Hybrid Warfare (merged thread)

[jmm99]

many more years of circus watching - and widening your already very broad spectrum. Serious comment - no , just a .

[Surferbeetle]

...from my younger days...I had grabbed three photos of headstones from a cemetery in the treeline a ways further back up the hill from the war monument in Asiago. The cemeteries were full of Italians and Austrians but these three white marble headstones in particular piqued my interest:

311505 Sapper, H. Harris, Royal Engineers, 13th July 1918, age 23.

Second Lieutenant Lawrence Tindill, Duke of Wellingtons Regi, 21st June 19...

The third photo is going and I can't find my magnifying glass...but I can still see faintly, Lance Corporal H. Kirk and what looks to be Fusilier...


Found this link on Sapper Harris, this one on Fusilier Kirk and this one on LT Tindill. Wow...

[William F. Owen]

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

Apparently, Frank Hoffman has been designated by DoD as the provervbial "one-eyed man," as he came along with his Jerry Seinfield-like "concept about nothing" idea of "hybrid warfare" to provide an intellectual life ring of sort for those throughout the think tanks and conventional force that were totally befuddled that shock and awe tactics were not causing all of the threats of the world to simple curl up in the bottom of their foxholes and wave white flags; or that a combination of regime change and counterterrorism was not winning the GWOT.

Well I have known Frank Hoffman for many years. He is a very smart dedicated, well read and very likeable guy, ... BUT, on the Hybrid thing I just cannot agree with him, because I can't see why we need a new name for a common, enduring and obvious phenomena of warfare that is well over 2,000 years old.

Theirs just two kind of soldiers who are going to stay here on this blog and argue about it. Those who are irrelevant, and those who are going to be irrelevant.

I can handle being irrelevant! Well, if SWC had been doing it's think back in the day, you might have been able to kill Manoeuvre Warfare, 4GW and EBO, stone dead before they did any damage.

And to be fair, Frank Hoffman, reads this board. That separates him from the other men pumping agendas whom seem to steer clear of SWC.

[J Wolfsberger]

... I can't see why we need a new name for a common, enduring and obvious phenomena of warfare that is well over 2,000 years old.

Because sometimes you need to repackage the old product to get people to buy.

I don't see anything particularly novel in the concept of Hybrid War, either. We should be thinking in terms of fundamentals of warfare, what are the potential threats, what doctrine do we need to prevail, and what capabilities to implement it. Instead, it seems too many people put their effort into thinking in terms of finding a technology set that will solve all their problems. (And I admit my understanding may be due to some recent experiences.)

So from where I sit, based on some of the things I've seen happening, if "Hybrid War" gets people back on track, it has utility and I'm all for it.

[William F. Owen]

Because sometimes you need to repackage the old product to get people to buy.

I understand

So from where I sit, based on some of the things I've seen happening, if "Hybrid War" gets people back on track, it has utility and I'm all for it.

Yet the very fact we have a new word, implicitly suggests that "Hybrid" is new, novel, and requires new thinking and solutions - and none of that is true.

[Bill Moore]

Theirs just two kind of soldiers who are going to stay here on this blog and argue about it. Those who are irrelevant, and those who are going to be irrelevant.

This statement is out in left field, so hopefully it is simply a expression of frustration with the traditionalists. There is absolutely no requirement to buy into this concept to be relevant. You may not be part of the IW QDR good ole boy club if you don't, but relevance will be determined over time. If we have a major conventional war in the next 10 years, then the good ole boy club in with Congress will change. The fact is we don't know if this concept will work. I suspect it will make us better, and it does address the threats we face "today", so yes it is important to get on with it.

JFK told the military to prepare for this type of warfare in the early 1960s, and the only organization in DoD that adjusted was SOF, sound familiar? It isn't that any of this is new, the technology is new, the social-political environment is new, but all the aspects we address in hybrid warfare and IW have been around for years. I don't think anyone working on these concepts denies that (maybe some of the younger officers and contractors with an agenda). The issue is getting DoD to adapt, adjust, evolve, or quite simply get out of their conventional warfighting box.

[Ken White]

At some point a good soldier having made his case comes to attention, salutes, and says "All the way, sir!" Then he goes out and makes it happen way more effectively than his boss could have ever imagined.

This brought to mind the fact that everyone doesn't say that; some, for example say "Treat 'em rough." and there are a host of other mandatory unit greetings, each as valid as the other. I have said that 'All the way' bit literally thousands of times and I always thought it was sort of silly. I used to recommend the junior guy say 'Airborne' and the response should be the same as that given to the question "Are you a turtle?" Never could get my various chains of command to accept that...

