Do Biddle & Friedman mischaracterize Hoffman?

[Burgess Laird]

I found Stephen Biddle and Jeffrey Friedman's new study, The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare to be persuasive, and as with all of Biddle's work, rigorously argued.

However, in advancing their notion of a "continuum" of warfare from Guerrilla warfare (Viet Cong) at one end to Conventional Warfare (Maginot Line) at the other end, Biddle and Friedman appear (see footnote 40 on page
28) to oversimplify Frank Hoffman's argument concerning hybrid warfare. They assert that Hoffman offers but a "single intermediate category"; one that, while making a "valuable contribution in breaking down unhelpful dichotomies between 'conventional' and 'guerrilla,'" is still merely (my word, not theirs) "trichotomous 'conventional-irregular-hybrid' simplification".

Now, when I read Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars, I didn't interpret Hoffman's argument to be one that posits three discrete
way-points of warfare (conventional, irregular, hybrid) or that otherwise excludes or is accepted only at the expense of a notion of continuum. So, I pose this question to Frank Hoffman: Is my interpretation of your argument wrong?