Hybrid Warfare (merged thread)

[TheLapsedPacifist]

This is all a mess...

We have Jack McCuen telling us that Hybrid is new and a combination of Symmetric and Asymmetric war - seriously? Who fights a symmetric war? Two boxers, maybe? And Hoffman spreading the term around with wild abandon.

I suggest:

1. It's not new.

2. The term would be useful if it prompted some of the dinosaurs / oil tankers (insert your own metaphor) to change course and if it galvanises the community - it isn't - it's being seized upon as a means to settle old scores (especially between the services...EBO anyone?), make reputations, but generally it is divisive.

3. We're trying to walk before we can run...I still haven't seen a decent Irregular Warfare definition...I think that we need to get our house into order before we start developing new terms for old problems.

I notice that the Israelis are pushing Hybrid real hard. Hezbollah's victory was a red herring - as this forum has stated, the Israelis got caught with their pants down. Ill prepared, not trained, and poorly equipped.

And the Hamas thing...Israel lost (didn't win) against Hezbollah, so it loses its deterrence... best thing to do is to find someone real quick and give them a good hiding, just so the neighbourhood knows you're still in business.

I think Hybrid's popularity stems from the fact that it is a useful fig leaf to cover someone's screw-up.

LP

[Ron Humphrey]

This is all a mess...

We have Jack McCuen telling us that Hybrid is new and a combination of Symmetric and Asymmetric war - seriously? Who fights a symmetric war? Two boxers, maybe? And Hoffman spreading the term around with wild abandon.

I suggest:

1. It's not new.

2. The term would be useful if it prompted some of the dinosaurs / oil tankers (insert your own metaphor) to change course and if it galvanises the community - it isn't - it's being seized upon as a means to settle old scores (especially between the services...EBO anyone?), make reputations, but generally it is divisive.

3. We're trying to walk before we can run...I still haven't seen a decent Irregular Warfare definition...I think that we need to get our house into order before we start developing new terms for old problems.

I notice that the Israelis are pushing Hybrid real hard. Hezbollah's victory was a red herring - as this forum has stated, the Israelis got caught with their pants down. Ill prepared, not trained, and poorly equipped.

And the Hamas thing...Israel lost (didn't win) against Hezbollah, so it loses its deterrence... best thing to do is to find someone real quick and give them a good hiding, just so the neighbourhood knows you're still in business.

I think Hybrid's popularity stems from the fact that it is a useful fig leaf to cover someone's screw-up.

LP

it is unfortunately our mess because for all intensive purposes it does seem to drive where we go.

As for Hezbollah, Hamas, or other's should it really be considered indicatory in the least of what a different player involved in the same conflict should expect?

Do you suppose were it the ally's entering that there wouldn't be a massive difference in how they would fight. Or even if the Lebanese army where to go at it with them, are you sure it wouldn't be something more akin to Iraq or the Phillipine's, Farc, or (fill in the blank) I'm sure you get the point.

Or how about if we had decided to have a go at Russia during the Georgian incursion last year. What might that have looked like? Anywho long way of saying I for one am still waiting on the definition of "regular" (war, warfare, battle, conflict, negotiation, barter, trade, etc) anything having to do with one party gaining or losing something to or from another.


As to your concern with irregular warfare
How's this for definition.

Any conflict that occurs with the intent of achieving a given endstate, yet which is enacted through actions, teachings, or politics which do not conform to universally accepted norms for warfare.

No good? Oh well had to try.
Funny thing is seem's to me that once your able to accurately describe something in such a manner as to be encompassing of all actions to be found within it; it wouldn't be quite so irregular anymore

In this particular case I don;t see a problem with the definition being used now. Perhaps the more important issue is how it is used and by whom toward what ends?

[slapout9]

I don't think we need anymore new words in the war vocabulary as many have pointed out, however I bet this catches on. Our economy is a hybrid economy, part planned and part free market (supposedly anyway) this term was popular when I studied economies a long time ago but it fell out of fashion and the term now is "mixed economy". However it is about to make a comeback and bet Hybrid Warfare will come with it....we will see.

[William F. Owen]

I notice that the Israelis are pushing Hybrid real hard. Hezbollah's victory was a red herring - as this forum has stated, the Israelis got caught with their pants down. Ill prepared, not trained, and poorly equipped.

Not true. As I stated in a previous post on this thread, the IDF is not enamoured with "Hybrid". I was at the IDF's Staff Collage, the day after Hoffman, so I am pretty well aware of their reaction and reservations. I don't know who you think here is pushing it, but they are not on my radar.

In 2006 the IDF knew more about Hezbollah than any other organisation on the planet. The operational problems that did occur (and they did) had little or nothing to do with not understanding how Hezbollah worked.

What the IDF are concerned with is something a bit more nuanced than "Hybrid," and they've been talking about it for the last 10 years