Michael S. Groen, Andrew Borene, Doug Livermore
The contemporary security environment defies traditional categorizations of war and peace. We exist in what some analysts increasingly term a “hybrid Cold War,” that is, a persistent state of competition that blends conventional capabilities with irregular tactics, cyber operations, and information warfare. This reality demands that defense professionals move beyond conceptual hand-waving to develop quantifiable frameworks for assessing power balances in these gray zones of conflict.
Recent dialogue among intelligence, military, and defense industry professionals has highlighted a critical gap: the absence of systematic approaches to measure hybrid warfare capabilities and effectiveness. NATO’s newly published Hybrid Threats and Hybrid Warfare Reference Curriculum represents a significant step forward, targeting over 800 defense and security academies worldwide. However, the curriculum’s focus on resilience-building, while necessary, reflects Western democracies’ defensive posture in an arena where adversaries operate with fewer constraints.
Defining the Hybrid Battlefield
The mushy quality of hybrid warfare definitions has long frustrated practitioners. Unlike conventional warfare’s clear metrics—divisions, tanks, aircraft—hybrid capabilities resist easy quantification. The phenomenon encompasses everything from cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure to weaponized migration, cultural influence operations, and economic coercion.
Consider recent examples: Russian-backed interference in European elections, including direct support for political parties in Moldova; Chinese influence campaigns targeting Taiwan’s elections; and systematic attacks on undersea cables and telecommunications infrastructure across the Baltic region. These activities exist in the gray zone between peace and war, and are designed to achieve political objectives without triggering conventional military responses.
This strategic ambiguity serves adversaries well. Russia’s “active measures,” refined during the Cold War and adapted for the digital age, exemplify hybrid warfare’s evolutionary nature. The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki has documented how hybrid threats combine speed, scale, and intensity previously impossible before digital interconnectivity.
No comments:
Post a Comment