Article Category: Original Study
Publicado en línea: 09 may 2021
Páginas: 60 - 72
Recibido: 07 dic 2018
Aceptado: 08 mar 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jms-2021-0004
Palabras clave
© 2021 Amos C. Fox, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Russia's contemporary approach to war—an amalgamation of information operations, unconventional operations, conventional operations, cyber operations, electronic operations and partisan activities—is used to achieve military objectives aligned with political aims. Fridman, O. (2018).
Furthermore, Russia's actions demonstrate an acute awareness of strategic time and seek to operate in a step or two ahead of the international community's reaction time. Simultaneously, Russian actions embody restraint through the employment of covert methods to achieve its political and military objectives. However, Russia's actions are unique because of the blended role that conventional forces and conventional combat play within its hybrid model of warfare. The Russo–Ukrainian War's Donbas Campaign, fought from the spring of 2014 through February 2015, is trussed by conventional land warfare fought by Russian-generated proxy forces, intermixed with Russian land forces, against the Ukrainian armed forces and hastily formed militias. During this campaign, several major battles, strikes and sieges took form, to include the siege of Luhansk Airport (April–September 2014), the strike at Zelenopillya (14 July 2014), the siege of Ilovaisk (7 August–2 September 2014), the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport (28 September 2014–21 January 2015) and the Siege of Debal’tseve (14 January 2014–20 February 2015). Meanwhile, several smaller battles early in the war, to include Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, set the Donbas Campaign's arch.
Conventional Russian operations in Ukraine, as a sub-component of Russian hybrid warfare, demonstrate the resurrection of high-intensity combat operations. In Ukraine, Russian land warfare, fought under the umbrella of hybrid war, is characterised by a rapid sensor-to-shooter fire support structure, the offensive employment of field artillery and multiple-launch rockets and the employment of robust combined arms formations that reside in both the tactical and operational levels of war. The by-product of Russian hybrid warfare is the re-emergence of sieges and an attrition-based operational and tactical approach to battle. Fox, A. C. (2017, Winter). The battle of Debal’tseve, the conventional line of effort in Russia's hybrid war in Ukraine. Masters, J. (2014, November 14). How Powerful is Russia's Military. Russia invested more than $640 billion to modernize its force, increasing its capabilities by more than 700 modern attack aircraft, 2000 tanks, and 2000 tracked and self-propelled guns. This includes major upgrades to conventional Russian ground combat platforms such as the T-72B3, T-80, T-90, the BMP-3, and MT-LB family of infantry fighting vehicles and personnel carriers, and the introduction of the T-14 Armata. Monaghan, A. (2015–2016, Winter). Putin's Way of War: The ‘War’ in Russia's ‘Hybrid Warfare.
Tucked within the US$640 billion modernization effort are hidden improvements in cyber, electronic and drone capabilities, all of which work in tandem with the conventional and unconventional forces of Russia's military. However, Russian hybrid warfare is deeply rooted in its geopolitical history, its military history, its ethnic composition and its trial with Communism during the twentieth century. Reach, C., Kilambi, V., & Cozad, M. (2020). Russian assessments and applications of the correlation of forces and means. Renz, B. (2016, Summer). Why Russia is reviving its conventional military power. Reach, et al.,
The most powerful implication is not necessarily in a resurgent Russia, but in providing the world with a modern approach to warfare that merges the instruments of national power within operational design – all of which is nested in time, space and purpose to achieve political objectives. The approach aggregates Information Age technology within this construct to achieve victory without the formal commitment of forces. Information Age technology covers a wide variety of items, to include improvements to information and communications technology, nascent and improved cyber and electronic capabilities and improved anti-access/area-denial capabilities. In short, hybrid warfare is an expanding approach to war that exploits vulnerabilities in nascent technological innovation in relation to an adversary.
