In its simplest form, strategy describes the desired ends that can be achieved and the ways those ends can be reached with available means. Colin Gray refines this concept in the Clausewitzian tradition with his emphasis on the role of coercive power by “insist[ing] that strategy is about the use made of force and the threat of force for the goals of policy.”43 Strategic skill is found in the effective bridging of the gap between
the instruments of power and the desired policy outcome. An effective strategy therefore has to balance the desire to reach a certain result, the available instruments at an actor’s disposal, and an appropriate appreciation of how those instruments can be employed toward the desired end. The strategic means available to a state are often also called the elements of national power: Diplomacy, Information, Military, Economics, Finance, Intelligence and Legal/ Law Enforcement (DIME-FIL). Historically, when a state looked at a neighbor and determined to seize all or part of the neighbor’s territory (the strategic end), it has turned to its means of seizing territory (the military) and then formulated the way (warfare) for the latter to bring about the former. The strength of the state’s military, specifically the standing Army, is typically the first figure that a state uses to determine
43 Colin S. Gray, Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy: Can the American Way of War
its ability to attack others or to defend itself from attack.44 This measurement of strength
is of course relative to the comparable strength of a potential adversary.45 The military
has historically been categorized as a unitary element—the so-called “big M” in DIME— regardless of the sea, air, or land domain in which any particular portion of the military is tailored to operate. Western states also traditionally prefer to perceive a binary quality to their relationship with other states; meaning that the two countries are either in a state of peace or war. Granted that there can be degrees of good relations from a close alliance to bitter competition, but in the post-Westphalian order the directing of the state’s instrument of force to cross into the territory of another represents a change in the nature of the inter-state relationship from peace to war.
Hybrid warfare changes the strategic dynamic by dividing the military forms of war into elements whose employment may remain below the threshold of traditional war and synergizing those efforts with the coercive and destructive effects with non-military forms of war. “Hybridity” is found in the combination of the various political and violent means, and the synergistic effect of that combination produces a unique way to realize an end.46 By splitting the “big- M” into conventional forces, special operations forces,
paramilitary forces, surrogate groups, saboteurs, and terrorists, the state can more easily envision options for conducting a certain level of violence against another state with
44 Naval and Air Forces can affect the calculus of relative strength, but land combat power is the traditional benchmark for a state’s ability to wage war and defend against aggression. Nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are unique factors in shaping states’ objectives for war.
45 There are numerous factors that may influence a calculation of strength that exceed just the
numbers of fighting men in uniform or main battle tanks. These can include the state’s production capacity, population of fighting age males, ability to convert economy to war time production, food production, and availability of raw materials, to name a few.
46 Nadia Schadlow, “The Problem with Hybrid Warfare,” War on the Rocks (April 2, 2015). Schadlow is correct in observing that the “hybrid” definition refers to the different means that are used. The level, extent, and synergistic attributes of the hybrid effort, however makes hybrid warfare a way of reaching a strategic end. This becomes more apparent when the means being combined are not all aspects of the military forms of war, but when non-military forms are used to achieve military-like effects. Take the ubiquitous ball bearing factory during World War II for example. If blowing up the factory is the only way to realize the desired end of interrupting the manufacture of a critical component, then air sorties, artillery, or saboteur are interchangeable for their kinetic military effect. If the same end can be achieved before the onset of military hostilities by controlling the factory’s labor force, forcing the factory into bankruptcy, directing criminals to steal factory parts, or purchasing the factory outright, the target state’s ability to rely on its domestic war time capabilities begins to be undermined. When this is intended and is synchronized to other acts of warfare, the war has assumed a hybrid nature that began well before the traditional clash of military power.
varying degrees of attribution and without committing to a full status of open war. This conceptualization allows the state to consider new ways to reach desired goals by degrading the will and ability of the opponent to resist through violence, while decreasing the level of conventional force put at risk to reach a similar outcome. Because the acknowledged or overt participation of military forces may not occur until late in a hybrid campaign, the initial ‘military’ violence (surrogate sponsorship, terrorism, sabotage) should occur during a time of supposed peace, before the targeted state or other actors recognize that a condition of hostility exists.
The conclusion of warfare traditionally results when one of the belligerents is either annihilated in a decisive battle or is exhausted beyond the point of further resistance.47 An aggressor state typically has three, non-mutually exclusive choices
when considering the use of force against another: a limited aims strategy, rapid offensive strategy, or a strategy of attrition.48 The goal of a limited aims strategy is to seize a
desired objective through surprise, assume a defensive posture, and then challenge the victim to either accept the new situation as political reality or to respond by commencing a war of attrition against a fully alerted enemy in the defense.49 A rapid offensive
strategy does not focus on the territory of the enemy, but instead has the primary objective of destroying the victim’s armed forces before they can be fully mobilized.50 A
strategy of attrition also seeks the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces, but through an exhaustive, protracted conflict that the aggressor calculates will be won through his ability to outlast his opponent.51
The strategy of attrition is the simplest description of conventional warfare. As the main effort is defined by the overt clash of military forces and all other elements of
47Hans Delbrück, History of the Art of War within the Framework of Political History (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1975), 135–136.
48 Paul K. Huth, Extended Deterrence and the Prevention of War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 35. See also: John J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), 23–65.
49 Huth, Extended Deterrence and the Prevention of War, 35–36. This strategy could be ascribed to the Crimea’s occupation, but it would not encompass the larger Russian effort against Ukraine.
50 Ibid., 36. 51 Ibid., 37.
national power are in support of that effort, it is difficult to argue a case for hybrid warfare when considering the military dimension alone. However, in Chapter 3, Alexander Svechin’s Strategy of Attrition will describe the use of political warfare to exhaust a target state’s military forces. A rapid offensive strategy might be facilitated through hybrid warfare as a means of preparing the battlefield, but it becomes less hybrid and significantly more “conventional” when the regular echelons of an aggressor’s force become the main effort. The limited aims strategy is particularly well suited to a hybrid warfare campaign. The aggressor determines the physical extent of the desired objective, and then focuses his political warfare efforts at undermining the target state’s ability to project control over that territory well in advance of the application of decisive force.