Waging hybrid warfare: Balaji Chandramohan suggests that increasing use of unconventional methods is changing the character of warfare and the nature of strategy.

• Author: Chandramohan, Balaji

Hybrid warfare is an emerging, though as yet ill-defined, notion in the discipline of war and conflict studies. It underlines the realism principle in international relations, where the use of force is considered a normal option for a state seeking to achieve its political objectives. In other words, hybrid warfare refers to the use of unconventional methods as part of a multi-domain war fighting environment. The unconventional approach is deeply embedded overall in military thinking. Hybrid warfare methods aim to disrupt and disable an opponent's actions without engaging in open hostilities (1)--the opposite of the traditional linear integral battle of annihilation followed by modern militaries. The main focus of hybrid warfare is on disruption rather than destruction.

The roots of the modern approach to hybrid warfare stem primarily from the traditional Russian way of warfare, Maskirovka, which has always given importance to indirect and asymmetrical operations supplanting its conventional approach to strategy. The Russian way of warfare, which enables both state and non-state actors to be used for deception at the operational level, has had significant impact at the strategic level.

Hybrid warfare, which could be termed Maskirovka 2.0, refers to the use of specific means to achieve a goal by an adversary. It could be viewed as a blend of the lethality of conventional inter-state conflict with the fanatical and protracted fervour of irregular war. It is an approach that draws upon a number of types of force from across the full spectrum, including terrorism, insurgency and regular combat, along with the extensive use of information operations apart from conventional forces. Put more simply, hybrid war is a doctrine utilising all the instruments of power to compensate for military weakness by developing alternatives to corrode the will to resist of adversary societies.

Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014 helped NATO countries begin to understand the concept of hybrid war; Russia has continued through various means to apply this doctrine in the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk. (2) In December 2014, the US State Department's International Security Advisory Board stated that the annexation of Crimea was the first time one nation has seized and annexed territory from another in Europe since the end of the Second World War.

Increased attention

As Russia began using hybrid warfare methods to extend its influence in the Baltic region, NATO started to give increased attention to the threat. In Georgia and Crimea, Russia, in perfect examples of changing the status quo with hybrid warfare techniques, kept the level of violence below a threshold that might induce foreign intervention. In the Donbas, Russia lacked a clear strategic objective and attempted to capitalise on the Crimean success, resulting in a costly war that escalated and increased the risk of Western...