CENTER FOR HIGH MILITARY CENTER FOR DEFENSE STUDIES STRATEGIC STUDIES

Andrea Beccaro

The “Gray Zone Warfare” notion: the “Gerasimov doctrine” and the Russian approach to “hybrid” operations. Possible convergences with the Chinese doctrine. Strategic objectives and method of use in the current geopolitical landscape. Perspectives on Air and Space Power’s role in the “Gray Zone Scenarios”

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CENTER FOR HIGH MILITARY CENTER FOR

DEFENSE STUDIES STRATEGIC STUDIES

Andrea Beccaro

The “Gray Zone Warfare” notion: the “Gerasimov doctrine” and the Russian approach to “hybrid” operations. Possible convergences with the Chinese doctrine. Strategic objectives and method of use in the current geopolitical landscape. Perspectives on Air and Space Power’s role in the “Gray Zone Scenarios”

(Codice AP-SMD-01 – AP-SMA-04)

3 The “Gray Zone Warfare” notion: the “Gerasimov doctrine” and the Russian approach to “hybrid” operations. Possible convergences with the Chinese doctrine. Strategic objectives and method of use in the current geopolitical landscape. Perspectives on Air and Space Power’s role in the “Gray Zone Scenarios”

DISCLAIMER

The opinions expressed in this volume are of the Authors; they do not reflect the official opinion of the Italian Ministry of Defence or of the Organizations to which the Authors belong.

NOTES

The researches are written using open source information.

Editing by Military Center for Strategic Studies

Director Gen. S.A. Stefano Vito SALAMIDA

Deputy Director Col. (A.F.) Marco Francesco D’Asta Chief of the Strategic Monitoring Department

Graphic and layout Massimo Bilotta - Massimo Lanfranco

Author Andrea Beccaro

Printed by Typography of the Center for High Defense Studies

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4 INDEX INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER 1 8 Definitions. Hybrid Warfare and Gray Zone Warfare: convergences and divergences 8 Hybrid Warfare 9 Gray Zone Warfare 14 CHAPTER 2 26 Russia in 21st century: Gerasimov and the Russian Military Doctrine 26 The Russian Role in the 21st Century International System 26 Russian Strategic Debate: Much More Than Hybrid Warfare 28 The Russian Strategic Debate: The Context 31 The links between Russian and Soviet Strategic Thought 32 Colour Revolutions 33 Eugeny Messner and propaganda 37 The Russian Strategic Debate: The Non-military Authors 41 The Russian Strategic Debate: The Military Authors 43 The Russian Strategic Debate: Valerij Vasilevic Gerasimov 50 Information Warfare 56 CHAPTER 3 61 Case Studies: Russian in the MENA region 61 Russian Diplomacy 62 The Military Operations in Syria 71 Special Forces and Private Military Companies 77 CHAPTER 4 82 China: from Unrestricted Warfare to Gray Zone Warfare 82 CHAPTER 5 87 Lessons learned and Recommendations 87 CONCLUSIONS 92 BIBLIOGRAPHY 96 NOTE ABOUT THE CE.MI.S.S. and NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR 103

5 INTRODUCTION

After the 2014 Russian occupation of Crimea and 2015 Russian intervention in Syria, a huge debate on “new” Russian military approach, Russian hybrid warfare, and new kinds of Russian military operations has arisen. The aim of this paper is to clarify this debate trying to contextualize it and to rectify some aspects. The paper is divided into six chapters with different approaches, aims and contents. The first chapter delves into the issue of the strategic concepts we use to describe Russian military approach. Therefore, it studies both the Hybrid Warfare (HW) and Gray Zone Warfare (GZW) notions describing their meaning and evolution in the strategic debate. It comes to light that HW is not a precise and useful concept to depict Russian strategy because GZW is more appropriate. However, neither of them is something really new or surprising. The second chapter takes into account the Russian strategic debate looking at its historical roots and contemporary ideas. It studies both military and non-military scholars who reflected on how war is changing and it underlines the increasing role of information and propaganda. A paragraph is dedicated to the General Valery Gerasimov, who is probably the most important and famous Russian scholar on this subject. While in every chapters the reader can find reference to case studies, the third chapter analyses the Russian political and military intervention in Syria focusing on Russian politics in the MENA region, elements of GZW applied in Syria, and military operations there with a focus on air power. Chapter fours is a brief comparison between Russian GZW strategy and Chinese approach. It mainly focusses on the notion of unrestricted warfare and on current Chinese strategy based on air power and A2/AD strategy. Chapter five aims to suggest possible countermeasures against Russian strategy based on the notion of GZW in the contemporary information context. The conclusions are intended to summarize the entire paper and to distil some key elements and features of contemporary Russian approach. The research was based on several resources: academic papers, books, policy papers written by the most important Russian scholars, articles from Western important military institutions (Strategic Studies Institute; Parameters; Military Review; NATO). In order to mitigate the risk of Western bias in those sources, whenever possible Russian works translated in English have been used. Moreover, to clarify specific aspects and problems

6 the author has conducted a series of interviews with Russian Italian scholars (Professor Fabio Bettanin, University of Naples L’Orientale; Gabriele Natalizia, University of Rome La Sapienza) and with Professor Mark Galeotti, who is one of the leading experts in recent Russian military operations. I would like to thank all of them for their willingness.

7 CHAPTER 1 Definitions. Hybrid Warfare and Gray Zone Warfare: convergences and divergences

In the section that follows, the notions of Hybrid Warfare and Gray Zone Warfare (GZW) will be taken into account with the aims to: contextualize their meaning in contemporary strategic debate and use in the 21st century security environment; provide a definition of both, although, as I will say, it is impossible to give an exhaustive and unambiguous definition; highlight the role of the study of history in analysing strategic concepts because new technologies enable new fighting methods, but strategy and the nature of war remain the same. At least since the end of the Cold War, a huge debate over the transformation of war has arisen, that is, how and why war is changing, what the triggers are, and what features are most affected by the change. Although scholars have provided different conceptualizations to describe conflicts over the last three decades, everyone has stressed the idea that modern conflicts are not industrial ones like World War Two, but conflicts in which the information and informational dimensions are more important, and they are irregular wars, i.e. not state versus state wars. This finding is also confirmed by empirical data. In fact, according to SIPRI data from between 2001 and 2011, 69 inter-state wars were fought, but non-state wars amounted to 221 (SIPRI, 2012: 5). In order to describe this kind of war, several authors proposed different buzzwords. Creveld utilized the term LICs, Low Intensity Conflicts, Mary Kaldor proposed the idea of New Wars, General Krulak used the notion of strategic corporal, Lind et al. introduced the idea of Fourth Generation Warfare, Hoffman heralded the label Hybrid Warfare (Beccaro 2018). Therefore, in the last decade Western strategic debate has been intense in studying contemporary conflicts and their characteristics. This has been surely a positive element since it has demonstrated the vitality of the Strategic Studies research field, yet it has also showed that too many definitions have difficulty to really grasp the strategic reality of 21st century security environment. Two of the most famous and important definitions have been those of Hybrid Warfare and Gray Zone Warfare. They undoubtedly share several common features, for example both of them focuses on the ambiguity between two clearer concepts such as war and peace, but they have also important differences.

8 The main problem is that they have been both used to describe the Russian recent strategy, but neither of them is part of Russian official doctrine and, mainly HW, has been used in very different strategic contexts and this does not allow for a clearer definition. For this reason, it is now important to analyse their meaning and use in order to have a better idea of these two crucial strategic terms.

Hybrid Warfare

Hybrid Warfare is a very vague strategic concept, notwithstanding this, or maybe due to this, it has been used to describe different conflict situations that involve state and non-state actors, kinetic operations and covert and non-kinetic ones. These represent a very large range of strategic options that it is difficult to encompass in a single definition. The aim of this paragraph is not to find a suitable definition, but to contextualize the concept of Hybrid Warfare in the framework of the modern strategic debate. As it has briefly mentioned above, in the last decades several definitions of contemporary kind of wars has been suggested and one of the most popular has been that of hybrid warfare. However, all these definitions are just new label of an old, and very well known, kind of warfare, i.e. irregular warfare. Therefore, it is important to begin with a brief analysis of this concept in order to properly contextualize the so called Russia’s hybrid war. To be sure, a comprehensive definition of “irregular warfare” does not exist, for example the DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms defines it as: “A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s)” (DOD Dictionary 2020). The most important element in this definition is the dichotomy between the notions of regular and irregular warfare that is, however, closely linked with the Western concept of State. As a consequence, according to Carl Schmitt, the terms ‘regular’ and its opposite ‘irregular’ have to be understood within the framework of modern state regularity: ‘The distinction between regular and irregular battle depends on the degree of regularity [Präzision des Regulären]. [...] the force and significance of his irregularity is determined by the force and significance of the regular that is challenged by him’ (Schmitt, 2004: 3). Accordingly, this paper uses the term ‘irregular warfare’, which, on the whole, refers to nonstate actors’ warfare. As a consequence, irregular warfare is a Western concept

9 based on the primacy of the state, and thus not applicable to most parts of the contemporary world. Military theorists have pointed to the importance of geographical conditions for irregular warfare to be waged efficiently. Clausewitz (cap 26 book 6) argued that successful irregular warfare, ‘people’s war’ in his parlance, could be effective only if five key conditions were met. First, it has to be waged in a complex terrain: swamps, mountains or forests that permit weaker irregular forces to take shelter from the larger, regular units of the enemy. The most common complex terrain today is the urban one. Second, the war needed to be carried out in the heart of the country, thus behind the main front- lines. Therefore, irregular warfare does not envisage fixed fronts but more fluid and complex situations in which both the warring parties entwined together. In this context, local population become part of the conflict both as a victim and as a fighting party. Third, the war could not be decided by a single battle, meaning basically that irregular forces have to refrain from becoming engaged in open, decisive battles. As a consequence, irregular warfare is a protracted conflict in which the strategic notion of time plays a different role for the regular Army and the irregular side. Fourth, the insurgency has to involve a considerable part of the country, and fifth, the character of the given nation has to be suitable for a people’s war. We can add a sixth element, that is the irregulars fight using what they have, it means that they do not relay on high technology to fight their war, but instead they use common weapons in unexpected ways. Historical examples of irregular warfare are numerous. Not only is this kind of warfare older than regular/conventional warfare, but also it has been the most common warfare since the end of the Second World War: every de-colonization war has been an irregular conflict, the Vietnam war had important irregular elements, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, just to name a few examples. After the end of the Cold War this trend has remained consistent, suffice is to remind the War on Terror, the conflicts in Syria, Libya, Yemen. Despite this long history, irregular warfare has always been overshadowed by more conventional conflicts. According to Antulio Echevarria, editor of the U.S. Army War College Quarterly and a leading scholar on strategic theory, “[t]his lack of historical awareness [...] contributes to the West’s lack of conceptual preparedness” (Echevarria, p. xii). Moreover, the notion of conventional/regular war is what Max Weber called ideal type (Idealtypus in German), i.e. “a common mental construct [...] derived from observable reality although not conforming to it in detail because of deliberate simplification and exaggeration [...] it is, rather, a constructed ideal used to

10 approximate reality by selecting and accentuating certain elements” (Britannica). Consequently, most state-against-state wars had prominent irregular factors. For example, one element that several hybrid warfare’s scholars say it is typical of this kind of warfare is that there is no declaration of war. Echevarria notes that America has fought more than 200 wars but declared war only 11 times in 5 wars (Echevarria p. 10). The term HW was probably introduced in 2002 by William Nemeth, a Colonel in the US Marine Corps, who was studying the Chechen hybrid warfare against Russia. However, the theory of HW comes from the Israeli conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 (Glenn, 2008). In that context, Hezbollah has been interpreted as an example of the new enemy because it is structured in a network, is related to the local population, and is irregular in its tactics. At the same time, Hezbollah has employed anti-ship and anti-tank missiles and has developed effective tactics for halting the advance of the IDF (Biddle, Friedman, 2008). Then, HW was used to describe the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. forces and later for describing the military operations of ISIS, which uses terrorism, guerrilla tactics, and more conventional weaponry (Beccaro 2018). The main problem related to the definition of HW is that it has been developed in order to describe irregular warfare operations, and then the same label was attached to the Russian operations in Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. While there are some convergences between these two type of conflicts, the differences are considerable and, as a result, the notion has lost part of its ability to describe what happened in realty. In 2013, an article featuring a speech by Russian General Valery Gerasimov appeared in the Russian Military-Industrial Courier sparking international attention. Gerasimov described how nowadays, the mixed-use of propaganda and subversion means crippling a functioning state in a matter of months and even days, becoming a victim of foreign intervention, chaos and civil war (Gerasimov 2013). However, more than the article itself, what really grabbed Western attention was the article’s interpretations by Mark Galeotti, an expert in Russian affairs. He used the term “Gerasimov Doctrine” to describe Russia’s non-linear war operations that relied heavily on “new forms of politically-focused operations”. While the label received praise and criticism alike, it was picked up in many news and policy articles in the West. It is fair to remind that, Galeotti himself refuted his own creation, admitting that he was just looking for a catchy title and no actual “Gerasimov Doctrine” ever existed. (Galeotti 2018)

11 However, after the Galeotti’s conception and after Russian military operations in Ukraine and Crimea in 2014, several Western scholars labelled the Russian operations as hybrid warfare. The term has gradually gained ascendancy; however, two problems have arisen with this. First, the notion of hybrid warfare is used by Western pundits only, in the EU (Global Strategy) and NATO. The notion of hybrid warfare was “[o]riginally introduced by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation as part of planning for out-of-area activities”, and then it “gained a foothold in NATO Headquarters in mid- 2014 as ‘the Russian hybrid model in Ukraine’ became a means of explaining operations that did not fit neatly into NATO’s operational concepts” (Giles 2016a, 8). However, it is not present in official Russian military doctrine. Second, HW does not represent what Russia really did because HW notion does not encompass non-kinetic operations that on the contrary are so important in Russian operations and crucial in the notion of GZW. A common idea of the contemporary strategic debate is that today conflicts mix different ways of fighting: a mix of regular infantry tactics using modern anti-tank weapons, guerrilla tactics with small groups of fighters, and terrorist tactics. The idea that contemporary conflicts mix different approaches is not new. What Western scholars have called “hybrid warfare” is a classic example of covert operations that Western practitioners should know very well. According to Peter Mansoor, “Hybrid warfare has been an integral part of the historical landscape since the ancient world, but only recently have analysts – incorrectly – categorized these conflicts as unique” (Mansoor 2012, 1). Historically speaking, it is a realty of every conflict, and it was already suggested in the nineties, because the idea of unrestricted warfare supports the erosion of the traditional boundaries of war and the advance of a warfare that eludes them and enters the world of economics and finance, or employs those weapons in unexpected ways (Liang, Xiangsui, 1999). Moreover, Russia has a rich tradition of using various methods and practices which are usually considered hybrid warfare. One of the best examples of that is known in history as The Great Game, the struggle for Central Asia between the Russian and the British empires, lasting for much of the 19th century. It was a combination of intelligence operations, diplomatic intrigues, propaganda efforts, proxy wars and direct military interventions. This historical example shows that every great powers would readily use combination of political, intelligence and propaganda tools together with irregular warfare whenever such an approach allows them to reduce the scale or completely avoid conventional warfare.

12 Hybrid warfare is characterized by the concept of synergy, that is, the simultaneous application of a multiplicity of ways of fighting to reach the goal (Hoffman, 2007; 2009). In essence, contemporary conflicts cannot be characterized by a simple dichotomy of black and white, but they have more nuanced characteristics, losing the perception of boundaries between different forms and concepts. Therefore, the war is hybrid because the enemy’s way of fighting combines different methods, tactics, and tools, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics, terrorism, indiscriminate violence, and criminal acts with the most modern technologies (Hoffman, 2006). The situation is further complicated by the fact that the hybrid warfare battlefield is threefold: conventional; linked to the indigenous population; international. Only by prevailing in all three battlefields is it possible to win. Moreover, what distinguishes hybrid warfare from other types of struggle is that it must be fought on all three battlefields simultaneously and non-sequentially. (McCuen 2008) According to the definition provided by Frank Hoffman, hybrid warfare incorporates a full range of different modes of warfare including – conventional capabilities, irregular tactics, terrorist acts and criminal activities – uses different kinds of weapons – from small arms to more sophisticated missiles to propaganda and media coverage – and is based on four key elements (Hoffman, 2007). First, in hybrid wars, regular and irregular elements blur into the same force and the irregular component attempts to become decisive. Second, as hybrid warfare blurs regular and irregular tactics, terrorism can become the main fighting method. Third, hybrid groups use modern technology to avoid predictability and seek advantage in unexpected ways. Finally, hybrid wars, like every irregular wars, make good use of complex terrain, so today hybrid wars are mainly conflicts fought in urban areas (Hoffman, 2007). Taken together, these features describe something different than the Russian operations in Ukraine or worst in Syria where Moscow, as we will see, used all its conventional arsenal. However, to some extent some of the features of HW match the Russian doctrine as it will be evident in the paragraph about the Russian strategic debate. One important element of HW notion is that it blurs in the same definition different tactics and approaches such as guerrilla, terrorism conventional warfare. This “blurring” is in fact a dominant element in current strategic debate and it is similar to the notion of “ambiguity” that is relevant to understand the concept of Gray Zone Warfare (GZW). If an action is ambiguous then it can be denied and, as a result, even the concept of “deniability” is crucial to understand GZW. HW and GZW concepts are

13 similar, and sometimes they are used as synonymous but this is a mistake for at least two reasons. First, while in the Strategic Studies literature the two share the idea of blurring and ambiguity between different violent phenomena, they have different contents and refer to very different tactics, tools and approach. Second, and more important, HW is more related to the battlefield, focuses on kinetic operations and after all describes a tactic that a group can employ to achieve its goals. Gray Zone Warfare, despite the fact that its definition is as vague as that of HW, is less kinetic, is more related to politics and strategy and describe a strategic approach that encompasses both violent and non- violent operations. Rather, GZW is mainly, albeit not solely, non-violent since it includes economic pressure, diplomatic operations, propaganda and similar tools. Therefore, it describes the tolls an actor can employ to shape the strategic/political/economic/cultural environment before the starting of the conflict. However, this does not mean that once the conflict has begun GZW tools and approaches vanish, on the contrary they remain available to the actors. HW is a more tactical notion describing fighting methods of mainly non-state actors, it is more focused on the battlefield, which is complex such as urban one, and on what happens there, than to the socio-political context around the battlefield.

Gray Zone Warfare

In the light of the above, the features of hybrid warfare are not too surprising because they are not a novelty in history. It is true that modern technology and contemporary international system offer some new ways to employ irregular warfare tactics, but the general notion and the major characteristic should be well known to whom studies history and war. The same is true for anther strategic concept that is crucial to understand international politics in general and Russian policy in particular, i.e. Gray Zone Warfare (GZW). Gray Zone Warfare is more focused on the international political context and it derives its name from the space, indeed gray, between war and peace. GZW is based on ambiguity and low signature that provide politicians and decision- makers with a strategic capacity of plausible deniability. These three words, ambiguity, low signature, and deniability, are the key concepts that characterize the notion of GZW, and operations of this kind are marked by: the ambiguity about the nature of conflict, as GZW is the space between peace and war; opacity of the actors involved

14 because state and non-state actors operate in the same space; uncertainty related to the legal dimension of the actions. Votel defines the Gray Zone as “characterized by intense political, economic, informational, and military competition more fervent in nature than normal steady-state diplomacy, yet short of conventional war”. They also recognize that it is absolutely not a novelty in the strategic/political realm because the “Cold War was a 45-year-long Gray Zone struggle” (Votel at al 2016). Not only because during the Cold War both sides used propaganda and similar tools, but above all because the direct confrontations between the two Superpowers was prevented by proxy wars in which the two warring parties confronted each other using non state actors in regional conflicts or by discrete superpower interventions. Western political thought defines very clearly what is war, the use of armed violence by State army, and peace, the absence of such state of war. However, the realty is always vaguer and softened. Therefore, strict definition of war has never been totally true even in international systems more stable and more based on the Westphalian ideas than today ones. Suffice is to remind of 19th century when national insurgencies and colonial wars were very frequent despite the fact that it was a century based on state power; or of the 20th century, the century of the two World Wars and during both of them insurgencies were fought. For instance, Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck was a German General who fought a guerrilla war against the British Empire in the German East Africa during the First World War, in the same years Lawrence of Arabia fought a guerrilla war against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East; during the Second World War, the U.S. and U.K. used extensively Special Forces and partisans in different theatres of operations, Italy, France, Balkan, Russia to name just a few. Finally, Cold War is rich of insurgencies, irregular and proxy wars. Today, due to globalization and other political/economic factors the international system has become more fluid encouraging the use of GZW tolls. Moreover, new technologies have made them more effective than ever transforming them from supporting elements into something more important and crucial. Finally, while such tools are used by every actor in the international system and have been employed for centuries, today they are central element of the strategy of revisionist powers, i.e. states that aim to change the current international balance of power. For this reason, GZW is today often linked to political and military strategies of state like Russia, China and Iran. However, it is important to bear in mind that these tools are used or have

15 been used by all the international actors, they are not a novelty and consequently Western governments should have not to be caught by surprise. In order to understand GZW, we need to ask some crucial questions. First, what is GZW? In other words, how can we define this concept? Answering this question is not simply and it implies different approaches. To begin with, it is important to bear in mind that GZW is more related to the international political, economic and diplomatic context. It encompasses different political, diplomatic, economic tools that range from propaganda to economic sanctions to support of internal opposition parties. GZW does not rule out the possibility to use kinetic operations, i.e. the military force in covert operations, but these are both only one tool and, for sure, the last resort. Moreover, if military force is used then other strategic concepts are more useful than GZW. Consequently, from this point of view, GZW is the situation that precedes the fighting even though it does not disappear when the fighting begins. This lead to a second question: why does the colour gray is used? Because the gray is not a well-defined colour, it indicates different shades and is created mixing two very clear colours, black and white. Consequently, gray is between black and white but it can be clearer and so being nearer the white or it can be darker and so being near the black. As far as war and politics are concerned, GZW indicates every operation that is between peace and war understood as a situation in which the military force is used overtly. GZW blurs the dividing line between peace and war, and between civilian and military endeavours. According to Mazarr, “gray zone conflict cannot be understood as war. It does not usually involve violence or bloodshed, at least not as its essential approach. It does not aim at clearly defined engagements, and there is no identifiably distinct battlefield. It is not conducted primarily by military forces, or, at a minimum, their activities are nested deeply into a more integrated campaign directed by civilians” (Mazarr p. 64). According to Echevarria, “what makes gray zone conflicts “interesting” for a contemporary strategist is that they occur below the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Article 5 threshold and below the level of violence necessary to prompt a United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution” (Echevarria p. xii). It is impossible to define war and although a full discussion is outside the scope of this study, we can mention Clausewitz who writes: “War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale [...] an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will” directed by political motives (Clausewitz 1940: Book I, Ch. I). According to Clausewitz, War is a social phenomenon that differentiates itself from any other because it implies the killing of other men. Therefore, in the framework of this research, we can consider