As with any way of war, many of the Russian hybrid warfare's peculiarities are inextricably linked to Russia's social, political and economic condition. Nevertheless, Russia's success, coupled with the international community's inability or unwillingness to meaningfully deter its bellicose action since 2008, could embolden other nations or polities with comparable means to institute a similar approach to conflict. Bugayova, N. (2020). Putin's Offset: The Kremlin's Geopolitical Adaptation Since 2014.
The Russo–Ukrainian War, discussed briefly later in this work, is the most noticeable and recent example of Russian hybrid warfare. This war and Russian hybrid warfare are best understood by appreciating the impact of former Russian Foreign and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov on contemporary Russian strategic and military thought. Primakov's position, commonly referred to as the Primakov Doctrine, rests on a series of pillars.
First, Russia must strive to overturn the unipolar world order and instead advocate for a multipolar world balanced by a collection of major powers. Second, Russia must stop NATO's expansion, specifically in historically Russian areas of interest and involvement. Third, Russia must advocate for primacy in the post-Soviet space. Rumer, E. (2019, June). The Primakov (Not Gerasimov) Doctrine in Action.
The Primakov Doctrine set the strategic arch for Vladimir Putin, whose run at the top of Russia began in 1999. Minister of Defence, Sergei Shoygu and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, as well as their forerunners during Putin's administration, weaponised the Primakov Doctrine's strategic framework into an aggressive foreign policy implement. Shoygu and Gerasimov crafted a way of war that accounted for the sensitivities of the international security environment, while applying feedback from Russia's experiences in Transnistria, Chechnya and Georgia.
Shoygu and Gerasimov's way of war, which in effect is today's Russian hybrid warfare, is underpinned by five basic assumptions. These assumptions are derived from observation and not policy documents, as access to such important documents is highly restrictive. Observation's value comes in its ability to cut through and see beyond the strategic narratives and storylines often found in policy documents.
The first assumption guiding Russian hybrid warfare is underpinned by the idea that the first rule of war is to protect oneself against a decisive blow. Svechin, A. (2004). Jensen, D., & Doran, P. (2018, November). Chaos as a strategy: Putin's “Promethean” Gamble. Ibid., 29. Altman, D. (2017, August). Advancing without attacking: The strategic game around the use of force.
Fourth, Russia understands the international community's detection threshold and operates just beneath it or camouflages its activities sufficiently, so as to provide it with time and manoeuvre space. This results in the use of proxies, whether those are contractual proxies such as Wagner Group contractors, or cultural proxies like the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic and Army. Fox, A. (2020, November). Five models of strategic relationship in proxy war. Ibid.
Fifth, Russia understands that shaping activities, if executed properly, can negate the need for conventional combat operations. This is where cyber, information, disinformation and electronic warfare prove useful within Russian hybrid warfare. Bugayova,
To summarise, Russian hybrid warfare is a weaponised extension of the Primakov Doctrine, as expressed by the machinations of Defence Minister Shoygu and Chief of Staff Gerasimov. Despite competing narratives about its theoretical and institutional underpinnings, Russian hybrid warfare is an applied way of war that both harnesses and weaponises soft power, hard power, coercive power and digital power into an offensive foreign policy instrument which the Kremlin wields to bring about favourable change. Within its rendering of hybrid warfare, Russia selectively employs the amalgamated power in iterative operations—strategic, operational, and tactical—until it brings about a desirable change in the situation, from political to tactical levels.
Beyond Russia, hybrid warfare's potential influence on armed and unarmed conflict is vast, and yet fundamentally dependent on the observer's analytical perspective, or at which level of conflict they choose to focus their attention. At the strategic level, hybrid warfare tends to be the employment of information operations and diplomacy in conjunction with cyber and electronic operations to weaken an opponent, or to sow the seeds of chaos in relation to an adversary. In many circles this is referred to as Jensen, D., & Doran, P. (2018, November). Chaos as a strategy: Putin's “Promethean” gamble.
