On 06 December 2018, the U.K. Parliament's Defence Committee launched an inquiry examining the danger posed by hybrid threats to the UK and how the UK Government ought to be preparing its response. It explained:
Concern around the use of the hybrid approach to warfare and confrontation below the threshold of armed aggression has been a feature of several Government documents in recent years. The Defence Committee has decided to explore the tactics used and the UK’s vulnerability to them as well as the way that the UK can both defend against hybrid threats and how it can utilise them most effectively against adversaries. (HERE)
The Committee invited written submissions on a variety of related questions:What are hybrid threats? Are they new? How do States employ hybrid threats against strategic competitors? How do States employ hybrid warfare in conflict? How do Non-State Actors employ hybrid threats and hybrid warfare? How are the UK, NATO allies and multilateral institutions responding to hybrid threats?What is the UK's vulnerability to hybrid threats and warfare and
what defensive, responsive and resilience measures are in place?How realistic is the UK's strategy and doctrine for defending against hybrid threats and warfare?How does the UK use its own hybrid tools to influence both States and Non-State actors? (HERE).
The Committee's first oral evidence session into the UK Response to Hybrid Threats considered these issues on Tuesday 5 March 2019, The Thatcher Room, Portcullis House with evidence presented by Chris Donnelly, Institute for Statecraft; Dr Rob Johnson, University of Oxford; Dr Andrew Mumford, University of Nottingham (Video HERE; Transcript HERE). For those who are new to the concept, the testimony is instructive, but its full potential reach remains to be understood, much less harnassed.
A written submission worth considering in that respect was that of Dr. Sascha Dov Bachmann, Associate Professor in International Law (Bournemouth University) and War Studies (Swedish Defence University). It follows below.
(HYB0009)
UK Response to Hybrid Threats
Written
evidence submitted by Dr. Sascha Dov Bachmann, Associate Professor in
International Law (Bournemouth University) and War Studies (Swedish
Defence University).
(1) Origin and Nature of Hybrid Threats
Hybrid
threats were identified and coined as such in US military specific
literature as a result of the review of the military conflict between
Israel and Iran-supported Hezbollah during the second Lebanon war of
2006.[1]
Hybrid threats in the context of asymmetric conflicts consist of a
blend of unconventional and conventional means of warfare, their tactics
and methodology. War and hybrid warfare together form a confrontational
meta-system as they both act in a multi-domain context.
Hybrid
threats outside the context of conventional military conflict can be
influenced by a variety of factors, which are deliberately provoked by
different actors, and can be exploited. Hybrid threats are the result of
a new opponent (both state and non-state actors alike) and a new
warfighting spectrum. NATO Recognized as early as 2010 hybrid threats
were a new security risk and designed a new NATO Bi-Strategic Command
Capstone Concept, describing hybrid threats as threats emanating from an
adversary who combines both conventional and also unconventional -
military methods to achieve its goals. Hybrid threats refer to ‘those
posed by adversaries, with the ability to simultaneously employ
conventional and non-conventional means adaptively in pursuit of their
objectives’
NATO had worked as part of its "Countering Hybrid Threats" experiment in 2011on a comprehensive approach for countering such new security threats. Its counterstrategy envisaged involving both State
and non-State actors in a comprehensive defence strategy that combines
political, diplomatic, economic, military technical and scientific initiatives. Unfortunately, NATO’s project work had to stop in 2012 due to a lack of support from their member states.
Since
2014 NATO has recognised Russia’s action as constituting Hybrid Warfare
and has begun to work on a own Hybrid warfare doctrine with the aim of
determining whether this form of warfare requires a redefinition of
Western military doctrine (as a new category in Full Spectrum
Operations).[2] Hybrid Threats are not new per se as
a form of threat or as part of an adversary’s warfare approach; however
the development of new methods and means of warfare, such as cyber
warfare and cyber enhanced lawfare do allow the view that Hybrid
Threats/ Warfare do constitute a new domain of warfighting/threat which
warrant a new dogmatic approach including the addition of Hybrid to the
existing four categories of full spectrum operations. Hybrid threats and
warfare have been used interchangeably in US military literature and
the military profession.
