Hybrid Warfare
New Challenges in the Information Environment
BY COL. (RET.) ARTHUR N. TULAK, U.S. ARMY
The nature of the military threat environment has changed as our adversaries and potential adversaries increasingly use nonmilitary and paramilitary means to achieve strategic and operational objectives that were previously considered a purely military task. The trend toward nonmilitary operations and capabilities substituting for military force, as well as a convergence of conventional and irregular approaches, has been acknowledged for many years by military scholars and writers. These tactics, carried out during peacetime competition, may generate lasting negative outcomes that directly affect security, economics and international law.
These trends have recently accelerated as great power states attempt to achieve military objectives short of open interstate conflict. The “blending” approach to modern warfare has been given many names, including “new generation warfare,” “asymmetric warfare,” “compound warfare,” “hybrid warfare,” and more recently has been described as actions conducted in the “gray zone” between classic diplomacy and open military conflict. Of these, the term hybrid warfare has gained the greatest currency as a way to understand current events. Among NATO circles, the term is used to describe the new operational attributes of the Russian offensive against Ukraine. Russia’s use of military forces and equipment under the guise of indigenous, separatist forces in the Ukraine is the starkest example of hybrid warfare that includes the use of lethal force. China’s version in the South China Sea has so far remained nonlethal, even as lethal means such as fighter aircraft, air defense missiles and artillery are being deployed on contested islands.
Hybrid warfare employs a combination of military and nonmilitary means in peacetime to achieve traditional military objectives (for example, territorial control or conquest), and thereby change the “facts on the ground” short of actual conflict. In his recently published work, Mastering the Gray Zone: Understanding a Changing Era of Conflict, Michael Mazarr, a political scientist and former associate dean of the National War College, reveals that peacetime hybrid warfare accomplishes military objectives of battlespace control. He asserts that “the purpose of hybrid warfare is either to win a conclusive campaign through the use of force and some level of violence, or else to set the stage for some sort of decisive military action.”
Seizing ground via peacetime hybrid warfare can be seen as shaping the theater for future military operations by expanding military control over contested terrain or operational space to better employ offensive and defensive capabilities in the event of actual conflict. Both the Russian and Chinese versions of hybrid warfare use measures short of direct state-on-state military confrontation that would cross treaty red lines. The Russian version features “unorthodox and varied techniques” that combine a mixture of special forces, information campaigns, proxy forces and criminal activities, according to a 2015 Jane’s Defence Weekly report. A common feature of this new form of warfare is the precise strategic management of troops and operations, down to the tactical level, in order to achieve ambiguity about whether the forces and means employed are actually under national command authority, and to achieve the desired influence effects and strategic communication messaging across all media.
The U.S. Army has acknowledged the challenges posed by hybrid warfare and examined the hybrid threat capabilities of China, Russia and Iran in The U.S. Army Operating Concept: Win in a Complex World, published in October 2014. In examining these potential threats, we find that traditional information operations, electronic warfare (EW) and cyber warfare are important components of hybrid warfare.
Information Operations in Hybrid Warfare: European Theater
Classic hybrid warfare operations were demonstrated in the Crimean campaign in 2014, when Russian forces successfully employed psychological warfare, deception operations, skillful internal communications, intimidation, bribery and Internet/media propaganda “to undermine resistance, thus avoiding the use of firepower,” according to a 2014 analysis published by the National Defense Academy of Latvia. More recently, Russia’s military offensive in the eastern Ukraine prompted former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to declare that “Russia has adopted this approach [hybrid warfare], and it is a mix of very well-known conventional warfare and new, more sophisticated propaganda and disinformation campaigns including Russian efforts to influence public opinion through financial links with political parties within NATO and engagement in NGOs [nongovernmental organizations],” Newsweek magazine reported in April 2015.
In both campaigns, Russia employed its own land forces wearing military camouflage uniforms (and often with face masks), but without insignia that would clearly identify them as Russian military. This had the effect of creating ambiguity, because the Russians claimed the well-equipped and well-trained soldiers were merely homegrown separatists. The press referred to these mysterious forces as “little green men” who appeared in numbers far too large and with capabilities far too sophisticated to fit the Kremlin’s description as locally formed separatist groups. Nevertheless, the strategy achieved ambiguity and plausible deniability long enough to change the facts on the ground. NATO officials estimated in March 2015 that 1,000 Russian military and intelligence personnel were deployed in the eastern Ukraine. These personnel likely operated or supervised the operation of sophisticated weapons systems, including tanks, artillery, air defense and command, control, and communications networks supporting separatist forces, as reported by Jane’s Defence Weekly.
