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ABSTRACT
Through a brief survey of the typical definitions of hybrid warfare (HW), this article illustrates the five salient features of HW: synergy, ambiguity, asymmetry, innovative disruption and battle over psychology; then based on a HW model proposed by Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud and Patrick Cullen, the article discusses the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the five instruments of power – military, political, economic, civil and informational (MPECI), and analyses the changes and continuities of HW in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank CCW Centre at Oxford University, and especially Dr. Rob Johnson and Dr. Annette Idler for their guidance and help, thanks also go to Dr. Paul Rich and Mr. Tom Durell Young for their comments, and Mr. Anthony Blacer and Dr. Ash Rossiter for editing.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Roland, “War and Technology.”
2. Mattis and Hoffman, “Future Warfare,” 56.
3. Instead of disruptive technology, Hoffman regards criminality as the fourth mode of hybrid threat, which reflects his emphasis on non-state actors as a more likely source of hybrid threats. Hoffman, “Hybrid vs. Compound War.”
4. Freier, Strategic Competition, 2.
5. Hoffman, “The Contemporary Spectrum of Conflict,” 29.
6. Allen and Chan, Artificial Intelligence; Spiegeleire, Maas and Sweijs, Artificial Intelligence; Cummings, “Artificial Intelligence.”
7. Murray and Mansoor, eds., Hybrid Warfare.
8. Fridman, “The Danger of ‘Russian Hybrid Warfare’”; and Tuck, “Hybrid War.”
9. Fridman, “The Danger of ‘Russian Hybrid Warfare’.”
10. Tuck, “Hybrid War.”
11. Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century, 8.
12. McCuen, “Hybrid Wars,” 107.
13. Ibid, 108.
14. Mansoor, “Introduction,” 2.
15. Tienhoven, “Identifying ‘Hybrid Warfare’.”
16. See note 9 above.
17. Senate Armed Forces Committee Hearing, “The Evolution of Hybrid Warfare.”
18. U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), “National Defense”.
19. Reichborn-Kjennerud and Cullen, “What is Hybrid Warfare,” 1.
20. Reichborn-Kjennerud and Cullen, “What is Hybrid Warfare,” 2.
21. Batyuk, “The US Concept and Practice of Hybrid Warfare,” 468.
22. See note 21 above.
23. Ibid., 3.
24. Spiegeleire, Maas and Sweijs, Artificial Intelligence, 28–29.
25. Brundage, et al., “The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence,” 9.
26. Spiegeleire, Maas and Sweijs, Artificial Intelligence, 30.
27. Ibid., 80.
28. Walker, “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).”
29. Dyndal, Berntsen and Redse-Johansen, “Autonomous Military Drones.”
30. Austin, “Sea Hunter.”
31. Miltner, “Can the U.S. Navy Brave the Waves of Autonomous Warfare?”
32. Ayoub and Payne, “Strategy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” 806.
33. Kent, “Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based C2 Digital Assistant.”
34. Spiegeleire, Maas and Sweijs, Artificial Intelligence, 88.
35. Ibid., 85.
36. Shinn, “Predictive Analytics.”
37. Spiegeleire, Maas and Sweijs, Artificial Intelligence, 90.
38. Cummings, “Artificial Intelligence,” 11.
39. Ibid., 12.
40. Rogoway, “Russia Says January 5th Attack on its Syrian Air Base Was by a Swarm of Drones.”
41. Reuters Staff, “Saudi-led Coalition Says Thwarts Houthi Attack on Oil Tanker.”
42. Wallace, Carl von Clausewitz, vii.
43. Polyakova and Boyer, The Future of Political Warfare, 4.
44. Anonymous, “Bots on the Ground.”
45. Polonski, “How Artificial Intelligence Conquered Democracy.”
46. Allen, “AI Will Make Forging Anything Entirely Too Easy.”
47. Price, “AI and CGI Will Transform Information Warfare.”
48. Ducaru, “Framing NATO’s Approach to Hybrid Warfare,” 6.
49. Financial Stability Board, “Artificial Intelligence.”
50. ABC News, “Star uses AI, President Obama in fake news PSA.”
51. Leary, “An AI That Makes Fake Videos May Facilitate the End of Reality as We Know It.”
52. Brundage, et al., “The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence,” 29.
53. Ibid.
54. DARPA, “The World’s First All-Machine Hacking Tournament.”
55. Johnson, “Hybrid War,” 145.
56. Krepinevich, The Military-Technical Revolution, 1.
57. Cullen and Reichborn-Kjennerud, “Understanding Hybrid Warfare,” 3.
58. Ng, “The State of Artificial Intelligence.”
59. Spiegeleire, Maas and Sweijs, Artificial Intelligence, 67.
60. Ibid., 67–68.
61. Ibid., 66.
62. Betz, Carnage and Connectivity, 5.
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Guilong Yan
Dr. Guilong Yan is an associate professor and Director of Foreign Military Studies Centre at the Information Engineering University, Luoyang Campus of the PLA Strategic Support Force. He is a Chevening Fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre, Oxford University. His research interests include hybrid warfare, interagency coordination, and military net assessment. His publications appear in such journals as China Military Science, Military Art, and World Military Review, etc. His commentaries also appear in the PLA Daily.