Hybrid Warfare, Wars, and Threats: A Conceptual Analysis

• Thesis title in Czech: Hybridní válčení, války a hrozby: konceptuální analýza
• Thesis title in English: Hybrid Warfare, Wars, and Threats: A Conceptual Analysis
• Key words: Hybridní vedení války; hybridní hrozby; hybridní konflikt; hybridní válka; konceptuální analýza; konflikt; vojenská strategie; vojenské koncepty.
• English key words: Hybrid warfare; hybrid threats; hybrid conflict; hybrid war; a conceptual analysis; conflict; military strategy; military concepts.
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2014/2015
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Political Science (23-KP)
• Supervisor: RNDr. Jan Kofroň, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned by the advisor
• Date of registration: 17.09.2015
• Date of assignment: 11.04.2016
• Date and time of defence: 20.06.2016 08:00
• Venue of defence: IPS FSV UK, U kříže 8/661 158 00 Praha 5 – Jinonice
• Date of electronic submission: 13.05.2016
• Date of proceeded defence: 20.06.2016
• Opponents: Mgr. Jan Ludvík, Ph.D.

Guidelines

Choice of the topic
Debate about contemporary conflicts and security environment has in recent years seen surge of new concept of Hybrid Warfare. Its growing prominence and popularity seemingly made it buzzword in defence circles, whether debate is about transformation of NATO or United States military forces, about conflict in Eastern Ukraine, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan or against Islamic State, about proliferation of heavy weaponry and modern technologies to the non-state actors or cyber and energy security.

Such a dramatic rise inadvertently and possibly inevitably wreaked havoc in terminology of the debates about contemporary conflicts. There is no common use of the term and there is only little common understanding of concepts behind it. Not only many authors use terms “Hybrid Warfare”, “Hybrid threat” and “Hybrid threat” without explaining relationships between them. Some authors even seem to treat these terms as interchangeable. This just adds to confusion, caused by apparent assumption hold by the majority of authors, that all previous works operating with the term “Hybrid Warfare” are all trying to capture the same phenomenon (which is probably not the case) or even are all referring to same concept (which is definitely not the case). Problem was indeed only made worse by growing use of the word by journalists and other laymen.
To be fair to proponents of Hybrid Warfare, the debates whose conceptual ranks this concept joined, especially the debate about categorization of war and warfare and about military transformation, were already noted as full of blurry concepts and weak definitions by some authors. As much as this makes Hybrid Warfare debate look less bad in comparison, it brings further issues to anyone trying to make sense of it, since makes the higher order concepts used in number of Hybrid Warfare definition part of the problem of understanding them. If you define Hybrid Warfare using concepts of conventional warfare, irregular warfare and terrorism without explicitly stating your definition of these concept at the same time, space for interpretation of such definition is nearly limitless.
This sorry state not only precludes reaching some advancements in our understanding of contemporary forms of warfare and interstate conflict in general. It may also significantly endanger security of number of states, that despite arguably unsatisfying current state of debate about Hybrid Warfare concepts started to take Hybrid Warfare into account in various strategic documents and doctrines.
This author therefor sees urgent need for review of different concepts and approaches hidden under “hybrid” label aimed at clarifying and systematizing them and in this way providing solid bases for further hopefully more disciplined research on Hybrid Warfare, so it does not suffer fate of some notoriously contested conception such as terrorism.
Research questions