Operationally, hybrid warfare is the arrangement of tactical actions in time, space and purpose in pursuit of strategic objectives. In hybrid warfare, tactical actions are more than just the combination of offence, defence and stability operations. In several key respects, these actions include cyber and electronic operations targeting an opponent's movement of troops, targeting an opponent's ability to communicate across the front and targeting an opponent's information. In fact, many of the operational cyber and electronic operations prey on the same targets as operational fires, albeit with different means.
Tactically, hybrid warfare represents a return to high-intensity combat operations in which armour, infantry and artillery fight for local dominance of significant terrain. In hybrid warfare, tactical action is a continuance of a campaign if information, cyber, electronic and unconventional operations are unsuccessful in achieving the operational and strategic objectives. The absence of tactical conventional action during the annexation of Crimea signifies this concept, while conventional war-fighting in the Donbas illustrates the latter. To gain a better appreciation for hybrid warfare, it is imperative to analyse the theoretical underpinnings in which the construct develops.
Viewed collectively, hybrid warfare represents the selective and iterative applications of power—hard, soft, digital and coercive—across multiple domains through iterative operations until such a point in which there is favourable change in a situation is achieved. At the operational and tactical levels, the concept represents the rebirth of sieges and proxy war. Moreover, much like the phoenix rising from the ashes, the Russian flavour of hybrid warfare represents the return of attrition-based battle in which victory goes to the side that can exact the highest toll in men, material and political capital.
Many analysts contend that Russian hybrid warfare is not an actual concept and brush aside General Valery Gerasimov's impact on the state of Russian military thought. Dissenting voices often point to the fact that the phrase hybrid warfare is not used in Russian military doctrine or policy papers to describe its own activities. Nevertheless, that absence does not concern the concept's applied presence.
Analyst Michael Kofman routinely points out perceived flaws in the concept, suggesting that high-end warfare Kofman, M. (2016, March 11). Russian hybrid warfare and other dark arts. Bērziņš, J. (2020). The theory and practice of new generation warfare: The case of Ukraine and Syria. Ibid.
Much like the concept itself, hybrid warfare's definition is a major point of contention within the strategic and defence studies communities. Analyst Frank Hoffman suggests, ‘Hybrid wars incorporate a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts... and criminal disorder.’ Hoffman, F. G. (2007, December). Ibid.
Theorist Robert Leonhard offers an upgrade to Hoffman's definition of hybrid warfare. Leonhard suggests that hybrid warfare is tied to obtaining asymmetric advantages to enable the attainment of political aims. This is done by undeclared action, combining conventional and unconventional operations and coupling military and non-military actions in an environment in which the distance between strategy and tactics is significantly reduced and where information is critically important. Leonhard, R. R., & Philips, S. P. (2015).
Furthermore, hybrid warfare juxtaposes two interdependencies, each of which is anchored on the idea of force. The first interdependency synchronizes the use of force with the domains of war, the levels of war and the components of force. “Components of Force” are defined by the author as conventional force, unconventional force, cyber operations, electronic operations, information operations, diplomatic operations, and economic operations. While this idea is similar to the concept of “Forms of Contact,” they are different in that ‘contact’ implies the physical act of force to inflict compliance through subjugation, whereas Components of Force implies the both the physical act of force to inflict compliance and the intangible aspect of force seeking to influence the mind or actions of an adversary.
Nevertheless, when the conditions are right, contemporary hybrid warfare can and will employ rugged ground forces for conventional operations that are capable of operating in a dispersed manner, conducting effective air–ground reconnaissance, bringing a suite of fires capabilities to bear at points of opportunity to achieve temporary local or zonal dominance and engaging in pursuit of larger military and political objectives. Ground forces on the hybrid battlefield can operate dispersed through increasing capabilities in lower-echelon formations.
