hybrid war

Hybrid Wars: Technological Advancements and the Generational Evolution of Warfare

Riley.C.Murray — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 00:34:57 +0000

Hybrid Wars: Technological Advancements and the Generational Evolution of Warfare Riley.C.Murray Wed, 09/08/2021 - 8:34pm

With respect to its evolving tendencies, warfare can be depicted as dynamic in nature. A discussion of the contemporary geopolitical environment discloses advancements in the philosophy and art of war. Those developments are associated with technological progression, resulting in novel strategies and implications for warfare. Contemporary evolving methods have merged with traditional understandings of warfare, marking the concept of hybrid warfare.

The Navalny poisoning case through the hybrid warfare lens

ZFTWARNING — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 23:20:30 +0000

The Navalny poisoning case through the hybrid warfare lens

Hybrid CoE Paper 4: The Navalny poisoning case through the hybrid warfare lens by Mark Galeotti, a subject matter expert on Russian politices, organized crime, and security affairs looks at the poisoning of Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny with a Novichok nerve agent through the prism of hybrid war.

Galeotti argues that the poisoning of Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny with a Novichok nerve agent demonstrates that the methods of 'hybrid war' are now integrated with Russian domestic politics. Mark Galeotti's numerous books include The Vory (Yale, 2018), Russian Political Warfare (Routledge, 2019) and We Need To Talk About Putin (Ebury, 2019).

Read the Summary or the Full Paper.

Source: Mark Galeotti, "The Navalny poisoning case through the hybrid warfare lens," Hybrid CoE Paper 4. Helsinki: The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. October 2020, https://www.hybridcoe.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/202010_Hybrid-CoE-Paper4_Navalny-case-through-a-hybrid-lens.pdf.

ZFTWARNING Fri, 10/09/2020 - 7:20pm

Liminal and conceptual envelopment: warfare in the age of dragons

ZFTWARNING — Tue, 26 May 2020 20:07:15 +0000

Liminal and conceptual envelopment: warfare in the age of dragons ZFTWARNING Tue, 05/26/2020 - 4:07pm

SWJ interview with Dr. David Kilcullen, author of the newly published Dragons and the Snakes - How the Rest learned to fight the West, Oxford University Press, March 2020. He is a professor of practice in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University and a professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of New South Wales.

Counter-Hybrid Warfare: Winning in the Gray Zone

SWJED — Sun, 02 Dec 2018 08:21:17 +0000

Counter-Hybrid Warfare: Winning in the Gray Zone SWJED Sun, 12/02/2018 - 3:21am

The United States is actively involved in two hybrid conflicts (ISIS in Syria and Iraq) and is supporting the Ukraine against hybrid threats from Russia. That said, America lacks a formal doctrine for dealing with such conflicts or even an agreed-on doctrinal definition of what they are.

Read more about Counter-Hybrid Warfare: Winning in the Gray Zone

Strategic Futures and Intelligence: The Head and Heart of ‘Hybrid Defence’ Providing Tangible Meaning and Ways Forward

SWJED — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 12:14:51 +0000

Strategic Futures and Intelligence: The Head and Heart of ‘Hybrid Defence’ Providing Tangible Meaning and Ways Forward SWJED Thu, 06/01/2017 - 8:14am

‘Hybrid defence’ frequently can mean almost anything, and even everything-to-nothing (nothing still being something), to different participants and observers.

Read more about Strategic Futures and Intelligence: The Head and Heart of ‘Hybrid Defence’ Providing Tangible Meaning and Ways Forward

ISIS: An Adaptive Hybrid Threat in Transition

SWJED — Sat, 29 Oct 2016 13:56:01 +0000

ISIS: An Adaptive Hybrid Threat in Transition SWJED Sat, 10/29/2016 - 9:56am

Even as coalition forces mass on the suburbs of Mosul and prepare their assault on the last major ISIS stronghold in Iraq, strategic planners are far from declaring victory.

Future-Proofing NATO: A Forthcoming Decade of Change

SWJED — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 12:11:40 +0000

Future-Proofing NATO: A Forthcoming Decade of Change SWJED Sat, 10/08/2016 - 8:11am

NATO must adopt hybrid models of national defense, coordinate efforts on economic and electronic warfare, and secure its space-based infrastructure.

