reading 8 - gray zone warfare Flashcards
hybrid threats - what can we learn from Russia
- how to define “hybrid”
= the selection, combination, integration and application of various levers of power to deliver damaging and coercive effect
hybrid threats - what can we learn from Russia
- Russia’s instruments of hybrid warfare
2014-15 Russian actions in Crimea -> attention to how NATO should respond to hybrid threats/warfare
failure to agree on definition hybrid (Russia use of levers of state power short of open warfare (government problem, not just military))
Russia’s actors that can be used as instruments of “hybrid warfare” (backed up by threat of use conventional military force)
- organised state agencies (intelligence services) undertake active interventions against state adversaries (rather than just gather intelligence)
- military and paramilitary bodies: National Guard (internal security + combat support in Syria and Ukraine) + Information Operation Troops (cyber and info activities + voert physical interventions against communications infrastructure (eg. in Crimea)
- private military companies (PMCs) and proxies: deniable operations = affordable and expendable alternative to regular military forces that can be used at lower risk
4 non-gov organiations in commercial sector: oligarchs fund political subversion operations + state-controlled commercial entities (Night Wolves) + organisations promoting rights of “compatriots” and ethnic Russians living abroad + exerting eco pressure on adversaries + cultural coercion (state supported doping) to enhance external image) - Russian Orthodox Church
- Organised Crime
- agents of influence repeating lines from Moscow
hybrid threats - what can we learn from Russia
- how to identify hybrid activities
how might a victim know they are subject to hybrid warfare?
= need to determine what combi of unexplained incidents would indicate a coordinated assault
complication: hybrid threats can develop from convergence of already existing social, technical, or economic problems that can be exploited by an adversary
indicators:
- traditional:
- arrival in the country of meaningful nr of specific type of Russian visitor
- civil demonstrations turning into a staged confrontation
- sudden/escalating pattern of sabotage - new: activites on social media in order to establish a casus belli (attempted isolation), attacks or suppression of independent media, attacks on civilian internet and telecomm infrastructure
Russia’s response = primary indicator if the activity derives from hostile campaign by Moscow
- silence or confused and uncoordinated response = Russia is not to blame
- firm and confident denials of any involvement + disinformation = action has been ordered by highest level in the Kremlin
hybrid threats - what can we learn from Russia
- how to respond to hybrid attacks
counter hybrid toolkits that include:
- ensuring good governance throughout entire governed territory + effective law enforcement
- avoiding vacuums that hybrid actions can exploit (vacuum of knowledge, attention, physical presence, political will)
- promoting social cohesion, avoiding emergence disaffected/disenfranchised groups and regions (so external actors can’t exploit their grievances)
- transparency and international coordination: remove doubt, set basis for international solidarity, ensure Russia is aware it can’t pick off individual countries without their allies supporting them
- transparency with population about degree of hostile action undertaken by Russia -> appropriate threat perception
- accurate and profound intelligence capabilities (incl. creation big data analysis units)
need to escalate rapidly in response to hybrid attacks, to make the fact of being under attack undeniable = immediately lift the conflict out of the grey zone to eliminate indecision, confusion and excuses for foreign partners to deny that aexternal attack is taking place
hybrid threats - what can we learn from Russia
- managing a whole-of-society approach to hybrid threats
many of the actions and initiatives required are outside the purview of gov. bc the intended target is society, not just its admin
no template answer for structure/organisation to coordinate, plan and implemtent responses to hybrid threats
states should no longer presume that distance lends comfort: information effects can reach everywhere
countries that provide logistics support and staging for reinforcements to the frontline states lay themselves openo Russia’s anti-access and area denial capabilties
crucial is to raise awareness of the civilian population
also important for preparedness: leadership education (not just political leaders, also big media and private firms)
nobody is too unimportant to be a target -> nobody is too unimportant to be involved in defence
when does gray zone confrontation end?