16 every operation that does not involve kinetic force and so does not produce bloodshed as GWZ operations. It is also fair to say, that this approach is not what Sun Tzu writes about winning without fighting, because Sun Tzu images to do so not by GZW tools, but by manoeuvring armed forces on the battlefield and by deception. In Sun Tzu, like in Machiavelli who wrote: “It is better to defeat the enemy by hunger than with steel” (Machiavelli) and in Clausewitz, it is an army that takes actions, not a range of civilian capabilities as in the GZW concept. This leads to the third question: How much is strong the relationship between Politics and GZW? The relationship is very strong, actually it is so strong that it is difficult to differentiate the two. As already said, GZW tools have been used “for centuries, in some ways for millennia. Concepts such as political destabilization, support for proxies and militias, information campaigns, and much more have been a staple of statecraft since the city states of ancient Greece were vying for influence” (Mazarr 2015, 3). Consequently, such tools are integral parts of Politics and international politics/international relations in particular. However, this link and the close connection between Politics and GZW leads us to another definition that is very useful to both understand GZW and its tools, that is the definition of “political warfare” proposed by George Frost Kennan. He was an American diplomat, historian and a recognized expert on the Soviet Union. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. His 1947 article The Sources of Soviet Conduct argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be “contained” in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States. Moreover, Kennan played a major role in the development of definitive Cold War programs and institutions, notably the Marshall Plan. The notion of “Political Warfare” was introduced by George Kennan in 1948 and it is: “the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures ([such] as ERP – the Marshall Plan), and “white” propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of “friendly” foreign elements, “black” psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states” (Robinson et al.2018). While a precise definition of political warfare has proved elusive, there appears to be some agreement on specific elements. First, “political warfare is played out in that space between diplomacy and open warfare, where traditional statecraft is inadequate or ineffective and large-scale conventional military options are not suitable or are

17 deemed inappropriate” (Votel et al 2016). As a result, political warfare is closer to an insurgency/counterinsurgency campaign than to a conventional war, because it is a population-centric engagement that seeks to influence, to persuade, even to co-opt. Second, it stresses the use of “indirect” tools in politics that today we refer to as GZW, HW and similar concepts. Third, it demonstrates that such tools are neither new nor used by revisionist powers. On the contrary, the complex, murky and fluid nature of the future operating environment pushes decision makers to avoid the political risks associated with direct diplomatic or military actions and this will give more possibilities to use the more covert and indirect tools of political warfare and GZW. The fourth and final question to be asked is: if GZW is not a novelty, why have its tools become so central in the strategic studies and international relations debate? There are three interlinked answers to this question. First, the new international system is difficult to define, but it has some trends that encourage the use of a more indirect approach such as the presence of non-state actors (NGO, international organizations, militias). Moreover, after the Cold War the United State experienced a period of what some scholars called “unipolar moment”, that is, the U.S. were the sole Superpower in the world and there was neither a peer competitor nor a state that could aspire to be one. Now, this situation has changed for several reasons that we cannot analyse here. However, states like Russia, China, Iran are eroding the American power and influence in different ways and regions, try to find room to manoeuvre in the political space and so they are contesting the American leading role. These states, and other actors, do not possess the military means, technology and political influence of the U.S. so they have to find different, less direct approaches, but equally effective. GZW offers to such international actors simple, cheap, and effective solutions. In light of this, GZW offers to revisionist powers tools to change at a low political cost the balance of power (Mazarr 2015). It is noteworthy to remind that revisionist powers do not seek to completely destroy the international system, on the contrary they “recognize the value of a rule-based order [...] are ambitious; they do demand and presume a transformation of some elements of the system” (Mazarr, p.11) while, at the same time, they use other elements to support their politics. “They do not seek to bring down the existing international order, many aspects of which clearly serve their interests, so much as they hope to remold, shape, and modify it to enhance their own standing” (Mazarr, p. 21). It is important to understand this element because it is pivotal in the Russian approach to GZW. Moscow uses the system to improve its policies and uses a legal approach based on the

18 international norms in order to obtain legitimation. Moreover, revisionist powers use elements of international order to implement their policies. A perfect example of this is Russian permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, a position that helped the Kremlin to boost Syrian regime, for instance. Not only is this aspect important to understand GZW’s strategy, but it is also an excellent example of why we use the colour gray, because in such situations it is difficult to really understand where a legal action ends and an aggressive action starts. Second, from the end of the Second World War “the cost of major aggression has become so severe, and economic and social interdependence so powerful, that states with some degree of aggressive intent arguably will be in the market for alternative ways to achieve their goals” (Mazarr, p. 17). The fact that conventional wars, i.e. state against state conflicts in which regular armies fight in major and frontal battles, are too expensive and that in the last decades they have represented just a very small percentage of international conflicts does not mean that the international competition and the causes of war have disappeared. In contrast, they are a constant presence in international relations, they are innate features of Politics and are impossible to eliminate. Today, they have simply assumed a different shape as compared to the past. The fact that the cost of major aggression has become so severe is also crucial to understand another important feature of GZW, i.e. its relationship with the concept of deterrence and mainly nuclear deterrence. Nuclear weapons are one of the major causes of the high costs of regular wars both in terms of military technology and human costs. However, as we will see later discussing Russian debate on “new generation warfare” deterrence and nuclear deterrence are the essential framework in which more indirect approach related to GZW can be used with success. In 2008 one of the most important Russian strategic theorist, retired General of the Army Makhmut Gareev, introduced the concept of strategic deterrence, that is “a set of interrelated political, diplomatic, information, economic, military, and other measures that deter, reduce, or avert threats and aggressive actions by any state or coalition of states with threats of unacceptable consequences as a result of retaliatory actions.” (Thomas 2015, 97) Consequently, Gareev invites to use flexible and asymmetric measures united by a common goal and concept of actions to confront 21st century threats. In Gareev’s view, deterrence is not limited to the nuclear arsenal, but it encompasses different elements such as information, for example advertising new weapon system, using Russian diplomatic role in the Security Council and so on.

19 The Russian scholar Adamsky introduces the term cross-domain coercion as a heuristic expression to define the Moscow approach: “cross-domain coercion refers here to the host of Russian efforts to deter (preserve the status quo) and to compel (change the status quo) by orchestrating soft and hard forms of influence across the nuclear, conventional and informational (cyber) domains through all stages of strategic interaction (peace, crisis and war).” (Adamsky 2018a) The new Russian notion of deterrence encompasses nuclear, precision weapons, and information. Cross-domain coercion aims at manipulating the adversary’s perception, decision-making and behaviour. Thus, it is both a central element of Russian political/military strategy and an innovative element of its strategic culture. Third, as already said, GZW’s tools are not new and have been used since ancient times and are conceived to remain “under the radar of international law by supporting proxies with plausible deniability” (Jonsson and Seely 2015). Among the classic GZW’s tolls are to be mentioned information operations, development aid, regime support, and other non-violent options to encourage specific political outcomes. However, modern technology offers some new tools, such as cyber weapons, advanced forms of information campaigns, and can transform, at least partially, some of the older ones. The Internet and cyber innovations in particular are the major novelties that have helped the spread of the use of GZW. They improved tremendously both the public that can be targeted by and the tools of propaganda, and this informational dimension is crucial in contemporary Russian debate on warfare. Another feature of GZW that needs to be taken into account is related to time. In such contingencies time plays a different role depending on the warring side. During an irregular conflict, the regular army seeks a rapid victory while the irregulars are trying to prolong the conflict as much as they can in order to wear out the enemy. GZW uses the time in a similar manner, because it is a gradualist strategy that is “designed to unfold over time rather than to gain decisive results all at once” (Mazarr, p. 33). It is important to bear in mind that GZW is not a strategy based on a single approach/tactic, in contrast it is a very complex strategy that comprises different approaches and tactics in order to achieve the goal. Consequently, GZW is a set of interconnected actions calculated to make gradual progresses. This gradualist approach is the result of the weak position of the revisionist power that aims to achieve its goals avoiding a frontal clash with stronger enemy. This aspect leads us again to the concept of deterrence because the described gradualist approach reminds to the “salami-slicing” strategy discussed in Thomas

20 Schelling’s classic work, Arms and Influence. Aggressors can use this tactic in order to test the “seriousness of a commitment by probing it in a noncommittal way, pretending the trespass was inadvertent or unauthorized if one meets resistance” (Schelling 67-68). If the defender fails to respond decisively, the aggressor has set a precedent, and then moves rapidly on to the next step in the series (Mazarr, p. 35). In Schelling, the goal of such approach is to degrade the credibility of the defender’s deterrence. Related to the concept of deterrence is the notion of coercion, and “coercive diplomacy” is part of the arsenal of GZW approach. During the Second Chechen War Moscow (re)discovered the utility of coercive diplomacy and “there has been a firm belief in Moscow that, if used properly, coercive diplomacy may assist in the revision of Russia’s position in international politics” (Tkachenko 2019, 133). As a result, the Kremlin has utilised some elements of coercion in the following conflicts from Georgia to Crimea and Syria. Art and Cronin define coercive diplomacy as a kind of forceful persuasion, that is the attempt to get a target – a state, a group within a state or a non-state actor – to change its objectionable behaviour through either the threat to use force or the actual use of limited force (Art and Cronin, 2003, 6). It appears a perfect tool for GZW because it is not exclusively related to military violence and, moreover, if the military force is used, it can both balance and modulate the intensity of that violence. Russia sees coercive diplomacy as a new type of international behaviour that “rests upon its nuclear arsenal, as well as on the newest conventional weapons, and is used for both defensive and offensive purposes” (Tkachenko 2019, 136). Coercive diplomacy measures encompass diplomatic threats, war games in one’s own territory near borders of the target country (this is a typical Russian approach that Moscow has used several times and mainly during the conflict in Ukraine), sweeping economic sanctions. Therefore, they are also tools for a GWZ. One of the first example of the Russian coercive diplomacy and one of the first moment when Russia understood the relevance of this notion in the post-Cold War international system was probably its peacekeeping mission in Kosovo in 1999. From June 11 to 12, a composite battalion of Airborne Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a 600-kilometre march through the territory of Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo to occupied the International Airport in Kosovo’s capital Pristina. For several hours, 200 Russian paratroopers were stood against British units, and this forced USA to start negotiations with Russia (Tkachenko 2019).

21 The logic behind the coercive diplomacy notion is that it is more productive ‘to do harm’ to an opponent by instruments of diplomacy rather than ‘to defeat’ by military resources. Such approach allows to keep the door open to peaceful resolution even though some kind of military pressure or violence has been used. Here again it is possible to single out one of the major feature of GZW, i.e. the confusion between war and peace and the ambiguity about the kind of approach. However, the Russian’s coercive diplomacy has had a limited impact on international security, this is because Moscow does not aim to radically change the international system, it would not have the economic, political and military capabilities to do so, but instead it aims to change the previous status quo into a slightly better one keeping conflicts ‘frozen’. This means that there would be no clear ‘victory’ in the ongoing conflict, but rather some changes, favourable for Russia. Moscow believes that in this way it would be easier for the USA and Western Europe to accept Russia’s coercion as a ‘done deal’. Even the targeted and defeated country has something to discuss as well. Its presence at a negotiation table may provide a future settlement with highly needed legitimacy (Tkachenko 2019). This also explains the very balanced Russian approach in different war theatres. For example, in Syria Moscow supports the Assad regime, but it has always discussed possible solution with the oppose sides that it was bombing, expect ISIS and al-Nusra. Although in Libya, the Kremlin supports Haftar, it has diplomatic contacts with the GNA in Tripoli and Sarraj has also visited Moscow. This balanced approach is the result of a GZW, coercive diplomacy, but it is also the result of a pragmatic approach to international politics that allows Moscow to clearly identify its achievable and main goal without change completely the local situation. According to Tkachenko (2019), Russian coercive diplomacy has five key elements: ability and willingness to use military force; refusal to celebrate victory in order to not irritate the enemy with which Moscow has to negotiate in future; importance of transitional deals because they represent at that moment the maximum that Russia could get from defeated opponents and influential international mediators; involvement of the highest official, i.e. Putin; formulating the aim in a realistic way. (Tkachenko 2019, pp.140-141) Coercive diplomacy uses non-military tools, but its effectiveness is based on the readiness to use military force, because by taking unexpected actions “the Kremlin has eliminated many disadvantageous options for bargaining with opponents and created a new reality” (Tkachenko 2019, 137). As a result, Moscow has surprised its adversary and made useless their strategic plan changing the realty on the ground.

22 This lead us to take into account another GZW element related to time, that is fait accompli, a strategy designed to grab a limited gain before the other side can respond, as in the case of Russian operations in Crimea. It is a crucial feature of GZW because it is an action which is completed before those affected by it are in a position to query or reverse it, thus it is perfect to change the system without destroying it. Despite the fact that it is a decisive element of a gradualist strategy because it allows small steps toward the end result, it does not have to be gradual because one of its inherent feature is suddenness, but it has to be small in scale. Examples of this kind of operations are: hostage-rescue raids like Israel’s 1976 raid on Entebbe, airstrikes to destroy weapons of mass destruction sites such as Israel’s 1981 destruction of the Osirak reactor, the Russia annexation of Crimea in 2014, the building of Chinese artificial islands in the South China Sea. Regarding Russia and the GZW notion, it is important to bear in mind another crucial consideration. Since a least the 1970s Soviets and then Russians have been well aware of the technological gap between US military forces and Soviet/Russian ones. This gap has widened after the collapse of Soviet Empire. However, the American military operations in the last two decades have demonstrated to Moscow that, although precision weapons, satellites and similar technologies are essential, asymmetric responses can be conceived. In light of this, the Kremlin has adopted at least two main asymmetric responses. First, the consolidation of the national air defence system developing ever more highly efficient systems (S-400, S-500); Moscow also contemplates building an integrated airspace defence system with countries of CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States, a regional intergovernmental organization of nine members of post-Soviet republics). Second, the nuclear option has always played a central role in Russian military drills and its role has clearly increased as a response to the decline in general-purpose forces. Russian’s aim “in this field is not only to preserve a robust deterrence, but also to develop options for use in case of a major conventional conflict where conventional forces fail to repel the aggressor, which was confirmed in the new military doctrine adopted in 2010. In particular, Russia has refined options for limited, ‘demonstration’ strikes, aimed at deescalating a conventional conflict. (Facon 2012 p.282). As far as the notion of asymmetry is concerned, it is important to note that it and indirect approach have deep roots in Russian strategic culture and history. In light of American technological advantage, Russian theorists began to reflect on asymmetry and what they called “military cunningness” in the 1980s. According to Sinovets (2016), the use

23 of stratagem is a feature of Russian politics and military strategy that makes it possible for Moscow to avoid direct confrontation. In general terms, asymmetric strategies are based on the idea that an opponent’s strength may be used against him rather than directly opposed with strength of one’s own. Thus, “asymmetric strategies transform an adversary’s perceived strength into a vulnerability, often by revealing one’s own perceived vulnerability as a strength.” (Breen, Geltzer 2011) Understood in this way, asymmetric tools are not the strategy of the weaker but they can be used by any strategic actor, weak or strong, as long as it has sufficient skill and cunning. Contemporary examples are: the use of cyberspace because the more a State has an advanced computerized infrastructure, the more it is vulnerable to consequences of cyberattacks; the manipulation of media because it is true that American media outlets pervade the globe, but as a result of this they can allow a foreign perspective to reach American people. Both cyberspace and media are crucial elements of GZW because they are able to shape the environment before the conflicts. Moreover, at least other two elements related to asymmetry are important to better understand GZW. First, asymmetry can produce strategic surprise allowing an actor to exploit the situation, this is crucial in order to create a situation in which a fait accompli is possible. Second, asymmetry creates uncertainty and it produces confusion about aims, procedures, options to the adversary. (Breen, Geltzer 2011) This section has attempted to provide a description of the notion of GZW a very complex strategy that comprises different approaches and tactics. It is a concept more related to politics since it encompasses different diplomatic and economic means, and it is characterized by: no clear ‘victory’, ambiguity, uncertainty, low signature, deniability, intense political, economic, informational, and military competition. This section has also pointed out GZW specific tools: overt actions as political alliances, economic measures, covert operations, “white” propaganda and the manipulation of media, clandestine support of “friendly” foreign elements, “black” psychological warfare, coercion, and “coercive diplomacy”, fait accompli. Before taking into account in-depth the Russian debate on modern wars, it is important to clarify a crucial aspect of GZW that is an integral part of Russian strategic approach. GZW does not represent a substitute of war neither it is something that disappears if a more overt conflict arises. On the contrary, GZW’ tools can be used, and have been used, to shape the battlefield, to weaken from the inside the enemy, to reinforce the political, economic, social, military position of the actor who is using such tools. Consequently, GZW is an integral part of a broader conflict that may or may not occur

24 in future in the form of armed violence. To a certain extent this confirms what Raymond Aron wrote about international politics, i.e. that the danger or shadow of war could not be eliminated. GZW does not exclude the possibility of the use of military force, but it is more focused on creating the context in which that possible use can achieve success. GZW encompasses everything that can be useful to the strategic plan (economy, information technology, propaganda, diplomacy), including military force albeit in a covert and limited way.

25 CHAPTER 2 Russia in 21st century: Gerasimov and the Russian Military Doctrine

Having discussed the definitions of Hybrid Warfare and Gray Zone Warfare highlighting their strategic relevance and their features, this section deals in-depth with the Russian strategic debate from the end of the Cold War until today. The aims are to study the Russian strategic ideas related to GZW and to contextualize them in the current international system. Therefore, it is important to better understand the political international role of Russia in the current international system first. Then the paper will take into account the Russian strategic debate on the transformation of war in order to offer the context for the reflections of Gen. Gerasimov that will be dealt with in-depth.

The Russian Role in the 21st Century International System

Contemporary Russia is not a superpower, understood as “a country that can exert enough military, political, and economic power to persuade nations in every region of the world to take important actions they would not otherwise take” (Bremmer 2015), as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. However, it has crucial elements that enable it to play a key role in different regions and issues. For instance, Moscow remains one of the few and one of the biggest nuclear powers in the world (and this paper has already highlighted how much a nuclear arsenal, and the ability to deter, is crucial for the notion of GZW), in this particular field it represents a peer-competitor to the United Stated; it is one of the five members of the UN Security Council; it has enormous natural resources; and its territorial extension allows it to be a regional player in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Moreover, Russia perceives itself as a great power and this self-perception has deep cultural roots, based on the historical (Russia as defender of Europe from the Mongolian invasion, then Napoleon Bonaparte in the 19th century, and, finally, the liberation of Europe from Hitler) as well as religious (Moscow as the Third Rome) and ideological arguments (Russia as the patron and the defender of all Slavs). (Sinovets 2016) In spite of all these elements, Russia does not have the combined economic, political or military power to play a global role; however, it could play a key regional one. Today Russia is a revisionist power that is trying to gain a more important international position eroding U.S./Western hegemony. Putin had made this point very clear saying that: Russians living in former Soviet lands are considered to be ruled by the laws of

26 Russia, not the countries in which they now reside; he is tired of being humiliated and treated as a second-class nation; former Soviet states were taken from the USSR illegally and must be returned. He does not believe Russia has the strength to make these changes directly, so he has relied instead on non-military actions when possible, i.e. GZW. (Thomas 2015, 95-96) The current international order is difficult to define, but the Kremlin interprets it as unipolar, that is a system built around American unipolarity. Russia used the unipolar framework also referring to the EU in the context of the Ukraine crisis. Consequently, the Russian goal is to change this construct from unipolarity to multipolarity so that Moscow can play a more central and leading role and find more room for manoeuvre. Trenin (2018) presents Putin as rational, pragmatic and interested in making deals and Russia as a country that is seeking to change the global order. Baev (2015) suggests that as Russia’s capacity for projecting power towards, for instance, the Middle East is limited, “its policy [has been] focused on identifying and exploiting opportunities for making a difference ‘on the cheap’”. Accordingly, Russia would have developed an opportunistic policy that monitors the fast-changing political arena and takes advantage of it. Consequently, Moscow favours a flexible and indirect approach that is consistent with the GZW approach. Michael Kofman, Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, defines Russia as “the guerrilla in the international system, not seeking territorial dominion but raiding to achieve its political objectives” (Kofman 2018), while Mark Galeotti has used the notion of “guerrilla geopolitics” to describe the gradualist and opportunistic Russian strategy (Galeotti 2015, 2). According to Kofman (2018), Russia has reshaped its politics in a kind of “raiding politics” with the aim of coercing the United States through a series of campaigns that integrate indirect and direct approaches. At the heart of a raid is the desire to achieve a coercive effect on the enemy. Even if unsuccessful, a raid can positively shape the environment for the raider through the damage and chaos it can inflict. Raiding is an effective riposte to a stronger opponent. As we said in the previous section, an effective notion to describe Russian strategy, which has emerged from the current strategic studies debate, is that of “gray zone warfare”. According to Echevarria (2016, xi), it represents “an application of classic coercive strategies”, therefore, Moscow has not created new conceptions of war, as the concept of hybrid warfare implies, but it has been able to conduct accurate assessments of its opponents, and to develop campaign plans that avoid their strengths and exploit their weaknesses (Echevarria 2016, 3).

