Given that an aggressor is an offensive realist with the ability to synchronize all elements of national power and a willingness to employ violence during a time of peace, the hybrid actor needs a strategic end toward which it can direct its efforts. At some point, the aggressor will determine the target state’s ability to protect the objective has been significantly reduced and the aggressor will dynamically change the inter-state relationship through unexpected force. This change happens on the aggressor’s initiative and is based on an assessment of how quickly the objective can be accomplished and the level of violence reduced to prevent a determined resistance by the target state or an intervention from third parties.
a. Determining Strategic Goals
Warfare is conducted in pursuit of a political objective—the strategic end—and it can either be total or limited in scope.75 It can include the complete destruction of an
adversary’s ability or will to resist, or only the force necessary for the aggressor to impose his will in a desired space. For the practice of hybrid warfare, an aggressor state must first establish strategic goals that violate a neighbor’s sovereignty, toward which it can direct the non-military elements of state power, prior to introducing conventional
74 Samuel P. Huntington, American Military Strategy (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1986), 16. Huntington’s description of the coercive role of the military was meant to describe American forces, but this caution applies to hybrid actors as well. The point is that military muscle isn’t flexed just to send messages. In part this speaks to the believability that overwhelming force is actually going to be introduced into a conflict because that is the aggressor’s actual intent.
75 Clausewitz, On War. Clausewitz identified the different military objectives that would be associated with either limited or total warfare. In limited warfare, such as the occupation of a contested territory, the attacker’s aim is to quickly occupy the terrain and then assume a defensive posture that will make any effort to retake it more costly for the victim. In total warfare, the objective of the military is to destroy the victim state’s means of resistance – which Clausewitz equated with the target state’s armed forces.
force. The understanding of the strategic goal, and that the imposition of the aggressor’s will is the determinative point of victory is what distinguishes the hybrid warfare mindset from the war-or-peace binary conception preferred by liberal states. For example, a state that believes itself to be at peace might still seek to gain a competitive economic advantage over another state, or might attempt to influence a political process toward a preferred outcome, but the goal of these activities is to manipulate the atmosphere of the relational environment with recognition of mutual sovereignty. In a perceived state of war, those same processes are used to force an opponent to accept conditions dictated by the aggressor in direct contravention of sovereignty.76 Inherent in selecting hybrid
warfare as the way to pursue desired ends, is the calculation of the aggressor’s strength relative to the target state, and a respect for the incalculable response of the international community. While every effort is made to mask, obfuscate, and deny the pursuit of offensive objectives, there always lies the risk of external factors driving a foreign response to the crisis. Minimizing these “known unknowns” is the principle reason for a hybrid approach to warfare as opposed to the straightforward invasions that have marked the larger history of inter-state conflict.
b. Masking the Dynamic Change to the Status Quo
States that determine to seek political objectives through hybrid warfare necessarily need to conceal their intentions from the outset so that the efforts of diplomatic, economic, and informational coercion are less readily identified as acts of hostility and countered in kind. While the aggressor may not delineate between peace and war, he is keenly aware that others do. He uses this awareness to his advantage by avoiding the thresholds that will lead the target state to officially change the status of the relationship to open warfare. The aggressor also uses the instruments of the liberal international order: UN mandates, international treaties, environmental laws, commercial agreements, etc., to his advantage for as long as they serve his objectives. When these instruments negatively impact his relational power, he will set them aside in favor of
76 This concept can lead to some interesting conclusions about the perspective of a transaction where one side believes it is pursuing its interests in a peacetime environment, while the other has a view of a constant state of war and believes it is being forced to accept the dominant state’s will only because it lacks the ability to resist.
promoting his own survival.77 At some point, the aggressor will chose to dynamically
change the political relationship with the target state. This is the moment of vulnerability for the aggressor when his intentions suddenly become known and when he might be countered before he consolidates his control over the objective. Unlike traditional warfare, the aggressor needs to prevent a gradual increase in tensions, matching increases in defensive postures, and the linear increase in belligerence which is expected to precede a traditional military conflict. Instead, the aggressor masks any buildup in forces behind claims of maneuvers, readiness inspections, or other security activity. The aggressor retains the initiative and conceals the sudden introduction of forces behind other significant world events that are dominating the attention of the international media while employing deception operations to hide the change in activity for as long as possible. Any dynamic action involving the use of military force should also be calculated to achieve the desired objective and then dramatically reduce the associated violence in the shortest time possible in order to reduce the motivation for international intervention. The goal is to present the world with a fait accompli, where intervention would be the cause of additional violence, not the solution.
An important aspect of hybrid warfare is non-linearity in the application of power. At any point, the perceived nature of diplomacy, the audience or message of an information campaign or the selective application of violence might change direction in order to exploit opportunities, respond to changing pressures, bypass some form of resistance, or otherwise maintain the aggressor’s initiative. Hybrid campaigns are defined by the level of adaptability they afford to the aggressor before the full commitment of his national combat power.78 This level of adaptability is predicated upon an understanding
of the battlefield, and the existing balances of power. As no two situations are ever likely to be identical, it would be illogical to presume the existence of a traditional doctrine for hybrid warfare beyond the most general principles. Hybrid warfare requires a plan that is
77 Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 24–37.
78 Gray, Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy: Can the American Way of War Adapt?, 17. Colin Gray specifies that “adaptability must be regarded as a cardinal military virtue.” The case for hybrid warfare is true to this virtue as it seeks to constantly change the application of different forms of war to achieve military results before the military force has been placed at risk.
very clear, has multiple branches and sequels, and yet is shallow enough in detail that it remains as flexible as possible. Recognizing its employment by others will be a challenge in that the hybrid aggressor will not likely follow a specific template pattern of behavior.