Hybrid
warfare in essence presents itself as a system on its own where a set
of detailed methods, procedures, and routines operating in several
warfighting domains that are established and used synergistically for
carrying out a specific activity or achieve a certain goal, which counts
on interdependent elements influencing one another in a direct or
indirect manner.[3]
War
and hybrid warfare, today, may be presented as coexisting systems in
confrontation situations. The holistic and synergetic efforts of hybrid
warfare contribute to influencing the enemy’s system “PMESII” model
(Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, and Information
components), by using our instruments of power in a “DIMEFIL” model
(Diplomatic, Informational, Military, Economic, Financial, Intelligence,
and Legal instruments); which implies having a 360-degree view of all
domains where the clash between PMESII and DIMEFIL can take place.[4]
Hybrid
warfare builds on existing doctrinal elements and adds the following:
evolving war-fighting capacities in the fifth dimension such as
“cyber-warfare”; and activities in the so called information sphere.[5]
Hybrid
war as a concept sums up the complexities of modern warfare, which go
beyond conventional military tactics, often involving cyberwarfare,
propaganda and a fluid, non-state adversary.
The
concept of hybrid warfare has been discussed by (mostly US) military
writers since the beginning of the 21st century and its recognition as a
theory in formal military doctrinal thinking is still not settled.
Hybrid warfare may use elements from four existing methods and
categories of full spectrum warfare, namely:
- conventional warfare;
- irregular warfare (such as terrorism and counter-insurgency);
- related asymmetric warfare (unconventional warfare such partisan warfare);
- and compound warfare (where irregular forces are used simultaneously against an opponent while being employed by state actors to augment their otherwise conventional warfare approach).[6]
(2) Examples of Hybrid Threats employed by both State and Non-State Actors[7]
There have been past examples of many forms a hybrid threats/ warfare by both state and non – state actors alike:
- Cyber Attacks on
Military command and control
Air traffic control systems
Hospital power supplies
Electricity Grid
Water supplies
Nuclear power (Stuxnet attack in Iran)
Satellite communications
NHS
Banking System
- Electronic Warfare
- Cyber enhanced election meddling
- Foreign investors gaining a controlling interest in essential services, such as energy supplies, water supplies, airports, sea ports; Hinkley Point C, Belt Road Initiative and its impact on state sovereignty, G 5 Huawei
- Propaganda/Misinformation/Psy Ops – Russia Today and CGTN
- Lawfare – South China Sea, Arctic and Antarctic - Russia’s Lawfare in the Arctic
- Use of Special Forces - “Little Green Men” – denial of existence – Crimea/Donetsk (Ukraine) and “Wagner Group” PMCs in both Syria and Africa
- “Weaponization” of Migration
(3) Hybrid Warfare – some concluding remarks
NATO and its member states, and in particular the UK, have to implement NATO’s Hybrid Warfare Doctrine by adopting a multi-domain, multi-agency and multi
stakeholder approach across the military-civilian divide with the aim
to improve resilience and reduce own vulnerabilities.
The UK will continue to be confronted by Hybrid Threat/Warfare activities which will mostly fall below the threshold of the use of force and may often be of a ‘criminal’ nature (such as the BKA virus) in order to camouflage its state actor origin.
We have to adopt a trans-border comprehensive approach with our NATO allies and EU partners (even after BREXIT) utilising the existing Hybrid Warfare awareness and expertise, available at both NATO (Hybrid CoE in Helsinki) and EU (EU Hybrid Warfare Cell level. In addition, and in response to the increase of threats originating from both China and Russia, there is the need to intensify collaboration on the subjects of Hybrid Threats and Cyber with both, the African Union and Australasia.
[1] ‘Hybrid Wars: The 21st Century’s New Threats to Global Peace and Security’, S Dov Bachmann with Gunnariusson H, South African Journal of Military Studies 43(1) 77-98
[2] ‚Russia: implications for UK defence and security inquiry, written evidence submitted to Defence Committee’, written evidence submitted by S Dov Bachmann jointly with Brigadier (Rtd) Anthony Paphiti to UK Defence Committee
[3] ‘Hybrid Warfare and the Legal Domain’, S Dov Bachmann jointly with Mosquera A, and Mosquera A B, Terrorism and Political Violence
[5] S
Dov Bachmann and Hakan Gunneriusson, “Russia’s Hybrid Warfare in the
East: The Integral Nature of the Information Sphere,” Georgetown Journal
of International Affairs: International Engagement on Cyber V (2015): 199-200
[6] S Dov Bachmann Hybrid Warfare – Interview by Remote Control Oxford Research Group– Examining changes in military engagement’
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