- gray zone features
- pursuing political objectives through cohesive, integrated campaigns
- employing mostly nonmilitary or nonkinetic tools
- striving to remain under key escalatory or red line thresholds to avoid outright, conventional conflict
- moving gradually toward objectives rather than seeking conclusive results in a specific period
distinctive = coherence, intentionality and urgency of campaigns
clear concept of victory can be elusive (perhaps US maintaining advantage, retaining decision space)
concept sits in geopolitical context with rising powers wanting to revise the global order in some way, but supposedly without war
nuclear weapons increase the dangers of any escalations
gray zone and hybrid theory can reinforce dichotomous war/peace distinction that it is meant to reform => leads to question: is this peaceful or should we consider this as violence/war
- implicitly assumes that for something to be strategically important it can’t be peaceful and might even be considered war
- question what is peace
addressing the gray zone challenge requires acting beyond the gray zone: they are most likely to fail when they can’t sneak under the international radar -> need to reaffirm international order institutions, norms, rules
when does gray zone confrontation end?
- on conceptual analysis
3 elements: definition, operationalization, depth
defintiion = intension: formal, abstract definition of a concept
- acts as checklist: if real world phenomenon does not check all definitional boxes it is not an example of that concept
-> the more specific the definition, the fewer actual examples or instances
operationalization = extension: applicability of a concept to the real world: st of physical objects or intangible but still perceivable relationships that the definition describes
depth = all features that inherently accompany the definition but aren’t explcitly incorporated into the definition itself
- hidden meanings crucial to strategic analysis
gray zone concept should be a concept that can directly contribute to crafting a theory of victory
concept and theory generation involves lot of instinct
when does gray zone confrontation end?
- Gray zone conceptual depths and a theory of success
conceptual depth has implications for how strategists think while using the concept
for designing a blue theory of success, the gray zone is implicitly conceptualized as its own space in international relations, with its own rules (rules -> precluding the concept from being useful for military strategy)
it is not possible to win within the gray zone, only outside of it = external theory of success
concept instills sense of place distinct from war and peace: space bounded by its own rules
-> affects western thinking:
- assume all observers recognize the space -> need to understand the concept in order to understand the other, the object of the strategy (problem: outside of the Western world they do have theories of action short of war, but it is still seen as peace) = make Western thinking to understand outside thinking = doesn’t help us understand how they see the concept, the space
- conceptualization as a space -> encourages symmetrical thinking: West must respond to gray zone activity through own activity in the gray zone (while best strategy may be to remove ambiguity)
- operating in the gray zone against the gray zone not effective
zero-sum nature of the gray zone is crucial for theory of success: negotiation is not possible, only outcome is victory or defeat
- adversary does gray zone bc it can’t win outside of it in the existing order, but escalation is considered imprudent at best and impossible at worst -> limited range of available responses -> unbalanced contest (aggressor advances, defender has diff preserving the physical situation)
-> gray zone defenders generally seek to bring behavioral change through legal arguments using military power, by punishing the aggressor and at best limiting their resources for future aggression
the conflict is one of endurance, bc:
- aggressor’s care to avoid escalation while continuing to salami-slice
- defenders identical caution
- defenders fundamental influence: limited political engagement
advantage from extended confrontation in the gray zone is for the aggressor: more salami-slicing, more changing physcial reality
- only path to success is to image that time will bring change sufficient to alter the revisionists’ aims: change beyond the gray zone
when does gray zone confrontation end?
- key flaw of gray zone agression
although it is straightforward to salami-slice territory, it doesn’t necessarily work on political will and opinion: limits of subversion and nonmilitary pressure
- Russia attempt to gradually wear away Ukrainian political will to join the West = misjudgement
it is insufficiently decisive to lead to major political change
-> failure for the aggessor, in Russia case led to escalation rather than moderation of revisionist aims:
- Russia felt that time was on the side of the West -> critical to escalate to get desired result before it became impossible = contradicts assumption in gray zone concept that aggressor wants to avoid war
ironic result: defender resilience can lead not to eace and reconciliation but to war and divergence from the order
for the defender direct confrontation in the gray zone is self-defeating/futile: only way to beat it is to not fight in it
escalation by a defender may be the only way to escape the gray zone to achieve success (the fact that the aggressor chose for gray zone proves that they want to avoid this) = escalation dilemma
diff between defender and aggressor escalating to war is timing: which side is ready and which side is unready?
when does gray zone confrontation end?