Key overarching aim of this thesis is to review the concepts of Hybrid Warfare, Hybrid Threats and Hybrid Wars since their emergence in 2006. Even as author of this work is sceptical to claims of proponents of Hybrid Warfare, it is not aim of this work to prove them wrong. Indeed, as was rightly noted by Guzzini, “There might be theories involving power that can be checked empirically, but there are no concepts that can be checked in this way. Theories explain, concepts do not.” Authors of different concepts of Hybrid Warfare may be wrong in their claims that future conflict will be accurately described by their concepts or they may be wrong in claims that some contemporary or historical conflicts do constitute cases covered by their concepts. But concept by itself can’t be wrong. What it can be though, is unhelpful or misleading. It can be for example poorly defined and therefor poorly differentiated from other concepts or it can be too broad and therefor capturing too diverse cases to be useful. Concept may also not describe what author intended. And indeed, any author may (possibly even inadvertently) use established term for vastly different conception, causing unnecessary misunderstandings. Belief on which is this work based can be accurately expressed in words of David Baldwin: “The advancement of knowledge, however, depends on the ability of scholars to communicate with one another; and clear concepts seem to help.”
Key questions, which this thesis will attempt to answer are therefore:
1) What concepts of Hybrid Warfare (Hybrid Threat, Hybrid War) were so far formulated in literature?
2) What are common elements of these concepts and in what they differ?
3) How useful are these concepts?

Methodology
This thesis will attempt to answer abovementioned research questions by employing rigorous conceptual analysis of various concepts of Hybrid Warfare, Hybrid Wars and Hybrid Threats. It will be written from naturalist metatheoretical standpoint, especially because overwhelming majority of proponents of Hybrid Warfare are naturalists and to engage them from reflectionist standpoint would not help with answering questions posed above.
To answer research questions, following steps will be taken. First, author will look for concepts of Hybrid Warfare used so far in literature. Since most of debate about Hybrid Warfare was very policy oriented, majority of reviewed sources are regrettably not scientific journals. That is associated with somewhat lower standards of methodology employed by them. That is one of reasons, why next step will be to clarify found concepts as much as possible by studying context in which they were presented and other works of authors who presented them. Once these concepts will be successfully identified and clarified, they will be compared to identify commonalities and differences, with special attention dedicated to compatibility of different conceptions. Selected concepts that are more prominent and popular than others or that are representing a group of similar concepts will be than evaluated in terms of their usefulness. And since usefulness of concept depends at least to some degree on intended purpose of introducing such a concept, the analysis will take this into account as well. Usefulness of the concepts will be primarily evaluated by employing criteria of conceptualization introduced by John Gerring . Supporting role will be in this respect played by case studies of conflicts that should according to proponents of concepts constitute cases of hybrid warfare. The case studies should both highlight similarities and differences of conceptions of hybrid warfare and put to test, how well are these conception able to describe the conflict (in comparison with other authors employing different concepts). Conclusion of the work will be dedicated to judgement on usefulness of chosen concepts of hybrid warfare and identifying key areas that need to be addressed to enhance their potential.