Moreover, theorist Liddell Hart suggests leveraging an opponent's momentum against them to enhance one's own operations. It is certain that consequent to the Information Age technology and the contemporary operating environment, in which the digital, interconnected world is connected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the idea of operations has also shifted. Operations are no longer relegated solely to combat but extend to targeted uses of force in the information, cyber and electronic domains, seeking to influence populations, governments and the international community. Therefore, the use of an opponent's effort, or their operations, can be turned against them, or as Liddell Hart states, ‘As in ju-jitsu, his own effort is turned into the lever of his overthrow.’ Ibid., 146.
Theorist Robert Leonhard suggests that the best path to victory in war is through the sequencing of operations, a process he posits as the ordering of events in time, space and purpose. Leonhard, R. R. (1994). Ibid.
Russian hybrid warfare, which purposefully leverages power through iterative, sequenced operations to bring about desired change, embodies Leonhard's idea. Hybrid warfare, as Russian actions in Crimea, and to a lesser degree in the Donbas, demonstrates the power of sequence. Further, if one views the Russian idea of ‘victory’ in terms of the continued existence of the people's republics in Donetsk and Luhansk, coupled with a weakened Kyiv, then Russian actions in Ukraine, as they relate to sequence, gain far more value.
Beyond military theory, the spectre of nuclear engagement is a critical component of Russian strategy and hybrid warfare. Ven Bruusgaard, K. (2020, October). Russian nuclear strategy and conventional inferiority. Adamsky, D. (2015). Cross-domain coercion: The current Russian art of strategy. Watling, J. (2020, July). By parity and presence: Deterring Russia with conventional land forces.
As a result of nuclear weapons’ governing effect on war, technological innovation is at the epicentre of modern hybrid warfare because it allows an actor to aggressively engage an opponent, while operating below the threshold of armed conflict. Technology has then allowed the use of force to not only move beyond the confines of the physical domain, but also to other intangible and abstruse fields. These characteristics serve to energize modern hybrid warfare and give it form.
Furthermore, a grounding in strategy is germane to the understanding of Russian hybrid warfare. One problem with strategy is that there is no clear or universally accepted definition of the term. In asking any theorist, strategist, historian or practitioner of war for a definition of strategy, it is likely that as many answers would be obtained. Nevertheless, theorist Carl von Clausewitz defined strategy as the use of engagement to achieve the objectives of war. Clausewitz,
On the other hand, the US military defines strategy as, ‘A prudent idea or set of ideas for employing the instruments of national power in a synchronized and integrated fashion to achieve theater, national, and/or multinational objectives.’ Joint Publication (JP) 1–02. (2011). Lykke, A. F. Jr. (2008). Toward an understanding of military strategy. In: Boone Bartholomees, J. Jr. (ed.),
Historian Lawrence Freedman provides an enhanced model for understanding strategy. Freedman writes that the purpose of strategy is to transition from short-term, trivial thinking to long-term and essential thinking in relation to a problem-set and to address causes, rather than symptoms of those problems. Freedman, L. (2013). Ibid., pp. ix–xii.
Russian security-thinking assumes that the nation is surrounded by enemies and therefore must maintain a territorial buffer to protect Russian sovereignty. Reed Anderson, R., Ellis, P. J., Paz, A. M., Reed, K. A., Renegar, L., & Vaughn, J. T. (2016). Kagan, F. W., & Kagan, K. (2015, September 27). Putin ushers in a new era of global geopolitics. Clapper, J. R. (2016). Director of National Intelligence, speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Worldwide Threat Assessment of the United States Intelligence Community on February 9, 2016, pp. 17–18. Ibid.
Considering Russian security thinking, the country developed a whole-of-government, multiple-domain approach to warfare to accomplish its political and strategic aims. Russian hybrid warfare reflects the experience it gained from its post-Soviet military conflicts, coupled with its observation of American capabilities development and American intervention throughout the world since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russian actions in Ukraine, which include the annexation of Crimea and the Donbas, clearly demonstrate Russia's applied theory of hybrid warfare.
