Folder Conference 2018: Hybrid Warfare

CONFERENCE 2018

A Crash Course On Hybrid Warfare

Hybrid Warfare: Old Wine in a New Bottle?

By Ruben Tavenier

A great deal of the debate surrounding ‘hybrid warfare’ is definitional.

Although a sound understanding of the concept actually is necessary to counter its implications, there is another debate questioning whether this arguably ‘new’ phenomenon is actually new at all. Does hybrid warfare really depart from the Clausewitzian concept of war, signaling a new way of conducting warfare? Or is it a novelty concept, used to describe something which has actually been around for a longer period? Answering this question has important implications, both academically and politically. A faulty understanding of this concept may not only lead to flawed academic theories, but also to the implementation of policies that fail to effectively counter hybrid attacks.

Murray & Mansoor (2012) have addressed the question of definition in their book titled “Hybrid Warfare, Fighting Complex Opponents from the Ancient World to the Present.” As their title clearly indicates, hybrid warfare is anything but new. Having identified wars in which hybrid tactics were used throughout history, from the Germanic wars with Rome, through the American Revolutionary War to Vietnam, an argument can be made that the term hybrid warfare might be more of a buzzword than a revolution in warfare. Hybrid tactics aimed at non-military targets – a central tenet of what is believed to be a new way of warfare – can in fact already be observed in the Peloponnesian War. Athenian forces sparked a Helot insurgency in Sparta, which in turn greatly harmed the Spartan agricultural and military system. More recently, during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, a remarkable shift from Kabinettskrieg (conventional interstate war) to Volkskrieg (popular war or insurgency) took place1. This shift from one pattern of conflict to another caused the lines between the military and civilian domain to become increasingly blurred, after which the conflict took on a hybrid character.

Perhaps more fitting for the perceived shift in the nature of warfare is Clausewitz’s analogy of war as ‘more than a true Chameleon’. He argued that war was not static, but inherently variable and nonlinear, made up of an interplay between what he called the remarkable trinity of war. This trinity has several meanings, but generally consists of a) violence/the people/irrationality b) probability/the army/non-rationality c) policy/the government/rationality.2 Rather than war as just a chameleon – which

somewhat alters its features based on its context, – war can take on completely different shapes and forms, which can all be seen as a combination of the trinity. Arguments brought forward in defense of hybrid warfare highlight that the Clausewitzian notion of warfare is too statecentric, mainly preoccupied with conventional actors, which is no longer relevant for analysis of contemporary warfare.3 However, these advocats tend to overestimate the importance of the people/army/state trinity, which was more of an illustration for the violence/probability/policy and irrationality/non-rationality/rationality trinity, which Clausewitz believed characterized the true nature of war.

Whereas hybrid warfare is generally considered a novel phenomenon, it actually has been present throughout history. Moreover, it still adheres to the same Clausewitzian principles as other types of conflict, which dictate that war is inherently variable and unpredictable, but always consists of the elements of the trinity. Therefore, hybrid warfare as new concept might just be old wine in a new bottle.

Law as a Weapon of Hybrid Warfare

By Willemijn Bertels

Laws are created to regulate and protect people and states. However, they have the potential to be turned into weapons. This concept of lawfare, although disputed, can be defined as “the strategy of using – or misusing – law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve an operational objective”.1 Laws have the potential to be used as a weapon of both defense and offense. Used in a defensive context, lawfare may reaffirm and strengthen the principles that underpin the law. Used offensively, the same principles may be misused and exploited through lawfare, thereby undermining the rule of law.2 Lawfare has mostly been used as an offensive weapon in several conflicts across the globe. Often, the aim is to delegitimize the opponent or to create confusion among internal and external publics. The method can be especially

harmful to democracies, when their opponents do not adhere to the rule of law, creating a legal and ethical asymmetry between law-abiding states and their non-abiding, state or nonstate, adversaries. The compliant actor essentially becomes handcuffed, legally restricted by the very laws that were made for its protection.2 In the context of hybrid warfare, lawfare may be used as part of a larger strategy, employed to affect cognitive, psychological, motivational, ideological, ideational and moral characteristics of a target audience.2 For instance, legitimate military actions may be manipulated by opponents to appear purposely in violation of international laws. Similarly, law-abiding actors may be prevented from taking certain actions, as a result of violations of the law by their adversaries. This is most visible in asymmetric conflicts, where the weaker actor grabs onto methods other than traditional military means.1 One example is the use of civilians to protect targets. In Gaza for instance, Hamas has manipulated the law for years by storing weapons inside civilian homes. To minimize the risk of civilian casualties, Israel is required by international law to warn the residents before executing an air strike. Hamas exploits these compulsory warnings: in response, the residents climb their roofs to act as ‘human shields’. If Israel were to strike at that moment, it would (knowingly) be violating the law.1 This form of manipulation of the law in asymmetric conflict is used by many actors, turning conventional war methods into potential war crimes .