27 Consistent with the gray zone warfare notion, Russia can adopt at least two different methods to achieve its goals. It can use either faits accomplis or employ sequences of gradual steps to secure strategic leverage (Mazarr 2015, 1), hoping to remould, shape and modify the international norms and system to enhance its own standing. The gray zone strategy is clearly a gradualist one and, according to Mazarr, is “designed to unfold over time rather than to gain decisive results all at once” (Mazarr 2015, 33). Consequently, Russian strategy is closely linked to the broader concept of deterrence. In this context, Russia’s nuclear arsenal creates the strategic framework in which more limited strategy can be employed. According to Mazarr, “nuclear weapons can help to insulate gray zone campaigns by raising the perceived risk of escalation” (Mazarr 2015, 61). As a result, the attacker can use its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent in order to weaken and hamper the defender’s allies. Russia aims to pursue its long-term goals, not with a conclusive confrontation that lacks the power to achieve victory, but instead through a series of small actions. A gradual approach serves both to achieve one’s goal and also to test the adversary’s response to that small and apparently inoffensive actions: “If the defender fails to respond decisively, the aggressor has set a precedent, and then moves rapidly on to the next step in the series” (Mazarr 2015, 35). Therefore, the credibility of the defender’s deterrent threats diminishes, weakening both its international/regional political status and its military position. Gradualist strategies have two elements. First, they take time and so an actor who decides to use them has to be patient. Second, they avoid consciously confrontation and escalation. As a consequence, they undermine the role of deterrence, because it becomes difficult to understand when a conflict begins: the distinction between peace and war is blurred because, more often than not, open armed violence is not used. Therefore, the goal of such an approach is to create significant problems from an international legal point of view that can slow down or impede the intervention of the great power.

Russian Strategic Debate: Much More Than Hybrid Warfare

Having briefly analysed the international role of Russian and its links to the concept of GZW, the paper will now move on to discuss in-depth the Russian strategic debate in the last three decades in order to: provide a comprehensive overview, single out

28 specific topics and elements of Russian strategic thinking, and, in this framework, deal with the strategic ideas of General Gerasimov. As we said in a previous paragraph, after Russian military operations in Ukraine and Crimea in 2014, several Western scholars labelled the Russian operations as hybrid warfare. The idea to label Russian operations as HW has several shortcomings and it denotes a lack of knowledge both of history of war and of Russian strategic thought. As a matter of fact, looking exclusively to Russia: “Many elements of this ‘new’ warfare: subversion, physical and informational provocation, economic threats, posturing with regular forces, the use of special forces, and the military intelligence coordinating paramilitary groups and political front organizations, have been part of the Russian/Soviet lexicon of conflict for generations” (Jonsson and Seely 2015). This does not mean that Russian operations do not represent a risk or a threat for US allies, but it simply means that understanding Russian politics and strategy through the lens of an elusive and ambiguous concept such as that of hybrid warfare is at best short-sighted. The use of hybrid warfare notion to describe Russian operations is incorrect because it suffers from at least three shortcomings. First, it “can hardly be considered a definitive doctrine for Russia’s future power projection in its neighbourhood, much less a model that could be easily reproduced in far flung and diverse corners of the post-Soviet space” (Kofman and Rojansky 2015). In Syria, despite various technical setbacks, Russia used its air power, tested modern weapons, such as the new attack helicopter Mil Mi-28, used its only aircraft carrier, which was a novelty in Russian military operations, fired ballistic missiles from sea and Russian territory, and used its Special Operations Forces (SOFs) in their classic role of training and support forces to local allies. Russia used almost its entire conventional arsenal because Syria was a testing ground for new weapons to make sure they worked and to advertise them for sale abroad, and because Russian capabilities had to impress Western audiences and create a sort of deterrence (Blank 2019, 412). Furthermore, General Gerasimov has stated that the Russian military is acquiring priceless combat experience in Syria because Russian servicemen have been deployed on short tours, in order to maximize exposure to real operating conditions and to “training” under real conditions (Giles 2019, 287–288). Due to its intervention in Syria and its control of Hmeimim base, Russia has implemented its A2/AD strategy and thanks to the Syrian theatre these offensive and defensive capabilities form a perimeter around Russia’s western periphery and into the Mediterranean Sea (Giles, Boulegue 2019). In the Russian doctrine, the term A2/AD

29 does not exist, because such interdiction capabilities represent just one element of a broader joint combat operation. According to Giles and Boulegue, modern Russian A2/AD capabilities are the result of Soviet idea of concentric cycles to defend the country, so several layers of cross-domain standoff systems, such as coastal, air defence, and anti-submarine warfare compose the defence. In contrast, in Crimea, Russia began with a covert military operation, combining ambiguity, disinformation and the element of surprise; then, a more conventional military invasion took place and this led to the occupation of the peninsula, using Russia’s airborne naval infantry, and motor rifle brigades followed, completing the annexation. However, operations of this kind were possible in Crimea only because the majority of the population is Russian and because Moscow already had a strategic naval base in Sevastopol, where, before the operation, it secretly sent several special forces members. The strategic importance of Crimea, the local population, the geographical proximity and the presence of Russian military assets are crucial elements that have to be taken into account to contextualize the notion and relevance of hybrid warfare, and they cannot be replicated elsewhere. Both in Ukraine and in Syria, the Russian approach has been more conventional than hybrid. For instance, in the battles at Debaltsevo, Donbass airport and Ilovaisk, the fighting involved high intensity combat, including the extensive use of armour, artillery and multiple launch rocket systems. In Syria, thousands of tactical and operational sorties have been flown, striking hundreds of targets, and several strategic strikes has been launched including cruise missile strikes from long-range Tu-160, Tu-195MS and Tu-22M3 bombers launched from Russia, and also cruise missile attacks launched from surface vessels in the Caspian Sea and from submarines in the Mediterranean. Such kinetic operations epitomize “high intensity” operations not covert, indirect and hybrid ones (Monaghan 2016). The second shortcoming of Russian HW notion is that Moscow has used a pattern that ranges from diplomatic actions to military operations, and it appears to be very “Clausewtizian”, not hybrid. According to Charap, both in Crimea/Ukraine and in Syria “the use of force has come after other non-kinetic means have been tried” and have failed. Consequently, from a Russian point of view, the use of force represents a last resort: “In the six months before the invasion of Crimea, Moscow threatened and then implemented economic sanctions (July–September 2013), offered a whopping $15 billion in economic assistance (December 2013), and engaged in diplomacy with the West (February 21, 2014, agreement) prior to using the military” (Charap 2016).

30 Likewise, in Syria Russia had engaged in extensive diplomatic outreach, conducted arms transfers and even attempted to organize the opposition before directly using its military means. This is consistent with Russian military thought that identifies the decisive period of conflict as the confrontation or crisis preceding the outbreak of force- on-force violence and the initial period of war. Much of this Russian discourse focuses on non-contact warfare: the ability of long-range precision weapons, paired with non- kinetic capabilities in global domains, to inflict damage throughout the enemy’s system. Russia seeks to shape the environment prior to the onset of conflict, and immediately thereafter, imposing costs and inflicting damage to coerce the adversary, in the hope that an inherent asymmetry of interests at stake will force the other side to yield (Kofman 2018). Third, the notion of “hybrid warfare” is not part of the Russian military doctrine. The misunderstanding comes from an article titled “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying out Combat Operations” published by the Russian Chief of General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov on February 26, 2013. This issue is taken into account in a following paragraph focused on Gerasimov’s ideas, here suffice is to say that, first, neither Gerasimov nor other Russian authors use the term hybrid warfare and, second, Gerasimov is simply explaining his view of the operational environment and the nature of future wars based on the example of recent Western operations. In fact, Gerasimov describes, from a Russian point of view, the way in which the United States spreads its influence.

The Russian Strategic Debate: The Context

The fact that HW does not represent Russian strategy does not mean that Russian strategic ideas are not original. Quite the contrary, the Russian strategic debate of the last decades on how war and warfare have changed is very interesting and, although it partially reflects the Western debate, original in some aspects. Therefore, it is important to analyse it in-depth to better understand how Russia conceives war in 21st century and which links connect Russia strategic ideas and the notion of GZW. Before analysing in-depth current Russian strategic debate, it is crucial to understand the context in which it has taken place. For this reason, this section deals with three different and distinct aspects that have deeply influenced current military ideas related to the 21st century threat, modern war and the role of information.

31 The links between Russian and Soviet Strategic Thought

The first aspect that needs to be taken into account is the fact that modern Russian strategic thought is the result of the Soviet strategic thinking in terms of approach, ideas, and tactics. This debate is also closely tied to the role played by Russia in the international system as described above, i.e. that of a former great power that is trying to regain, at least partially, its past leading position. This continuity is highlighted by at least three elements: indirect approach/asymmetry; impact of technology; reading of Clausewitz. The notions of indirect approach and asymmetry are pivotal in order to understand GZW. The idea of the indirect approach has always been present in the Soviet strategic thought: “Cunning, indirectness, operational ingenuity and addressing weaknesses and avoiding strengths […] have been – in the Tsarist, Soviet and Russian Federation traditions – one of the central components of military art that complement, multiply or substitute the use of force” (Adamsky 2015). Moreover, asymmetry has always been part of the Russian strategic thought. In 2006 Putin said: “Our responses [to Western aggression [...] will be asymmetrical and less expensive, but will certainly improve the reliability of our nuclear triad” (Berzins 2015). Another element of continuity between Soviet and Russian Strategic thinking is related to the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich Ogarkov, Marshal of the Soviet Union and between 1977 and 1984 Chief of the General Staff of the USSR who was the first to recognize the impact of modern information technologies on warfare. Therefore, Soviet/Russian strategic debate has been deeply influenced by modern technology as it has been the Western debate, suffice is to mention the RMA debate (Revolution in Military Affairs). Ogarkov was a strong advocate of reconstructing the huge, unwieldy Soviet military machine into a smaller, more compact strike force based around advanced technology. He was aware that then Soviet technology was a generation or two behind America. This technological gap shaped his view on warfare because he introduced an early idea of RMA, the Military Technological Revolution (MTR). Ogarkov believed that modern technologies, mainly those related to computer science, will change completely warfare. In place of some ground forces, these new technologies would be implemented in order to establish dominance on the battlefield. Soviets also thought that control of space would become essential for maintaining dominance in future conflicts. Soviets believed that it would be essential to control the satellite space around earth, in order to more effectively relay information (Dale 1987).

32 Soviets understood that the technological gap between US and USSR would have affected their political balance and their ability to wage war, however, it was the Gulf War in 1991 that showed in a real battlefield the real impact of modern information technology on warfare. At the time the Iraqi Army, which relied on Soviet weapons and doctrines, was considered one of best and bigger in the region. However, it was easily and rapidly defeated by a numerically inferior, but technologically superior adversary. Although both Chechen wars, the Russo-Georgian War in 2008, the colour revolutions, the Arab Spring and the Ukraine Crisis have influenced the Russian strategic view, this technological element has remained constant. A third aspect of the Soviet/Russian strategic debate has been influenced by Clausewitz, and by the distinction between the nature of war and the character of war. Traditionally, Soviet/Russian strategic thinking has always considered war in a Clausewitz way, i.e. the continuation of politics with military force and this is the unchanging nature of war. Thus, war is when military force is used, that is what distinguished war from policy and other social phenomena. On the other hand, the character of war is influenced by politics of the time, social organisations and above all technology, so it is something that changes during the time. According to Johnson, it seems that very recently this so important and rigid distinction has begun to blur (Jonsson 2019, p. 4). The shift came in 2012-2014 when “the most central [Russian] political elites and military theorists expressed the view that war was going through a fundamental transformation because non-military means were so effective that they should be considered violent, the boundary of war and peace was blurring, non-military means were becoming four times as important as military means, representing their own form of warfare, and the effectiveness of non-military means constituted a cardinal change in the concept of war and its knowledge system” (Jonsson 2019, p. 5). Therefore, this shift toward the militarization of non-military means reflected in Russian security doctrines has begun to emphasize the role of information warfare.

Colour Revolutions

The second aspect that has influenced the Russian strategic debate is the fact that Russian leaders believe, right or wrong, that their regime’s survival is threatened by Western subversion such as Colour Revolutions and Arab Spring. This is a very important element that create the framework in which Russian strategic debate develops and informs several aspects of it. This also explains why a huge section of

33 the debate is focused on information, how it impacts on political actors and how it can be used to shape the political environment. For instance, in 2014 the Army General and then Minister of Defence Shoygu described the colour revolutions as a phenomenon that “is becoming a major factor in the destabilization of the situation in many regions of the world. Foreign values are being imposed on peoples under the guise of expanding democracy. The socio-economic and political problems of individual states are being exploited in order to replace nationally-oriented governments with regimes which are controlled from abroad” (Shoygu 2014). He did not mention Ukraine but he refers to Serbia (1999), Syria and Libya after the Arab Spring. They are very different situations, but they follow a “universal pattern” in their evolution: “information action, military pressure, a change of political leadership and an alteration of the state’s foreign-policy and economic thrust” (Shoygu 2014).

This kind of regime change is a long-term destabilization process that produce regional instability affecting neighbouring states and impacting negatively on global security. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lavrov argued on the same line stating that the Western politics toward east since the end of the Cold War has attempted “to throw states in the post-Soviet space into a strict dilemma: The West or the East, with us or against us” (Lavrov 2014). Then he refers to colour revolution: “initiated from outside, are clearly harmful to international stability […] The attempts to use the humanitarian crisis [...] to justify external interference by force are counterproductive” (Lavrov 2014). The questions are: what happened in 2012-2014? What are the colour revolutions? To answer these questions, we need to better understand Russia policy and the role of Russia in the international system in last decades. According to Professor Bettanin (2020), “confident to have won the Cold War, American élites overstated their soft power, ignored Realpolitik and misunderstood Russian interests”. While the approach of Western European statists has been on the whole more balanced, it has often disregarded the Russia security concerns. This approach, which either did not take into account Russia security or aimed to weaken even more Russia and tried to corner Moscow, has framed the Russian interpretation of key events in the last two decades. According to Bunce and Wolchik (2011), Western “help” to countries of the former Soviet Empire, was determinant to provide an electoral democratic breakthrough in at least six out of eleven countries, including elections in Slovakia (1998), Croatia (2000), Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005). The two

34 authors argue that transnational activist networks, and US government agencies mediate and facilitate the democratic diffusion process. In this framework colour revolutions play a crucial role. The term refers to various related movements that developed in several countries of the former Soviet Union, China and the Balkans during the early 2000s. Participants in the colour revolutions have mostly used nonviolent resistance, such as demonstrations, strikes and interventions, that have been intended protest against governments seen as corrupt and/or authoritarian and to advocate democracy. These movements generally adopted a specific colour or flower as their symbol. The colour revolutions are notable for the important role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and particularly student activists in organising creative non-violent resistance. Such movements have had a measure of success as for example in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s Bulldozer Revolution (2000), in Georgia’s Rose Revolution (2003) and in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (2004). According to Jonsson, “the opposition succeeded with nonviolent protest tactics, the training for which was often financially supported by Western organizations and/or governments [...]. The protesters rallied under calls for better relations with the West and “Western values,” and they received political support from Western governments.” (Jonsson 2019, p. 124). In 2005, Moscow introduced a law that significantly reduced NGOs’ ability to operate in Russia and during the Munich Conference on Security Policy in 2007 Putin outlined that “when these non- governmental organizations are financed by foreign governments, we see them as an instrument that foreign states use to carry out their Russian policies” (Jonsson 2019, p. 130). Therefore, Putin understood the NGOs’ role as a Western tool in the framework of democracy promotion. According to Professor Bettanin, “in 2004, ‘colour revolutions’ were seen as indirect menace; the answers have been the theory of “sovereign democracy” and the Munich speech of Putin, with his message: “we are a great power, and want to be treated as such”. The disproportionate reaction to Georgia aggression [in 2008] was a warning that, since then, the Russia will not accept the fait accompli, as it had done with Kosovo 10 years before. After that, the global economic crisis and the Arabs Springs had a deep impact on Russian vision of the world (almost ignored by Western media), and the West, and USA above all, were seen as a kind of Behemoth which spread chaos and disorder around the world in their search of unipolarism, absolute security, post-modern values. The Crimea and the Donbass [from 2014 onwards] events have been an effect, not a cause, of the so called “new Cold War”. (Bettanin 2020) However, until the Arab Spring in 2011, which showed more

35 than one similarity with the Colour revolution pattern, Russian politicians did not excessively securitize the topic, from 2012, instead, this issue has become central and one of the most important way to interpret the geopolitics of 21st century in Moscow. When studying and discussing Russian strategic thinking it is important to keep in mind this political and security framework that has deeply influenced and shaped Russian views on contemporary security issues. Consequently, “the understanding of the nature of war among current Russian theorists and elites has broadened and cannot any-more be seen as solely defined by armed force” (Jonsson 2019, p. 5). This explains the relevance in today Russian strategic though of the role of information and less on traditional and kinetic military means. Two examples perfectly illustrate the point. First, the confusion between military and non-military means is evident taking into account Western sanctions after the start of the war in Ukraine. In the West, they have been seen as a way to avoid escalation, whereas the Russian leadership claimed they were a form of warfare to provoke regime change. Thus, the Russian leadership understood such measures as escalation, although by non-military means (Jonsson 2019, p. 6). Second, information-psychological warfare, and the creation of colour revolutions, “are understood as nonviolent but are seen as so effective that they could amount to violence and blur the boundary between war and peace” (Jonsson 2019, p. 6). For this reason, Gerasimov and other Russian leaders have often declared that Russia is facing an information war waged by the West. An in-depth study of Western approach to Russia and of whether the understanding of Moscow is right is outside the scope of this research. However, it is crucial to keep in mind two elements. First, right or wrong, this is the main Russian interpretation of current international affairs, these are the ideas that provide the basis for Russian strategic thinking. They create the framework of Russian understanding of contemporary geopolitics and Western operations. Second, historically U.S. has used indirect approach to achieve its goals, for instance during the Cold War. Moreover, Joseph Votel, commander of United States Central Command from 2016 to 2019 and commander of the United States Special Operations Command from 2014 to 2016, describing the role of Special Forces and Unconventional Warfare in a Political Warfare campaign acknowledge that: “there is a valid role for the U.S. Government in encouraging and empowering these freedom seekers when doing so helps to secure U.S. national security interests” (Votel et al 2016). They also point out both that “Agency for International Development (USAID), can help shape the environment or

36 provide support to resistance in other ways” and that Unconventional Warfare along with Special forces supporting a local opposition movement can be used as a regime change mechanism. In these cases, American forces typically support three main elements of the resistance movement: the underground, that is “a cellular-based organization that operates in urban areas”; auxiliary, part-time volunteers who provide a wide range of support; the guerrilla force, the overt military component of the resistance. Then Votel et al (2016) lists the method that US, SOF and their local allies can use to provoke, control or lead the subversions and they are the same methods that Russian debate recognizes as typical elements of colour revolution: mass protests, work slowdowns or stoppages, boycotts, infiltration of government offices, sabotage and the formation of front groups.

Eugeny Messner and propaganda

The third element that has profoundly shaped modern strategic debate and has close links with the previous one and mainly the information/social dimension of colour revolutions is the view of a former Russian official. In order to really understand the Russian ideas and attention on the concept of information it is important to take into account one author, who wrote extensively on the topic of irregular warfare in 20th century, has a significant and profound influence on modern debate and was a former tsarist officer, Eugeny Messner. Before dealing with modern Russian strategic thought it is worth briefly introducing his idea on irregular warfare and insurgency that had a significant and substantial impact on modern authors. Since Messner’s works have not been translated in English this section, which describes his ideas related to modern warfare, are based on secondary sources, mainly Fridman’s book (2018) that has an entire chapter focused on Messner and other academic books and papers that studied modern Russian strategic thought and its origins. Evgeny Messner (1891–1974) was a Russian professional soldier and military theorist. He became an officer of the Imperial Russian Army and fought in the First World War. During the Russian Civil War, he sided with the White movement and fought against the Bolsheviks. After the war he fled to Yugoslavia where he began to write on military topics. During World War Two he sided with the Axis powers and briefly served in the propaganda services (this is a crucial element in his view on modern warfare) of the Wehrmacht’s Russian section. Then, he moved to Argentina, where he worked as a journalist and military theorist and where he died in 1974. As evident from this very

37 brief biography (for a more detailed one see Fridman 2018 chapter 3), Messner was an anti-communist and never lived in the USSR where his books were prohibited. It is possible that some illegal copies of them were read by high-raking Soviet officials, but his thoughts were revived in Russian military thought in the 1990s and 2000s due to his focus on the psychological dimension of war, the creation of revolts, and the blurring of the boundaries between war and peace. Hence, he seems to anticipate the modern strategic debate on 4th Generation Warfare, HW, GZW, COIN and so on. Messner thinks that modern wars aim more at destruction of the enemy’s political will to fight than at conquering enemy’s territory or at defeating him. Describing modern war in 1931 he wrote: “a war will be comprised of not only the traditional elements of open war, but also the elements of civil war: sabotage, strikes, unrests, [and] insurgencies will shake the state’s organism, proper functionality that is much required at moments of lethal struggle with an external enemy. The enmity will enter the hearts of people, not only the enmity to the foreigners, against whom the war is waged, but also to their kinsmen” (cited in Fridman, p. 64). According to Messner, the battle for “hearts and minds”, a notion that was first used by Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey (a French general and colonial administrator) as part of his strategy to counter the insurgency along the Indochina-Chinese border in 1895 then was used during the Malayan Emergency by the British and from that point onwards it has become a pillar of Western counterinsurgency doctrine, has become crucial in modern wars. This is a result of the fact that, due to modern technology and new kind of social/economic relations, every single member of a given population would be actively involved in the war effort. In Messner’s words: “Today we have to reckon with the fact that there is no more division between the theatre of war and the country at war [...] Today there is no division between the army and the population—all are participating in war with different and gradual intensity and persistence: some fight openly, others secretly, some fight continuously, others only at a convenient opportunity” (Fridman 2018, p. 65). Consequently, in future wars “people will be active participants of war, and might be even more active than the military. In previous wars the most important part was considered the conquest of territory. From now, it will be the conquest of the souls in the enemy state” (Fridman 2018, p. 65). According to Messner, we have to recognize that people have stopped to be passive observers of wars and they have become active participants. In these ideas, it is simple to find links to modern theories of war such as Creveld or Kaldor who highlighted the increasing role of civilians in the fighting. The notion of “war