Enough stupidity -- I have a serious comment. I generally agree with your post but I do have a reservation about an excessively large number of Bosses -- IMO, one is too many -- who will not give their subordinates the freedom and flexibility to exceed the Bosses sometimes regrettably limited imagination.

My solution was generally to ignore them and do what was right and that always worked for me other than a little spluttering (hard to get too upset at success). However, I've noticed relatively few subordinates would or will consistently do that...

That's a problem that adversely affects our combat capability. How do we fix that?

[Ken White]

JFK told the military to prepare for this type of warfare in the early 1960s, and the only organization in DoD that adjusted was SOF, sound familiar?

The Marines and US Army Light Infantry units adapted and adjusted and did it fairly well as did the Air Force. Only the dominant Heavy Division guys in the Army didn't adapt -- not because they disagreed with the need but because they didn't believe it would affect them and the European mission -- they were largely correct. Unfortunately, there were so many of those guys in Europe that when they migrated (sometimes directly on an ITT) to Viet Nam, they had no IW / COI / SFA / FID knowledge and as they replaced the first string light inf guys, the knowledge quotient went in the tank. So did integrity but that's another thread.

Penalty of the very flawed one year individual tour policy.

I will acknowledge the Pentagon largely didn't adapt -- they never do. Witness the dipwad one year tour policy and worse. They simply try to adapt peacetime thinking to wartime and that never works..

[RedRaven]

First off, I'm not really sure where to put this. If its in the wrong forum please move this. Thanks.

The question I have is this: Many smart people are saying that in the future America's enemies will use "hybrid warfare." Is there anyone thinking/writing about how America could use "hybrid warfare" against it's enemies? (our equivalent of Unrestricted Warfare)

Is it a matter of sending SF behind enemy lines, or is it something much different? Morally would America fight a "hybrid war?" Is it it possible to use "hybrid war" as a defensive strategy? etc etc

Just something I'm thinking about...

[William F. Owen]

I think what these people are talking about is Hybrid warfare against "Hybrid Threats,"

Much I as I know, respect and like Frank Hoffman, I think the concept is a very bad idea, and like "Complex" and "Assymetric" it's an invented problem. Hezbollah is clearly not a "Hyrbrid" threat. Why say that they are?
Moreover

• It adds a dimension that adds complexity and thus confusion for no useful purpose.
• It's a-historical. We didn't need to talk about them in the past. Why now?
• It risks talking down to US soldiers. - and in my opinion does.
• It is evidence free. Once the evidence is tested, you have to ask "so what"
• It buys into all the old "post modern" myths, like "wars amongst the people." and 4GW. These ideas are merely opinions and similarly lacking in evidence.

Why do it? None of the world class military historians that I know, are hand-wringing over "Hybrid."

Put it this way. Talking about "Hyrbid" allows you to stop thinking, in the same way that telling a child that wall clocks have tiny men inside them making them work.

[Bob's World]

Concur with WILF.

I've challenged several very savy proponents of this concept to explain it to me, and none have been able to penetrate my thick head significantly enough to show me not only how war is more "hybrid" now then it has been throughout the annals of time; nor how considering it as such helps in any way in shaping more effective strategies, plans or operations for the modern era.

I stand by my position that the one thing that is truly new under the sun is the speed and availability of information. This has several extremely important primary, secondary, etc, etc, effects that have a tremendous impact on the TACTICs of warfare (much like the invention of gunpowder, rifled muskets, machineguns, tanks, etc), but so far as I can tell has no impact on the underlying fundamental principals either state-based or populace-based warfare.

I caution against chasing fads and "easy-button" solutions to solve problems you don't understand, and suggest instead that one simply 'eats their spinach,' and do the research and analysis to understand such conflicts in general and how they have been addressed historically, and then start chewing on the implications of this new information age and how it has changed the playing field.

At the end of the day, perceptions of poor governance create the conditions that make a popualce ripe for insurgency; such populaces are then susceptible to dynamic leaders with an idological message to act out; and if a party outside of that populace and its governance has foolishly imposed itself in such a way as to produce a perception of being either the source or sustainer of the "poor governance," they will become a target of the uprising as well.

1.Avoid perceptions of legitimacy
2.Understand and address "poor governance" (not effective governance), and
3.Secure the populace and implement reasonable measures to bring the rebelling segment of the populace into line.

