https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3551-7256
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ABSTRACT
This article critically examines how the hybrid warfare concept informs Russian academic and policy debate and how it impacts Russian political and military practice. It explains how the concept of hybrid warfare correlates with the concept of new generation warfare in shaping two vectors in the Russian military policy. The analysis of Russian strategic discourse on hybrid warfare paired with the analysis of some trends in the Russian policy-making argues that the notion of hybrid warfare has become embedded in the thinking of the elites and is now operationalized, including in domestic politics.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Johnson, “Hybrid War and Its Countermeasures: A Critique of the Literature”
2. Hoffman, “Hybrid versus Compound War,” 15.
3. Gerasimov, “Tsennost’ nauki v predvidenii” [The Value of Science in Prediction], 3.
4. Galeotti, “Hybrid, Ambiguous, and Non-Linear?” 282–301.
5. Galeotti, “The mythical “Gerasimov Doctrine” and the language of threat,” 157–61.
6. Rich, “The snowball phenomenon,” 441.
7. Giles, Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West, 2.
8. Ibid., 6
9. Freedman, “Ukraine and the Art of Limited War,” 10–11.
10. See: Giles, The Russian Challenge.
11. Charap, “The Ghost of Hybrid War,” 51–58.
12. Hoffmann, “Small Wars Revisited,” 915.
13. Fridman, Ofer. Russian hybrid warfare, 33.
14. Hoffman, “Future War”; Johnson, Military Capabilities for Hybrid War.
15. Berzins “Russian New Generation Warfare is Not Hybrid Warfare,” 43.
16. Adamsky, Cross-domain Coercion, 22.
17. Adamsky, “From Moscow with Coercion,” 33–60.
18. Adamsky, Cross-domain Coercion, 10.
19. Adamsky, “Moscow’s Aerospace Theory of Victory,” 7.
20. Kofman, Drivers of Russian Grand Strategy, 2.
21. Kokoshin, “Fenomen ‘gibridnoj vojny” v silovoj sostavlyauschej sovremennoj mirovoj politiki [The ‘hybrid war’ phenomenon in the coercive component of current world politics], 971–978; and Tikhanychev, “’Gibridnye’ vojny: istoriya, sovremennoe sostoyanie, osnovy protivodejstviya” [‘Hybrid’ Wars: History, Current State, Fundamentals of Action], 39–48.
22. Gareev, “Kharacter buduschikh vojn” [The Character of Future Wars]
23. The journal went out of business in 2014. (Needs a citation still for the article, title, year, etc.)
24. “Budushee vojny i vojna budushego” [The Future of War and the War of the Future].
25. Domnin and Savinkin, “Assimetrichnoe voevanie” [Asymmetric Warfare].
26. See: Nemeth, “Future War and Chechnya: A Case for Hybrid Warfare.”
27. Creveld, The Transformation of War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict Since Clausewitz.
28. Trenin, “Vojny XXI veka” [Wars of the XXI Century].
29. Olegin and Satarov, “SShA: Stavka na absolutnoe prevoskhodstvo” [US: staking on the military superiority].
30. Sushentsov, “The Russian Response to the RMA: Military Strategy Towards Modern Security Threats,” 112–32.
31. Pallin”Russia’s war in Georgia: lessons and consequences,” 400–24.
32. “Voennaia doktrina Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Utverzhdena Ukazom Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 5 fevralia 2010 g” [Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation. Approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, 5 February 2010].
33. Manojlo, “Tsvetnye revolyucii v kontekste gibridnykh vojn” [Colour Revolutions in the Context of Hybrid Wars], 140–5.
34. Barthosh, “Gibridnaya vojna stanovitsya novoj formoj mezhgosudarstvennogo protivoborstva” [Hybrid warfare is becoming a new form of inter-state rivalry].
35. Evstafyev and Ilnitsky, “Predpolozheniya o gryadushem mire” [Assumptions for the Future World], 58–68.
36. Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 23 May 2014; Barthosh, “Strategiya i kontrstrategiya gibridnoj vojny” [Strategy and Counterstrategy of Hybrid Warfare], 5–21.
37. Huber, Compound Warfare: That Fatal Knot.
38. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century; and Williamson, “From Fourth Generation Warfare to Hybrid War”.
39. Liang, and Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America
40. Hoffman, “Hybrid Warfare and Challenges,” 34–39.
41. The joke goes to show that it is the military’s typical preference for applied theory and practice, at the expense of any doctrine.
42. “Voennaia doktrina Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Utverzhdena Ukazom Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 26 dekabria 2014 g” [Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation. Approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, 26 December 2014].