Russia has never fully accepted Ukrainian independence, and instead views it as a subordinate state. Although it gained its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has continued to try and exert influence over the geographical regions that once constituted the country – politically, militarily, socially and economically. Additionally, many ethnic Russians are located within Ukraine, primarily located in the Donbas Region and Crimea. Nevertheless, this situation is one largely of Russian creation. While Crimea has traditionally been part of the Russian empire, it was given to Ukraine for political purposes in 1954 by the then USSR-Premier Nikita Khrushchev. On the other hand, the Donbas’ ethnic diversity was created by the then USSR-Premier Joseph Stalin following World War II as he relocated thousands of Russian citizens to the area to create an enclave in the region, which would enable Kyiv's social and political manipulation. Pifer, S. (2020, March 17). Order from Chaos, Crimea: Six years after illegal annexation. Brookings Institute. Available at:
Russia's strategic objectives laid the foundation for its annexation of Crimea, which immediately preceded the Russo–Ukrainian War; this act is perhaps the apogee of the theoretical concept of hybrid war in that Russia acquired its strategic objective of Crimea with nearly no kinetic activity. Both conflicts—the annexation of Crimea and the Russo-Ukrainian War—were a result of disagreements over the political direction of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was seen by the Ukrainian people as a Russian puppet, opted for closer ties with Russia, whereas the citizens in western and central Ukraine advocated for closer ties with the European Union. Most citizens in eastern Ukraine, specifically the Donbas and Crimea, supported Yanukovych's position. Berzins, J. (2014, April 2–3). Ukrainian MPs Vote to Oust President Yanukovych.
Information warfare—the foundation of Russia's hybrid campaign for Crimea and the Donbas—began at this time. Russia used the political situation in Kyiv to agitate ethnic Russians, alleging that the western leaning government in Kyiv was unresponsive to and unrepresentative of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Russia used a variety of means to wage information operations – from television to the Internet, to unconventional forces on the ground spreading the message word-of-mouth. Information operations were successful in further exacerbating the political situation, which Russia used as pretence to annex Crimea under the guise of seeking to protect ethnic Russians.
Economics played a large role in the situation with Ukraine and Crimea. As the Euromaidan movement gained steam, Russia forgave US$15 billion in Ukrainian debt to help Yanukovych's political situation. However, when Yanukovych was ousted from office, Russia eliminated the discounted rate at which it sold natural gas to Ukraine from GazProm. In addition, GazProm incrementally increased its rates to Ukraine by 40% in March 2014 and another 10% by April 2014. Shortly thereafter, Russia cut all GazProm sales to Ukraine under the condition that it ought to repay over US$2 billion in previous debts. Pifer,
Unconventional operations were the primary method employed to seize Crimea. However, the annexation also occurred during pre-planned Russian military exercises in the area, which obscured troop movements during the annexation. Marsh, C. (2017). Pifer,
Russian operations in Ukraine's Donbas ushered in an updated approach to war. One study suggests that Russia's approach to hybrid warfare is ‘a truly synchronized whole-of-government approach to warfare’ and that the lines between war and peace have become blurred. Squadron, A. (2016, August). Russian new generation warfare.
Following the annexation of Crimea, the Russo–Ukrainian war took on a conventional flavour at the operational and tactical levels of war. Although primary source material pertaining to the Crimean annexation indicates that Russia labelled their action as summer and fall–winter campaigns, astute observation of the conflict does in fact illuminate two distinct campaigns in the Donbas. The campaigns can easily be referred to as the summer campaign of 2014 and the fall–winter campaign of 2014–2015. The campaigns were the result of Russian proxies losing ground in the Donbas. Battles such as Slovyansk, Kramatorsk and First Donetsk Airport demonstrated that without the element of surprise, Russian proxy forces were unable to overthrow Ukrainian forces unilaterally. As a result, the summer of 2014 brought with it a shift in Russian operations and tactics within the Russian hybrid warfare model. Russia transitioned from operating in the shadows to adopting a more overt position. The 11 July 2014 strike at Zelenopillya was arguably the first shot in the summer campaign's opening salvo.
