The Concept of a Method for Predicting the Cascade Effect Under Conditions of Hybrid Warfare

Conflicts have accompanied humanity since dawn, generating negative consequences primarily for civilians. Many of them have a traditional framework. However, hybrid warfare is an increasingly common phenomenon. Hybrid warfare is a broad, complex, and adaptive combination of conventional and unconventional means, overt and covert military, paramilitary, and civilian actions, used in a highly integrated manner by state and non-state actors seeking to achieve their goals (North Atlantic Council, 2016). According to the Global Conflict Tracker report, 30 conflicts and wars are currently happening in the world (CFR, 2024). Against this background, the war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas stand out, the course of which is widely reported in academic literature and the media. Both conflicts are seen as hybrid wars.

Media reports of attacks by parties to conflicts indicate that the threats used in hybrid tactics create unique and hard-to-identify complex networks with cascading effects, to which an initial disruption in one political, economic, social, or other system triggers a series of further related disruptions in different systems. These disruptions build up and spread, affecting further sectors and areas, which can lead to complex and difficult-to-predict effects on a broader scale (Zwęglinski, et al., 2020).

The available literature addresses the problem of predicting the cascading effect in the context of hybrid warfare. The available papers in the Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC) database published after 2014 on this topic refer to the issues of ecology (Gaynor, et al., 2021), medicine (Linebarger, 2021), physical protection (Landucci, et al., 2020), and protection of selected groups of industrial facilities (Landucci, et al., 2017; Linebarger, 2021). The available literature indicates that the problem of occurrence of the cascade effect in the context of hybrid warfare has been noted. However, the available knowledge has to be more holistic and provide solutions to narrowly defined problems.

Tools developed within the framework of critical infrastructure security management can provide a solution to the observed problem of how to holistically address the issue of predicting cascading effects in the context of civilian protection. Tools such as process analysis (Krupa and Wisniewski, 2015), risk assessment (Zio, 2018), Petri nets (Kabir and Papadopoulos, 2019), and Bayesian networks (Hosseini, et al., 2016) provide comprehensive solutions for modeling how to deliver added value to protect the lives and health of civilians.

This paper aims to analyze the feasibility of using the Six Ways to Die model in protecting civilians under conditions of hybrid warfare in the context of identifying network conditions that cause a cascading effect. The model defines the essential areas, the provision of which will allow the civilian population to survive the period of conflict. The model also provides a tool for defining the sequence of activities that must be performed to deliver the service or product under consideration. The authors, assuming that each activity requires the availability and proper functioning of specific resources that need to be protected from threats, prove that it is possible to develop a model of the interdependence of facilities involved in providing goods and services that protect the life and health of the civilian population during a conflict. Analysis of the interdependence model will make it possible to predict the consequences of the materialization of threats and, consequently, will provide decision-makers with analytical material that will enable the implementation of preventive measures or contingency plans that reduce the cascading effect.

The paper is organized as follows. The next section presents the method of research. The section “Background” describes the concept of hybrid warfare, identifying its features with particular attention to the issue of complexity and the cascading effect. This procedure was done to indicate the research gap and to explain how this study complements previous research. Then, an analysis is presented indicating the consequences of hybrid warfare for civilians using selected conflicts as an example. In the discussion of the results section, the link between the Six Ways to Die method, the observed effects of hybrid warfare, and the effect of hybrid warfare on the civilian population are discussed. Also indicated is a model process that defines the goals of protecting the civilian population, methods of their attainment, and anticipation of threats to the actions taken. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed in the conclusion.

The study used the desk research method. Desk research is an example of the so-called nonreactive methods, that is, methods that enable the study of social behavior without interfering with that behavior (Babbie, 2005). It is a method of studying found data and establishing the current state of knowledge in the field under study. Analysis, inference, and synthesis were used as complementary methods.

There are many concepts for applying this method. The study adopted the procedure presented in Fig. 1.

Figure 1.

Desk research study procedure

(Source: Authors’ concept)

As defined in the section “Introduction” of the article, the research area is concerned with the possibility of predicting the cascade effect caused by the threats arising from hybrid warfare, which affects the health and lives of civilians.

The problem is the possibility of using the Six Ways to Die model to help shape strategies for protecting civilians in hybrid wars.

The search for the source was conducted using two scientific databases: Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC) and Scopus. The databases were chosen because they are the most commonly used in literature searches and are the leading databases with significant scientific impact (Joshi, 2017; Visser, van Eck and Waltman, 2021). These databases are considered the two most important multidisciplinary bibliometric databases. Complementary sources of data focusing on media reports on the conflicts under analysis are the PAP (Polish Press Agency) and Defence-24 portals.

