David,

Thanks for sharing the study/article. Overall a good article, but I think the author is a little base. First, the growth of U.S. Special Operations doesn't automatically correlate to a growth in covert operations. The majority of USSOF when deployed are openly declared, yet they seek to keep a low profile. Second, hybrid warfare isn't a new term to describe covert action. It is a term to describe the blending of conventional and irregular warfare and the various forms it takes. Covert action may or may not be an aspect of hybrid warfare. The term describes a historic norm, so its only utility in my view is as a tool to pry open the eyes of officers whose views on warfare have been overly limited by narrowly focused studies on 19th Century warfare strategists like Jomini and Clausewitz. At the end of the day war continues to be just war, it may be waged at various levels of intensity and via various means and ways that extend well beyond the use the conventional forces and the increasingly elusive idea of a meeting engagement where a decisive battle achieves our political ends.

The author may be right that gray is the new black, and that covert action may even have less utility in the future. An alternative future is that covert action will increasingly become the norm (whether is gray or black) due to the influence globalization and growing economic interdependence (thus the desire to manage escalation). Globalization equates to growing global mobility of people, goods, information, and globalisms (identify groups based on ideology). State actors will increasingly be able to influence and leverage these identity groups around the globe via information operations (bots, etc.), while maintaining a hidden hand. You can call it indirect covert action through a combination of witting and unwitting proxies, but again this is an old practice, only the means to do so are new or evolving.