The term hybrid can trigger a new conceptualization of dominance and victory. Hybrid threats are innovative, adaptable and complex, aiming to surprise the target and gain the initiative.
They take place in multiple levels from tactical, to operational and strategic, and at the same time horizontally by employing various tools, as well as vertically with the fluctuation of intensity depending on the situation. In parallel, they are structured in such way, to effectively target the opponent’s weaknesses.
According Sun Tzu, the first attack a general will launch is against the moral of the enemy. Moreover, Sun Tzu writes down: «In times of war, adaptability and flexibility is needed», concepts strongly related with hybrid threats almost 2500 years before. He continues in his masterpiece “The art of war”: « the greatest achievement is not to fight and win all of your battles, but to break the will of the enemy to resist, without a battle».
A smart leader overwhelms the enemy without a fight. He conquers his cities without besiege them. He wins his empire without long-lasting operations in the battle field. He invades to his terrain against its governor and his triumph is ultimate without losing a single man. This practically means, that if communication is used with a strategic and effective manner from an international actor it can pose a useful way but also a mean to achieve its strategic goal.
Furthermore, as Dr. Harlan K. Ullman points out hybrid war is like old wine in a new bottle, in which technology and globalization have transformed aspects of war in the 21st century. Limits in military achievements, economic interdependency and cyber technology are just a few examples of how the new bottle has taken another contour.
The information environment is a battlespace and includes of every kind of information around it. Academics avoid to define it, as there is no common ground to the question that arises, how can you define everything around you when it comes the subjective factor in the discussion? Does your perception of reality fits to the perception of your adversary?
Moving further, the term hybrid comes from the Latin world “ibrida” and it appeared for the first time in 2002, in the Master thesis from William J. Nemeth with the title: ‘Future war and Chechnya: a case for hybrid warfare”. After that, in 2007 Frank Hoffman followed with the term hybrid threats, where he points out the usage of the term hybrid war by Robert G. Walker in an unpublished paper, in an effort to characterize the U.S. expeditionary marine forces he called them “a hybrid power for hybrid wars”, in 1998. According Hoffman, Hezbollah gave the best example of a contemporary hybrid challenge by coordinating high discipline, training, guerrilla tactics in urban and non-urban areas in southern Lebanon against Israeli forces in 2006.
As claimed by the EU, the term hybrid threat refers to an action conducted by state or non-state actors, whose goal is to undermine or harm a target by influencing its decision-making at the local, regional, state or institutional level. Such actions are coordinated and synchronized and deliberately target democratic states and institutions’ vulnerabilities.
Activities can take place, for example, in the political, economic, military, civil or information domains. They are conducted using a wide range of means and designed to remain below the threshold of detection and attribution. The hybrid tactics which can be used by an attacker are various forms of sabotage, disruption of communications and other services including energy supplies. The aggressor may work through or by empowering proxy insurgent groups, or disguising state-to-state aggression behind the mantle of a “humanitarian intervention”. Massive disinformation campaigns designed to control the narrative are an important element of a hybrid campaign.
Furthermore, NATO defines hybrid threats as a “type of threat that combines conventional, irregular and asymmetric activities in time and space”. This provides the essence of something produced by the synergy of different measures but used alone it is too broad.
Security studies in the post-Cold War era has moved away from the state-centric approach, broadening the definition of security to include a number of potential threats. Barry Buzan, argues that security studies should not only focus on the military sector, but should be further developed to encompass societal, environmental, economic, and political security. Due to the expansion of the concept of security, a multitude of issues such as those relating to the environment, poverty, and international migration have been labeled as security risks or threats.
In this context, the former Danish Chief of Defence, General Knud Bartels, who presided NATO Military Committee between 2012-2015 and experienced Crimea crisis first-hand as the Chairman in 2014 argues: “Hybrid warfare is a fancy term to name what we have always known as “war”. Life is very complicated and many of our nations love simple clear-cut definitions when they face complicated issues. War is war that you can conduct in many different ways.
It doesn’t always need to be main battle tanks, self-propelled artillery, mechanized infantry, frigates, destroyer, aircraft carriers etc. It can also be subversive operations. But war has no purpose other than to achieve a political goal. Hybrid warfare is just a way of fighting a war which has a political purpose… It doesn’t change the fact that as military personnel, in our commands, we make an assessment, we try to understand our adversary, we try to find what are his strong sides, what are his weak sides, and we try of course to focus on the weak sides and to shield off his strong sides.
Military strategy is how you are going to fight the war, operations is how you want to fight the battle and tactics is how you fight in the battle. When I define how I want to fight war that’s where, as a military commander, I will make a decision whether I want to use hybrid warfare or not. It’s very relevant to study hybrid warfare now, but to elevate it as a new type of warfare, that’s wrong”.
Building on the above theory, case studies, real life experience and hours of brainstorming, the Proorasis team has concluded to the rainbow theory as an effort to silhouette the term hybrid. First of all, it should be noted that there is no international agreed term in place, but it is clear that, the term hybrid has brought safety and security issues back on the table, especially in western societies, where, many times peace that is being enjoyed, is taken for granted.
To that end, one could imagine hybridity with the meteorological phenomenon of a rainbow, where by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets a spectrum of light is appearing in the sky. Additionally, a rainbow is not located at a specific location from the observer, but comes from an optical illusion caused by water droplets viewed from a certain angle relative to a light source. Even if an observer sees another observer who seems “under’ or “at the end” of a rainbow, the second observer will see a different rainbow - father off - at the same angle as seen by the first observer.
In the international relations and military studies field, the light rays can be the available instruments of power an international actor has available, so by the way they are used against an opponent, a spectrum of these appears in the surface. When someone tries to detect and define the threat, it is placed in the “grey zone” between war and peace, forcing him to wonder, what might be the appropriate response. What are the lenses through each actor sees the environment around him and how he understands a possible threat, a potential threat or an immediate danger to his national interest? A top tier political decision will guide the way forward to the future and history will judge him/her probably.
Happy new year! May 2024 bring peace, health and prosperity all over our world.