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Hybrid Threats: Reconceptualizing the Evolving Character of Modern Conflict by Frank G

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Hybrid Threats: Reconceptualizing the Evolving Character of Modern Conflict by Frank G No. 240 Strategic Forum April 2009 Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University http://www.ndu.edu/inss Hybrid Threats: Reconceptualizing the Evolving Character of Modern Conflict by Frank G. Hoffman Key Points Secretary of Defense Robert Gates directly what degree should investment resources challenged the Pentagon’s strategists and mil- be allocated to conducting current opera- itary chiefs in an important speech at the tions, and what needs to be invested in the America’s ongoing battles in Afghanistan National Defense University in September 2008. future? How much should be devoted to so- and Iraq have highlighted limitations in our understanding of the complexity of modern The speech was a critical assessment of the pre- called nontraditional or irregular missions warfare. Furthermore, our cultural prism has vailing U.S. military culture and the prism such as counterinsurgency versus traditional retarded the institutionalization of capabilities through which our Armed Forces see themselves. military capabilities? How should we invest needed to prevail in stabilization and counter- This prism clarifies what is important about scarce funding to reflect this balance? How do insurgency missions. the future and how we posture our forces for the we balance not only missions, but also force An ongoing debate about future threats is future. Secretary Gates questioned that mindset capabilities, risks, and resources? often framed as a dichotomous choice between and its hold on the Services and the Department In the defense community, this “fight over counterinsurgency and conventional war. This of Defense’s capitalization practices. the next war” has been going on for some time.3 oversimplifies defense planning and resource Secretary Gates also declared that “the The debate has been poorly framed as a choice allocation decisions. Instead of fundamen- defining principle of the Pentagon’s new between idealized dichotomous options (see figure tally different approaches, we should expect National Defense Strategy is balance,”1 a 1). This distorted conception grossly oversimplifies competitors who will employ all forms of war, principle that will also be key in the upcom- critical defense planning and resource allocation perhaps simultaneously. Such multimodal ing Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). decisions. Secretary Gates implied that this was threats are often called hybrid threats. Hybrid This principle will force the critical exam- not how he perceived balance in any event. This adversaries employ combinations of capabili- ination of assumptions about the future, essay aims to widen the debate over post–Opera- ties to gain an asymmetric advantage. our understanding of threats, and their rel- tion Iraqi Freedom defense budgets and the pos- Thus, the choice is not simply one of ative priorities. Gates emphasizes achiev- ture of the joint warfighting community. preparing for long-term stability operations or ing a balance between our current conflicts This reconceptualization will have signifi- high-intensity conflict. We must be able to do and the Pentagon’s penchant to plan toward cant implications for military force design and both simultaneously against enemies far more more canonical, conventional scenarios. posture. In a perfect world, our military would be ruthless than today’s. The Secretary believes that the Pentagon is robustly sized, and we would build distinct forces This essay widens the aperture of the devoted to postulated longer term challenges for discrete missions along the conflict spectrum. current debate to account for this threat. It com- that have little to do with current conflicts We would have separate forces to deal with coun- pares and contrasts four competing perspec- and more likely threats. He used the term terterrorism, protracted counterinsurgencies, tives and evaluates them for readiness and risk implications. This risk assessment argues that Next-War-itis to describe a prism that distorts expeditionary missions, and the rare but existen- the hybrid threat presents the most operational the Services’ ability to see military affairs tial interstate conflagration. The training and 2 risk in the near- to midterm. Accordingly, it con- clearly and objectively. equipping of these forces would be well matched cludes that hybrid threats are a better focal point The concept of balance is central to to their expected operating environments and for considering alternative joint force postures. today’s security debate, but it is a complex threats. But we do not live in such a world, and problem rather than a simple equation. To we need to prepare and shape our forces in an No. 240, April 2009 Strategic Forum 1 Figure 1. Balancing the Joint Force surgency and irregular threats as the proper between conventional powers are not realis- focus for our Armed Forces. Proponents tic planning scenarios and should not be the Irregular Traditional of the competing school of thought at the focal point for shaping