In otherwords, when you start off an operation by overthrowing an existing government and creating a new one, you have created a legitimacy hurdle that will be EXTREMELY difficult to clear (particularly if you don't appreciate how important that is). Likewise, as you have broken the government going in, it will be extremely ineffective. To try to make it effective exacerbates the legitimacy issue. Focus on what the populace thinks is important (goodness) and get the hell out. Let the new government work toward greater effectiveness, it may be slow and not to our standards, but it will increase their legitimacy.

None of this has anything to do with "hybrids" or "4Gs;" it is timeless, but is taking place in this new information environment.

[slapout9]

Listen to the President explain it. Ignore the video stuff just listen to the speech.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WSGw...eature=related

[Courtney Massengale]

I do think we need some new terminology to help define how warfare has evolved over the past 25 years. To my reckoning, the last real academic application that went into defining conflict that was separating “total war” from “limited war” after the Korean Armistice (of course, this wasn’t anything new – just a reinvigoration to describe the times). Most of the other terms spun out there that William Owen is talking about are derivatives of that transition.

Like Bob mentioned, things have sped up and been pushed down considerably. Its nothing new, but it has changed a lot of how we approach, plan, fight and determine the outcome of conflict. While it may be nothing new in the grand scheme, it does show a shift from how things were done from the previous iteration which in and of itself is worth study.

I don’t necessarily think that “hybrid war” is the right answer, but it does encourage me that people are putting thought into it and recognizing that we can’t continue to use the same definitions to address a different set of phenomena that have come to dominate modern conflict.

[William F. Owen]

I do think we need some new terminology to help define how warfare has evolved over the past 25 years. To my reckoning, the last real academic application that went into defining conflict that was separating “total war” from “limited war” after the Korean Armistice (of course, this wasn’t anything new – just a reinvigoration to describe the times). Most of the other terms spun out there that William Owen is talking about are derivatives of that transition.

Why don't we just say "Irregular" - that dates from about 1770 or before, or we could say "Guerilla," and that dates from about 1809.

We do NOT need new words. All the "new" words are the problem, and no help in resolving the problem. Warfare has always evolved. War has not.

[Ron Humphrey]

Why don't we just say "Irregular" - that dates from about 1770 or before, or we could say "Guerilla," and that dates from about 1809.

We do NOT need new words. All the "new" words are the problem, and no help in resolving the problem. Warfare has always evolved. War has not.

How well did Irregular or regular help us think about and address such things in the past as

-When you airdrop behind enemy lines the German's might flood it
or
-They might build dummies and put something hot in them
or
-If you change the grease for the rifles the Indian's military will use it might be a good idea to make sure it's not made with pig
or
-Well you get the point.

Yes all these things should have been recognized as probable but for whatever reason they still happened

So do we need new words? Probably not but does it hurt to have them if they at least lead someone to look for what they don't know rather than what they think they do?

[Courtney Massengale]

We do NOT need new words. All the "new" words are the problem, and no help in resolving the problem. Warfare has always evolved. War has not.

I don't think we need new words - what we need are people willing to study and think about how warfare is evolving (or when we get to the point where we say it has evolved during this time period).

For example, its a disservice to say that the internet is just a different battlefield for guerilla or irregular warfare, therefore everything that could be said already has; we're just waiting for it to fall into our preconstructed schemas that have held for hundreds of years. Maybe the thought process behind cyber warfare in totality looks more like siege craft. Or biological warfare. Or building the Great Wall of China. We may not need a new word, but we don't know that the RIGHT words to use are unless we put some research and thought behind it.

What we don’t know is how many false starts and dead ends lead up to the formulation of a concept that has held for centuries. Through that process - as you mentioned - every once in a few hundred years we DO come up with something new.

[William F. Owen]

So do we need new words? Probably not but does it hurt to have them if they at least lead someone to look for what they don't know rather than what they think they do?

When you clearly have a new phenomena, you should name it. Example would be "Tank" "Paratrooper" or "Deep battle." There is very very little new (actually I think none) that we need to describe currently.

I don't think we need new words - what we need are people willing to study and think about how warfare is evolving (or when we get to the point where we say it has evolved during this time period).

...but you have hundreds/thousands of these people, all hand-wringing about "complex adaptive" "human terrain," and all the other silly words. There is an entire industry pretending to study warfare's evolution, and it's inability to speak clear English and study military history has lead to this mess.

For example, its a disservice to say that the internet is just a different battlefield for guerilla or irregular warfare, therefore everything that could be said already has; we're just waiting for it to fall into our preconstructed schemas that have held for hundreds of years.