The collected source data were used to discuss the concept and features of hybrid warfare. The analyses made it possible to define the essential areas that hurt the lives and health of the civilian population. Defining these areas made it possible to link the Six Ways to Die model to the considered problem of the occurrence of the cascading effect caused by threats generated by hybrid conflicts.

It discusses the use of the Six Ways to Die model in predicting the course of the cascading effect and, consequently, formulating preventive actions and adopting contingency plans.

The Six Ways to Die model is a tool for taking the areas that affect the health and life of the civilian population and defining the network of object dependencies on which proper functioning of the State in these areas depends.

The Six Ways to Die model assumes that the primary task of the State is to eliminate factors that can lead to death in six areas (Bennett and Gupta, 2010):

hunger,

Eliminating sources of danger should occur at three levels of need: the person, groups of citizens, and the state as an organization. For each level of needs, the conditions for survival can be described by the processes used to achieve them.

An example of a process for ensuring access to food that may be interrupted due to a threat generated by hybrid war is illustrated in Fig. 5.

Figure 5.

An example of the implementation process of the food acquisition service

(Source: Own work based on Kisilowski, et al., 2021)

Considering the situation depicted in Fig. 5, a customer wishing to purchase food needs a resource of payment means represented by a payment card. Using a payment card to pay for purchases requires that the store that offers the service of selling goods has a resource in the form of a payment terminal. To debit the customer’s account, the payment terminal must have access to a service offered by a clearing agent, which must be certified by one of the payment system operators (e.g., Visa, Mastercard). In addition, the clearing agent must be authorized by the country’s Central Bank where it is registered. To complete the transaction, the payment system operator must be able to establish a connection and exchange data with the transaction system of the customer’s bank and the bank operating the store. A cyberattack such as DDoS blocking the ability to establish a connection with the payment system operator may result in losing the ability to purchase food. Prolonged unavailability of this service could lead to hunger in the affected area.

An example of cutting off the availability of services to meet basic needs can be seen in the situation described in the article PAP (2022). The article describes the situation of residents of Mariupol, occupied by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Earlier shelling of civilian infrastructure and persecution and forced displacement, combined with the activities of collaborators, led to the restriction of access to drinking water, food, and basic hygiene measures for the civilian population. The situation forced people to feed on pigeon meat. The director of a Mariupol clinic, Oleksandr Lazarenko, points out that eating pigeons poses another threat to the lives of the civilian population by exposing them to diseases. Pigeons are spread of many viral, bacterial, and fungal diseases. As a result, the meat can be infected. One can contract histoplasmosis, encephalitis, ornithosis, toxoplasmosis, and other dangerous diseases, which are dangerous, especially for children and the elderly. With improper treatment of the diseases, some of them can lead to death (PAP, 2022).

The cited article shows how the effects of materialization of one or a group of threats (bombing, persecution, collaboration) can escalate, creating conditions that are conducive to the occurrence of another (risk of infectious diseases). In this case, the destruction of civilian infrastructure resulted in restrictions on access to food, causing famine. The situation forced the civilian population to rely on available food sources, increasing the risk of infectious diseases. In the event of a disease outbreak, the possibility of assistance is limited due to a lack of access to medical care, which can lead to death as a result of illness or injury.

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) applies the Six Ways to Die methodology at the central level of the US government. CISA defines the critical functions of the State. Then, in creating a table of critical State functions, it successively defines the processes that serve to implement them (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, 2019). Critical government functions are defined as those functions of government and the private sector so vital to USA that their disruption, damage, or destruction would have a detrimental effect on public safety, security of the national economy, national health care, or any combination of these matters (Moteff, Copeland and Fischer, 2003).

The concept presented for the central government level corresponds to the proposal included in the Six Ways to Die methodology. Knowing the critical functions and defining the objectives to be achieved, one can proceed to selecting services and component processes and identifying their operators.

Determining the processes that perform critical services paves the way for identifying the resources that determine the resilience of the service. In this case, resilience is understood as a feature of a system, process, or resource that reduces the level of risk associated with the threat under consideration. Resilience is achieved when it is possible to function or return to functioning at an assumed level within an acceptable time after an incident. Resilience is achieved through the cumulative effect of technical, organizational, educational, etc., undertakings that protect a system, process, or resource from threats (Itich-Drabarnp, et al., 2023).