38 amongst people” of British general Rupert Smith has also been anticipated. In sum, in the wars of the first half of the 20th century Messner sees a dramatic revolution that transforms the warfare, changes completely the role of people and blurs the distinction between military and civilians both in terms of actors and of targets of military operations. In addition to this revolution, Messner recognizes a second one related to the battlefield: modern wars are marked by greater dispersion on the battlefield. Not only had Messner argued for a third dimension, that is the vertical ones related to the invention of air-planes and submarines that make it impossible to prevent enemy strikes on population, he also introduced a fourth dimension, i.e. psychological. This psychological element is closely linked to information and media and represents a crucial aspect of modern Russian strategic thinking. As war had begun to include the whole of society, Messner states: “The soul of the enemy’s society has become the most important strategic objective [...] Degrading the spirit of the enemy and saving your own spirit from degradation—this is the meaning of struggle in the fourth dimension, which has become more important than the three other dimensions” (Fridman 2018, p. 67). Messner was not the first and only author who recognized the central role of enemy population. For example, the Italian air power theorist Giulio Douhet was a key proponent of strategic bombing on the belief that the infliction of high costs from aerial bombing can shatter civilian morale. This would unravel the social basis of resistance, and pressure citizens into asking their governments to surrender. However, what makes Messner’s ideas so original is the fact that he does not image conventional military means to achieve this goals, as Douhet and other airpower theorists such as Billy Mitchell did (this would fall back into the third dimension aforementioned), but by psychological tools to influence people perceptions. “The fighting will not take place on a bi-dimensional surface, like in previous times, [or] in triple-dimensional space, as it was since the birth of military aviation, but in four-dimensional [space], where the psyche of the fighting nations is the fourth dimension” (Fridman 2018, p. 67). Messner, having probably read Gustav Le Bon, Gabriel Tarde, Scipio Sighele or Georg Simmel on crowd and psychology of crowds, recognizes the increasing role of population in contemporary political and military operations. Consequently, he identifies the main aim of modern war not with the physical conquest of the enemy’s territory, but with the psychological conquest in order to knock the enemy down “from his ideological positions, to bring confusion and

39 discomfiture into his soul’; and the main means of doing so is through propaganda and agitation” (Fridman 2018, p. 68). The role of propaganda needs to be analysed in-depth because it is an integral part of both the GZW approach and of the modern Russian strategy. Messner draws a distinction between ‘propaganda by word’ and ‘propaganda by deed’. The first one includes radio, official speeches, publications, theatre, movies and exhibitions, propaganda by deed instead enclosed successful and timely actions, it also includes successful political, economic and social actions that can be used to influence the popular psyche. This reference to propaganda leads us to reflect more in-depth on the contemporary overlap between two notions that historically have been separated, but today they seem increasingly converging: war and terrorism. As we know terrorism is closely related to propaganda and what Pisacane and Bakunin called “propaganda by deed”, i.e. propaganda that instead of using pamphlets and political ideas relays on violent actions intended to ignite the spirit of revolt in the people by demonstrating the state was not omnipotent. However, while propaganda during war had always been an accessory element of the warfare, in the terroristic phenomenon it had always been an integral tool of the struggle. Today, as Messner recognized, propaganda is part of the warfare. It is also an element of the political warfare we have mentioned and of the notion of GZW. Furthermore, Messner draws a second distinction between offensive and defensive propaganda. The first one targets the enemy’s population and it aims to weaken internal cohesion; the second one is intended to defend our own population by enemy’s propaganda. Propaganda has not to be true and it is not focused on the contents, but the key is the how to present the contents, “the main tool of propaganda is an ‘emotional word’ and ‘neither healthy logic, nor verity are necessary to create emotions” (Fridman 2018, p. 69). A further consequence of this increasing role of propaganda, according to Messner, is that a “waging war actor will create and support a partisan movement in the territory of another [enemy] actor; [...] where it will nourish disobedience, sabotage, subversion and terror” (Fridman 2018, p. 69). From these ideas it follows that Messner, anticipating the notion of GZW, claimed that there was no longer a clear distinction between war and peace, and in order to describe the 20th century vaguer situation, he introduced three different notions. First, “half war” is when a state supports militias in another country using covert operations, a kind of proxy war that was very common during the Cold War and that continue to be very

40 common today, suffice it to recall the conflicts in Syria and Libya. Second, “aggressive diplomacy” is when an actor, despite not breaking the peaceful coexistence, supports opposition parties inside the enemy territory. Third, “subversion war” is when regular troops lost their monopoly of force and fight together with irregulars and when the goal is psychological and it is to conquer the minds and soul of the people. The most distinctive feature of “subversion war” is the psychological dimension: “Today, however, in times of psychological war, neither victory in battle, nor territorial gains, are the goals themselves: their main value is in their psychological effects. [Therefore,] one should think not about the destruction of an enemy’s manpower, but about the crushing of his psychological power” (Fridman 2018, p. 74). Messner is not a modern Russian theorist on war and warfare, however, it has been crucial to analyse his ideas because, after the end of the Cold War, his concepts on subversion war, use of propaganda, psychological dimension of conflict have become an integral part of the Russian view of current international politics and how Russians interpret modern military operations.

The Russian Strategic Debate: The Non-military Authors

In order to really understand the Russian strategic debate, it is also important to introduce authors who did not write specifically on military issues, but describe the 21st century security environment that then shapes the military authors. The paper takes into account two very influencing authors: Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin and Igor Nikolaevich Panarin. Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin is a Russian political analyst with close ties with the Russian military, he is the author of more than 30 books, among them Foundations of Geopolitics (1997) and The Fourth Political Theory (2009). Dugin argues that Russian Eurasian civilisation has consistently been faced with Western aggression and he takes the American strategic concept of net-centric warfare, which describes how modern military operations are waged using modern technology, broadens it and transforms it into an instrument to alter the political, economic, social, cultural and anthropological picture of the world. As Messner, Dugin stresses the relevance of the psychological elements, perceptions and ideas in current geopolitical space and he also blurs the distinction between military and civilian, war and peace. He interprets the network as a social phenomenon in the informational dimension, as a consequence, “net-centric warfare is when a political actor tries (not necessarily by

41 military means) to control a stronger and wider network” (Fridman 2018, p. 82). As in contemporary world the amount of information is enormous, it is not possible to control it, so net-centric warfare aims to control not the flow of information but to control how and which information is created and shared. On the one hand, Dugin takes an American military notion, i.e. net-centric warfare, however, he uses it with a broader meaning and in a political context while the American idea was essentially to be referred to a military context. On the other hand, the idea that information is central in the post-Cold War geopolitics is hardly new nor just Russian. For example, in a very well-known book the American political scientist Benjamin Barber wrote in 1995 “The new information subsector is on the frontier of economic development and corporations or nations that control it are prospective world leaders likely to dominate the next century” (Barber 1995, p.122). In Dugin’s conceptualization the purpose of net-centric warfare is to influence networks of people and of different organisations in order to promote a certain set of ideas in an attempt to achieve certain political goals. While Dugin’s conceptualization of net-centric war has not been embraced by the Russian military community, it creates a set of concepts and an interpretation of the 21st century’s geopolitics that had a certain influence on Russian reading of the Arab Spring in 2011, for example. A second non-military author who has influenced the Russian strategic debate is Igor Nikolaevich Panarin, a political scientist. He has written 15 books and a number of articles on information warfare, psychology, and geopolitics, he is also a full member of the Military Academy of Science of the Russian Federation. He focuses his analysis on history and warfare on the role of information and, thus, he claims that informational dimension has always played a crucial role in warfare and international politics. According to him, information war is a combination of diplomatic, economic, political and military methods to achieve defined goals. According to Fridman, “information warfare is primarily intended to subvert an adversary’s political power by controlling and manipulating the informational trends that shape the actions of the elite in general, and public opinion in particular” (Fridman 2018, p. 89). Panarin noted that Russian information warfare during the war in Georgia in 2008 did not perform well, as a result he stressed the need of “a specialized management system and analytic structures that counter information aggression against Russia” (Thomas 2010). This system should comprise Russian NGOs, Ministers, Presidential advisors and Special information troops composed of diplomats, experts, journalists, writers, publicists, translators, web designers, hackers who “do the strategic analysis

42 of control networks, counterintelligence work, operational concealment measures, information security issues” (Thomas 2010). From the above discussion, it appears evident that information and kinds of indirect/asymmetric approach to subvert the enemy without using directly military force are one the major pillar of the recent Russian strategic thought. However, neither Dugin nor Panarin are military, so let us now consider the strategic debate from Russian officials and how the previous ideas have been integrated in more military strategies.

The Russian Strategic Debate: The Military Authors

So far, this paper has focused on the historical and political elements that are shaping the current Russian military strategic debate. The following two sections will discuss first the military authors in general, their ideas and different approaches, then one of the most famous Russian military author, i.e. Gerasimov. One of the first theorist after the end of the Soviet Empire who is worth being mentioned is Gen. Makhmut Gareev, president of the Russian Academy of Military Science from 1995. While he insisted on the importance of manpower, even though he recognized the impact of modern technology, he argued: “the main efforts in the struggle with the enemy will be directed not towards the physical destruction of each unit of weaponry, but towards the destruction of their common information space, sources of intelligence, channels of navigation, and control systems of communication and targeting in general” (Jonsson 2019, p. 46). Then, Gareev changed a little bit his mind and in a 2012’s article he argued that as nuclear weapons prohibited large-scale war, two main ways to achieve policy objectives have arisen. First, “subversive ‘colour revolutions’ in the opposing countries, with large-scale information actions”. Second, limited wars with “the use of military force, to achieve the strategic objectives in part by unleashing local wars and conflicts” (Jonsson 2019, p. 69). Therefore, Gareev saw both a blurring of boundaries between military and non-military means, as several other Russian authors, and the building of hidden, asymmetrical violent military and non-military actions. However, probably the most influential author of that time was Maj. Gen. Vladimir Slipchenko, deputy head of the Academy of Military Science under Gareev, and known in the West for his idea of Sixth-generation warfare (Bowdish 1995): edged-weapons (bronze, iron and steel), gunpowder weapons, rifled weapons, automatic and mechanized weapons, nuclear weapons, and precision-strike weapons.

43 According to Slipchenko, the sixth generation has been anticipated by the Gulf War and it is “a type of war conducted over long distances, mainly fought with long-range precision-guided missiles, without soldiers coming into direct contact with each other” (Jonsson 2019, p. 46). While Slipchenko considers the first example of the sixth generation the war in Kosovo in 1999, the Gulf War in 1991 “displayed many of the characteristics of distance and noncontact warfare. Iraqi forces were numerically superior to the American forces, but they were in the fourth generation of warfare, [...] and were easily defeated with superior C4ISR and precision-guided missiles and a small land force” (Jonsson 2019, p. 46). Slipchenko labelled this sixth generation “contactless war” and in contrast to previous generations this one seeks to destroy not the enemy’s army or its political system, but its economic potential without, or with a minimum, contact between military forces, thus from a distance. In his view, the information technology and mainly precision weapons and every tools that enables to strike from distance have changed warfare. This new capacity to wage global warfare is also the only means to deter opponents in 21st century international politics (Kipp 2007). Gulin reflecting on the ‘informatization’ of social life stated that social violence could now take many forms: political, economic, ideological, and diplomatic. Therefore, he argued, war should not be understood mainly in terms of armed struggle but rather by the consistent features of the uncompromising struggle (Jonsson 2019, p. 49). During the first decade of the 2000s Russians have continued to reflect on the impact of information on warfare and on how non-military means have become more important in the framework of 21st security environment. Going a little bit against this line of reasoning Lt. Gen. Vladimir Serebryannikov stated that the capability to achieve victory through warfare continue to be a key feature in modern war. Thus, the capability to destroy physically an adversary’s armed forces and to make him obey the winner’s will remain an essential element of warfare. This more kinetic element is crucial also to understand Russian comprehension of Arab Spring. We have already said that Moscow sees it as a Western attempt to change the balance of power in the Mediterranean region, and that it has been interpreted as non-military and peaceful means. Several Russian authors, however, have properly argued that this interpretation is misleading not because they do not support the idea of Arab Spring as a Western subversion, but because they see in these subversions an important element of violence, suffice it to remind Syria, Libya or Yemen.

44 However, Serebryannikov acknowledges that information has changed the character of modern warfare and enabled to win without fighting (Jonsson 2019, p. 54). An influential Russian author is Lt. Gen. Sergei Bogdanov of the General Staff’s Center for Military-Strategic Studies who recalls the ideas of Slipchenko about the sixth generation and on contactless war. In his view, the initial period of war is crucial when precision weapons and the use of aerospace operations can decide the war even before the ground force began their operations. For this to be done, it is crucial to gain information superiority. As we will see the relevance of the initial period of war will be a major element of the so called Gerasimov’s doctrine. From the Russian debate of the first decade of the 2000s two major elements emerge. First, technology is a crucial element that deeply impacts on warfare at all the levels. Second, non-military means have acquired a more important role in warfare. Russians have recognized that non-military means have always represented in history an integral part of warfare. However, due to modern technology, they recognize that today, the flow of information and the use of economic pressure such non-military means have acquired a new and more important role in warfare. This understanding will deeply shape the Russian strategic debate in more recent years and the Russian view of GZW. This view, along with the persistence of nuclear weapons, has made some Russian theorists to argue, as it has been done in the West, that in today security environment large-scale wars are less likely but unconventional wars are a real possibility, instead. General Bogdanov and Colonel Chekinov have been two very influential authors in the last years putting a strong attention on the importance of information operations capable of achieving strategic goals by themselves. They see the US intelligence services to have mastered techniques of “psychologically manipulating and affecting individual, social institutions, corporations or states” (Jonsson 2019, p. 68). This is the reason behind the end of the Soviet Union, the Colour Revolution, Georgia crisis, Ukraine and the Arab Spring. Moreover, in 2013 they co-authored an article in which they gave a new definition for modern warfare, that is “new generation war” (Thomas 2016). “The aggressive side will be first to use non-military actions and measures as it plans to attack its victim in a new-generation war. With powerful information technologies at its disposal, the aggressor will make an effort to involve all public institutions in the country it intends to attack, primarily the mass media and religious organizations, cultural institutions, non-governmental organizations, public movements financed from abroad, and scholars engaged in research on foreign grants. All these

45 institutions and individuals may be involved in a distributed attack and strike damaging point blows at the country’s social system with the purported aims of promoting democracy and respect for human rights” (Jonsson 2019, p. 75). Therefore, they see the Arab Spring as the starting point of a new military age, that is high-tech wars in which information and psychological operations will be the dominant factors and in which ground troops have a secondary role. In this framework bribe, blackmail, intimidation play an important role as well as the use of undercover agents for subversive activities, such as inciting civil disobedience and committing unlawful acts (Jonsson 2019, p. 76). Chekinov and Bodganov depict modern warfare as Slipchenko did, and they stress the role of non-military actions and measures using media and propaganda. As a result, the first step of modern warfare is not a missile launch, a targeted killing or a precision bombing, it is nothing kinetic, on the contrary it is something related to information and cultural dimension of war. The use of media is very tricky and clever, because using it Russia can broadcast its own propaganda in the West, but, if Western governments try to stop such information flow then Moscow presents these actions as violations of the democratic principles. Thus, according to Jonsson and Seely (2015), the Russian “regime uses ‘Western values’ to subvert the Western narrative”. To describe such Russian approach Jonsson and Seely (2015) propose the notion of Full-Spectrum Conflict (FSC) that includes both covert and over operations, military and economic actions, the use of proxies and Special forces. Furthermore, the term conflict is less “violent” than war or warfare so it can encapsulate the non-military dimension of such contingencies. FSC is further divided into four parts: kinetic violence, information, economic and energy, and political influence operations. In order to describe them better, we refer to what happened in Crimea in 2014 when, according to Jonsson and Seely (2015), FSC took place. Although the kinetic violence is a small part of FSC, it had a crucial role because in Crimea Special Force operators assaulted and controlled key political and information targets. Then, armed violence was modulated to reach Russian political goals. Information warfare aims to control minds both domestically and internationally for destabilizing the enemy society. During the Ukraine crisis, the Kremlin used online commentators, bloggers, ‘trolls’ to post pro- Russian comments on several social media, at the same time it controlled the cyberspace not so much with cyberattacks, but mainly using Special Forces to seize stations. As for economy and energy, Russia had used food sanctions and energy supplies to implement its policy and to achieve its goals. For instance, in July 2013 and

46 then again in 2014, Russia banned Ukrainian chocolate. Energy is also a lever of Russian influence, “the more pro-Western a government, the higher the price of gas” (Jonsson and Seely 2015). The political side of FSC is related to several elements, for example: Gazprom’s sponsorship of the Champion’s League, Aeroflot’s deal with Manchester United, sabotage, founding of political groups both NGOs and political parties from the far right to the far left. Returning to Bogdanov and Chekinov, they state that new technologies and tools of new generation war impact “the initial period of war, where conflicts would, in fact, be won or lost”. The fast rate at which future wars will be fought does not allow to mobilize the economy and every means as in the past wars, as a result the initial phases are crucial (Thomas 2016). In this framework, not only “gaining information superiority over the adversary early on has become a priority”, but also the preparation of this takes place in peacetime using targeted information operations and intense reconnaissance activities (Thomas 2016). If the initial period of war (IPW) has become so crucial, it follows that “to properly prepare for the evolving IPW environment, operational adjustments are required in peacetime” (Thomas 2019). Information environment has to be shaped in peacetime and this means to shape even the geopolitical environment. This also means planting cyber viruses, capturing the enemy’s electronic warfare frequencies, scrambling global positioning system frequencies, or conducting reconnaissance on key underwater cables. This attention on IPW leads Russians authors to recognize also the importance of outer space and information to shape the battlefield and that major targets and critical facilities will be attacked by precision fire and electronic and information attacks (Thomas 2019). This approach has three very important and far-reaching consequences. First, peace and war overlap and a clear distinction between the two does not exist any-more, as the idea of GZW suggests. Second, the effort to shape the environment in view of a future conflicts means that this preparation needs time and the conflict can not be a short one. Third, since the IPW is so important, it is necessary to be always ready regardless it is a period of war or peace. Bogdanov and Chekinov used some Western examples to confirm their thesis. For instance, they say that top political figures and high-ranking military officers may go on the air in TV show or in important political meeting to mislead both the public and adversary political leaders. One of the most important of such event have been for sure when Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, showed a vial of anthrax during a plenary session of the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003, to argue in favour

47 of military action against Iraq. The same rhetoric, but focused on human rights, ethnic cleansing or lack of democracy has been used, according to Bogdanov and Chekinov, in Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Libya, Syria (Thomas 2016). Bogdanov and Chekinov describe two very different kinds of attacks related to the notion of new generation warfare. First, technological and information attacks use precision weapons and cyber-attacks to degrade or destroy enemy defence system (mainly air defence systems) and information. Second, psychological information attacks against the enemy perception and population, because for future wars the attainment of information superiority will be crucial and, as a result, mass media are an important tool that have to be controlled (Thomas 2016). In light of this, disinformation becomes an integral part not only of warfare, but also of the period that precedes the war. The most notable example of new generation war in which information warfare played a crucial role has probably been the annexation of Crimea in 2004. “After blocking Ukrainian troops in their bases, the Russians started the second operational phase, consisting of psychological warfare, intimidation, bribery, and internet/media propaganda to undermine resistance, thus avoiding the use of firepower […] The result was a clear military victory on the battlefield by the operationalization of a well- orchestrated campaign of strategic communication, using clear political, psychological, and information strategies” (Berzins 2014). In his analysis, Berzins lists eight different phases of the new generation warfare. First Phase: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures); Second Phase: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated measures of the first phase; Third Phase: intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers; Fourth Phase: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population; Fifth Phase: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed opposition units; Sixth Phase: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions; Seventh Phase: combination of targeted information operation, electronic warfare operation, aerospace operation, continuous air force harassment, combined with the use of high precision weapons launched from various platforms;

48 Eighth Phase: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units have survived and transmit their coordinates to the attacker’s missile and artillery units; fire barrages to annihilate the defender’s resisting army units by effective advanced weapons (Berzins 2014). The idea of non-military actions and of new weapons reached the highest level of Russian politics. In a 2012 discourse Vladimir Putin compared the capabilities in space and information warfare, and creation of weapons based on new physical principles to the effect of nuclear weapons but the former are “more ‘acceptable’ from the political and military point of view” (Jonsson 2019, p. 71). Consequently, reaching and crossing the threshold of their use has become simpler, easier and more possible. In a 2014 conference, General Zarudnitsky, Chief, Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, stressed again the political use of colour revolution by the West, but he notes that, far from being a peaceful, non-violent overthrow of legitimate governments, a more careful analysis of the events demonstrates “the reverse, that military force is an inalienable feature of “colour revolutions””, as the Syrian and Libyan conflicts show (Zarudnitsky 2014). Zarudnitsky singles out two features of modern warfare. First, as already said, these operations have innate elements of classical warfare: armed opposition formations, air/missile strikes, naval action, and Special Forces. Second, colour revolution differs from classic military operations for several elements: the boundary between defence and attack, strategy and tactics, front and rear is erased, as a result “military actions unfold not in a defined area or specific direction but across the country’s entire territory according to the network principle”; the conflict is mainly conducted in residential areas resulting in heavy casualties among civilians; conditions in which the rules of international law, which regulate warfare need not be observed, are created; since there is impunity and there are no holds barred, military action is conducted by criminal and terrorist methods; there is extensive involvement of both private military companies and Special Forces (Zarudnitsky 2014). Andrew Korybko, a member of the expert council at RISS (Russian Institute for Strategic Studies) argued in 2015 that “the joint use of colour revolutions and unconventional warfare was “a new theory of warfare in and of themselves” (Jonsson 2019, p. 80). Looking at how the Arab Spring and colour revolutions have spread, he claimed that “social media and similar technologies will come to replace precision- guided munitions as the ‘surgical strike’ capability of the aggressive party, and

49 chatrooms and Facebook pages will become the new ‘militants’ den’” (Jonsson 2019, p. 80). As a consequence, colour revolution and unconventional warfare are two ways to seek regime change, if the first fails, the second begins and develops in an insurgency with guerrilla, urban insurgency, sabotage and terrorism elements.