References

COX, Dan G., Thomas BRUSCINO and Alex RYAN. Why Hybrid Warfare is Tactics Not Strategy: Rejoinder to Future Threats and Strategic Thinking‘. Infinity Journal [online]. 2015, 2(2), pp. 25-29 [9. 9. 2015] Available at: https://www.infinityjournal.com/article/56/Why_Hybrid_Warfare_is_Tactics_Not_Strategy__A_Rejoinder_to_Future_Threats_and_Strategic_Thinking/
ECHEVARRIA, Antulio Joseph. Fourth-generation war and other myths. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2005, vi, 21 p. ISBN 158487225x.
ECHEVARRIA, Antulio Joseph. Challenging transformation's clichés. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2006, vii, 30 p. ISBN 1584872667.
FREIER, Nathan. Strategic competition and resistance in the 21st century: irregular, catastrophic, traditional, and hybrid challenges in context. Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2007, xi, 103 p. ISBN 1584872969.
FREIER, Nathan. The Defense Identity Crisis: It's a Hybrid World. Parameters. 2009, vol.34 (autumn), pp. 81-94. ISSN 0031-1723 Available at: http://www.carlisle. army.mil/usawc/Parameters/09autumn/freier.pdf.
GERRING, John. Social science methodology: a unified framework. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, xxv, 495 s. Strategies for social inquiry. ISBN 978-0-521-13277-0.
GRAY, Colin S. Categorical confusion?: the strategic implications of recognizing challenges either as irregular or traditional. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2012, ix, 59 p. SSI monograph. ISBN 9781584875208.
HOFFMAN, Frank G. Small Wars Revisited: The United States and Nontraditional Wars. Journal of Strategic Studies [online]. 2005, 28(6), pp. 913-940 [cit. 2015-07-27]. DOI: 10.1080/01402390500441040.
HOFFMAN, Frank G. Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars. Arlington, VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. 2007, 72 p. Also available at: http://www.potomacinstitute.org/images/stories/publications/potomac_hybridwar_0108.pdf
JACOBS, Andreas and Guillaume LASCONJARIAS. NATO’s Hybrid Flanks: Handling Unconventional Warfare in the South and the East. NATO Defence Collage Research Devision Research Paper. [online] 2015, No. 112. 12 p. ISSN 2076-0957 Available at: http://www.ndc.nato.int/download/downloads.php?icode=450
JOHNSON, Dave. Russia’s Approach to Conflict – Implications for NATO’s Deterrence and Defence. NATO Defence Collage Research Devision Research Paper. [online] 2015, No. 111. 12 p. ISSN 2076-0957 Available at: http://www.ndc.nato.int/download/downloads.php?icode=449
MATTIS, James N. and Frank G. HOFFMAN. Future Warfare: The Rise of Hybrid Wars. Proceedings. [online] November 2005, pp. 18–19. ISSN 0041-798X Available at: http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2005-11.
McCUEN, John J. Hybrid Wars. Military Review, [online] April – May 2008, pp. 107–113. ISSN: 0026-4148 Available at: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/milreview/mccuen08marapr.pdf
MURRAY, Williamson and Peter R MANSOOR. Hybrid warfare: fighting complex opponents from the ancient world to the present. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, xi, 321 p. ISBN 9781107643338.
SCHROEFL, Josef and Stuart J. KAUFMAN. Hybrid Actors, Tactical Variety: Rethinking Asymmetric and Hybrid War. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism [online]. 2014, 37(10): pp. 862-880 [cit. 2015-09-09]. DOI: 10.1080/1057610x.2014.941435.
SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER EUROPE and SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER TRANFORMATION. Bi-SC Input to a New NATO Capstone Concept for the Military Contribution to Countering Hybrid Threats. [online] 2010. Available at: http://www.act.nato.int/images/stories/events/2010/20100826_bi-sc_cht.pdf
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE. The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America. [online] Whashington, D.C. U.S. Department of Defense. 2005. Available at: http://www.defense.gov/news/Mar2005/d20050318nds1.pdf
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTIBILITY OFFICE. Hybrid Warfare: Briefing to the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives [online]. 2010, 28 s. [cit. 2015-07-16]. Available at: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d101036r.pdf

Preliminary scope of work

Preliminary outline of the thesis
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Methodology
o Conceptual Analysis
o Criteria of conceptualization
• Chapter 2: Development and transformations of Hybrid Warfare Concepts
o Origins of Hybrid Warfare concept (2005 – 2006)
o Hybrid Warfare orthodoxy (2007 – 2014)
o Reinvention of Hybrid Warfare (2014 – present)
o Review of three phases of Hybrid Warfare debate
• Chapter 3: Looking for common ground
o Licence to confuse – anarchy in terminology (Hybrid War, Warfare, Threat, Conflict)
o One concept is not enough – recognizing irreconcilable differences
o Back to basics – defining modes of warfare
o From militaries with love - Traditional concept of Hybrid Warfare
o Die another day – The new concept of Hybrid Warfare as employed by Russian Federation
• Chapter 4: Critique of the concept
• Chapter 5: Fighting hybrid wars – recommendation of proponents
o Implications of the traditional concepts: adaptability
o Implications of the new concepts: cooperation
• Chapter 6: Facing reality – Hybrid Warfare concepts and contemporary conflicts
• Conclusion