43. Kofman, Sushentsov, What Makes Great Power War Possible, 5–6.
44. Fenenko, “Kakoj budet vojna budushchego?” [What Will Wars of the Future Look Like?].
45. Suchkov, “War of the Future: A View from Russia,” 34.
46. Sukhareva, “Mir cherez silu – Amerika prevyshe vsego” [Peace Through Strength – America First].
47. Khudoleev, “Voennaya nauka smotrit v budushchee” [Military Science Looks into the Future].
48. Barthosh, “Strategiya i kontrstrategiya gibridnoj vojny” [Strategy and Counterstrategy of Hybrid War], 5–21.
49. Klimenko, “Teoriya i praktika vedeniya ‘gibridnykh vojn’’ [Theory and Practice of ‘Hybrid Wars’], 109–12.
50. Chernenko, “Politicheskaya kibervojna nachalas” [Political Cyberwarfare Has Begun].
51. Kokoshin “Aktualnaya nedostovernost’ kak factor vojny” [Actual unreliability as a factor in the war], 5–15.
52. See note 34 above.
53. Rich, “The snowball phenomenon,” 431.
54. Fridman, “Hybrid Warfare or Gibridnaya Voyna?”, 42–49.
55. Fridman, Russian Hybrid Warfare, 140–4.
56. Sinclair, “Old Generation Warfare,” 8.
57. Sherr, Hard Diplomacy and Soft Coercion.
58. Hobbes, 1588–1679. Leviathan, Chapter XIII.
59. Kokoshin, Voprosy prikladnoj teorii vojni [The Problems of the Applied Theory of War], 146.
60. Svechin, Strategiya [The Strategy], 131
61. Evgeny Messner was a Colonel in the Tsarist Army and would later fight against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. Following the defeat of the Whites, Messner had to flee to Yugoslavia and during WWII collaborated with the Nazis against the Soviets. In 1947 he immigrated to Argentina and developed his career as a military scholar who contributed scholarly work to the field of military studies and made important predictions to how the character of war would evolve in the next few decades.
62. Messner, Myatezh – Imya Tret’yey Vsemirnoy Voiny [Subversion – The Name of the Third World War].
63. Chausov, “Osnovy refleksivnogo upravleniya protivnikom” [The basics of reflexive management of the adversary], 11–15. Smolyan, “Refleksivnoe upravlenie – tekhnologiya prinyatiya manipulyativnykh reshenij” [Reflexive management: technology of enforcing manipulative deceisions], 54–61.
64. Chekinov and Bogdanov, “Assimetrichnyye deystviya po obespecheniyu voyennoy bezopasnosti Rossii” [Asymmetric actions that assure Russia’s military security]: 13–22; Chekinov and Bogdanov, “Vliyaniye nepryamykh deystviy na kharakter sovremennoy vojni nachal”nogo perioda XXI stoletiya” [The influence of indirect actions on the character of contemporary war during the initial period of the twenty-first century]: 3–13; and Gerasimov, “Tsennost” nauki v predvidenii: Novyye vyzovy trebuyut pereosmyslit’ formy i sposoby vedeniya boyevykh deystviy” [The value of science is in foresight: new challenges demand rethinking the forms and methods of carrying out combat operations].
65. Gerasimov, “Tsennost’ nauki v predvidenii: Novyye vyzovy trebuyut pereosmyslit’ formy i sposoby vedeniya boyevykh deystviy” [The value of science is in foresight: new challenges demand rethinking the forms and methods of carrying out combat operations].
66. See: Jonsson, The Russian Understanding of War: Blurring the Boundaries Between War and Peace.
67. Echevarria, Fourth-Generation War and Other Myths.
68. Fridman, “Gibridnaya vojna ponyatij” [«Hybrid war» of notions], 79–85.
69. Nye, Soft Power: the Means to Success in World Politics.
70. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
71. Simons, “Fourth Generation Warfare and The Clash of Civilizations,” 319–412.
72. Gareev, “Slabie mesta natsionalnoj bezopasnosti [Soft spots in the national security].”
73. Kofman, “Raiding and International Brigandry.”
74. Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, “Concept of Russia’s Cyber Security Strategy,” 2014.
75. Orlov, ““Vse pozvoleno’ i novaya uyazvimost: pochemu problema kiberugroz stanovitsya glavnoy v mezhdunarodnoy bezopasnosti” [‘Everything Is Allowed’ and a New Vulnerability: Why the Problem of Cyber Threats Is Becoming Central to International Security], 46–56; and Tikhanychev, “Ogranichenie rasprostraneniya kiberoruzhiya kak faktor obespecheniya bezopasnosti v informatsionnom mire” [Limitation of Cyber Weapons Proliferation as a Security Factor in the Information World], 43–9.
76. Chernenko,”Nachalo kholodnoj kibervojny” [The Beginning of Cold Cyber Warfare].
77. Chambers, Countering Gray-Zone Hybrid Threats. An Analysis of Russia’s ‘New Generation Warfare’ and implications for the US Army.
78. Suchkov, Future Wars: 23.
79. Kofman, Michael. “Russia’s armed forces under Gerasimov, the man without a doctrine.”
80. Kokoshin, “Neskolko izmereniy voyni” [Several dimensions of war], 5–19.
81. Genshtab zayavil o razrabotke SShA strategii ‘Tpryanskij kon’ dlya Rossii [General Staff says the US has designed the ‘Trojan horse’ strategy to employ against Russia].
82. Ilnitsky, “Sotsial’naya imperiya: buduschee Rossiii i samoderzhavie XXI veka” [The Social Empire: the Future of Russia and Monarchy in the XXI Century].
83. Adamsky, “Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy. Religion, Politics, and Strategy”
84. Orwell, Politics and the English Language.
85. Tsygankov, “Gibridnyye Voyny: ponyatiya, interpretatsii i real’nost” [Hybrid Wars: Definitions, Interpretations and Reality], 32–42.
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Maxim A. Suchkov
Maxim A. Suchkov, PhD (Political Science), Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of International Studies and Associate Professor at the Department of Applied International Analysis at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University). He is also a non-resident expert of both the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) and of the Valdai Discussion Club, an associate research fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) and a non-resident scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute (MEI).