During the early morning hours of 11 July 2014, Russian rockets eradicated multiple Ukrainian units mustered to counter Russian proxies in Luhansk Oblast. Weiss, M., & Miller, J. (2014, July 17). Russia is firing missiles at Ukraine. Woodford, S. (2017, March 29). The Russian artillery strike that spooked the U.S. army. Bellingcat Report - Origin of artillery attacks on Ukrainian military positions in eastern Ukraine between 14 July, 2014 and 8 August, 2014.
Additionally, Russia stepped up its support to its proxy forces at Luhansk Airport, which had been under siege since April 2014. The arrival of Russian forces in August, which matched support in Donetsk, broke the back of the Ukrainian forces attempting to hold the airport. By 1 September 2014, Russia and its proxies forced the Ukrainians to vacate the destroyed facility. Ukraine troops quit Luhansk Airport, accusing Russia of turning the tide of war.
In Donetsk, the siege of Ilovaisk served as the summer campaign's bookend. Ukrainian forces fought to retake the city through the month of August. By 28 August 2014, Russian land forces were on the ground at Ilovaisk, which fundamentally changed the situation in favour of Russia and its proxies. A multiple-day siege ensued and when all military operations had been concluded, it could be ascertained that 366 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, another 429 were wounded and approximately 300 were captured. The siege also destroyed 600 of 1800 residential homes in the city, as well as 116 multi-story buildings. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Human Rights Violations and Abuses and International Humanitarian Law Violations in the Context of the Ilovaisk Events in August 2014,”
The summer campaign's success triggered the Minsk Protocol, a temporary ceasefire of sorts, between the Russian proxies and Ukrainian forces. Allan, D. (2020, May). The Minsk Conundrum: Western policy and Russia's war in Eastern Ukraine.
The winter campaign picked up where the summer campaign left off. Russia was unable to fully depend on its Donbas proxy forces, for which reason it became fully committed to providing land force support to maintain its gains in Eastern Ukraine. Although smaller skirmishes and battles were fought during this time, the winter campaign's major battles were the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport and the siege of Debal’tseve.
The Second Battle of Donetsk Airport, which also took the form of a siege, began in late September 2014. As a result of the First Battle of Donetsk Airport in May, Ukrainian forces held the airport. On 28 September, Russian proxies in Donetsk set out to wrest the airport from the Ukrainians. The Russian proxies encircled the airport, with the only exclusion of a small artery that was left open from the airport to the outside world. This artery allowed the Ukrainians to ferry men, weapons, equipment and supplies to the airport's surrounded defenders. Nevertheless, the Russian-backed proxies maintained their siege and slowly eroded Ukrainian combat power. In mid-January 2015, a series of combined Russian-proxy assaults resulted in the defence's collapse. Fox, A. (2019, May). Cyborgs at Little Stalingrad: A brief history of the battles of the Donetsk Airport, 26 May 2014 to 21 January 2015.
As the siege at Donetsk Airport ended, the siege of Debal’tseve was heating up. Debal’tseve, the nexus of important supply lines that linked Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, was acquired in April 2014 by Russian proxies, during the initial phase of Russia's hybrid campaign in the Donbas. Ukrainian forces retook the city from the proxies in July 2014. On 14 January 2015, Russian land forces and their proxies encircled the city and began to saturate it with salvos of rocket fire. During the course of the next 3 weeks, the situation for the Ukrainians rapidly deteriorated, resulting with their defeat on 20 February 2015. The winter campaign resulted in the Minsk II protocol, which was yet another feeble attempt at a ceasefire between the warring parties. Allan, D.
Russia's Donbas strategy, book-ended by the summer and winter campaigns, proved politically decisive. By July 2020, Moscow, Kyiv and the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics all but agreed to the Press Statement of Special Representative Grau After the Regular Meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group on 23 July 2020.