The Russian Strategic Debate: Valerij Vasilevic Gerasimov

The previous section has reviewed the Russian strategic debate, this was a necessary step in order to better understand the strategic ideas of one of the most renowned Russian officer in the West, i.e. the Chief of the General Staff Valerij Vasilevic Gerasimov. As we will see, he shares with the previous authors several ideas, however, both for his position and for an article he wrote, Gerasimov has become the Russian leading figure in the Western debate. Gerasimov was not the first author to refer to the effectiveness of non-military means, moreover, he took up the idea that the distinctions between war and peace are blurring. That does not mean that military force would not be used, but only that it will be used only after non-military means, i.e. colour revolution kinds of operations, have been used and failed to achieve the goal. The debate about Gerasimov’s ideas started in 2013 after the publication of an article in which several Western scholars saw the birth of the notion of “hybrid warfare”. The misunderstanding comes from the titled “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying out Combat Operations” published on February 26, 2013. According to Bartles (2016), the article, which was published in Russian, “is often interpreted as proposing a new Russian way of warfare that blends conventional and unconventional warfare with aspects of national power”, i.e. hybrid warfare. However, this interpretation is first of all misleading because Gerasimov does not use the term of hybrid warfare. Second, nor does Gerasimov offer any doctrinal advice or a new Grand Strategy; in contrast, he “is simply explaining his view of the operational environment and the nature of future war” (Bartles 2016a). In fact, Gerasimov describes, from a Russian point of view, the way in which the United States spreads their influence: “Instead of an overt military invasion, the first volleys of a U.S. attack come from the instalment of a political opposition through state propaganda (e.g., CNN, BBC), the Internet and social media, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). After successfully instilling political dissent, separatism, and/or social strife, the legitimate government has increasing

50 difficulty maintaining order. As the security situation deteriorates, separatist movements can be stoked and strengthened, and undeclared special operations, conventional, and private military forces (defence contractors) can be introduced to battle the government and cause further havoc” (Bartles 2016a). Gerasimov suggested that the characteristics of conflict have significantly changed after the end of the Cold War and mainly in the new millennium and they now involve the use of informational, political, economic, cyber, humanitarian and other non-military methods. (Gerasimov 2016) As a result, the military forces in this new type of conflict play a supporting role (Sandor 2019). A further result of this change is the increasing use of asymmetric operations that make it possible to offset an enemy’s superiority in armed warfare. Key elements of this approach are: the element of surprise that enable the fait accompli we have discussed before in the GZW paragraph; and the use of special operations forces and internal oppositions that create the deniability essential for the notion of GZW. Non-military measures, such as the involvement of the population’s protest potential, are becoming a new method for carrying out combat operations, and he suggests that non-military measures are occurring at a rate of 4:1 over military operations (Thomas 2015). Gerasimov gathered these ideas from the Russian perceptions of the Arab Spring, and the Euromaidan. He writes that a perfect example of the new way of war is what happened in Libya in 2011 “where a no-fly zone was created, a sea blockade imposed, and private military contractors were widely used in close interaction with armed formations of the opposition.” (Gerasimov 2016) According to Baev (2015), “the spread of violent turbulence in the Middle East is a direct result of the application by the US leadership of the ‘controlled chaos’ concept, which is allegedly aimed at reformatting and consolidating American control over the region”. As a consequence, the Russian response to the Arab Spring has an ideational and ideological dimension that has to be borne in mind. Russia believed both the Rose and Orange Revolutions, large street protests in Moscow in 2011–2012 and the simultaneous Arab Spring were Western conspiracies directed against Russia and intended to change the political balance of the entire region (Kuzio and D’Anieri 2018). In summary, Gerasimov (2016) pinpoints four crucial aspect of modern warfare: “the integrated utilization of military force and forces and resources of a non-military character”; the crucial role of media and information warfare “in order to achieve political objectives without the utilization of military force and, subsequently, in the interest of shaping a favourable response from the world community to the utilization

51 of military force”; the “participation of irregular armed force elements and private military companies in military operations”; and the “use of indirect and asymmetric methods of operations” (Kofman and Rojansky 2015). Reference is made to the use of special forces before and during military operations and to propaganda. Furthermore, Gerasimov stressed the use of modern automated complexes of military equipment and research in the area of artificial intelligence in influencing the essence of modern means of armed conflict. “While today we have flying drones, tomorrow’s battlefields will be filled with walking, crawling, jumping, and flying robots.” (Gerasimov 2016) In a 2014 Conference, Gerasimov linked the international position of the United States with the use of indirect approach to defend their position. To do so “an extensive arsenal of tried and tested methods are employed, including the use of sanctions and the provision of humanitarian, financial and military-technical assistance to pro- Western opposition forces” (Gerasimov 2014). In recent years, according to Gerasimov, Western countries have used a GZW approach: “A broad interpretation of the phrase a threat to peace and stability set out in the UN Charter has allowed the U.S. and other Western countries to justify open military intervention in the affairs of sovereign states.” He then noted that, although initially the U.S. used indirect tools, they then failed to achieve a stable peace and as a result the military force has been used resulting “in the escalation of tension, the exacerbation of antagonisms, the growth of armed violence and civil war, and the deaths of civilians […] On the pretext of disseminating democratic values, the employment of non-military resources and the adaptive use of military force to remove undesirable regimes have become common. ‘colour revolutions’ are becoming the main means of achieving their political ambitions” (Gerasimov 2014). Describing the colour revolution, Gerasimov use the common set of tools: manipulation, propaganda, economic and humanitarian measures and so on. Moreover, Gerasimov recognizes another feature of modern conflicts, that is even when they are within states “they are ceasing to be solely internal and increasingly acquiring an international character. There is an active outside interference in the process of resolving intrastate conflicts, from “colour revolutions” to armed invasion. The use of non-state armed formations as the main instrument of force in conflicts leads to the growth of uncontrolled force in the world. This consists of terrorism, extremism, cross-border organized crime and institutionalized mercenary activities” (Gerasimov 2014).

52 In 2016, Gerasimov suggested more kinetic ideas because he affirmed that the massive use of high-precision and long-range weapons from air, sea, and space are the main tools in modern wars. This is probably a consequence of the Russian use of this kind of weapons in Syria. While, at the same time, he stressed the relevance of non-military means that represented an important shifting in today 21st century security threats, he insisted that what differentiate war from peace is the use of armed violence. Moreover, even though the rules of war have changed, the consequences of war have not, it means that using propaganda, information, economic pressure and so on it is possible to transform a country in an arena of civil war, as the Arab Spring did in Libya, Syria and Yemen. Gerasimov did not use the term “hybrid”, instead he used the notion of “new-type war” (NTW) that was originally proposed in 2015 by General-Lieutenant A. V. Kartapolov, then director of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operation’s Directorate. According to Thomas, this term “indicates that an evolution in military thinking is underway in Russia” (Thomas 2016). Kartapolov describes NTW as “nonstandard forms and methods [...] which will make it possible to level the enemy’s technological superiority. For this, the features of preparation and conduct of the new-type warfare are being fully used and ‘asymmetric’ methods of confronting the enemy are being developed.” (Thomas 2016). As a result, the idea of symmetric and asymmetric warfare is blurring, and even state vs state wars become asymmetric conflicts. Kartapolov stated that contemporary wars use both direct and indirect means and can be divided in different phases. “First, a victim state is chosen, and irrefutable proof of its threat to international security is provided. Then an information campaign unfolds to convince the international community that direct force is the only way to liquidate the threat. Finally, sanctions are introduced, pressure is used against anyone obstructing Western policies in the region, and a coalition of states is formed and prepared to use classical forms of war if necessary” (Thomas 2016). A third force can be used in the forms of local protesters, individual countries, international organisations etc. or it can also be artificially formed. The goal is to start a civil war in order to create a pretext for a foreign intervention. In a 2016 speech, Gerasimov notes that application of political, economic, information, and other non-military means, carried out with the support of military force epitomizes the war in 21st century. In this framework, the ability of information technologies to manipulate and the ability of the Internet to exert an impact on the consciousness of citizens represent a serious threat. In order to counter this kind of threat, which is the

53 Western hybrid war in the Russian view, “Gerasimov recommended two deterrence- type approaches. Internally the country’s military and civilian assets must be mobilized to neutralize threats and counter or deter hybrid methods. Externally, Russia’s cooperation with foreign countries and organizations […] can help to deter foreign aggression through a demonstration of solidarity” (Thomas 2016). Finally, in 2018, Gerasimov described a probable future war: extensive employment of precision weapons and other types of new weaponry, such as robot technology; economic and state control systems will be priority targets such as the information sphere and space; a special role will be afforded to countering communications, reconnaissance, and navigation systems (Thomas 2019). Gerasimov’s March 2018 address to the Academy of Military Sciences titled “The Influence of the Contemporary Nature of Armed Struggle on the Focus of the Construction and Development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Priority Tasks of Military Science in Safeguarding the Country’s Defense” confirms several ideas already expressed by Gerasimov and it contains new or contentious issues. To begin with, he reflects on the role of science and forecasting in understanding future wars. Therefore, he cites Aleksandr Svechin a Soviet military writer, educator and theorist, and author of the military classic Strategy. He is one of the most important and famous strategic author in Russia. “It is unusually difficult to foresee [...] the situation of war. For each war it is necessary to develop a special line of strategic behaviour; each war presents a particular case that requires the establishment of its own special logic, and not the application of some template.” (Gerasimov 2019) Gerasimov made a similar reference also in the 2013 article stating that each conflict has a logic all its own, this show that modern Russian strategic thinking continues to rely on the heritage of great theorists of the past. To stress this point, at the end of his discourse, Gerasimov cites Immanuel Kant who said “that military science must become like a servant who goes in front of her mistress with a torch and lights the way for her, and not one who walks behind her and carries the train of her dress.” (Gerasimov 2019) Consequently, according to Gerasimov, it is essential not only to understand current operations, but also to develop skills in commanders for rapid and non-standard actions. “Abilities to forecast the situation, decisively act, and preparedly take a justified risk are developing.” (Gerasimov 2019) In this excerpt, Gerasimov seems to express the need for a changing in Russian strategic culture that has always been based on a strong hierarchical command structure from the tsarist times to the Soviet one.

54 Gerasimov, instead, alludes to a kind of Auftragstaktik or Mission-type tactics where the outcome of a mission is more important than the specific means of achieving it. In mission-type tactics, the military commander gives subordinate leaders a clearly defined goal (the objective) and a time frame within which the goal must be reached. The subordinate leaders then implement the order independently. The subordinate leader is given, to a large extent, the planning initiative and a freedom in execution which allows a high degree of flexibility at the operational and tactical levels of command. For the success of the mission-type tactics it is especially important that the subordinate leaders understand the intent of the orders and are given proper guidance and that they are trained so they can act independently. Delegation of authority implies initiative and dynamism of the subordinates and their ability to understand the broader context of the combat mission they are executing; this is the result of the broader learning process following the operation in Syria (Adamski 2020). “Gerasimov has underscored cultivation of such qualities as an ability to rapidly assess the situation, make non-standard decisions, employ military cunningness […], and act unexpectedly. According to him, commanders should be creative, be willing to depart from the template, opt for calculated risk and express ‘reasonable initiative.’” (Adamski 2020) Gerasimov’s starting point is the international situation with the global role of the USA and the unipolar international system. Gerasimov says that this is the reason of the increasing military confrontation in the international arena. Moreover, this military confrontation is being characterised both by the “disappearance of the line between states at peace and their shifting to a state of war” and by the broadening of participants from regular troops to irregular one (Gerasimov 2019). Furthermore, the spatial scale of military operations is “expanding, and the intensity and dynamism are increasing. The temporal parameters for preparing for and conducting operations are decreasing. There has been a shift from sequential and concentrated operations to continuous and dispersed operations conducted simultaneously in all spheres of confrontation and in remote theatres of military operations. The requirements for mobile forces have become tougher.” (Gerasimov 2019) Also military targets are broadening since important regions far away the main theatre and economic targets are encompassed. In today conflict, technology is crucial, therefore “gaining superiority in the command and control of troops and forces” (Gerasimov 2019) is absolutely vital. Another element of future conflicts that Gerasimov cites, and that we have already referred to, is the increasing use of precision weapons and other types of new weapons, including robot

55 technology. Gerasimov affirms that precision weapons can in future shift the principal portion of strategic deterrence tasks from the nuclear to the nonnuclear forces. This will make it possible for different actors to deter their adversary, but it also allows Russia to improve its GZW. At least other two elements of the discourse of Gerasimov have to be mentioned. First, Gerasimov stresses that in contemporary conflicts UAVs are a constant threat, therefore “systems for countering the employment of UAVs, including those based on new physical principles, are being developed and have begun to appear” (Gerasimov 2019). However, Gerasimov said that Russia is using UAVs in tactical operations, i.e. to increase the effectiveness of fire destruction, he does not mention strategic use of drones or kinds of attack-drones as the Americans have been doing in the last two decades. Instead, he seems more concerned of how to defend Russian assets and military operations from enemy drones and of using them as a reconnaissance tool in support of artillery fire or infantry operations. This use is consistent with the use of drones by Moscow in Syria as we will see in the devoted paragraph. Second, Gerasimov points out the central role of land troops with a high degree of mobility. In Soviet/Russian military doctrine air assault forces have always played an important role, now they are part of the rapid reaction forces with tank subunits to increase their combat capabilities and ensure independence of operation in air assault formations (Gerasimov 2019).

Information Warfare

The previous sections have been shown an intense and large strategic debate that highlights at least three elements of contemporary wars: the integrate use of military and non-military means; the increasing role of information warfare; weapons based on new physical principles that would be as effective as nuclear weapons. Of the three elements previously mentioned, the most important for our study is information warfare for at least three reasons. First, it appears to be very important in contemporary warfare in terms both of fighting method and of impact on the local population. Moscow sees a change in the modern warfare centre of gravity, it is not the army, but it is people’s mind that consequently have to be targeted using information, propaganda and so on (Thorton 2015). Second, Russia sees this sector as one of the most important in contemporary security environment as several laws to control NGOs, media and the Internet show.

56 This central role in Russian understanding is also evident in how Moscow has used trolls to attack Facebook and Twitter users and has blocked numerous independent digitally oriented foreign outlets from operating in Russia (Lupion 2018). For the Kremlin, information has now primacy in operations. Moscow has heavily invested in broadcasting news and information both internally with Russian speaking channels and internationally with the English speaking channel Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik News, which is published in several languages including Italian. According to Mark Galeotti, “The novelty is not so much the use of information as a weapon so much as that in the modern world, we are all in a single information sphere and that much more susceptible to others’ influences. Although it would be a massive mistake to presume that every bit of Russian media output is part of some strategy, there is a broad set of national objectives and many journalists, editors, news reporters, online pundits, etc., are driven by a desire to try and advance the broad Kremlin agenda.” (Galeotti 2020) Since Russians highlight how technological advances make it more possible for countries to undermine the political and military leadership of their adversaries through information operations, they think that before the beginning of a war “heavy propaganda” may be used to depress the moral and psychological feelings of the civilian population and armed forces. Therefore, Russian context includes a wide range of activities designed to influence the gathering of information, cognition, decision making, coordination, and the transfer of information. (Robinson et al 2018) Third, Moscow understands information in a very different way compared to the West. The Western literature on information warfare and the own notion of information warfare is narrower and focuses on the infrastructure; Russians, on the contrary, adopt a broader notion of information that includes the content of information itself (Thorton 2015). Therefore, while the Western idea of information is only related to the instruments used to collect and share it, so it is something concrete, the Russian one takes into account the infrastructure and also the texts and subjects of that information. Russians use two words in order to indicate the two elements of information: information-technical, the means of transmission, and information-psychological, the means to influence the minds of the population. Securitising the information- psychological means that culture and moral values become both targets to attack and to defend. It follows that, in the attack, the use of fake-news, for example, is a tool to destabilize the enemy society; in the defence, it is necessary to contain foreign information that may have a destabilization effect. Another consequence of this different understanding of information between the West and Russia is related to the

57 concepts of war and peace because from the Russian understanding follows that such information campaigns are not waged only during war, but they are always present and as a result the difference between war and peace dashes. Since the National Security Concept of January 2000, Russian leaders have recognized a threat to Russia related to information: “There is an increased threat to the national security of the Russian Federation in the information sphere. A serious danger arises from the desire of a number of countries to dominate the global information domain space” (cited in Thomas 2010). Russian understanding of information-psychological has changed after the first Chechen war. At the time Moscow prohibited journalists to visit the theatre of operations, as a consequence journalists flew into Daghestan’s Makhachkala airport and got free taxi rides into Chechnya where the insurgents paid them for their articles. “The Russian government adapted its approach from the first war to the second and took firm control of broadcasting. This was done by allowing access only to journalists with permission from the government and only in certain locations, as well as by censoring their output both in terms of visuals and text” (Jonsson p. 111). However, the Chechens despite their inferiority in term of technology were able to use the Internet to spread their propaganda, thus Russians understood how the Internet could be a threat that needs to be faced. It is not a coincidence that after Putin won the election he began to centralise and control information in Russia. In 2014 during the conflict in Ukraine it has been noted that malware intended to simulate clicks was diverted to promote pro-Russian videos on YouTube. In addition to control over broadcast and print media, Russia also successfully achieved control over telecommunications and the Internet simply by taking physical control of telecoms infrastructure (Gilles 2016b). This hints at a close cooperation between Russian Special Forces and cyber/information operations. Another important element of Russian information-psychological campaign is the targeting of military personnel. As Gilles reports: “many Western servicemen remain unaware that by using smartphones in hostile information environments – including, for example, Ukraine – they are presenting hostile intelligence services not only with their social media postings, but also with their personal details and in particular their security authentication for any application that is that they are logged into at the time” (Gilles 2016b). The turning point in the Russian understanding of information-technical and in how it has changed warfare has been the Gulf War in 1991. However, it was only in 2008

58 when the military reforms were implemented that a credible modern conventional force in the information age began to be developed. It is in the framework of this reform that Russia began to form ideas and weapons to launch electronic strikes, thought about robot-controlled warfare, aerospace and mobile aerial operations, information reconnaissance strikes, anti-reconnaissance operations. It seems that the last decade represents a turning point in Russian strategic thinking, because Russia’s military construction has historically favoured large ground forces believing that wars are decided on land and as a result the main element of the military approach is the land power. Even the Cold War with the need of naval units in high seas and the introduction of nuclear arsenal did not change this idea (Facon 2012). The most recent Russian strategic debate and the military reform seem to stress the need of a smaller Army, more mobile, more integrated and with a more advanced technology with the aim to allow for much more rapid force deployment. The Russo-Georgian War in 2008 highlighted several technical shortcomings in Russian precision guided weapons, as a result Russian military recognized the need of improve their Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS). The 2008 military reform stressed, for example, the need of ICBMs and SLBMs. Since Russia has used its cruise missiles and other precise guided weapons in the Syrian conflict, it seems that the improvements have been successful. The Russian military intervention in Syria has showed the impressive and rapid Russian progresses in terms of cruise missiles, since, until 2010, Moscow did not have missiles with conventional warheads for land attack. While the Russians have reformed quite effectively, bringing into practice lessons they had explored on a theoretical basis in the decade before and, as a result, they are now enthusiastic about ‘non-contact warfare’ using airpower, drones and stand-off precision munitions; according to Galeotti (2020), their capacity to use them “is not always as great as they would like – and bottlenecks in production chains mean they have smaller stockpiled of PGMs than they need for serious, intensive warfare”. The Russian high-precision weapons system includes: the intelligence system, communication channels, control centres, computer facilities, means of delivery and guided munitions. Soviet Union and then modern Russia views this kind of weapon as a deterrence tool and this explain the Russian interest and in 2010 the notion of “non- nuclear deterrence” first coined by Deputy Defence Minister Andrei Kokoshin entered the lexicon of Russia’s Military Doctrine (McDermott, Bukkvoll 2018). Accordingly, the concept “is seen as a mixture of military and non-military mechanisms to convince an

59 adversary that further escalation would entail too much risk” without using the nuclear arsenal that remains a last resort option (McDermott, Bukkvoll 2018). During the Russo-Georgian War, cyberattacks and conventional military operations had worked together. Moreover, “by using television footage and daily interviews with a military spokesman, Russia controlled the flow of international information and sought to influence local populations by dictating news, sharing the progress of Russian troops protecting Russian citizens, and propagandizing Georgian atrocities” (Iasello 2017). After the Russo-Georgian War, Russia has refined its techniques and capabilities and has been able to use them efficiently in Crimea where cyberattacks “shut down the telecommunications infrastructure, disabled major Ukrainian websites, and jammed the mobile phones of key Ukrainian officials before Russian forces entered the peninsula on March 2, 2014” (Iasello 2017).

60 CHAPTER 3 Case Studies: Russian in the MENA region

It is beyond doubt that the most famous case study about modern Russian HW is the conflict in Ukraine and mainly the short and cunning operation in Crimea that has enabled Moscow to take control of this strategic peninsula. This operation has highlighted several important feature of Russian military approach such as the use of both regional and international media, tools of GZW, use of Special Forces, the informational dimension of the conflict, the ability to balance both overt and covert, military and diplomatic actions. However, I have decided not to take into account this conflict for at least two reasons. First, in the previous paragraphs references to the Ukraine crisis and Russian operation in Crimea have been made and numbers of studies have been mentioned, therefore, the reader, who is interested to delve into such issue, can already find in this research ideas and bibliography. Second, Ukraine and Crimea have been extensively studied and as a result I have find more interesting deal with more original case study. Another war theatre that had a huge impact on Russian strategic thinking was the Georgian War in 2008. This conflict, despite the fact that Moscow won it, made it clear to the Kremlin that Russian armed forces were not ready to fight a modern war against a peer adversary. As a result, the conflict encouraged the military reform that has shaped Russian armed forces in the next years and created the contemporary armed forces. This research has already dealt with this topic and the work of Galeotti is very good one to study this issue. (Galeotti 2018) Since the two case studies have been extensively investigated by distinguished scholars and since the author of this research is an expert of the MENA region, it has been decided to take into account the Russian political and military operations there. Further, although in recent years several studies have focused on Moscow return in the Mediterranean region, we have decided to focus on Russian involvement in Syria and in the MENA region for several reasons. First, it is a little bit less studied case in the Russian military strategy and it also shows better than Ukraine that the notion of HW does not describe the Russian approach. In fact, the Kremlin approach to the MENA region is a very complex political campaign that can be labelled as GZW. Second, the MENA region is a crucial geographic area for Italy where it has important national interests, it has appeared more important to study Russian military strategy

61 there. Third, given the proximity of Ukraine and its close relationship with the Russian world, history and identity, the Russian operations there represent a very particular and, in some ways, unique war theatre. The Russian military/political approach used there can be probably repeated in some other former Soviet republics but, for sure, not in war theatres far away from Russia and its sphere of influence. The MENA region, on the contrary, represents a very different commitment because there Moscow had to confront with different actors with different identities, interests and international role. As a result, this situation is something that can be repeat in future and for this reason it represents a very good case study to better understand Russian approach and countermeasures. In order to study the Russian approach to the MENA region, the paper focuses mainly on Syria that has been the principle and most important war theatre. However, it takes into account also Libya, where, on the one hand, Moscow did not intervene directly as it did in Syria, but, on the other, it has used several tools of the GZW approach. Moreover, it deals with different Russian partners in the area to show how deep and well-structured the Russian involvement in the region is. As a result, this section of the research has been divided into two parts, each of them focused on a specific element of the GZW approach. The first part deals with the political tools showing both how Russia uses a pragmatic approach that enable to dialogue with almost every actor involved, not only the allies, and how Moscow has been able to outmanoeuvre the US in order to shape the environment and gain a stronger position. The second part focuses on the military tools used by Moscow and mainly the airpower in Syria.

Russian Diplomacy

As was pointed out in the paragraph on GZW, this approach has several tools and it is inherently political. Consequently, the political/diplomatic side of the Russian involvement in the MENA region is the most important to take into account. A full discussion is outside the scope of this paper, therefore, this section delves into mainly the Russian intervention in Syria and briefly the Moscow approach to Libya. Syria is a strong and old ally of Soviet Union/Russia. Consequently, at the beginning of the crisis Moscow already had political, economic and military interests and contacts in the country. Although this relationship was not the most important for Moscow either in general or in the region, Damascus represented a red line for the Kremlin for at least

62 two reasons. First, in Syria Moscow had the only naval base outside its national territory, Tartus. From the beginning of Putin presidency, one of the Kremlin’s major goal has been to restore the status of great power. It would have been impossible to do it without some power projection capabilities and without leverage in a vitally important area of the world — the Middle East. Moreover, in the early years of the Bashar al-Assad regime, Russia also established a joint signal intelligence collection centre in Syria, that in 2012 was set in Latakia and became the largest electronic intelligence gathering post outside Russian territory. Second, after the Libyan experience in 2011, Moscow understood that the West could not be trusted and, therefore, the American regime change approach has to be stopped. Therefore, from summer 2011 Russia made diplomatic efforts to boost Syria state authority more than the Assad regime. In fact, what interests most Moscow is to preserve the integrity of Syria in order to avoid the insecurity and chaos that has affected before Afghanistan and Iraq and then Libya and that is the perfect environment for the development of terrorist organisations (Trenin 2018, p. 30). At the beginning the use of force was not seen as a possibility, it was just the last resort that comes after other non-kinetic means have been tried and have failed. In Syria, Russia had engaged in extensive diplomatic outreach, for instance blocking at the UN Security Council any draft resolution that may have constituted a pretext for a Western military intervention as it happened in Libya, conducted arms transfers and even attempted to organize the opposition before directly using its military means. This is consistent with Russian military thought that identifies the decisive period of conflict as the confrontation or crisis preceding the outbreak of force-on-force violence and the initial period of war. One of the Russian first political acts was in early August 2011, when Moscow stated that it would not oppose or veto any UN resolution condemning the violence in Syria provided no sanctions were imposed. Yet, the US were attempting to influence the UN to sanction the Syrian government. As a result, Russia stated that it would use its veto power to stop these moves. Probably, the most important diplomatic success and the turning point in the Russian involvement in the Syrian conflict, and perhaps in the entire Middle East, was in the summer of 2013 when Russia was able to successfully hinder the American strategy that used the supposed chemical attacks by Assad regime to plan an intervention, supervising the destruction of Syrian chemical arsenal. During the G20 summit in St. Petersburg on 5-6 September 2013 Putin met Obama and offered a deal “to rid Syria of chemical weapons in exchange for the United States abstaining from attacking”

63 (Trenin 2018, p. 51). Obama agreed and the Syrian chemical arsenal was dismantled under Russian and international supervision during the 2014. “For Moscow, this was a major coup: for the first time since the end of the Cold War, they could deal with Americans as equals” (Trenin 2018, p. 51). This was probably the first time since the end of the Cold War that the U.S. had not be able to implement their strategic plan, i.e. regime change in Syria. This may have epitomized the end of the unipolar moment, because this fact has highlighted both the crucial role of Russian in the conflict and its diplomatic ability that enable Moscow to disrupt American plan and at the same time to shape the local situation at its advantage. The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided civil war fought between the Ba’athist Syrian Arab Republic led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, along with domestic and foreign allies, and various domestic and foreign forces opposing both the Syrian government and each other in varying combinations. The unrest in Syria was part of the so-called Arab Spring protests that affected several Mediterranean countries in 2011 (Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon and also Yemen) (Kepel 2019). The war, which began on 15 March 2011 with major unrest in Damascus and Aleppo, began as protests against the government and then with the support of external actors, among them also Western governments such as the United States, transformed into one of the worst civil/proxy wars in recent times fought by several factions: the Syrian Armed Forces and its international allies, a loose alliance of mostly Sunni opposition rebel groups (including the Free Syrian Army), Salafi jihadist groups (including al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State), the mixed Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with a number of countries in the region and beyond being either directly involved or providing support to one or another faction (Iran, Russia, Turkey, the United States, as well as others). Why did Russia decide to intervene in Syria? There are several reasons that explain the Russian first direct military intervention in the Middle East from combatting terrorism to defend key logistical Russian infrastructures and interests. First of all, it is necessary to understand this intervention in the framework of both the current international politics and the GZW notion previously analysed. In an interview with Professor Mark Galeotti, he described the Russian operations as a relatively cheap and disposable adventurism, “even Syria has been kept to a pretty small scale and could easily be withdrawn if ever that became necessary […] In Libya, we have seen an upsurge in the presence of mercenaries, but that is probably being bankrolled by the UAE or Saudis – that’s a key point in that Moscow is not able or interested in

64 pouring resources into the region but rather needs its activities there (and in Africa, for that matter) to be essentially self-funded, at least in the longer-term”. This kind of approach is consistent with the GZW theory because it allows Russia to assert its claim that it is a great power. Consequently, it is involved in any resolution of crises and, as a result, all it needs to do is keep stirring up trouble until this happens, and “it is a lot easier and cheaper to generate trouble than to resolve it”. (Galeotti 2020) On the whole, Professor Bettanin agrees because “Today, Russia tries to present itself as an honest broker, with no ideological bias, and follows a multivector approach, mindful of regional specificities and interests. As seen by Moscow, this policy is in stark contrast with the moralizing approach of Obama, the dangerous activism of Trump, the more balanced but inadequate presence of EU countries”. (Bettanin 2020) A second reason to understand Moscow intervention in the Mediterranean region is related to Libya, because the Kremlin wanted to prevent the creation of another failed State. As described on a previous paragraph, Russia understood the Arab Spring as a Western covert operation to topple governments in the MENA region and to open a new imposed democratic phase in the region. Right or wrong, this interpretation has influenced the Russian view of Mediterranean politics since the spring of 2011 when Moscow understood that Western governments could not be trusted. The turning point in this understanding was the Libyan conflict because at the time Russia did not veto at the UN Security Council the Western resolution aimed to create a no-fly-zone over Libya in order to protect the rebels. However, the Western air power was used not only to protect the local population from Gheddafi’s air-force, but it was mainly an instrument to topple the regime creating the ongoing volatile situation. In order to prevent that a similar situation repeated in Syria, Russia decided to strongly defend its ally. Moscow had several reasons to support that decision and the official one was to fight the terrorism that could have found fertile ground in a chaotic Syria without a central government. While this explanation is rational and plausible, it does not offer a full answer, therefore, other answers have to be taken into account. Traditionally, Moscow perceived Syria and the Middle East to be part of its extended neighbourhood, and Syria has been Moscow’s closest Arab ally, and, since the Cold War (Vasiliev 2018), one of the largest recipients of its economic and military aid. It is true that Russia’s influence on Syrian policy has been, and is currently, limited; however, the two countries have developed a strong political, economic and military relationship since the 1950s. Moreover, Moscow has viewed Damascus as a potential foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean, with its warm-water ports at Tartus. Kozhanov

65 (2013) questions the relevance of this military base, saying that during the Cold War the Tartus base was used to serve the needs of the USSR’s Fifth Mediterranean fleet, but since the fleet’s dismissal in 1991, it “has been used more as a symbol of Russia’s presence in the Mediterranean than to service the Russian navy which, until recently, was not often a guest in these waters”. Yet, Tartus was the only Mediterranean base that Russian vessels may have used; moreover, in 2015 Russia was a very different country from the 1990s Russia, because of its upgraded military tools (Giles 2016a) and its expanded initiative in the international arena: a country with more war experience and more resolution in confronting the American unipolar momentum. In addition to its military base and its geopolitical role, Syria has always been an important economic partner for Russia: “Since the early 2000s, the volume of trade between the two countries has gradually been growing. By 2012, it almost reached USD 2 billion” (Kozhanov 2013). However, Syria is not Russia’s most important economic partner in the Middle East: “Iran and Israel’s volume of trade with Russia has long surpassed Syria’s (in 2008, they peaked at USD 3.67 and USD 3 billion, respectively”. Even in military terms the volume of contracts signed is impressive: in 2006, Moscow and Damascus signed military contracts for USD 4 billion, and by 2010 this sum had allegedly increased to nearly USD 20 billion. “Nevertheless, their volume cannot match the size of military exports to China or India” (Kozhanov 2013). Consistent with a GZW approach, the Kremlin used its political influence and its diplomacy to shape the situation, gain a stronger position and weaken that of US. For instance, Russia played a key role to reach an agreement with the United States regarding the destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal. This allowed Moscow to become a player in Syria and to sideline American diplomacy. Russia’s goal in Syria has never been to “win the war” for Assad; instead, it has been to preserve the pro-Russian Syrian state system. As Putin himself asserted in late 2015, Moscow’s goal was merely to “stabilize the legitimate power in Syria and create the conditions for a political compromise” (Interfax 2018). Consequently, Moscow strengthened its military presence, fortifying its air base in Hmeimim and its naval base in Tartus, and intensifying cooperation with Iran‐backed Shiite ground troops in an attempt to cleanse Syria’s key areas of anti‐Assad opposition. The Russian presence in Syria has improved not only the fighting effectiveness of the Syrian Army and paramilitary units, but also, and probably most importantly for Moscow, Assad’s negotiating position with rebel groups (Souleimanov and Dzutsati 2018).

66 As a revisionist power, Russia has never aspired to become the most important actor in the region or to remove completely the US influence. However, the Kremlin’s aim has always been to undermine American regime change policy, American operations, and to gain a stronger diplomatic position. Moreover, due to its intervention in Syria, Moscow can now create a security bubble in the East Mediterranean impacting Western operations in the area and possibly controlling the traffic over Suez. After five years, the Russian military intervention in Syria has allowed the Kremlin to create what Western strategists call an A2/AD bubble over Syria that affects Turkey, Middle East and part of the East Mediterranean. This system is composed of several parts. One is tactical aircraft deployed in the Syrian air base that would perform air interdiction, land attack, and potentially antiship attack of U.S. or NATO forces attempting to operate within the A2/AD zone. A second element is the deployment of Yakhont ASCMs antiship missile that provides an additional boon to the area-denial aspect of Russia’s approach. Additionally, Moscow has deployed a number of unmanned aircraft to provide targeting information to its forces in Syria. While their use is mainly tactical and related to the ongoing military operations in Syria, many of these systems could be extendable to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations and they are a major pillar of effective A2/AD operations. Finally, anti-aircraft missiles deployed in the Russian air base both provide cover to Russian operations in Syria; and pose a considerable risk to American and NATO operations in the area. Along with naval assets, such as vessels and submarines, such A2/AD envelope may “put Western access to the Suez Canal, the Black Sea, and the resource-rich eastern Mediterranean at the mercy of an increasingly aggressive Russian regime” (Altman 2016). The Russian vessels armed with Kalibr anti-ship/ground-attack missiles and operating from Syria can now “threaten not only NATO warships […] operating at almost any point across the Mediterranean but also any targets on land out to 2,500 km”. (Thornton 2019) Moreover, from an historical point of view, Russia had always sought to maintain ‘buffer states’ between its own territory and those of its main adversaries. This is also true at the sea where Moscow aims to maintain maritime forward defensive zones by ‘occupying’ the maritime approaches to the country. Syria and the naval and air bases there are a crucial element to create this maritime buffer zone in the Eastern Mediterranean. (Thornton 2019) Another political/diplomatic reason that explains the Russian intervention is Moscow credibility in its allies’ eyes. As Syria is the only Middle Eastern country that has never

67 broke its relationship with Russian since the end of the Second World War, if the Assad regime had been left unsupported, then other countries around the world would begin to think twice before forming substantive ties with Moscow (Thornton 2019). This is exactly the same logic the Obama administration did not follow in Egypt after the Arab Spring. Despite the fact that Mubarak was an old and strong American ally, he was not supported and the American administration supported instead his rivals. This destabilized both Egypt, which now is a closer ally of Moscow than in 2011, and other American allies who brought into question American reliability. Russia does not have a grand strategy for the Middle East, however, it has a clear view and understanding of its interest in the region. This has enabled Moscow to deal with countries and groups that are old and traditional enemies to one another. Russia avoided the risk of falling into the cracks of Middle Eastern divides: Shia vs Sunni; Saudi vs Iran; Israel vs Iran; Turkey vs Kurds. There is one term that perfectly describes Russian political/diplomatic approach not only to Syria but to the entire MENA region: pragmatism. While the American diplomatic approach is often based on ideas related to democracy and human right, the Russian one is more consistent with history, diplomatic history and international history (Trenin 2018). This is evident both in Syria and in Libya where Moscow, despite its support for Assad and Haftar, has always had diplomatic relations with the opposite sides: Kurds, Turkey, opposition groups, except Islamist groups, in Syria; and the Tripoli government in Libya. In Syria, every actor involved in the conflict is for the Kremlin an actor to speak with and to have diplomatic relations. A good example is Israel because, despite the strong alliance between Moscow and Damascus, Russia has never strongly protested against Israeli raids hitting Hezbollah targets. While in Syria, Russia is allied with Iran, the two countries do not share the same political agenda both in Syria and in the region. In Syria, Teheran supports Assad and the Alawites, Moscow, instead, is more interested in defend Syrian territorial integrity and its own interests there. In the Middle East, Russia is willing to collaborate with every country as long as it can improve its political, military or economic position. For example, Moscow is a major supplier of arms to Iran but it is more than willing to sell the same kinds of arm to Teheran’s enemies, i.e. the Sunni countries. Another example in the Syrian conflict is the relationship with Turkey. The two countries have strong economic relationships and they have built a depoliticized model of cooperation, marked by an asymmetry which favours Russia, but very useful to both parties. In the security matters, Turkey and Russia have built in the last decades an

68 axis of convenience which see them at odds on many issues (the situation in the Transcaucasus, the role of Tatar in Crimea and of the Kurds, the regional conflict in the Black Sea, the hosting of nuclear weapons on the Turkish soil) but has opened the way to cooperation in the MENA countries, where they can support opposite sides, while sitting at the table of peace process filling the vacuum opened by disengagement of USA. (Bettanin 2020) The two countries entered the Syrian conflict on opposite sides and they had very tense moments. On 24 November 2015 a Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M attack aircraft that, according to Turkey, violated the border. On 19 December 2016, while speaking at an art gallery exhibition in Ankara, Andrei Gennadyevich Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated by an off-duty Turkish policeman. After the downing of the its plane, Moscow did not respond military, but place Erdogan and Turkey under heavy economic, political and informational pressure. Then, in the summer of 2016 Erdogan apologized and Putin supported him during the failed coup d’état in August and then Erdogan flew to St. Petersburg to re-conciliate. This was a turning point both in the relations between the two countries and in the Syrian conflict, because after this meeting and the reconciliation, Moscow and Ankara began to collaborate in Syria: Turkey retired its allies around Aleppo allowing the conquer of the city by Syrian forces in December and then the peace process in Astana began that signalled the new alliance between Russia, Iran and Turkey. In the summer of 2016, Turkey began the Operation Euphrates Shield, a cross-border military operation conducted by the Turkish Armed Forces and Turkey-aligned Syrian opposition groups which led to the Turkish occupation of northern Syria. Operations were carried out in the region between the Euphrates river to the east and the Syrian rebel-held area around Azaz to the west. During this operation Turkey fought against both the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Islamic State and at this stage Russian bombers supported the Turkish armed forces. The Russian politics toward Libya is different from that in Syria. The Russian involvement and military footprint is far more limited in Libya than in Syria. According to Bettanin (2020), “in Libya there are [...] good reasons to consider the news about a major role of Russians mercenaries as an overstatement: either the ‘Wagner group’ were good fighters in Syria and poor ones in Libya, or they were not present ranks in the great numbers mentioned by Western media”. From a political point of view there are also major differences. While Putin announced the intervention in Syria at UN

69 Assembly, in September 2015, in Libya he admitted, in January 2020, a limited presence of Russian mercenaries, but distanced from them. This is probably a consequence of the fact that in Libya two Russian regional partners (Turkey and Egypt) are involved, and, therefore, Moscow, tries to balance between them which support opposite sides in the Libyan conflict, in order to create also in Libya something resembling the “Astana process”. (Bettanin 2020) A substantial difference between Russian intervention in Syria and in Libya is related to the fact that in Syria there is a presence of Russian military forces that were invited by the Syrian government, while in Libya there is, at the moment, neither an official Russian military presence nor the Russian contractors have been invited by the Libyan government that at the moment does not exist since the country has two governments, albeit that in Tripoli has been recognized by the UN. As a consequence, today Moscow is a crucial actor in Libya and for the resolution of the Libyan instability, but it has not a presence on the ground. (Natalizia 2020) As for Libya, Putin has always considered Serraj and Tripoli potential partners, as Moscow has never ruled out one actor in order to support its enemy. In light of this, the Russian government hosted Serraj in Moscow in March 2017. This meeting was likely linked to both a deal signed between Russia’s Rosneft and Libya’s National Oil Corporation, which established a joint working committee to explore cooperation in various oil fields (including exploration and production), and a failed meeting between Serraj and Haftar in Cairo a month before. The meeting seems to have marked a closer relationship between Moscow and Tripoli, as, in April, a Russian delegation headed by the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and the Minister of Industry met with Serraj in Tripoli. This Russian balanced approach is also demonstrated by the fact that in Syria Moscow has found itself allied only with Shias actors, but it counterbalanced this difficult position by collaborating with important Sunni states. For instance, it cultivated Sunni monarchies such as Jordan that was invited to the Astana process. Moreover, Russian intervention in Syria was seen by many Sunnis state in the Middle East as a way to balance the increasing influence of Iran in the conflict. Finally, Russia focuses on Egypt, one of the most important Sunni state. The Russian approach to Egypt at the beginning of the Arab Spring and in the following years is very indicative. On the “Tahir revolution”, Moscow took a neutral stage, when Mohammed Morsi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, won the election in 2012 Putin invited him to visit Moscow.

70 Then, after internal crisis al-Sissi become president and with him, Moscow established a very strong relationship in military, economic and political terms. (Trenin 2018)

The Military Operations in Syria

While Russian diplomacy goes on in the entire region, the Russian military tools has been used directly and overtly only in Syria. At the same time Russian weapons and contractors are present in other contingencies, mainly in Libya. This paragraph takes into account how Moscow has used its armed forces in Syria and how some concepts previously highlighted related to the Russian strategic thought have been implemented. In particular, the Syrian and Libyan conflicts will be taken into account. The Syrian war represents a novelty for Russian military. First, Moscow has never fought on Arab soil, it has experienced conflicts against Islamic militias in the Caucasus and in Afghanistan for example, but it has never deployed military forces to fight in an Arab country. Second, Syrian conflict is for the Kremlin an expeditionary war, i.e. a war fought in a country with which Russia has not common border. This is a very uncommon kind of warfare for Russian and it was so even for the more powerful Soviet Union. Third, it is a predominately air war. Russia uses ground forces in Syria to defend its bases, to improve intelligence and special forces to small and specific missions, however the air element was absolutely dominant in terms both of quantity and of use. This is a novelty because Moscow has always used a major ground force in its campaigns in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia. In Syria, the Kremlin adopted this approach both to reduce the risk of escalation and heavy losses, and to adapt to a modern conception of war. In this context Russian forces acted as a force multiplier leading the operational planning, providing logistical, C2, and intelligence (visual, signal and target designation) assistance, and delivering close- and long-range fire support using its small but effective air assets. On the ground, Moscow boosted training, advice, equipping and rebuilding of the Syrian army. Moscow delegated most of the ground warfare to its local allies, only in some circumstances they were augmented by Russian contractors, and only episodically in some very important and specific operations regular Russian units step into the fray of the ground warfare, to inflict decisive blows. (Adamsky 2018b) Fourth, it is a coalition war because Moscow fought with several allies, Syrian regime, Iran, Hezbollah, Turkey. Another Russian ally has been Iraq for two reasons. On the

71 one hand, Iraq was a logistical corridor because Russian air-planes and missiles flew over Iraqi airspace. On the other hand, Baghdad hosted the intelligence exchange and coordination centre for Russian, Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi militaries. Finally, it is a limited war with limited goals in which the diplomatic process is closely linked to the military operations (Trenin 2018). As a result, the Syrian conflict represent a good example of Russian GZW approach. This is evident looking also at how Russia became involved in the conflict. In contrast to Western approach to Libya, for example, when the notion of “responsibility to protect” was formulated and introduced to support and to legitimize the regime change operations outside the recognized international law, Russia was willing to strictly observe legalistic formalities. Therefore, it entered the conflict at the official request of Syrian government that at time was boycotted by Western and Arab governments, but it was still the only recognized Syrian government at the UN. As a consequence, Moscow has been able to shape the diplomatic and military environment without breaking the international law. Moscow used the internal law to support its diplomatic efforts and then its military operations with a great deal of success. The close link between military and diplomatic approach is evident looking at the Russian goals in Syria. Moscow had three main goals in Syria that, moreover, show Russian holistic approach to war. The Kremlin in Syria has combined hard and soft instruments of power across military and non-military domains demonstrating this systemic approach. The most immediate goal was to preserve the integrity of Syria, supporting Assad regime. Russia, in contrast to Iran, did not aim to save at any cost Assad, however it aimed to defend the Syrian state and consequently its own interests and facilities there. Second, the Kremlin wanted to fight terrorism in Syria avoiding that experienced militant could come back to Caucasian provinces creating instability there. Third, Russia wants to be seen again as a great power. It did not want to displace America from the region, but it wants both to expand its regional position and that the United States recognize its great power status. This is a classical revisionist power’s goal that can be achieved using GZW tools. As already said in a previous paragraph, a revisionist power uses GZW not because it aims to radically change the balance of international system or the way in which the international law works, but because it aims to minor changes in order to shape the international environment gradually and to gain power and a stronger position. Another element that shows the close links between diplomatic and military approach is related to the so-called controlled tensions (Adamsky 2018b). In Syria but also in