Russia’s hybrid warfare, abundantly demonstrated in operations, is now part of Russia’s new military doctrine, which emphasizes information operations, disinformation campaigns, and exploiting the target populations’ “potential for protest,” as well as using special operations forces and proxies to remain below the threshold of conventional military operations, Jane’s Defence Weekly reported.
U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, testified before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that this doctrine is being put into practice. He described Russian influence efforts in Eastern Europe as a “dedicated, capable and very lively information campaign,” according to the Defense News newspaper. Gen. Breedlove estimated that this information campaign was fueled by the equivalent of U.S. $350 million and was disseminated by print, Internet and television media “in a dedicated, capable way.”
Information Operations in Hybrid Warfare: Indo-Asia-Pacific Theater
In step with the Russian military, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has integrated hybrid warfare principles into its military doctrine, which calls for “combining conventional and unconventional actions,” according to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. An example of hybrid warfare in the Indo-Asia-Pacific is exhibited by China’s use of nonmilitary and paramilitary forces, such as its Coast Guard and fisheries enforcement vessels, oil exploration ships, oil drilling platforms, and Chinese-registered commercial ships and fishing boats to exert influence and assert China’s dubious territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea. As reported by Defense News, China has demonstrated that it can surge large numbers of fishing ships into a “maritime militia.” The tactic was employed effectively against Taiwan in the 1990s with swarms encircling Taiwan’s outer islands during periods of political tension and more recently against the Philippines in the Scarborough Shoal stand-off and against Japan near the Senkaku Islands in 2012. According to Defense News, China uses swarms of fishing vessels to encircle a disputed area to bar access for a rival state’s coast guard or navy without using overt military force.
In testimony before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee in April 2015, U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, then commander of U.S. Pacific Command, acknowledged with concern these various nonmilitary and paramilitary operations, as well as a corresponding increase in military operations in the South China Sea. He remarked that while China’s reliance on the use of “maritime law enforcement vessels to enforce their claims has largely kept these issues out of the military sphere,” they were also accompanied by “a steady increase in military air and sea patrols.”
China’s use of what is likely the world’s largest seagoing fleet of dredgers to create a string of artificial islands atop submerged shoals and reefs in the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea is yet another example, The Diplomat magazine reported in February 2015. Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., while in command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, commented on the PLA’s hybrid warfare techniques, saying that “China is creating a ‘Great Wall of sand’ with dredges and bulldozers over the course of months,” The Washington Post newspaper reported in April 2014.
China has used its maritime militia on commercial and nonmilitary ships to harass U.S. Navy ships transiting the South China Sea, including the confrontation by Chinese fishing vessels harassing the USNS Impeccable in March 2009 and another by Chinese merchant vessels harassing the USS Lassen in October 2015. More recently, China used its naval militia personnel, disguised as fishermen, to conduct landings on Japan’s Senkaku islands as reported in Defense News in March 2016. As noted in a series of articles by Dr. Andrew Erickson and Conor Kennedy of the China Maritime Studies Institute of the U.S. Naval War College, China’s maritime militia is a subset of China’s militia organization under PLA and state control. As reported in Defense News in November 2015, the use of these paramilitary forces, referred to as “little blue men,” for their maritime militia uniforms, has been compared to Russia’s “little green men,” the mysterious military forces posing as local separatists in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. The intent of such hybrid warfare tactics is to achieve military objectives short of conflict, while confounding and delaying Western military decision-making.
![U.S. Military Academy cadet Kiefer Ragay participates in an annual cyber defense exercise at the Cyber Research Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in April 2014. [THE ASSOCIATED PRESS]](https://ipdefenseforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/AP290353332412_edit.jpg)
“In both eastern Ukraine and the South China Sea, we’re witnessing efforts to unilaterally and coercively change the status quo — transgressions that the United States and our allies stand united against.”