Russian hybrid warfare in the Donbas also demonstrates that modern wars tend to be undeclared because today's technology has reduced the distance (spatial, temporal and informational) between forces and those who control the forces, a byproduct of which is the shrinking of distance between the strategic, operational and tactical levels of war. Additionally, technology has increased the non-military means for achieving political and strategic goals, and those means have largely surpassed common weaponry in terms of utility in that environment. Furthermore, technology today has created a larger information space than existed in the past; this space is nascent, ill-defined and not well understood. Therefore, the information space creates an arena in which asymmetric advantages can be attained. Leonhard and Philips,
Next, Russian military means, largely consisting of concealed operations through the use of unconventional forces, supplement the non-military means of waging war, the goal being plausible deniability for political leaders. However, the use of conventional forces, as and when these are employed, integrates technology, specifically drones and cyber capabilities, to enhance their effectiveness on the battlefield. Peacekeeping is—in a given environment—a guise and pretence for the commitment to employment of military means, leveraging information asymmetry and political or ethnic schisms. Ibid.
Finally, the Russian hybrid warfare framework hearkens to Russia's past. The framework states that modern operations, like the forms and methods of Russia's past, must focus on rupturing the enemy's front, and on conducting deep operations through the depth of the enemy's being, whether or not it be a military formation. Moreover, Russian hybrid warfare demonstrates that deep operations are the framework for contemporary operations, but the approach must seek to leverage the capabilities of modern technology, and strike from long distances, with contactless action. Gerasimov, V. (2016, January–February). The value of science is in the foresight: New challenges demand rethinking forms and methods of carrying out combat operations. trans. Robert Coalson,
The Russian hybrid warfare model provides policymakers and practitioners valuable lessons. First, it demonstrates that nation-states are still inclined to invest in powerful conventional capabilities that are centred upon rugged ground forces to deter potential threats, lending legitimacy to the government and defending their borders if threatened. Renz, B. Why Russia is reviving its conventional military power. 24. Ibid.
Next, the strategic, operational and tactical levels of war are interconnected and actions or innovations at one level influence the others. These innovations do not occur in isolation and are often direct responses to conditions or perceived conditions arising from the battlefield or threat analysis. The point is that as other nation-states or up-and-coming polities aim to solve their problems, or look for effective ways in which to achieve their interests, they will probably pursue innovation in a similar manner.
Hiding beneath the veneer of hybridity are powerful conventional capabilities, as Russia demonstrated in Ukraine in 2014. Monaghan, A. (2015–2016, Winter). Putin's Way of War: The ‘War’ in Russia's ‘Hybrid Warfare’. Fox and Rossow. Ibid.
The most important factor that can be deduced from examining Russian hybrid warfare is the relationship between limited war, nuclear deterrence, information operations and conventional capabilities. The presence of nuclear weapons is perhaps the first critical component for modern hybrid warfare. Nuclear weapons provide insurance against a massive ground response to an incremental, limited war. The offensive nation that possesses nuclear weapons knows that the adversary or its allies will probably not commit large ground forces to a conflict for fear of the aggressor employing those weapons against ground forces. This dynamic emboldens the aggressor nation. In the case of Russia, its possession of nuclear weapons emboldens leaders to take offensive action, because they know that even the threat of nuclear employment backs potential adversaries to a standstill.
Next, the idea of sequence surfaces. Leonhard suggests, ‘Victory in warfare is linked inextricably with positive control of sequence. Nor is the link spurious or coincidental: the side that successfully strives to order future events will be the side that emerges victorious.’ Leonhard,
Conversely, sequence is the key for defeating an integrated defence. As Russian operations illustrate, nation-states with integrated defence systems, typically established after incremental territorial advances over time, will be able to establish a robust defensive position to retain their territorial conquests and to retain freedom of manoeuvre. Most militaries, including that of the United States, have not had to account for this situation in decades and largely lack the experience and requisite knowledge to plan accordingly. Gen. Mark A. Milley. (2016, June 26). Priorities for our nation's army. Lecture, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC.