A Future for Armor in an Era of Persistent Conflict

Peter J. Munson — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:07:23 +0000

A Future for Armor in an Era of Persistent Conflict

Examination of the expected characteristics of the US Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) by the Congressional Budget Office in early November 2012 has sparked a debate not only about what that vehicle should be reasonably expected to look like and perform, but also about what the needs for armor are as in the Army as a whole. Fears about what problems with the GCV program could entail for the Army’s remaining Heavy Brigade Combat Teams (HBCT) miss an important question: Should we be trying to preserve them at all?

The HBCT is the product of decades of lessons learned about the interaction between armor and the forces they are expected to support. After years of the doctrine expecting the differing types of vehicles and forces to work in concert, the HBCT introduced Combined Arms Battalions, where tanks and infantry fighting vehicles and their support elements were organized together from the start. Organized together, it was felt that units would have a better understanding of such combined arms operations, being able to train regularly and be otherwise familiar with each other. Unfortunately, it has made the organization less flexible overall.

In addition to being utilized in its traditional role, since the end of the Second World War, armor has been deployed to crises to provide important capabilities despite a lack of enemy armor or other threats armor might have been otherwise expected to engage. In 1958, when the US Army intervened in Lebanon, a small contingent of M48 tanks and M42 anti-aircraft vehicles were deployed with the force, never operating above platoon strength. During the conflict in Vietnam, M48 and M551 tanks assigned to three tank battalions and numerous armored cavalry units provided dispersed support to units across the country. They rarely operated as organized and in the face of institutional reticence toward their deployment. In fact, the organic companies of 1^st Battalion, 77^th Armor were so rarely under its operational control that the headquarters was used to control multi-company task forces, sometimes without any armor at all. In the twilight of the Cold War, a limited number of M551 tanks were again utilized during Operation Just Cause in Panama, where, like in Lebanon, they operated at platoon strength.

In spite of these historical examples, after a decade in Afghanistan, the Army has deployed no tanks or infantry fighting vehicles there. A common retort is, as expected, that such vehicles are not broadly useful in the Afghan terrain or for the type of fighting there. This, however, stands in stark contrast to the historical record, where small amounts of armor have been deployed to support similar contingencies and have been found to be useful as a specialized capability. It is as a specialized capability that the armor can best serve the Army. This is not a new concept either. For instance, during Operation Just Cause, Lieutenant General Carl W. Stiner, at the time commander of XVIII Airborne Corps and commander of Joint Task Force – South viewed the M551s available to him as a means of providing “surgical firepower,” just like the AH-64A helicopters available to the task force.

So what to do with the HBCT? Eliminating the HBCT would not mean eliminating armor. Armor, would, however, be more useful if General Stiner’s philosophy was taken to heart. Armor could be more rapidly tailored to real world contingencies if it was grouped together and treated like a specialized asset, akin to the Army’s Combat Aviation Brigades. A similar multi-functional organization to provide armor support, a sort of Armor Support Brigade, would allow tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and armored personnel carriers to be deployed as needed, where needed, with fewer numbers of them needed overall. While there are concerns about the ability of units to be familiar with working with armor, especially infantry operating from infantry fighting vehicles, it would appear these concerns are misplaced. Training programs to rapidly familiarize units with airmobile operations and operations using Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles have not been shown to be overly arduous. In addition, the ability to deploy the entire brigade, and multiple such brigades, if needed to work in concert with other forces to counter a large near-peer conventional force would mean that the Army would not be vulnerable to the traditional threat.

As the face of armed conflict changes and expands, it is important to make sure the ability to deploy proportional military force and capabilities remains. The Army’s Chief of Staff General Raymond T. Odierno has himself been talking recently about the need to make the Army more scalable and tailorable to the wide variety of missions it is expected to be able to perform as it transitions from the Full Spectrum concept to the Unified Land Operations concept. Under the new doctrine, the Army is expected to engage in contingencies where a “hybrid threat” might be encountered, involving elements such as traditional armed forces, insurgents, and transnational terrorists and criminal actors. In order to keep armor relevant within such a doctrine it must indeed by highly tailorable and scalable to meet to the operational requirements. Replacing HBCTs with a common Infantry Brigade Combat Team and providing an Armor Support Brigade, equipped primarily with the M1 series of tanks and the proposed GCV, capable of carrying the current standard infantry squad, would allow for this while protecting against traditional conventional threats.

Peter J. Munson Wed, 01/09/2013 - 4:07pm

Review Essay: History and Hybrid Warfare

Peter J. Munson — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 09:30:00 +0000

Review Essay: History and Hybrid Warfare Peter J. Munson Tue, 08/21/2012 - 5:30am

An edited volume by Williamson Murray and Peter Mansoor.