The Internet cannot be a "battle field." It's a source of information, and very much less successful at crafting opinion that TV, Radio, or newspapers. It's a form of media. Personally it fails my "so what test" as being something in need to worry about.

Now, please do not misunderstand me. I am all for the true, practical and useful study of warfare, and education about war, but the vast majority of what is being done is being done to justify the US buying new toys.

All the current writing about COIN, since 2001, has not identified ANYTHING new, except to reinforce the error that "COIN" is somehow a distinct and separate form of something that ..um ...errr... might not really be warfare. - which is rubbish.

[Ron Humphrey]

When you clearly have a new phenomena, you should name it. Example would be "Tank" "Paratrooper" or "Deep battle." There is very very little new (actually I think none) that we need to describe currently.

The Internet cannot(emphasis Ron Humphrey) be a "battle field." It's a source of information, and very much less successful at crafting opinion that TV, Radio, or newspapers. It's a form of media. Personally it fails my "so what test" as being something in need to worry about.

That seems to dismiss many of the very aspects of warfare that definitely can and will happen there. I would give examples but I'm quite confident Selil could do so much better than I.

Now, please do not misunderstand me. I am all for the true, practical and useful study of warfare, and education about war, but the vast majority of what is being done is being done to justify the US buying new toys.

While true enough how many toys you could have bought at Toys R Us just in smaller sizes are currently doing some pretty important stuff both in killing enemies and protecting soldiers right now. Toy's aren't a bad thing just need to be used appropriately and for the right reasons.

All the current writing about COIN, since 2001, has not identified ANYTHING new, except to reinforce the error that "COIN" is somehow a distinct and separate form of something that ..um ...errr... might not really be warfare. - which is rubbish.

Can't say yah or nay to that since I haven't got nearly the experience you do I would only hope its at least a good thing that they are at least writing about it rather than ignoring it since "we don't do nation-building".
(PS not meant to be a jibe at you just paraphrasing the perceived reason this stuff got thrown in the dustbins for so long)

[William F. Owen]

That seems to dismiss many of the very aspects of warfare that definitely can and will happen there. I would give examples but I'm quite confident Selil could do so much better than I.

battlefields have to be physical places where physical combat takes place. Warfare will never take place on the internet. The internet may be used in warfare, just like EW, but it is not a battle space in and of itself. In order fro something cyber to be effective it has to translate into physical effect.

While true enough how many toys you could have bought at Toys R Us just in smaller sizes are currently doing some pretty important stuff both in killing enemies and protecting soldiers right now. Toy's aren't a bad thing just need to be used appropriately and for the right reasons.

Sure. Now let's talk about MRAPs....

Can't say yah or nay to that since I haven't got nearly the experience you do I would only hope its at least a good thing that they are at least writing about it rather than ignoring it since "we don't do nation-building".
(PS not meant to be a jibe at you just paraphrasing the perceived reason this stuff got thrown in the dustbins for so long)

Why the US knew so little about COIN, given the vast amount that was written is a very good question.

[Courtney Massengale]

When you clearly have a new phenomena, you should name it. Example would be "Tank" "Paratrooper" or "Deep battle." There is very very little new (actually I think none) that we need to describe currently.

That's the exact same attitude that conventional wisdom held when tanks, paratroopers and the concept of deep battle were first dreamed up. None of them were particulary popular with those who didn't get the "so what".

If I recall correctly, didn't they try to court martial some of the early proponents of airborne operations as a way to shut them up?

All the current writing about COIN, since 2001, has not identified ANYTHING new, except to reinforce the error that "COIN" is somehow a distinct and separate form of something that ..um ...errr... might not really be warfare. - which is rubbish.

I think that statement can only be applied to what has been read, not necessarily what has been written. Some of the best research on COIN (used here as a generic placeholder) will be from journals, blogs, letters, etc from Soldiers who are experiencing it and writing about it without the intention of publishing or coining (no pun intended) new terms. Or perhaps there’s an article buried in some obscure journal that makes no sense today, but thirty years down the road will be seen as the jumping off point for a new area of study.

You’re also ignoring the fact that there is some value in this writing. Even if that value is William Owen getting so fed up with the COIN snake oil that he writes an article proving them wrong that becomes the prism through which all early 21st century warfare is analyzed. Most of the classics had some element of this motivation as part of their genesis – what’s to say that all these false starts won’t get people moving in the right direction?

Also disagree about the internet not being a battlefield (especially since it was designed as way of circumventing physical battlefields), but that’s a different thread.