Towards a typology of non-state actors in ‘hybrid warfare’: proxy, auxiliary, surrogate and affiliated forces

Abstract

This article presents a typology of armed non-state actors in hybrid warfare: proxy, auxiliary, surrogate and affiliated forces. By focusing on the kinetic domain of hybrid warfare, the article offers a corrective to a debate that has so far ignored variation in roles and functions of non-state actors and their relationships with states and their regular forces. As a denominator, ‘hybrid’ identifies a combination of battlespaces, types of operations—military or non-kinetic—and a blurring of actors with the scope of achieving strategic objectives by creating exploitable ambiguity. However, there has been a disproportionate focus on what hybrid war supposedly combines across battlespaces and domains (socio-political, economic, informational), at the expense of who and how. Using the Ukrainian crisis as a theory-building exercise, the article suggests a four-category schema that identifies non-state actor functions as a tool to better represent the complex franchise of violence that is found nested next to non-military operations in hybrid activity. In so doing, the article speaks to a call for better conceptualization the role of non-state violent actors in civil war, in general, and in hybrid warfare, in particular.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The same can be said for ‘asymmetric war/warfare’ in the aftermath of 9/11, and, more recently, about ‘cyber war/warfare’. I thank the reviewers for pointing this out.

2 The debate around the hybrid character of the Kerch Strait incident requires nuance. As one thoughtful reviewer pointed out, while the incident itself did not amount to hybrid war, the economic context (materialized in prolonged economic pressure campaigns carried out through deniable means) does lead credence to labelling the incident as another facet of the Russian hybrid war against Ukraine.

3 For the purpose of clarity, ‘covert action’ is understood ‘as activity to influence events in a plausible deniable manner’ (Cormac and Aldrich 2016, 477). ‘Clandestine’ refers to operations carried in such a way as to assure secrecy or concealment.

4 I am thankful to the reviewers for drawing my attention to the epistemological shifts and differences between the American debate, on one hand, and the British–European, on the other.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vladimir Rauta

Vladimir Rauta is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the School of Politics, Economics and International Relations, University of Reading, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected].