NATO’s Response to Hybrid Threats Guillaume Lasconjarias and Jeffrey A. Larsen Editors Foreword by General Philip Breedlove Supreme Allied Commander Europe Founded in 1951, the NATO Defense College (NDC) was established to contribute to the effectiveness and cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance through its role as a major centre of education, study and research on Euro-Atlantic security issues. The NDC Research Division serves as a key forum for discussion and objective analysis of contemporary NATO policy challenges, as well as a central pillar of the College’s outreach activities. NATO’s Response to Hybrid Threats Edited by Guillaume Lasconjarias and Jeffrey A. Larsen Foreword by General Philip M. Breedlove Supreme Allied Commander Europe NATO DEFENSE COLLEGE NATO Defense College Cataloguing in Publication-Data: “NATO’s Response to Hybrid Threats” (NATO Defense College “NDC Forum Papers Series”) Forum Paper 24 Edited by Guillaume Lasconjarias and Jeffrey A. Larsen Copy-editing: Claudia A. Vitiello Cover photo by “[David Orcea] @ 123RF.com” Cover design by Jeffrey A. Larsen and Lucia Valeriani ISBN: 978-88-96898-12-3 The views expressed in this NDC Forum Paper are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the NATO Defense College, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or any of the institutions represented by the contributors. The Research Division (RD) of the NATO Defense College provides NATO’s senior leaders with sound and timely analysis and recommendations on current issues of particular concern for the Alliance. Papers produced by the Research Division convey NATO’s position to the wider audience of the international strategic community and contribute to strengthening of the transatlantic link. The RD’s civil and military researchers come from a variety of disciplines and interests covering a broad spectrum of security-related issues. They conduct research on topics which are of interest to the political and military decision-making bodies of the Alliance and its member states. Portions of this NDC Forum Paper may be quoted or reprinted without special permission for academic purposes, provided that a standard source credit line is included. © NDC 2015 all right reserved Limited copies of this NDC Forum Paper are available and may be obtained directly from NATO Defense College, Research Division Via Giorgio Pelosi, 1 - 00143 Rome, Italy Fax +39-06-50 52 57 97 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.ndc.nato.int https://twitter.com/NDC_Research https://facebook.com/NDC_Research Printed and bound by DeBooks Italia srl V.le G. Mazzini 41, 00195 Rome, Italy www.debooks.us iii Table of Contents List of Figures, Maps, and Images vi Contributors vii List of Acronyms xvii Foreword General Philip M. Breedlove xxi Preface Major General Janusz Bojarski xxvii Acknowledgements xxix 1 Introduction: A New Way of Warfare 1 Guillaume Lasconjarias and Jeffrey Larsen A New Strategic Dimension: Russia as a Geopolitical Game-Changer 15 2 What Mid-Term Future for Putin’s Russia? 17 Stéfanie Babst 3 Cold War Déjà Vu? NATO, Russia and the Crisis in Ukraine 41 Roger McDermott, Heidi Reisinger, and Brooke Smith-Windsor 4 Back to the Future? Russia’s Hybrid Warfare, Revolutions in Military Affairs, and Cold War Comparisons 49 Diego A. Ruiz Palmer 5 Russia’s 2014 Military Doctrine and Beyond: Threat Perceptions, Capabilities and Ambitions 73 Polina Sinovets and Bettina Renz iv A New Type of Warfare 93 6 Hybrid Warfare in the Strategic Spectrum: An Historical Assessment 95 Élie Tenenbaum 7 Russia’s Hybrid Warfare: Waging War below the Radar of Traditional Collective Defence 113 Heidi Reisinger and Alexander Golts 8 Russia’s Approach to Conflict: Implications for NATO’s Deterrence and Defence 137 Dave Johnson Case Studies 161 9 Hybrid Warfare: Iranian and Russian Versions of “Little Green Men” and Contemporary Conflict 163 Hall Gardner 10 Energy as a Tool of Hybrid Warfare 189 Michael Rühle and Julijus Grubliauskas 11 The Transnistrian Conflict in the Context of Ukrainian Crisis 201 Inessa Baban 12 Hybrid or Not: Deterring Russia’s Ways of Warfare in the Baltics - The Case of Estonia 219 Henrik Praks 13 An End-of-Time Utopia: Understanding the Narrative of the Islamic State 243 Jean-Loup Samaan v NATO’s Adaptation to Hybrid Warfare 255 14 NATO’s Hybrid Flanks: Handling Unconventional Warfare in the South and the East 257 Guillaume Lasconjarias and Andreas Jacobs 15 Player at the Sidelines: NATO and the Fight against ISIL 277 Andreas Jacobs and Jean-Loup Samaan 16 NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force: Can the VJTF give new élan to the NATO Response Force? 