tomorrow’s military. Capability Capability other end of the spectrum are labeled the They maintain that the most likely challenges Traditionalists, who argue for a force struc- and greatest risks are posed by failing states, ture to fight conventional wars. Bacevich per- ungoverned territories, transnational threats, sonalized the ongoing debate by using two and followers of radical versions of Islam. Desired General Purpose prominent contemporary authors, John Nagl The Counterinsurgents contend that the Forces Capability Portfolio and Gian Gentile, as the polar protagonists.6 purpose of a military is not to perpetuate its H.L. Mencken would have characterized preferred paradigms but rather to prepare environment of greater uncertainty and fewer Bacevich’s essay as offering something neat, for likely contingencies and secure America’s resources. As Secretary Gates has noted, the 9/11 clean, and completely wrong. His “black-and- interests. They worry that U.S. military culture funding spigot is about to be turned off, requiring white” option set creates a false binary choice will reject the primacy of, or even the need the Pentagon to rethink its priorities and make that is great for media consumption, but that for, competency in irregular warfare as opera- hard calls. We no longer have the resources to represents a gross oversimplification and dis- tions in Iraq wind down. That would be a stra- simply buy everything and eliminate every risk. torted conception of America’s strategic options. tegic mistake, even more reprehensible than The time for thinking anew has arrived. Four of the various schools of thought on the institutional memory dump that occurred This essay sets out to expand the array of how to address this force posture problem will after Vietnam.7 In their opinion, preparing for potential posture options for the U.S. military set be assessed here. In each school, the prin- an age of asymmetric wars is neither folly nor against an appreciation for the evolving charac- cipal military threat and its probability and a matter of strategic choice or an “imperial ter of modern conflict. There are far more con- consequences are identified. An alternative delusion”; it is simply a strategic necessity in tenders in this debate, and a far broader range approach based upon the growing “hybrid an era of persistent conflict.8 of options with significantly different risks and threat” literature is also incorporated as a Advocates of this school stress that this distinct investment shifts. Given the economic better construct for sizing and shaping the should be the focus of effort for the American crisis and the need to carefully husband our joint force. Additionally, the force structure military. Some of them deride the notion of defense resources in the next decade, it is impor- requirements and posture shifts that would irregular warfare in our military’s culture as tant that the Obama administration grasp the be required to support each school are exam- fallacious and criticize the U.S. military’s con- numerous modes of warfare that we face and ined. The four schools are: ceptual blindness about the frequency and have a broader spectrum of options. The admin- complexity of nontraditional forms of conflict. istration needs to avoid strategic overstretch and ■ Counterinsurgents, who emphasize As military expert Barak Salmoni has argued: make difficult decisions about what to empha- the high likelihood and rising salience of size and how to prudently balance risk.4 irregular adversaries It will only be when American military and Moreover, the debate so far has focused ■ Traditionalists, who focus on conven- civilian leaders recast the irregular as reg- on shaping land forces for future scenar- tional threats ular that they will begin to fundamentally ios instead of understanding implications ■ Utility infielders, who attempt to bal- restructure forces, properly re-educate person- for the entire joint warfighting community. ance the risks posed by multiple threats by nel, effectively plan operationally and use- Inasmuch as the Navy and Air Force are rel- striving to create forces agile enough to cover fully deploy as well as employ military forces.9 evant to both current conflicts and will the full spectrum undoubtedly be critical contributors to future ■ Division of labor proponents, who The Counterinsurgents believe that fights, a wider lens is needed. balance risk differently by specializing forces America’s enemies are learning and adaptive to cover different missions. beings who recognize the futility of confront- Competing Schools ing the United States in open warfare. Rather The Counterinsurgents. than present predictable aim points for easy Andrew Bacevich captures today’s post– Proponents of this camp challenge the narrow targeting and destruction, these opponents Iraqi Freedom strategy and forces debate orientation of traditionally focused forces and will continue to confound the American mili- in his widely cited article, “The Petraeus argue for a transformation based on today’s tary until it demonstrates that it has mastered Doctrine.” He portrayed a stark choice fights. They believe that Iraq and Afghanistan irregular warfare. between two competing camps in the U.S.
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