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20 February 2018

Concerns voiced over ‘hybrid wars’ in region


PESHAWAR: Speakers at a session here on Monday expressed concerns over the ongoing ‘hybrid wars’ at the behest of superpowers in the region.

“No arms, ammunition, tanks and missiles etc are used in hybrid wars by the warring parties but they try to keep each another off-balance,” said Dr Khalilur Rehman.

The in-house discussion on the topic was held at Area Study Centre, University of Peshawar. Dr Khalil said that the idea of hybrid war resided in the grey-zone between black and white, which meant neither war nor peace. He said that it was a low intensity, multidimensional and fifth generation conflict designed to weaken the opponent.


He said that operational aims were achieved through a calculated design that avoided the escalatory ladder and retaliatory reprisals.

“It is a geo-politics at the sub-conventional level,” he added. Dr Khalil said that the grey-zone of any given hybrid war was covered with layers of disinformation, deception and false narratives. He said that the information war too had structures that were part of not only hybrid, but general wars as well.

“Hybrid war includes the slow military expansion, proxy forces, weapon and surveillance system like drones, assassinations, blackmailing and sabotage, subversion, propaganda, coercive diplomacy, artificial intelligence and cyber-attacks etc,” said Dr Khalil.

Other speakers including Area Study Centre Director Prof Sarfraz Khan, Agricultural University Vice-chancellor Prof Noor Payo Khan and Dr Shabbir said that it was a kind of war through which opponent used other tactics instead of conventional warfare strategies to defeat each other. “Such wars are being fought in Russia, China and Afghanistan etc under the influence of superpowers,” they added.

They said that historically, all wars were wars of mind. They said that mind remained a centre stage of any war. “The same is true in the context of hybrid wars. The technological advancements in combination with other variables have revolutionised the hybrid war in an unfamiliar way,” they added.

The speakers said that a hybrid war was a mixture of conventional and unconventional warfare though distinction between the two was vague. “It involves state and non-state actors to achieve political objectives,” they added.

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