72 Libya and in other crisis in the region, Moscow seeks to keep political-military confrontations between the parties high enough to sustain the prospects for its indispensability but not so high that they lead to a counterproductive escalation endangering its regional interests and assets. This shows also the Russian flexible approach: “Advancing on several vectors simultaneously, the Russian campaign planners repeatedly revisited their basic assumptions, adjusted the course of the operation and the directions of the main strike [...] in keeping with the developments on the ground.” (Adamsky 2018b) Moscow sought to mount not a largescale operation, but a comprehensive one that would deny the initiative to the anti-Assad forces, demonstrate the strength of the regime, fragment the opposition forces in order to facilitate conditions for a political process (Adamsky 2020) Russia did not want to fight a major war nor to mount a large-scale operation, as a consequence, “The air campaign took the form of strikes on the systems holding the opposition forces together: The Command and control (C2) systems, material supply chains, and economic centres of gravity. In conjunction with air strikes fragmented the opposition forces, ground operations sought first to control the main transportation infrastructure, to lift the blockade of encircled cities and garrisons of the Syrian army, and then in the subsequent stages to localize, isolate and dismantle pockets of resistance, while in parallel systematically destroying hardware and fighters all over the country from the air.” (Adamsky 2018b) This strategy was designed not only to avoid Russian casualties and too risky and costly operations, but also to separate anti- Assad militias, degrade them and open to some local political solutions. In light of this, a crucial role has been played by the ceasefire that were used to separate hard-line opponents of the regime from those groups that were willing to find an accommodation. As Trenin (2018, 80) states: “the latter would receive humanitarian aid; the former would be attacked and bombed”. Consequently, military operations and their success opened an opportunity for diplomacy, this shows the Kremlin integrate approach to modern warfare in which political, diplomatic, economic, military efforts all together and simultaneously play a role in the campaign. The Syrian operation has been the first occasion on which a Russian military fought along the lines of the Information Technology Revolution in Military Affairs (IT-RMA) and it has been a testing ground for the ongoing military reform and for almost all types of weapons and services, and specifically the use of ISR, C2 and fire systems integrated into unified complexes. Russia has used almost its entire arsenal from new cruise missiles to PGMs to drones. Moscow has developed the capability to use PGM

73 only recently due to the improvement of its satellite network, GLONASS, and to new projects. As a result, Syria was a test for this new capability despite the fact that only a very small percentage of the bombs were PGMs. However, Syrian conflict has demonstrated that Russia has PGMs and it has the ability to use them. (Shield 2018) Moreover, the Kremlin can also use its cruise missiles with success. For instance, starting with an initial strike on 7 October 2015, over the course of the conflict, Russian ships and submarines fired numerous Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. Moscow also fired Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile systems, one of the most potent weapons in the Russian arsenal as it can carry a variety of warheads (including nuclear), has a highly sophisticated guidance system, and is designed to evade missile defences. Therefore, Russia has entered the precision regime club. Moreover, with the launch of these missile Russia advertised both its actual military capability and that it is prepared to use such weapons, which can carry nuclear heads, against NATO forces. (Thornton 2019) Despite the success of Russia use of PGMs, Shield (2018) notes that “In proportion to strike activity, Russia’s allocation of dedicated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets to Syria is remarkably small for a modern air campaign.” He compares the ISR platforms and sensors used by the US during Operation Inherent Resolve saying that while US used scores of different platforms, Russia used in Syria just two IL-20 Coots and of one of Russia’s two new Tu-214R ISR testbed aircraft. The lack of sufficient reconnaissance assets was demonstrated by the failure to detect and interdict the massing of ISIS forces before their assault and re-conquest of Palmyra on December 2016. In light of this deficiency, it is probable that targeting data for Russian strikes were received by observers on the ground, Syrian militaries, Hezbollah or Russian Special Forces or by drones, since they are well-suited for near- front surveillance. From past counter-insurgency, Russia has learned the crucial role of embedded forward air controllers and their role in Syria is well documented (Shield 2018). Moreover, one core task of Russian special forces in Syria was battlefield reconnaissance and local militias have reported to be trained to call airstrikes. This was also a consequence of the initial fratricide incidents that occurred during CAS operations, mainly in the Aleppo area. These incidents and the failed defence of Palmira in December 2016 demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of Russian jet sorties in Syria were still deliberately planned missions. Consequently, Russian Aerospace Force, i.e. Russian military aviation, does not appear to be as flexible as the US one. However, according to Adamsky (2020),

74 Russian forces in Syria demonstrated rapid decision-making and decision execution, which owes a lot to the C2 architecture supporting them. This is a result of the Russian strategic approach called uninterrupted political control over the military operation, from the grand strategy to the tactical level, and it means a calibrated use of force, ensuring the utility of violence for the political goal. Another reason that can explain the limited use of PGMs is that Russian military desire and appreciate this weapon system in order to avoid fratricide incident and so when the bombing is near the front line. Instead, when near the target there are not Russian forces or allies the old and dumb bombs are a better and cheaper tool. This is also a consequence of the Russian no concerns about collateral damages. (Shield 2018) Another novelty has been the use of UAVs. Although, Moscow had used drones in the second Chechen war they were not very advanced and this issue became evident during the Georgian War in 2008. Russian minister of defence began to develop plans to improve Russian capabilities in this sector both developing project and acquiring technology, mainly from Israel. Consequently, since 2012, in terms of the quality and quantity of the UAV fleet, the Russian military has taken a huge leap forward and the operation in Syria employed an unprecedented, in terms of types and numbers, fleet of UAVs. On average, at any given moment, there have been 60-70 reconnaissance, strike and radio-electronic suppression UAVs over Syria. Russian drone’s main tasks in Syria were related to reconnaissance in order both to gain intelligence and to direct strikes. However, Moscow is developing its first drone with striking capabilities, the Su- 70 Hunter-B. Today, Russia is among the world’s three largest UAV operators; together with the U.S. armed forces and China’s People’s Liberation Army. One of the most used Russian drone is Eleron-3, which is a short-range reconnaissance vehicle and has enabled ground operators to carry out visual searches for targets of opportunity in daylight and to determine their location using GLONASS satellite-aided navigation. The largest drone that Russia flies in Syria has been the Forpost, a licensed copy of the Israeli IAI Searcher II. As the Russian Army still remains heavily reliant on artillery, the use of drones can substantially augment its firepower. We do not know whether UAVs have been used for target designation with guided artillery projectiles, but Russian programs to develop that capability have already reached the trial phase. The Syrian conflict has not only broadened Russian experience in using drones, but it has also given experience in defence against drones used by Syrian rebel groups using the Pantsyr S1 and Tor-M2 short-range SAMs to defend their bases. (Konaev, Bendett 2019)

75 It is difficult to quantify the exact numbers of aircraft Russia has deployed during the years in Syria. However, the first Russian deployment to Syria consisted of thirty-three aircraft and seventeen helicopters: twelve Su-24M2 bombers, twelve Su-25SM/ UB attack aircraft, four Su-34 fighter-bombers, four Su-30SM heavy multirole fighters, and one Il-20M1 reconnaissance plane. The helicopter contingent consisted of twelve Mi- 24P attack helicopters and five Mi-8AMTSh transports. Later in 2015, this number would grow with four more Su-34 fighter-bombers and four additional Su-35S air superiority fighters. Mi-35M and Mi-28 attack helicopters and Mi-8 transports arrived in the following months. (Kofman, Rojansky 2018) Russia’s long-range aviation joined the fray in November 2015, and since then, Tu-95MS and Tu-160 strategic bombers have flown a substantial number of sorties deploying Kh-555 and newer Kh-101 air launched cruise missiles against targets in Syria. Initial Russian objectives focused on regaining access to key roads, linking infrastructure, breaking isolated Syrian bases out of encirclement, and softening up opposing forces by destroying as much hardware as possible. During the first months of operation, Russian bombings targeted militias around important area for the regime. The idea was to boost the regime in order to change the momentum of the conflict. The Russian air strikes targeted not only IS, but also, and mainly in the first phases of the intervention, all other anti-Assad rebel/jihadist forces, some of whom were trained and supplied by the US seeking to neutralise the immediate threat to the Syrian government. After the first months, Russia began operation in support of ground operations, for instance supporting Syrian Army in the fight for the city of Al-Shaykh (November-December 2015) and of Rabia (January 2016). At the time, Russian and Syrian air forces started to operate together. In March 2016 Russians were able to mount 100 strikes per day. From September 2016, Russian air-force supported the Syrian operation to reconquer Aleppo and in October deployed its aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to the Mediterranean. The Russian military campaign demonstrated the sophistication of Russian weapons and indicated that Russia remains a modern military superpower (Kainikara 2018). Despite limits, problems and shortcomings, the Russian military intervention has been successful and, more important, vital combat experience has been gained by Russian forces. According to Thornton (2019): “It has provided a vital opportunity for, in particular, the marines, special forces, air force, and the navy to test not just their own capabilities but also their ability to work jointly. Logisticians are also being provided with severe tests and seemingly passing them comfortably.” The operation has also

76 “provided a significant proving-ground for testing new equipment and weapons systems”. Adamsky (2020) points out some features of the Russian approach to the Syrian conflict and some of them have been already taken into account. However, the notion of operational creativity is worth mentioning because it highlights a possible evolution of Russian strategic thinking and it is an important element that was cited even by Gerasimov. In Syria, Moscow has demonstrated an aptitude for adaptation and improvisation, because the Russians seem to have adopted the Israeli approach of ‘learning by friction’ in situations of uncertainty and instability. Russian forces acted “trial and error, experimenting and failing quickly and cheaply” responding the new dynamics of the battlefield. This kind of approach involves a certain level of delegation of authority to the theatre commander and thus it is a kind of mission-type tactics. This may represent a change in the Russian strategic culture (Adamsky 2020), however, it may be the result of the new information technology that has increased speed of the decision making process.

Special Forces and Private Military Companies

In order to better understand current Russian strategic approach and the GZW concept, we need to focus at least briefly on two others aspects, Special Forces and Private Military Companies, and on how Moscow has used them to achieve its goals. However, before taking into account the specific Russian approach, it is noteworthy to remind that these two elements are not Russian novelties, but they represent common tools since the end of the Cold War. The United States has extensively used SOFs during recent decades. In Panama, it used Ranger and SEAL teams to open the way to conventional troops. In Afghanistan, it used a combination of special forces, air power and local allies. A similar combination of elements was used during the Iraqi insurgency in order to conduct counterterrorism and counter-insurgency operations, and again, against ISIS, the United States used air power, special forces and local allies. Some scholars have labelled this way of war the “Afghan model” (Biddle 2002), indicating that the United States has used its SOFs to support both local allies and air strikes. Second, this is an element more of continuity than of novelty in Russian military doctrine because the use of special forces, parachute units and raids against key enemy targets has always been a central component of Soviet and then Russian military doctrine. During the Hungarian Revolution (1956), the Prague Spring (1968)

77 and the opening phases of the Afghan War (1979), the Soviet Union used parachute units and special forces to impose its local allies and its local military forces. Air mobility is still a cornerstone of Russian military forces; for example, Russia has 177 heavy-to- medium transport aircraft. This stands in contrast to America’s 658, China’s 84, France’s 46 and the United Kingdom’s 44. (Schwartz 2019). Regarding the Russian use of Special Forces, it is noteworthy to remind that although we use the same terminology, i.e. Special Forces, their doctrine and use has been at least until recent years partially different. In fact, Russian Special Forces are more similar to US Ranger than to Delta Force or Navy Seals. They are elite light infantry units rather than special forces in the current Western understanding of the term. Russia has many military and paramilitary formations that are called special operation forces or Spetsnaz. The most relevant of these are: the special forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Spetsnaz GRU, the special forces of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Spetsnaz FSB, the special forces of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Spetsnaz SVR, the Special Operations Command (SOC) and the 45th Special Forces Regiment of the Airborne troops. However, Moscow has recently begun to think about its Special Forces as the US did. In March 2013 Chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov announced the establishment of SOC (Special Operation Command), a command that had been under development since 2009. It is modelled on the US Delta Force and the UK Special Air Service, and it is divided into five special operations divisions with about 50 service personnel in each, and the total number of troops, including support personnel, is probably no more than 1,500 (Bukkvoll 2016). According to Bukkvol, “The main strategic idea behind SOC is for the political leadership to have a small and very competent military tool at its disposal for national and international contingencies where the use of force is needed, but where one does not expect larger scale military action to follow” (Bukkvoll 2016). Consequently, SOC is a tool perfectly designed to operate in a GZW scenario, it represents the indirect and covert tool to influence, do reconnaissance or operate in a covert manner in the framework of a GZW operation. Moreover, SOC and recent operations in Ukraine and Syria, for instance, highlight the increasing Russian ability to deploy SOF at high speed to a conflict zone rapidly creating a fait accompli, this is a second important element that links Russian SOFs to the notion of GZW. They also show a close relationship with the intelligence apparatus and they seem to be very well connected to the command that organizes propaganda and controls information. Another important element that links SOFs to the concept of

78 GZW is the fact that, according to Votel, political warfare and GZW is a population- centric engagement that seeks to influence, to persuade, even to co-opt, SOF are optimized for similar operations because of their inherent proficiency in low-visibility, small-footprint, and politically sensitive operations. (Votel et al 2016) Finally, the Russian understanding of threats in Syria correspond with that of Israel and with the original debate on hybrid warfare in the West. According to Adamsky (2018b), “the Head the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (military intelligence, GRU) Igor Korobov saw these ‘terrorists of new formation’ as some sort of ‘irregular-regular army’ with modern weapons, and as comparable, in many senses, to regular armies”. This definition is equal to that used by Hoffman in 2007 to describe modern insurgency and conflicts in the Middle East. Accordingly, Russia uses the same tool used by the United States, i.e. Special forces armed with advanced weapons. These units would become the main striking force, and would achieve political goals through asymmetrical operations, political influence, and internal subversion. It is noteworthy to remind that Russian SOFs have been able to conduct in recent conflict zones different operations. In Crimea, they operated mostly in covert operations, in the Donbas they were engaged in the full spectrum of classic SOF tasks as in Syria where they also have trained local militias. Given the particularly secret nature of special operations, reliable data are in general difficult to come by. However, according to Adamsky (2018b) the Command of Special Operation Forces (KSO) has gained considerable experience and the conflict in Syria has become a period of professional establishment. The Russian special forces deployed in Syria took responsibility over the three elements of the RSC (reconnaissance-strike complex): they acquired and designated targets of strategic operational importance, such as leadership and C2 centres. In contrast with previous operations, Russian Spetsnaz and airborne troops deployed in Syria have not be engaged in direct action heliborne raids or largescale vertical envelopments. The reconnaissance tasks the Spetsnaz elements performed in Syria today seem largely confined to the battle-front, eliminating the need for deeper and more dangerous behind-the-lines infiltration and exfiltration airlift missions (Shield 2018). In Syria, the GRU and Spetsnaz have primarily been used to gather strategic and tactical intelligence, especially targeting data. As for the PMCs (Spearin 2018), their use is well-documented in several conflicts from Syria to Libya. In Syria, for instance, it has been recorded the largest losses for a PMC

79 since the 1990s when the phenomenon begun to arise. On 7-8 February 2018, Syrian forces and Russian contractors tried to attack a Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces base near the city of Deir ez-Zhor in which there were also American military advisors. Therefore, in order to repel the attack, they called the American firepower: artillery, bomber-jets, drones, helicopters. As a result, not only was the attack repelled, but also the attacker suffered heavy losses, probably as many as 100–200 Russians were killed during the operation. Private Military Companies (PMCs) are another element that perfectly fits the gray idea of the GZW, they are perfect tools in such scenarios because they are non-state actors so the element of deniability is assured, but they are experienced soldiers so they are a reliable force. They can operate as civilian but have military expertise and goals. In short, such firms provide Russia the ability to maintain its influence without a uniformed state presence, they offer plausible deniability. Russian mercenaries have been playing a major role on the battlefield, their modus operandi differs from their Western counterparts, and they are most likely to become an ongoing feature of Russian conduct. In the later stages of the campaign, they became some sort of assault units within the 5th Corps established under the Russian command. Thus, in contrast to the US PMCs, Russian mercenaries were not used for security and stabilization missions, but were engaged in the actual fighting as their main responsibility. (Adamsky 2018b) Consequently, they can be used in two different ways: they can be used, as the US do, as a stabilization force, but, if the situation deteriorates they can be immediately transformed in a rapid reaction force. The most famous Russian PMCs is Wagner group, but it is not the sole. For instance, in 2016–17, the RSB-Group employees worked in eastern Libya, an area controlled by Khalifa Haftar. While the official task of the group was to remove landmines, its owner, Oleg Krinitsyn interviewed by Reuters, said that they were armed and that: “If we’re under assault we enter the battle, of course, to protect our lives and the lives of our clients [...] According to military science, a counterattack must follow an attack. That means we would have to destroy the enemy.” (Tsvetkova 2018). Slavonic Corps were used in Syria in 2013 without success, but they represent another Russian PMC. Since 2017, Wagner Group has played a prominent role in facilitating the expansion of Moscow’s geopolitical influence in Africa. Not only has it supported Haftar in Libya, but also it assisted President Omar al-Bashir’s failed efforts to retain power; combatted Islamic extremism in the restive Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique; and engaged

80 in political interference campaigns to support six pro-Russian election candidates in Madagascar. While the use and presence of PMCs in conflict zones in well-documented since the End of the Cold War, it is constantly growing and it is by no means exclusively related to Russia, the way in which the Kremlin seems to use them is different from the US way and alarming to some degree. First of all, Russia seems to use PMCs in offensive operations supporting local militias and allies as the aforementioned case in Syria shows. Second, according to Spearin (2018), Russia utilizes, rather than employs, these actors. Consequently, they appear to be true political tools of the Russian political/military strategy. As the SOF, they are an element of a broader and more complex strategy that encompasses political, economic, information, and military aspects, creates confusion, destabilizes local balance and tries to re-shape the security environment.

81 CHAPTER 4 China: from Unrestricted Warfare to Gray Zone Warfare

In the current international system there are some revisionist powers. As we have already said Russia is one, but also Iran and China have revisionist goals, even though they are different in scope and possibilities. As a result, what we have previously said on Russian GZW is also valid for China that does not seek to completely destroy the international system, but it is demanding a transformation of some elements of the system while, at the same time, it is using other elements to support its politics. At least in term of economy China and Russia differ profoundly. Russia has a weak and stagnant economy that relays mainly on the energy sector, while China is one of the most important economy of the world along with that of US. However, China shares with Russia a similar political position because both are revisionist powers, they try to undermine the US position, they both are nuclear powers and member of UN Security Council. “Their common aim is essentially to undermine US power, and on this they can cooperate fruitfully. The point is that they differ on what they want to see after that – Moscow is clearly afraid that US global hegemony will be replaced by Chinese global hegemony. We can expect to see the appearance of close cooperation in all kinds of areas, from Central Asia to the Arctic, but I imagine behind this, the Russians will be eager to try and ensure they don’t drift into the status of Chinese vassal.” (Galeotti 2020) “In the security field Russia can offer China weapons and a model for the defensive reorganization of the army”. However, according to Bettanin, by Moscow perspective, the outcome of the collaboration with Beijing “has been until now disappointing. I think that the interests for cooperation with China are still deeper that the perception of a ‘yellow peril’”. (Bettanin 2020) During the last decade, both countries have collaborated in the military sector and done drills together. Nevertheless, the competition between the two is probably a serious obstacle for a closer collaboration in terms of military technology. (Natalizia 2020) A very significant difference between Russia and China is their relationship with globalization and so with the international system that is emerged after the end of the Cold War: China is a winner of globalization, Russia a loser. (Bettanin 2020) This may explain a different approach to international politics and even a different way to be revisionist powers and using GZW theory.

82 China can use and has used GZW tools to improve its political position on several issues. The last example is probably the use of propaganda after the spread of Coronavirus pandemic. The use of propaganda, information and the Internet is a central tool for China, as they are for Russia. A full discussion of this topic and on how China operates in the international system is outside the scope of this research. However, it is important to highlight some elements that link current strategic notions to China approach. The Chinese strategic thought is one of the most important tradition in the world, suffice it to mention Sun Tzu and Mao Tze Tung. Soon after the end of the Cold War, two colonels in the People’s Liberation Army, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui wrote the book Unrestricted Warfare in which they try to explain how a nation such as China can defeat a technologically superior opponent (such as the United States) through a variety of means. Rather than focusing on direct military confrontation, this book instead examines a variety of other means, including the use of International Law and a variety of economic means to place one’s opponent in a bad position and circumvent the need for direct military action. The book aims to devise a strategy to fight and win a war against a stronger opponent without using military means, and, therefore, it lists alternative methods that in contemporary world characterized by a rapid and continuous technology evolution and economic interdependence can have the same destructive force than traditional military warfare. For instance, because of the international nature of the modern world and activism, it is much easier for nation-states to affect policy in other nation-states through a proxy. Consequently, lawfare or political action through transnational or non- governmental organizations can effect a policy change that would be impossible otherwise. This is the notion of colour revolution that Moscow used some years later and influenced the Russian understanding of 21st international politics. Owing to the interconnected nature of global economics, nations can inflict grievous harm on the economies of other nations without taking any military offensive action, suffice it to mention economic sanctions. This is another element that Russian strategic debate is using to describe current security environment. One of the better-known idea in the book is that of attacking networks (data exchange, transportation, financial institutions, and communication). Attacks that disable networks can easily hamstring large areas of life that are dependent on them for coordination. This is an example of cyber-attack and the use of the Internet to harm the enemy without using military force directly. Finally, terrorism erodes a nation’s sense of security, even though the direct effects of

83 the attacks only concern a minute percentage of the population. Fair to say that the book was written before the 11/09 attacks. A terrorist attack can have vastly disproportionate effects on national welfare. As the Russian strategic debate that sees the Gulf War the turning point in modern warfare and technology as the most important element, the book aims to describe war and international competition in an era of increasing technology evolution. The American strategic debate of those years was focused on how technology has impacted warfare and on the notion of Revolution in Military Affairs. The American technological gap was showed during the Gulf War in 1991 and consequently less advanced armies needed both new tools and new ideas. In this new and high technological context, information technology plays the most important role, it has radically changed warfare. However, this radical revolution is an underway process that started during the Cold War and will continues in the next decades. According to the authors, even the most modern weapon system is old because it has been made using old conceptions of war. Consequently, in the new context a new approach is needed. As the new weapons are increasingly costly, it is necessary to find cheaper way of attacks, i.e. a new approach to weapons. This means that weapons have to be seen outside the mere military sphere, but have to be seen as a tool that transcend military force. This new way to understand weapons encompasses everything that can be used against the opponent: civil protest, economic measures, information and so on. The battlefield of such conflict is everywhere because it encompasses cyber space and the Internet and consequently information and propaganda. The actors are not only traditional state and their armies but also hackers and different non-state actors. Unrestricted Warfare has several shortcomings, for example the idea of rules of war, and it is not very original when it refers to combination of different kinds of warfare and weapons. However, it shares interesting elements with the notion of GZW. First, it describes a holistic approach to strategy that mix military, economic, political, informational elements in one single strategic plan. Second, it breaks down the dividing lines between civilian and military affairs and between peace and war (Mazarr 2015). Third, the adjective “unrestricted” does not refer to a kind of warfare with extreme violence (a kind of nuclear Armageddon), but to the fact that in the 21st century security environment strategy is not limited to military tool, but it encompasses economic, financial, social, political sphere and means.