295 Jan Abts 17 Nuclear Implications of the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict 309 Karl-Heinz Kamp 18 Conclusion: Is Hybrid Warfare Really New? 321 Keir Giles vi List of Figures, Maps and Images Figures 8.1. Crisis/conflict phases 8.2. Characteristics of modern conflict Maps 10.1. Eastern Ukraine’s energy infrastructure map 11.1. The Republic of Moldova’s Transnistrian region 12.1. Map of the Caliphate according to Islamic State militants Images 13.1. Imaginary view of the final battle, according to Islamic State 13.2. Cover of the Islamic State propaganda magazine, Dabiq vii Contributors Jan Abts, Colonel in the Belgian Army, serves as faculty advisor at the NATO Defence College. He holds master degrees in Political, Social and Military Sciences from the Belgian Royal Military Academy and the Free University Brussels. Prior to his current assignment he served in various positions at the strategic level in SHAPE, at NATO Headquarters, and in the Belgian Defence Staff. He served as a staff officer in the 3rd (U.S.) Infantry Division and was the first commanding officer of the Belgian ISTAR Battalion. Inessa Baban is a former NDC Research Fellow. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Strategic Research at the French Military Academy and as an external consultant at the Joint Center for concepts, doctrines and experimentations (French Ministry of Defense). She holds a PhD in Political Geography from the Paris-Sorbonne University. During her PhD studies she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies under the president of Azerbaijan and worked as contractor at the United Nations Development Program-Baku Office. Stéfanie Babst is Head of the Strategic Analysis Capability section supporting the NATO Secretary General and the Chairman of NATO Military Committee in Brussels. She leads a team that advises the two most senior leaders of the transatlantic Alliance on strategic and global security challenges and risks to NATO and provides them with policy recommendations on how the Alliance and its members could prepare for and respond to them. Prior to joining NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division in 1999, Dr. Babst represented Germany as delegate of the OSCE Election Monitoring Mission in Moscow and Rostov. She holds a master’s degree from Kiel University and a PhD from Harvard. viii Major General Janusz Bojarski is Commandant of the NATO Defense College in Rome. He began his military career as a signals officer in the Polish Air Force. He served as the Assistant Defence, Military, Naval and Air Attaché to the Polish Embassy in Paris, and as the Defence and Air Attaché to the Polish Embassy in Washington D.C. He was subsequently Director of the Personnel Department of the Polish MOD, and Military Representative of Poland to NATO and the EU. Major General Bojarski holds a masters degree in National Resource Strategy from the U.S. National Defense University, and a degree in Pedagogy from the Warsaw Military Academy. He has received numerous honours and awards. General Philip M. Breedlove is Commander, Supreme Allied Command, Europe, SHAPE, Belgium and U.S. European Command, Stuttgart, Germany. General Breedlove has been assigned to numerous operational, command and staff positions, and has completed nine overseas tours, including two remote tours. He has commanded a fighter squadron, an operations group, three fighter wings, and a numbered air force. Additionally, he has served as Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force; Operations Officer in the Pacific Command Division on the Joint Staff; Executive Officer to the Commander of Headquarters Air Combat Command; Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force; Vice Director for Strategic Plans and Policy on the Joint Staff; Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe; Commander, U.S. Air Forces Africa; Commander, Air Component Command, Ramstein; and Director, Joint Air Power Competence Centre, Kalkar, Germany. He is a command pilot with over 3,500 flying hours, and holds masters degrees from Arizona State University and the U.S. National War College. Roger McDermott is a Senior Fellow in Eurasian Military Studies at the Jamestown Foundation based in Washington, DC; Senior International Fellow at the Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; and an Affiliated Senior Analyst at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen. He is a specialist in Russian and Central Asian defence and security and publishes widely in both academic journals and articles tailored toward the policy community. ix Hall Gardner is Professor and Chair of the Department of International and Comparative Politics at the American University of Paris. His books include: Crimea, Global Rivalry, and the Vengeance of History (2015); The Failure to Prevent World War I (2015); NATO Expansion and U.S. Strategy in Asia (2013); and The Ashgate Research Companion to War(2012). He participated in Track II diplomacy with the East-West Institute after the 2008 Georgia-Russia war and with the Geneva Center for Security Policy in 2015 on Indo-Pacific disputes. He is a member of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) founded at Stanford University. Keir Giles is an Associate Fellow of Chatham House’s International Security Department and Russia and Eurasia Programme.