As discussed in Latvian defence documents, ‘To what extent is NATO's legal framework ready to deal with modern warfare.’ Berzins. Altman, D. (2017, December). By fait accompli, not coercion: How states wrest territory from their adversaries.
Coinciding with operating below the threshold of NATO retribution and that of the international community is the idea of not operating as a joint force. The Russo–Ukrainian War illustrates the efficacy of non-joint operations in relation to hybrid warfare in that it minimises an aggressor's footprint, increasing the ability to deny involvement in combat operations in pursuit of strategic objectives. The absence of joint operations is not to say that operations in the air domain are not being conducted, since hybrid warfare demonstrates quite the contrary. To make up for the absence of joint air power or army aviation, hybrid threats will increasingly rely on drones. These will continue to serve as reconnaissance platforms and will likely become equipped with firepower as hybrid threats continue to evolve. Additionally, one can expect to see the use of armed drones exported to proxy, or partisan forces, to enable the hybrid aggressor to continue to pursue a policy of deniability. These armed drones will work in tandem with proxy, partisan and unconventional forces for information collection and targeting purposes, in pursuit of strategic objectives.
Hybrid warfare is an offset strategy to exploit an adversary's vulnerabilities, to include internal political, social and economic divisions. Hybrid warfare embraces strategist Everett Dolman's concept of strategy, which posits that ‘Strategy, in its simplest form, is a plan for attaining continuing advantage’, the purpose of which is continued advantage for the state. Furthermore, Dolman's position postulates, ‘Stringing together anticipated outcomes is the essence of applied strategy.’ Dolman, E. C. (2005). Berzins.
Hybrid warfare supports limited wars in which actors do not pursue strategies of annihilation, but instead look to impose their political will without destroying their adversary's political institutions. Hybrid warfare supports Information Age innovation. It operates in multiple domains to find methods to achieve a relative position of advantage or conduct operations aimed at weakening the adversary, from the inside-out. Hybrid warfare does this by blending the instruments of national power, information operations, cyber and electronic operations, unconventional operations and conventional operations, as needed or able to do so, in pursuit of this aim.
Hybrid warfare seeks to win without fighting in the physical sense. In the event this is unsuccessful, hybrid warfare, at least as embodied by Russia, initiates a conventional line of operations to further advance its interests and to pursue the political and strategic agenda that are associated with this form of warfare, as illustrated by Russia's Donbas campaign.
The concept of hybrid warfare is built upon the idea of perpetual conflict and the ideological motivation that tactical or operational victory is less important than maintaining a position of perpetual advantage. Russia's Novorossiya movement in the Donbas reflects this idea by carving out a polity that is sympathetic—if not subservient—to Russia in the Donbas, while significantly weakening Ukraine. Some view the Russian expedition into the Donbas as a failure, its result being ‘frozen conflict’. Others view the campaign and its resulting conditions to be a success since it has significantly weakened the Ukrainian government and its armoured forces, providing a pliable neighbour on NATO's periphery. The success of Moscow and the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) during the 23 July 2020 Trilateral Cooperation Group meeting with Ukraine, which confirmed the existing lines of demarcation, as well as affirmed the DPR and LPR as the break-away regions’ ruling bodies, illustrates the concepts utility in modern war. “Press Statement of Special Representative Grau”
Finally, hybrid warfare operates on the assumption that wars of annihilation are a thing of the past due to the governing factor that nuclear weapons play. Wars of annihilation, or regime change, often create more turmoil for the aggressor, and therefore, the goal of hybrid warfare is to not topple existing regimes, but instead to create national ulcers that perpetually suck resources and political power away from an opponent's capital. These ulcers are tools which the aggressor can ratchet up, as needed, to apply political pressure on its opponent. Bugayova, Watling,