84 As a result, the book seems to anticipate several of the features of both HW and GZW, and surely these three strategic notions share important elements. However, despite the fact that the book was written by two colonels of the Chinese Armed forces, it should be noted that it did not represent official military doctrine. While China, as Russia, is using GZW tools to improve its political position and developing military tools to counter-balance the US military strength, i.e. A2/AD strategy in the Pacific region, T.S. Allen warns against thinking that a future confrontation between China and the U.S. will be a kind of indirect approach warfare or proxy war. A more likely scenario is an economic competition, with nonviolent subversion, and, if that fails, high-intensity warfare. This because China’s greatest strength is its economic might. It is the world’s leading trading nation, and uses its global reach to export everything from consumer goods to high-tech tools. The result of this dominance is the Belt and Road Initiative, in which Chinese firms have spent more than $450 billion building infrastructure around the world since 2013. The Belt and Road Initiative highlights the Chinese approach to international system, because when inducement fails, China does not hesitate to employ coercion and even espionage to achieve desirable trade terms. Moreover, China is willing to exploit asymmetric economic interdependence and economic leverage to force other states to take political and military actions it desires (Mattis, Brazil 2019; Lim 2019). On the one hand, China is investing in a “Revolution in Military Affairs with Chinese characteristics” developing A2/AD strategy for denying the western Pacific to American forces, in part by making extensive use of guided missiles deployed in a decentralized manner. An important element of this strategy is the artificial island bases that allow China to control the sea and airspace of the South China Sea at the outbreak of hostilities. As a consequence, the South China Sea is a no-man’s land for most U.S. forces (submarines excepted) giving the islands considerable military value for Beijing. However, the aim of the artificial islands is not only to be an element of a conventional military strategy against United States, but also to use civilian and paramilitary pressure to coerce neighboring states, making it prohibitively risky for Southeast Asian players to operate in the South China Sea. The threat dissuades neighboring states from using more forceful military responses against illegal actions and from supporting US that are not able to provide security. In these artificial islands and in other islands in the area China has deployed several fighting jets and this along with the distance from the nearest US base has enabled Beijing to have a full dominance of air space in the region. Considering that China has

85 deployed in these islands anti-ship missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, radar and signals intelligence capabilities, that such facilities are very vast and spread out across a considerable area, they represent an almost insurmountable defense line. They represent both an asymmetric tool since the construction of artificial island to change the geography of the battle space is something surprising and it exploits an adversary weakness; and a major element of a totally conventional strategy and not hybrid because such islands are part of a conventional approach and confrontation based on aircraft, vessels, and missiles. On the other hand, China has proven willing to employ nonviolent subversion worldwide because it considers actions below the threshold of armed conflict (influencing public opinion, legal and psychological warfare) essential to success in future competition. Consequently, China is more likely to employ economic and informational tools to achieve its aims, while focusing on partnerships with state actors and striving to remain below the threshold of armed conflict. As far as the cyber dimension is concerned, “China has developed official military doctrine for cyberwarfare, trained large numbers of military officers to conduct offensive operations on the internet, and conducted an extensive series of exercises and simulations”. Moreover, Beijing has done it partially in consultation with Russia. (Breen, Geltzer 2011) Chinese strategy uses GZW approach because it emphasizes the holistic, multi- domain aspects of military confrontations, tightly integrating political, diplomatic, informational, and economic elements. Moreover, China tends to favour patient, indirect approaches.

86 CHAPTER 5 Lessons learned and Recommendations

One specific request of this research project was to give possible recommendations in order to hinder the Russian approach based on the notion of GZW. However, to come up with an answer is rather difficult for several reasons. First of all, as previous chapters have highlighted, these are indistinct, fuzzy approaches that are difficult to clearly identify and untie them from others that are more “peaceful” and legal, consequently it is important that policy makers understand that the GZW is a situation in which there is no longer a clear distinction between peace and war. Secondly, responding to this kind of threats requires to use similar tools such as operating in the shadows, taking actions that cannot be publicly acknowledged, managing narratives in a manner that pushes up against the constraints of democratic policymaking. (Mazarr 2015) The first thing to do is to reduce as far as possible social dissatisfaction. For its online propaganda and information campaign, Moscow uses internal problems of its adversary to create social dissatisfaction. Socio-economic tensions and instability are key signs of potential vulnerability to gray zone tactics and has to be gotten under control in order to avoid that they can be used to create internal instability. Russian support to indigenous problems in the West — anti-immigration parties, anti-EU parties, Brexit, or anti-free-trade movements — is another example of this problem. GZW and Russian strategy are holistic, integrated approaches that knit together the effects of many different instruments of power. Consequently, the “office” that has the responsibility to develop a counter-strategy has to include military officers, civilian experts in other instruments of power and in different fields, and scholars in the application of coercive diplomacy. Moreover, since the defences needed against the current threats are civic, economic and administrative as well as military, agencies supporting economic, judicial and law enforcement reform have to be involved in the strategy. It is also crucial to set clear red lines for our vital interests, this means that we need to have identify and defend our national interests. It is necessary to establish, at the governmental level, the notion that national security has to be part of the decision-making process. An increase in the defence budget or the establishment of a more comprehensive defence plan are surely important

87 elements, but it may be also crucial to increase the autonomy of commanders to decide how and when acting. This is a consequence of the current revolution in information and the increasing role of information in warfare, because communications can be blocked, so the orders may never reach the high command and/or field commanders. (Berzins 2014) It is absolutely vital that both politicians and members of military forces understand that GZW is a situation in which a clear distinction between peace and war does not exist any-more. This is evident in the Russian perception: its leadership sees itself in an information war, being targeted with colour revolution that is equivalent to a use of force. It is also important to retrieve the pragmatic element of politics in order to make the Kremlin understand that we are not a security threat. In some conflicts we can side with warring sides but it does not mean that we are enemy. We can collaborate diplomatically to find solutions to the conflict in order to defend as much as possible the mutual political, economic, military interests. This is a crucial political/diplomatic steps that has the potential to defuse potential conflict situations that may escalate to open war. It is also crucial to bear in mind that this does not mean to transform Russia into an ally, but simply both to understand better its security concerns, economic and political interests, and find solutions that can be acceptable and satisfactory for both; and make Moscow clear our interests and goals. The first chapter has showed that the notion of HW does not describe Russian operations and it is not a strategic idea used in the official Russian doctrine. Yet, it has influenced the Western debate and, at least partially, Western politics. This stems from at least two Western shortcomings. First, since the end of the Cold War the United States have not been used to be challenged for their world and regional leadership. The Gulf War (1991), the operations in the Balkans during the 90s, the War on Terror had underlined the primary role of Washington in the new international system and the fact that it has been a unipolar system. From the Georgian War in 2008 and mainly after the Arab Spring, Moscow has begun to contest this leading role of the United States. After 20 years of uncontested political moves, the fact that new ones have been sidelined has been surely a novelty and it has surprised several American and Western politicians who were not used to such strategic situation. However, this leads to the second shortcoming, i.e. Western politics and analysis lack the study of history that would have provided the context to better understand strategy and international politics. This problem has influenced negatively several ideas and analyses in the last

88 decades, from the notion of the end of history onwards. More recently, and more pertinent to this paper, such lacking of historical study is evident in the examination of both HW and GZW and consequently we are risking to be surprised by events, ideas, strategies that maybe cannot be expected, but that can be known in their nature and tools. Another aspect that highlights how history is currently underrated is related to the relationship between unconventional/irregular warfare and conventional/regular one. While both are kinds of warfare that have always been present in history, they have also a close relationship. Even the most conventional wars have elements of irregular warfare. For example, during World War II two British officers, Orde Wingate and Colin Gubbins, developed inventive applications of irregular warfare in high-intensity conflict against peer competitors: operations against the adversary in enemy (or contested) territory using guerrilla-style attacks and sabotage in support of conventional operations; collaboration with and training foreign forces to conduct stay-behind operations in order to create a force multiplier; conducting long-range penetration operations against enemy lines of communication. These are all elements that now are used to describe Russian HW or GZW, however they are not new, not Russian, not unconventional in the meaning that they have never been part of conventional war. Moreover, these examples show that using such indirect or not so conventional tools does not mean that the war we are facing is an unconventional/irregular one, but they may just represent irregular elements of a broader and more conventional conflict. The study of history is part of a broader countermeasure that is related to education. The population in general and politicians and members of armed forces in particular have to understand, believe, and have an awareness of both information campaigns and prevention campaigns. In this context, education is paramount. A complete and in-depth analysis of the crucial role of education, of how it can be extended and improved is outside the scope of this research, but it is important to underline some elements. History (international history, diplomatic history, history of political ideas, history of warfare, history of strategy and similar research fields) has to be put back at the centre of education, especially for whom will have leading and leadership roles. Thus, a counter-measure to confront GZW may be to integrate the study of history in the training of politicians and members of armed forces in order to give them the right tools to both understand current situations and to not be surprised by old, albeit effective, strategy. However, there are other aspects and improvements that we can briefly take into account in the framework of “new” education.

89 To begin with, in the last decades, students and teachers alike have deemphasized the “memorization of facts” because they can be accessed immediately using the omnipresent internet-enabled device, from computer to tablet and smartphone, and consulting online resources such as Wikipedia or more traditional one such as Treccani and Encyclopaedia Britannica. This practice essentially outsources traditional memory functions. Unfortunately, in looking up facts online one can quite easily be directed to false information and having exclusively relied on online news, not only one is not able to understand critically the information, but he/she does not understand that there is a knowledge problem. As a result, one can be easily manipulated by those who control information, spread fake news and propaganda. Second, a consequence of the relying on an easy access to online “knowledge” has reduce the people’s capacity for deep thought and analysis has become atrophied through disuse. Consequently, they are unable to consider objectively the reliability of sources and they are easily influenced by fake news and propaganda. Critical thinking must receive more focus to create citizens who can objectively evaluate information and its sources, determine plausibility of content, and look for hidden agendas. Likewise, citizens need to understand the pitfalls of social media and be wary of the “echo chamber” effects that isolate them from the outside world and limit the information they receive to only what they already think (McGeehan, 2018). Today, it is difficult to gain an edge in terms of technology, so it is important to have it in other aspects such as doctrine and education in order to have people able to anticipate the adversary strategy, to quicker understand and resolve the problems and to develop original, unexpected and effective strategies. Since in the contemporary political context, information and news play a crucial role, it requires a coordinated effort to increase the general public’s resilience by informing it of the extent of the threat and educating it in media literacy as well as debunking propaganda and counterintelligence work. Another solution can be artificial intelligence that may act as an early warning system to detect and intercept adversarial information threats and protecting Western citizens from disinformation. However, the risks of such approach are, first, that people delegate to a machine their analysis capabilities and their critical thinking; and, second, AI and related technology may be hacked and in this way the problem is not solved but simply moved to a different sector. In the contemporary informational context, Russian strategy has also highlighted shortcomings in the Western approach that so far it has been thus far siloed to cyber security focused on technical responses to technical threats. However, Russia in

90 Ukraine and elsewhere has demonstrate the importance of the interface with information warfare in the broad sense, i.e. the coalescence between the cyber technology with the contents of information. (Jonson 2019) The cyber dimension is very important in this context but it is outside the scope of this paper to delve into the topic, Jančárková et al (2020) is a very detailed work. Moscow sees propaganda and information war as integral element of its military strategy. Some scholars, both in Russian and in the West, see this impact of technology on conflicts as something that is changing profoundly the nature of war. However, this is not correct because propaganda and information are not elements of warfare but instead of politics. As a result, it is not the nature of war that is changing but, in order to understand the impact of this kind of technology, the relationship between War and Politics needs looking in a more comprehensive way and so between political and war strategy. This larger overview would also help to better understand the concept of GZW in which politics and war blur. From the Russian strategic debate, it emerges the crucial role of Initial Period of War, that is when an actor is shaping not only the battlefield but also the political, diplomatic, economic and, more important, information context. In order to counter the risk of being unbalanced, it is important to quickly recognize such initial moves and develop a counter-strategy based on the same idea to shape the political, diplomatic, economic and information context. In light of this, two pivotal steps have to be taken. First, defend the entire cyber environment from military structures to civilian ones. Second, it is crucial to increase our ability to work and operate in the information space. This means both to have better and updated intelligence that can help better understand adversary moves and develop the right strategy; and to have the ability to broadcast news that can give the right idea of what is happening and of our strategy and goals in the different situations.

91 CONCLUSIONS

The paper has highlighted that Russian policy and strategy are pragmatic and, therefore, Moscow adapts its approaches, goals and tools to the local situations and actors. This is a very important aspect that allows us both to better understand Moscow policy, and to develop effective counter-strategies. This approach has borne fruit in both the Middle East and Africa. As for the Middle East, Moscow did not develop a grand strategy for the whole region, but, having a clear view of its interests, it was able to bargain and have diplomatic relations with countries and groups that are traditional enemies of each other: Shiites against Sunnis; Arabia against Iran; Israel versus Iran; Turkey against Kurds. The Russian approach has therefore proved to be flexible enough to understand the different situations and adapt accordingly. This was evident both in Syria and in Libya where Moscow, despite its support for Assad and Haftar, has always maintained diplomatic relations with opposing parties: Kurds, Turkey, opposition groups, except Islamist ones, in Syria; and the Tripoli government in Libya. In the MENA region, Russia has cooperated with each country as long as it can improve its political, military or economic position. For example, Moscow is a major arms supplier to Iran, but it is more than willing to sell the same type of weapons to Tehran’s enemies, namely the Sunni countries. As for Africa, Russia is focused on establishing durable leverage and building diplomatic influence, rather than empowering any single faction to achieve a decisive military victory. Moscow is not trying to support one single faction, as too often Western countries did, but to place multiple bets on various factions, in order to establish a foothold in protracted conflicts. It is the model used in Libya and the Central African Republic (CAR) thanks to its PMCs that give Russia a geopolitical presence without tying the Kremlin to a particular faction. Therefore, while in Ukraine and Syria the Russian approach has been more relayed on military force along with diplomatic and information operations, in Africa Moscow relays more on a diplomacy-centric approach but with some features that this research has singled out: pragmatism, economic leverage, diplomacy, information. In the first chapter, it has been explained the notion of Hybrid warfare that several scholars use to describe Russian military operations. However, it has been showed that this strategic concept is not precise enough and actually it does not correctly depict Russian strategy that both in Ukraine and in Syria it appears to be more “Clausewtizian” than hybrid given the high intensity combats, the extensive use of

92 armour, artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, the thousands of tactical and operational sorties, and the use of cruise missiles. For this reason, studying the Russian strategy, one must not be seduced by the “hybrid” notion, that is, thinking that high-intensity combat skills can be neglected. Russia has shown that it can and is politically determined to use military force when necessary. The investigation of Gray Zone Warfare concept has shown that it is a very complex strategy that comprises different approaches and tactics. It is related to politics since it encompasses different diplomatic and economic means, and it is characterized by: no clear ‘victory’, ambiguity, uncertainty, low signature, deniability, intense political, economic, informational, and military competition. This section has also pointed out GZW specific tools: overt actions as political alliances, economic measures, covert operations, “white” propaganda and the manipulation of media, clandestine support of “friendly” foreign elements, “black” psychological warfare, coercion, and “coercive diplomacy”, fait accompli. The second chapter focused on modern Russian strategic debate acknowledges the key role of the non-military means that the Kremlin consider today more effective than those non-violent. This means that the boundary of war and peace is blurring and non- military means are becoming more important than military ones. Clearly, this element fits perfectly into the GZW notion as well as the idea that informational dimension (a combination of diplomatic, economic, political and military methods to achieve defined goals) has always played a crucial role in warfare and international politics. Several Russian authors stress the relevance of the psychological elements, perceptions and ideas in current geopolitical space. It appears evident that information and kinds of indirect/asymmetric approach to subvert the enemy without using directly military force are one of the major pillars of the recent Russian strategic thought. This asymmetrical element of Russian thought is also evident in another aspect related to technology. Moscow has attempted to emulate the Western approach based on precision bombs and similar tools. Despite the development of such programs, the Kremlin seems to assume that it should not necessarily be obsessed with catching up with Western armies in what they see as a ‘hyper-technologization’ of warfare. The Western difficulties in the irregular wars of the 21st century may have ‘relaxed’ the Russian military leadership on this aspect by making them evaluate other possible solutions (Facon 2012). For example, in Syria the Russians used PGMs, but when this very expensive type of weapon was not

93 essential, i.e. when the risk of injuring or killing allied troops was very low, they used traditional, much cheaper bombs. Russian authors highlight that the initial period of war is crucial when precision weapons and the use of aerospace operations can decide the war even before the ground force began their operations. For this to be done, it is crucial to gain information superiority. They can psychologically manipulate and affect individual, social institutions, corporations or states using non-military actions and tools such as media and propaganda. This Russian approach has three very important and far-reaching consequences. First, peace and war overlap and a clear distinction between the two does not exist any- more, as the idea of GZW suggests. Second, the effort to shape the environment in view of a future conflicts means that this preparation needs time and the conflict can not be short. Third, since the IPW is so important, it is necessary to be always ready regardless it is a period of war or peace. The most famous Russian strategic author is General Valery Gerasimov. His ideas are the result of the broader debate that we have summarized. Describing how the United States spreads their influence, he describes modern warfare: “Instead of an overt military invasion, the first volleys of a U.S. attack come from the instalment of a political opposition through state propaganda (e.g., CNN, BBC), the Internet and social media, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). After successfully instilling political dissent, separatism, and/or social strife, the legitimate government has increasing difficulty maintaining order. As the security situation deteriorates, separatist movements can be stoked and strengthened, and undeclared special operations, conventional, and private military forces (defence contractors) can be introduced to battle the government and cause further havoc”. Gerasimov understands strategy and military operations as holistic activities and, consequently, according to him conflict involves the use of informational, political, economic, cyber, humanitarian and other non-military methods. As a result, the military forces in this new type of conflict play a supporting role. Gerasimov recognizes another feature of modern conflicts, that is even when they are within states they are ceasing to be solely internal and increasingly acquiring an international character. There is an active outside interference in the process of resolving intrastate conflicts, from “colour revolutions” to armed invasion. However, it would be a mistake to infer that Gerasimov and other Russian scholars understand modern conflicts as phenomena without the use of military force. Probably due to Russian experience in Syria, he affirms that the massive use of high-precision

94 and long-range weapons from air, sea, and space are the main tools in modern wars. Moreover, he thinks that in the current strategic environment is important to use a kind of Auftragstaktik or Mission-type tactics in which the subordinate leader is given, to a large extent, the planning initiative and a freedom in execution which allows a high degree of flexibility at the operational and tactical levels of command. In Syria, Moscow has achieved at least three different goals due to its GZW strategy and military intervention. First, not only Russia has expanded its stronghold in the country, but it has both positioned itself as an indispensable regional player, breaking down its international isolation; and due to diplomatic dynamic in Astana and Sochi it held separate reconciliation talks with opposition groups terminating, from a Russian perspective, the Western monopoly on the political process. Moreover, in Syria, every actor involved in the conflict has been for the Kremlin an actor to speak with and to have diplomatic relations. Second, although the Syrian war has represented a novelty for Russian military, it has been a cost-effective training ground and as a testing range for its weaponry and concepts. Third, it utilized Syria as the marketing showcase of military capabilities to increase and diversify its arms sales. Russia, right or wrong, fears NATO interference into what it perceives as its geopolitical space (former Soviet countries and other allies), in order to confront this situation, it has created a series of A2/AD bubbles that close its Western flank and now, with the Syrian bubble also part of its Southern flank. However, Giles and Boulegue suggest that Russia A2/AD bubbles are not an impenetrable defence system because Russian A2/AD systems can be saturated using swarm attacks (Giles, Boulegue 2019). Russian military doctrine does not refer to the notion of A2/AD strategy, however, the Russian strategic debate of the last decades has highlighted the crucial role of technology in contemporary conflicts, an element that deeply impacts on warfare at all the levels. Moreover, from the same debate it emerges that non-military means have acquired a very important role in warfare. Russians have recognized that non-military means have always represented in history an integral part of warfare. However, due to modern technology, they recognize that today the flow of information and the use of economic pressure such non-military means have acquired a new and more important role in warfare. The role of modern technology and non-military means is evident reading Gerasimov who characterizes precisely the tools of 21st century warfare, i.e. information-psychological pressure, colour revolutions, propaganda that has to be used to counter enemy hybrid warfare.

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102 NOTE ABOUT THE Ce.Mi.S.S. AND NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ce.Mi.S.S.1

The Military Center for Strategic Studies (Ce.Mi.S.S.) is the body that manages, within and on behalf of the Ministry of Defense, research on strategic issues. Established in 1987 by Decree of the Minister of Defense, Ce.Mi.S.S. carries out its work availing of civil and military experts, both Italian and foreign, in full freedom of expression of thought. The contents of the published studies therefore exclusively reflect the opinion of the Researcher and not that of the Ministry of Defense

Andrea BECCARO

Professor of “Security Studies” and “Strategic Studies” at the

University of Turin and of “War Studies” at the University of Milan, was Research Fellow at the College of Europe in Warsaw and DAAD Fellow at the Freie Universität in Berlin. His research deals with modern conflicts, irregular warfare, terrorism primary focusing on the Mediterranean region. Among his most recent publications: ISIS in Libya and Beyond, 2014–2016, in The Journal of North Africa Studies, 2020; Terrorism and counter-terrorism: Italian exceptionalism and its limits, in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2019; Modern Irregular Warfare: The ISIS Case Study, in Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2018; ISIS in Sirte and Mosul: Differences and Similarities, in Mediterranean Politics, 2017; Carlo Bianco and war for gangs: An Italian Approach To Irregular Warfare, in Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2016.

1 http://www.difesa.it/SMD_/CASD/IM/CeMiSS/Pagine/default.aspx 103

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