Describe... Don't Define
by Nathan Freier
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The emerging concept of "hybrid warfare" is one of many attempts to clarify the contemporary defense operating environment for senior Washington decisionmakers and warfighters in the field. The more intense debates occurring on the margins of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) center on hybrid threats and their impact on defense strategy and plans. Like post-QDR '06 debates on "irregular warfare" (IW), there is a great deal of buzz around hybrid warfare and challenges. In the end, how DoD leaders choose to characterize, respond to, and use outcomes of the hybrid debate will determine corporately what the defense enterprise means by "balance" and how it operationalizes "balance" in the future.
There is a cautionary tale for DoD in the post-QDR '06 quest to define IW. Those familiar with that process know that it ended with a definition few — if any — fully accept to this day. Amazingly, DoD's IW work succeeded in saying too much, too little, or nothing at all depending on one's particular point of view.
Look closely at the definition of IW and it appears to be just another description of insurgency and counterinsurgency. The torrent of "presentism" characterizing contemporary defense discussions about IW is responsible for this. Defense strategists and concept developers tend to project current "irregular" challenges — classical insurgency and terrorism in and around the Middle East and Muslim world — as DoD's dominant IW demands into an uncertain and indefinite future. This may prove grossly insufficient. However, the current defense era's sensational start (9/11) makes it quite difficult to break free from conventional wisdom long enough to explore IW more broadly.
Download the full article: Hybrid Threats and Challenges: Describe... Don't Define
Nathan Freier is a senior fellow in the International Security Program at CSIS and a visiting research professor at the U.S. Army War College's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute. Freier joined CSIS in 2008, after a 20 year army career as a field artillery officer and strategist. During his last eight years of military service, Freier was a key player in numerous strategy development and strategic planning efforts at Headquarters, Department of the Army; the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and on two senior-level military staffs in Iraq.
