Volume 10 Issue 2 Article 5 6-2-2020 The Rise of Hybrid Warfare Waseem Ahmad Qureshi Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjicl Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Waseem Ahmad Qureshi, The Rise of Hybrid Warfare, 10 NOTRE DAME J. INT’L & COMP. LAW 173 (2020). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law at NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law by an authorized editor of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Rise of Hybrid Warfare Cover Page Footnote Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan. This article is available in Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ ndjicl/vol10/iss2/5 THE RISE OF HYBRID WARFARE WASEEM AHMAD QURESHI* INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 174 I. DEFINING HYBRID WARFARE ...................................................................... 176 A. JOHN MCCUEN’S DEFINITION ................................................................ 176 B. NATO’S DEFINITION .............................................................................. 176 C. FRANK HOFFMAN’S DEFINITION ............................................................ 177 II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF HYBRID WARFARE .................................. 178 A. THE GLOBAL DOMINANCE THEORY ........................................................ 179 B. RUSSIAN STANCE .................................................................................... 181 C. LIND’S PREDICTIONS .............................................................................. 182 D. PILLARS OF HYBRID WARFARE ............................................................... 182 1. Color Revolutions ............................................................................ 182 2. Unconventional Warfare .................................................................. 183 E. WARDEN’S FIVE RINGS ........................................................................... 184 F. HART’S INDIRECT WARFARE ................................................................... 185 G. JOHN BOYD’S OODA LOOP ................................................................... 187 H. THE CHAOS THEORY .............................................................................. 187 I. U.S FULL-SPECTRUM DOMINANCE STRATEGY ......................................... 189 J. INSURGENCY ........................................................................................... 189 K. THE LEAD FROM BEHIND THEORY ......................................................... 191 III. TOOLKIT OF HYBRID WARFARE ............................................................... 192 A. PROPAGANDA & MEDIA ......................................................................... 192 B. FUNDING & CYBER ATTACKS ................................................................. 193 C. ECONOMIC LEVERAGE ............................................................................ 194 D. PROXIES ................................................................................................. 195 IV. CASE STUDIES ........................................................................................... 195 A. RUSSIA ................................................................................................... 196 B. UNITED KINGDOM ................................................................................. 196 C. ISRAEL ................................................................................................... 197 D. TURKEY ................................................................................................. 198 E. INDONESIA ............................................................................................. 198 F. MACEDONIA ........................................................................................... 198 G. ITALY ..................................................................................................... 198 H. UNITED STATES ...................................................................................... 199 V. COUNTERING HYBRID WARFARE .............................................................. 203 A. DETECT ................................................................................................. 203 B. DETER .................................................................................................... 204 C. RESPOND ............................................................................................... 204 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 205 * Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan. 174 NOTRE DAME J. INT’L & COMP. L. vol. 10:2 INTRODUCTION In the twenty-first century, wars are not declared or waged conventionally; instead, conflicts are instigated by clandestine agents using military, non- military, media,1 cyber tools, information operations, NGOs, nonstate actors, intelligence agencies, economic tools, propaganda,2 ambiguity,3 terrorism,4 and insurgency or rebel movements.5 In hybrid warfare, the lines between peacetime and wartime 6 and between combatants and civilians 7 are blurred. Further, systemic aggression is imposed on the targeted state using gray zones,8 nonlinear warfare, unrestricted warfare,9 unconventional warfare, and color revolutions to avoid attribution and possible retribution against the aggressor. The threat posed by hybrid warfare is real.10 Hybrid warfare employs a wide array of power tools, including: political, economic, military, asymmetric, civil. Additionally, it includes informational tools such as: diplomacy, terrorism, proxies, and economic attacks to persuade populations or to divide societies.11 Hybrid warfare targets the vulnerabilities of a society and system while deliberately exploiting ambiguity to avoid detection. It is usually detected only when it is fully functional and capable of inflicting harm.12 Some researchers believe that lawfare (in which law is used as a tool of aggression) is also a branch of hybrid warfare.13 However, it can also be argued that lawfare has a domain of its own. For example, geopolitically, Russia is mirroring Western lawfare threats.14 By contrast, hybrid warfare operations are employed by nations around the world. Presently, the most notable effects of hybrid wars can be seen in Syria, Ukraine, and Hong Kong. There are a plethora of cases where an aggressor using 1 James K. Wither, Making Sense of Hybrid Warfare, 15 CONNECTIONS: Q. J. 73, 76 (2016), https://connections-qj.org/articLe/making-sense-hybrid-warfare [hereinafter Wither]. 2 KarL Hickman et aL., Conference Proceeding at the Swedish Defence University: Hybrid Threats and Asymmetric Warfare: What to Do? 15, 20–21 (Feb. 2018). 3 DR. PATRICK J. CULLEN & ERIK REICHBORN-KJENNERUD, MCDC COUNTERING HYBRID WARFARE PROJECT: UNDERSTANDING HYBRID WARFARE 12 (Jan. 2017); See also COLONEL BERND HORN, ON HYBRID WARFARE 16 (Dr. EmiLy Spencer eds., 2016) [hereinafter HORN]. 4 Manon van Tienhoven, Identifying ‘Hybrid Warfare’ 13 (2016) (unpubLished Master in PubLic Administration thesis, Leiden University) (on fiLe with author) [hereinafter Tienhoven]. 5 See VIKRANT DESHPANDE & SHIBANI MEHTA, Contextualising Hybrid Warfare, in HYBRID WARFARE: THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF CONFLICT 26–28 (Vikrant Deshpande ed., 2018) [hereinafter DESHPANDE & MEHTA]. 6 See Wither, supra note 1, at 74. 7 See Hickman, supra note 2, at 5. 8 See HORN, supra note 3, at 12–14. 9 See DESHPANDE & MEHTA, supra note 5, at 29–32. 10 JAN JAKUB UZIĘBŁO, UNITED IN AMBIGUITY? EU AND NATO APPROACHES TO HYBRID WARFARE AND HYBRID THREATS 4 (Bassotti et aL. eds., May 2017) [hereinafter UZIĘBŁO]. 11 ROBERT JOHNSON, The Evolution of Hybrid Threats Through History, in SHIFTING PARADIGM OF WAR: HYBRID WARFARE 3–5 (YüceL ÖzeL & Ertan İnaLtekin eds., 2017). 12 See CULLEN, supra note 3, at 10. 13 See Hickman, supra note 2, at 18. 14 Id. 2020 THE RISE OF HYBRID WARFARE 175 hybrid warfare has either admitted its involvement in the hybrid operations or declassified its plans for hybrid wars. Pakistan is a victim of hybrid warfare. Thus, Pakistan is incentivized to understand hybrid warfare to learn how it has been attacked historically. Also, comprehending hybrid warfare will help Pakistan grasp why it is destabilized in the present. Finally, understanding this type of warfare will mitigate future attacks against Pakistan.15 Therefore, Pakistan must learn about its weaknesses, such as its vulnerabilities related to the CPEC, blasphemy, “ethnic, religious, and geographical difference,” and socioeconomic problems that can be exploited by a hybrid warfare aggressor, who may use color revolutions and unconventional warfare to disrupt, control, or influence the regime or system to satisfy its geostrategic interests.16 As a response to hybrid warfare, nations should follow three steps: detect, deter, and respond.17 This Article has five Parts. Part I defines hybrid warfare. It includes hybrid warfare definitions by John McCuen, NATO, and Frank Hoffman. Part II then describes the theoretical framework of hybrid warfare. This Part has 11 subparts. Part II(A) explains the theory of global dominance in respect to hybrid warfare planning. Part II(B) demonstrates the Russian stance