Actions to secure resources that condition the delivery of an essential service can be determined using the Critical Infrastructure Security Situational Management methodology (Wisniewski, 2020). The Critical Infrastructure Security Situational Management methodology uses a resource situation model, which determines the state of a resource at a specific point in time. The data characterizing the resource are:

the functionalities implemented, which can be interpreted as components of an essential service;

The Critical Infrastructure Situation Model integrates functionalities with resources, which are susceptible to threats whose materialization can damage or destroy the resource and negatively affect the availability of functionality. Threats, in turn, indicate the need for safeguards that condition the proper operation of resources and access to functionality. The data collected in the resource situation model is the input package for further actions:

Risk value estimation – Based on the risk assessment, the availability of functionality in a specific threat is forecast. If the projected value of functionality does not reach the safety threshold, a decision problem is formulated, taking into account the threats from which the considered risk arises.

An analysis of the available literature on hybrid warfare tactics indicates that there is a universal resource necessary for any process to protect civilians from hunger, thirst, injury, disease, excessive heat, and excessive cold. This resource is reliable information directed to the civilian population, especially in an emergency when meeting basic needs is impossible by traditional means. This observation is confirmed by available reports and media reports covering the war in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This observation also aligns with the adopted method of analyzing potential cascading effects, where providing services or products to the civilian population requires access to data to enable the launch and proper execution of subsequent planned activities.

Lack of access to information blocks the ability to carry out certain activities and, consequently, the ability to carry out the entire process. The effect of blocking the process of providing essential services or products to the civilian population can expose them to phenomena leading to permanent damage to their health or death due to long-term impact.

A more dangerous phenomenon related to access to information is the lack of data integrity. Only authorized modification of data, even unclassified data, can lead to proper implementation of the accepted process of providing essential goods and services. The process is implemented in this situation, but its effects harm the civilian population. An example of the consequences of violating data integrity can be the modification of records of Emergency Management Plans, which define the evacuation place. Modifying unclassified data in this situation can lead to gathering the civilian population in a place exposed to shelling, for example, instead of directing them to a safe zone.

Blockchain technology may be the answer to the outlined problem of data protection. Applying blockchain technology to protect the population during hybrid warfare can enhance data security, transparency, and resilience. Blockchain has a high level of data security due to its cryptography and decentralized architecture that eliminates single points of failure (Moosavi, Taherdoost, 2023; Zubaydi, et al., 2023). In hybrid warfare, where cyberattacks are a standard tool, blockchain’s ability to resist attacks is invaluable. Data shows that blockchain-based systems are more resistant to typical cyberattacks than traditional databases (Xu, 2016; Benjamin, 2021). Blockchain provides full auditability and transparency of transactions (Hosanagar, 2021; Singh and Kumar, 2021), which is essential in situations where false information and manipulation can lead to confusion and chaos. Every transaction on the blockchain is permanently recorded and publicly verifiable (Tamplin, 2023; The Wall Street Magazine, 2023). Blockchain allows for efficient distribution of data and verification of the sender’s identity (Habib, et al., 2022), which is crucial in verifying individuals and entitlements during a crisis.

The main goal of protecting the civilian population is to ensure security broadly, including the fundamental values of life and health. The analysis in this study shows that in the reference conflicts and wars described as hybrid, the civilian population has suffered direct and indirect consequences in the form of thousands of victims and casualties. They have also been deprived of primary means of survival like food, water, access to medical and humanitarian aid, electricity and heating, and reliable information.

To minimize the above effects, the Six Ways to Die model is proposed, which allows the setting of strategic goals in the field of civilian protection and the definition of strategies for their implementation. Translating the strategy for achieving the adopted goals into processes makes it possible to identify the resources on which the ability to implement the adopted course of action depends. The data thus obtained feeds the method of situational management of critical infrastructure security, which provides tools for analyzing risks associated with single threats and potential cascading effects. As a result, it is possible to analyze the risks associated with the process under consideration and formulate a decision problem, the solution of which will identify a set of safeguards that reduce the level of risk. The safeguards can be preventive (aimed at preventing the threat from materializing) and reactive (contingency plans). This responds to the need identified in the study’s introduction, which concerns the prediction of the course of the cascading effect. At the same time, the proposed method for predicting the cascading effect under conditions of hybrid warfare is the first holistic study in this subject area.

The concept of a method for predicting the cascading effect in hybrid warfare is limited to the features and effects of hybrid war observed in the example of the war in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Further research should focus on developing universal features of hybrid warfare and confirming the accepted perception of the safety of civilians (protection from hunger, thirst, injury, disease, too hot and too cold). In addition, it is necessary to empirically test the adopted concept, for example, based on case study and simulation methods. A separate issue is the protection of information from loss and distortion. In this area, modern techniques for ensuring data security can be applied, that is, blockchain.