As China carries out hybrid warfare to accomplish territorial acquisition via nonmilitary and paramilitary means, it is following the Russian example in Ukraine by implementing a coordinated supporting “information campaign” that is planned at the strategic level and is transmitted globally. This information campaign conforms to the PLA’s “Three Warfares” doctrine with actions, activities and messaging to support psychological, media and legal warfare. The messages have promoted China’s “historical claims,” peaceful intentions, and the concept of “indisputable territorial sovereignty” of its artificial island bases. At a news conference in April 2015 (during the fever-pitch dredging operations overseen by the PLA Navy), the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered nonmilitary justifications for occupation of the many contested reefs, shoals and islets, extolling the many supposed benefits to the international community that would result from Chinese administration and control. These messages were intended to create information “cover” to allow China to continue the march to complete the construction of the artificial islands.
A month later, Ouyang Yujing of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs asserted “that China has every right to deploy on relevant islands and reefs facilities necessary for military defense” as reported by China Daily newspaper. U.S. intelligence found that China made good on this claim, when it identified heavy artillery vehicles on an artificial island built atop Fiery Cross Reef, The Associated Press reported in May 2015.
The recent deployment of PLA J-11BH/BS jet fighters (as reported on Chinese language websites) to Woody Island in the Paracels serves to highlight the likely purpose of the airstrips being constructed on the artificial islands, such as the 3,000-meter airstrip constructed on top of Fiery Cross Reef. Finally, the deployment of HQ-9 air defense missiles to Woody Island in February 2016 proves that the ultimate objective of hybrid warfare is to achieve military conquest short of open military conflict. In short, China employs its “Three Warfares” doctrine to carry out hybrid warfare offensive actions against adversaries whose militaries are on a peacetime footing.
Electronic Warfare, Cyber Threat Environment and Hybrid Warfare
Another aspect of hybrid warfare as practiced by the Russians and Chinese is the important role assigned to their military cyber and EW units, which bring another set of new challenges as these capabilities are applied to hybrid warfare.
As Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work has observed, “our competitors are trying to win in the EW competition,” Defense News reported. The Russian Army’s use of EW as a component of hybrid warfare during its offensive operations in the Ukraine was evidence of this. It employed advanced Russian military EW systems such as high-power microwave systems to jam Ukrainian military communication and reconnaissance and to disable unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance operated by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe cease-fire monitoring teams, Jane’s Defence Weekly reported.
The PLA also takes EW very seriously, as evidenced by military writings that stress “obtaining electromagnetic dominance is a precondition to winning modern war,” according to China Radio. In a report published by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in February 2015, analysts assessed that “the PLA sees space, cyber, and EW capabilities as increasingly vital aspects of its ability to deter or, if necessary, defeat a technologically advanced adversary in a future informatized local war, whether over Taiwan or the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea, or elsewhere.”
On the cyber front, as is the case with EW, our competitors and potential adversaries are increasingly investing in these capabilities and putting them to use in peacetime hybrid warfare.
In his 2015 testimony to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Adm. Locklear expressed concern about the “risk posed by persistent cyber threats” as well as “increased cyber capacity and use, especially by China, North Korea, and Russia.” He specifically mentioned North Korea’s cyber attack on Sony Pictures as an example of the country’s cyber capabilities being applied against the military and civilian networks of our ally, South Korea. These threats represent the most capable top two tiers in the five-tier threat matrix developed by the U.S. Defense Science Board Task Force focused on understanding the advanced cyber threat facing the nation.
China’s cyber capabilities continue to grow, mature and expand. The PLA established its first information warfare units in 2003. They were tasked “to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, and tactics and measures to protect friendly systems and networks,” according to a 2007 edition of Security Bulletin. The PLA began incorporating offensive computer network operations into its exercises in 2005 to build its proficiency. After years of official denials,the PLA acknowledged the existence of dedicated cyber warfare units in the 2013 edition of The Science of Military Strategy, published by the PLA’s Academy of Military Sciences, as reported in The Diplomat. This acknowledgment followed a well-known 2013 report published by the commercial computer security firm Mandiant, which identified Unit 61398 of the Second Bureau of the PLA General Staff Department’s Third Department as the source of many computer network intrusions emanating from China.