conclusion
to be strategically useful, concepts should contribute in some way to building specific theories of success, if it can’t it is not analtically or theoreticlly useful to practicing strategists: it can cause confusion and harm
gray zone is such a concept: inhibts the creation of a theory of success that adheres to the assumed rules of the gray zone: victory is achieved by those who preempt the gray zone through international resilience or escalate out of it
it is a fashionable conept whitin the US defense establishment
the conept is unlikely to be killed, will die natural death when supplanted by more fashionable concept
we should still be able to qualify how we use the concept: to emphasize its marketing value, rather than its negligible or even nonexistent straetic analytic merit
National Defense Strategy promises substantial amount of activity but can only weakly imply how and why this activity would produce success
grey zone and hybrid challenges
- the continuum of conflict
= range of diff modes of conflict arrayed by increasing levels of violence, from measures short of armed conflict, to large-scale covnentional wars, utlizing modality and scale of vioelnce as distinguishing factors
US lacks this taxonomy: behind in adapting to changed character of warfare
(need to compete with greater agility at lower levels short of war, against multi-functional/dimensional threats)
- measures short of of armed conflict
- irregular warfare/terrorism
- hybrid warfare
- conventional warfare
grey zone and hybrid challenges
- Russia and China
SU/Russia
- cold war: perissitent tefforts to undermine order, weaken alliances, and undercut interests by activities well short of military violence (sow discord, de-legitimize political opponents)
- mix of political, economic and subversive activity
- “active measures” in the information domain (forgery, propaganda, fake news, social bots (fake accounts))
- Russia’s cyber and propaganda intrusions are intensifying
China
- assertiveness in the South China Sea (aggresive seizures disputed islands, diplomatic assertions, use of maritime law enforcement forces) = to erode existing international order and change norms
- well-organized to conduct operations short of military conflict
- principle of “disintegrating enemies”
- psychological operations to lead int’l discourse and influence policies of friends and foes
acc to China, future war = 3 warfares: wartime military operations, quasi-war military operations, non-wartime military operations
grey zone and hybrid challenges
- clarity and unclarity in the gray zone
the space between war and peace is not empty, tu a landschape with political, economic and security competitions that require constant attention
US seen as not doing enough, it is doing something though
gray zone conflict = diff definitions, often too wide to be useful
a formal definition: Those covert or illegal activities of nontraditional statecraft that are below the
threshold of armed organized violence;
including disruption of order, political subversion of government or non-governmental
organizations, psychological operations,
abuse of legal processes, and financial corruption as part of an integrated design to
achieve strategic advantage
grey zone and hybrid challenges
- defining hybrid warfare
The purposeful and tailored violent application of advanced conventional military capabilities with irregular tactics, with
terrorism and criminal activities, or combination of regular and irregular forces,
operating as part of a common design in the
same battlespace
- feature of contemporary conflict
- deliberate effort to blur and blend methods of war
- captures ongoing implications of globalization, diffusion of military-related technologies, and the information revolution
- blend of hard and soft power
- combination of instruments, some military and some non-military, choreographed to surprise, confuse and wear down an opponent, hybrid warfare is ambiguous in both source and intent combination of instruments, some military and some non-military, choreographed to surprise, confuse and wear down an opponent, hybrid warfare is ambiguous in both source and intent
!diff with gray zone = gray zone is indirect and less violent
grey zone and hybrid challenges
- looking forward - so what?
US national security community must assess and prepare for the full array of challenges theyf ace in today’s dynamic enviroment
US National Defense Strategy (NDS) identifies China and Russia as primary competition and threat
- NDS explicitly recognizes a full spectrum of conflict + warn against over-investing in a single/preclusive form of warfare
need more than traditional military strategy responses + must incorporate more than special forces (e.g. how to handle fake news, how to handle election manipulation)
political aims: deficiency in hybrid threat theory that it emhasizes HOW the adversary applies violence rather than WHY
intelligence: analysts should continue to explore past and current doctrine of our major competitors
organization: structural issues like how we should organize ourselves to address the challenge
multi-dimensional partnerships: capacity to generate and execute effective strategies across government lines, including private sector and international organizational contributions
