybrid-strategies) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
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[SWJ Blog]

"Suicide Bombers and T72s": Using Mission Orders to Defeat the Hybrid Threat (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/suicide-bombers-and-t72s-using-mission-orders-to-defeat-the-hybrid-threat)

Entry Excerpt:



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[SWJ Blog]

The Islamic State is a Hybrid Threat: Why Does That Matter? (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-islamic-state-is-a-hybrid-threat-why-does-that-matter)

Entry Excerpt:



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[davidbfpo]

What was behind the now famous 'Little Green Men' in the Crimea? Maskiroka, the old Russian practice of military deception and the Crimea was a textbook example. Based on five principles:


Surprise
Kamufliazh - camouflage
Demonstrativnye manevry - manoeuvres intended to deceive
Skrytie - concealment
Imitatsia - the use of decoys and military dummies
Dezinformatsia - disinformation, a knowing attempt to deceive

I know this subject, let alone the 'men' have appeared in threads on the Ukraine, but to my surprise the word Maskiroka rarely appears.

The BBC has a 20 minute radio programme and an accompanying article:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31020283

Although to date the intervention and now invasion of the Ukraine has reportedly seen those 'Men' in a more conventional mode, losing considerable numbers.

[SWJ Blog]

Hybrid War: Old Concept, New Techniques (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/hybrid-war-old-concept-new-techniques)

Entry Excerpt:



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[SWJ Blog]

NATO Commander Breedlove Discusses Implications of Hybrid War (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/nato-commander-breedlove-discusses-implications-of-hybrid-war)

Entry Excerpt:



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[SWJ Blog]

The Problem with Hybrid Warfare (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/the-problem-with-hybrid-warfare)

This SWJ Blog discussion has today (March 11th) over fifty comments.

Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/the-problem-with-hybrid-warfare) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).

[SWJ Blog]

Hybrid War as a War on Governance (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/hybrid-war-as-a-war-on-governance)

[SWJ Blog]

Putin's Information Warfare in Ukraine: Soviet Origins in Russia's Hybrid Warfare (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/putins-information-warfare-in-ukraine-soviet-origins-in-russias-hybrid-warfare)

[davidbfpo]

Two versions of this article by Dr Rod Thornton, now @ Kings War Studies, are available and the titles used vary. His bio:http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/dsd/people/dsd-a-to-z/thornton.aspx

An Abstract:
While Western militaries recognise the logic and necessity of ‘irregular warfare’ in their military operations, the manifold aspects of irregular fighting have yet to be mastered fully. Information warfare, for example, appears to be a tool more capably employed by Russia, to the detriment of NATO. Rod Thornton explains how and why Russia has ‘won’ in Crimea by affording subversive information campaigns primacy in its military operations. Acknowledging the twofold constraints of international law and co-ordination that face Western governments seeking to play the same game, Thornton nonetheless expounds how the West might better pursue asymmetry in the security realm.

The shorter version 'Russian Hybrid Warfare' is via this blogsite:http://defenceindepth.co/2015/10/12/russian-hybrid-warfare/

The full version from the RUSI Journal is fully available, unusually IMHO, on:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03071847.2015.1079047.

[AdamG]

From theoretical to practical application, interested parties might want to read this post and the parent thread -
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=174997&postcount=87

[SWJ Blog]

Air Defense Systems in Hybrid Warfare: Rotary Wing Impacts (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/air-defense-systems-in-hybrid-warfare-rotary-wing-impacts)

[SWJ Blog]

The Strategy of Hybrid Warfare (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-strategy-of-hybrid-warfare)

[SWJ Blog]

Russia’s Hybrid War and How to Bog Down Putin in Syria (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/russia%E2%80%99s-hybrid-war-and-how-to-bog-down-putin-in-syria)

[SWJ Blog]

Confessions of a Hybrid Warfare Skeptic (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/confessions-of-a-hybrid-warfare-skeptic)

[SWJ Blog]

Hybrid Threats And How to Counter Them (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/hybrid-threats-and-how-to-counter-them)

[SWJ Blog]

Countering Gray-Zone Hybrid Threats: An MWI Report (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/countering-gray-zone-hybrid-threats-an-mwi-report)

[SWJ Blog]

How to Wage Hybrid War on the Kremlin (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/how-to-wage-hybrid-war-on-the-kremlin)

[SWJ Blog]

EU, NATO Countries Open Center to Counter 'Hybrid' Threats (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/eu-nato-countries-open-center-to-counter-hybrid-threats)

[davidbfpo]

The thread has been re-opened for the next post. Eight SWJ Blog posts have been merged in too.

[davidbfpo]

Via the blog Defence-in-Depth a comment by Dr Chris Tuck, which opens with:
Why does hybrid war cast such a long shadow over Western conceptions of future threats? The ubiquity of the idea of hybrid war is interesting given the many serious problems with the concept.

The comment ends with:
We are afraid; and because of this we have invented for ourselves the perfect enemy. We feel increasingly insecure, increasingly fearful; we have as a consequence created the image of a potent new threat from powerful adversaries who suffer none of our problems and by-pass our strengths. But intellectually, the concept of hybrid war says more about our fears than it does about any genuinely new model of war. This is not to say that that the current security environment isn’t difficult and dangerous. However, if we stopped connecting together all of our difficulties, multiplying them by the assumption of superior adversaries and then labelling them hybrid war, we might find these challenges easier to address.
Link:https://defenceindepth.co/2017/04/25/hybrid-war-the-perfect-enemy/