Of importance to hybrid warfare was the acknowledgment that many of China’s cyber capabilities and cyber warriors are outside the military, such as patriotic hackers and university students. The Science of Campaigns therefore calls for a mobilization of these assets for cyber war. Putting these capabilities under military control in peacetime would be a “Peoples War” in cyberspace and would provide plausible deniability for cyber attacks that would likely accompany hybrid warfare. As explained by Franz-Stefan Gady, writing in The Diplomat in March 2015, “This approach may, perhaps more effectively than in Western countries, put civilian and nonstate actor capabilities in the hands of senior military decision-makers who can more effectively channel and direct these resources for a variety of operations in cyberspace.” The U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Strategy published in April 2015 addressed external threats directly: “Potential adversaries have invested significantly in cyber as it provides them with a viable, plausibly deniable capability to target the U.S. homeland and damage U.S. interests. Russia and China have developed advanced cyber capabilities and strategies.” The plausible deniability of cyber attacks has made them a viable and favored component of hybrid warfare.
China now fully considers cyber as a component of military operations, as revealed in its 2015 Defense White Paper, which stated that “China will expedite the development of a cyberforce,” Stars and Stripes newspaper reported in May 2015. More recently, in October 2015, Bloomberg News carried the PLA’s announcement that it was consolidating the nation’s various cyber warfare capabilities and units into a single military command reporting to the Central Military Commission. The PLA’s actions in establishing a cyber command come more than a year after the Russian military’s February 2014 announcement of its own cyber command. Russian Maj. Gen. Yuri Kuznetso said the goal of having it fully operational by 2017 was “to defend Russian armed forces’ critical infrastructure from computer attacks,” the website Tripwire.com reported.
Cyber warfare was a major characteristic of the Russian invasion of the Republic of Georgia in 2008, and such tactics were again employed in the invasion of Crimea in 2014. During the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, Ukraine suffered “sophisticated and coordinated cyber attacks which crippled communications networks and overwhelmed government websites,” as reported by the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 News in May 2014. Most recently, hackers based in Russia carried out sophisticated attacks on Ukraine’s power grid in December 2015, knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers in central and western Ukraine. Ukraine’s SBU state security service blamed Russian security services for the malware used to attack, as reported by Reuters. Later, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team investigation confirmed that this was a cyber attack, which cyber security experts have linked to to the Russian Black Energy hacking group, as reported by Reuters in February 2016.
Cyber attacks are increasing across the globe, and most alarmingly so in the Indo-Asia-Pacific. In February 2015, Jane’s Defence Weekly reported statistics showing that during 2013-14, the percentage of the world’s cyber attacks emanating from the Indo-Asia-Pacific region ranged from 64 percent to 70 percent, with a foreboding assessment that “the scope of the cyber threat … [and] the threat of cyberattack remains at an alarmingly high level.”
In response, governments across the Indo-Asia-Pacific region are “pushing forward to enhance cyber security, with defense and military agencies taking center stage” with investments from U.S. Pacific allies and security partners valued at U.S. $17 billion in 2014, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly. The possibility of cyber attacks, a key component of hybrid warfare, leading to open armed conflict is now a serious concern. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at a key alliance planning summit in March 2015, said: “NATO has made clear that cyber attacks can potentially trigger an Article 5 [collective security, military] response,” Defense News reported in March 2015.
Moving Forward
Hybrid warfare is taking place during “peacetime” with dramatic results reflected in redrawn boundaries in Europe and new artificial islands created inside “dashed lines” drawn on maps in the Pacific. As the Russian and Chinese examples show, information operations are a key component to conducting warfare against an adversary on a peacetime footing, without triggering a shooting war. Competitors and potential adversaries have adapted traditional information operations to suit hybrid warfare, designed to delay and confound military and government decision-making and responses, creating new challenges to the U.S. and our military allies and security partners. Likewise, EW and cyber have been proven as viable components of hybrid warfare that can achieve disruption and destruction of command and control, communications, and infrastructure. EW and cyber are firmly established as a priority area for development by China and Russia, which are aggressively pursuing and fielding new capabilities and establishing new units and commands to employ them. Hybrid warfare is founded on successful operations in the information environment, which provide the necessary camouflage, concealment and cover for what are essentially military operations to achieve objectives and effects in the physical environment. Meeting this threat will require more agile military organizations, capabilities and specialized military personnel in order to prevent information operations, EW and cyber actions in peacetime hybrid warfare from sparking military conflict.