Perhaps, the ultimate aim of lawfare by nonstate actors is the criminalization of traditional warfare. Certainly, it has the potential to undermine public support for warfare, in conflict zones and home countries alike.3 To quote Sun Tzu, founder of The Art of War, “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence”.2 The method of lawfare is not solely adopted by nonstate actors in asymmetrical conflicts. In the recent Ukraine crisis, Russia has evaded and misused the law, exploiting the existing ambiguity on the definition of the conflict. Further to the east, China renders ‘legal warfare’ as one of three of their warfare strategies, exemplified in their expansion in the South China Sea.4 In essence, the real danger of lawfare does not lie in its use as a malicious weapon of hybrid warfare. It hides in the potential subversion of the principles of the rule of law worldwide, through repeated campaigns of their misuse and abuse. When respect for the law becomes a vulnerability,4 adhering to it eventually becomes void as well.

Technology, accountability and the future of warfare

By Sander Mulder

Throughout history, technological advancements have always fostered the development of new weapons. For example, the use of new raw materials like copper resulted in more durable and lethal weapons, where the Industrial Revolution led to the mass production of guns, bullets and tanks. All these developments challenged the strategies of political and military leaders, over time leading to more nonlinear, hybrid warfare. However, the digital revolution of the past decades has posed challenges that both nation states and international institutions cannot seem to control, specifically regarding the topic of accountability.

New developments: cyber and LAWs Two developments of the digital revolution have received particular interest from the international community: cybercrime and new Artificial Intelligence-systems (AI’s). Cybercrime has increased in the past ten years: some of the most notable examples include the hacking of Sony Pictures in 2014 (presumably by North Korea), the Ukrainian power grid in 2016 (presumably Russia) and the worldwide cyberattacks in 2017, known as WannaCry (presumably Lazarus, an unknown collective of individual hackers).1 The word ‘presumably’ already points to the biggest problem regarding cybercrime: both states and organisations rarely claim responsibility, nor can they be legitimately accused of having committed such a crime.

The rise of Artificial Intelligence and the creation of Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) plays into similar questions of accountability. China, the United States and Russia, together with countries such as Israel and South Korea, have all admitted that they are investing in weapons ranging from drones to military vehicles and robot soldiers. All these LAWs share the capability of releasing a lethal force without the operation, decision or confirmation of a human supervisor. This supervision is the central issue regarding LAWs: to what extent can the creator or the actors (both state and nonstate) have human control over the ‘critical functions’ of these weapons: targeting and engagement?2 Besides, since LAWs function under remote, digital control, the danger of LAWs getting hacked and reversing their targets is not unthinkable.

International stalemate In response to multiple incidents and the likelihood of an AI-weapon arms race, the international security community has started to discuss policy that can regulate these new technologies. However, The UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) keeps failing to reach consensus on draft resolutions that address this topic, more precisely the question of what constitutes the ‘right’ level of violence before countries can legitimately impose countermeasures.3 The recent creation of two opposing open-ended working groups by the General Assembly, one led by Russia and the other by the United States, shows the politicized nature of the topic.4 The same problem occurs in the field of AI and LAWs. Backin 2013, a group of non-governmental organisations, supported by Stephen Hawkins, Elon Musk and others, started the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.5 Even though there have not been many fully developed LAWs yet, the UN has also been working on regulations within the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. But, in similar fashion as international cyber law, finding legal consensus on ethical judgements of LAWs has turned out to be a difficult task. And given the quick technical developments of the artificial intelligence industry itself, lawmakers have the rather impossible task of incorporating the future in their plans as well.

Sources Ruben Tavenier 1

2

3

Murray, W., & Mansoor, P. (2012). Hybrid warfare fighting complex opponents from the ancient world to the present. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Beyerchen, A. (1992). Clausewitz, nonlinearity, and the unpredictability of war. International Security, 17(3), 59-90.

Schuurman, B. W. (2010). Clausewitz en de New Wars denkers. Militaire Spectator, 179(1), 33-43.

Sources Willemijn Bertels 1 2

3 4

Voetelink, J. (2013). Lawfare. Militair Rechtelijk Tijdschrift, 106(3), 69-79.

Munoz Mosquera , A.B., & Dov Bachmann, S. (2016). Lawfare in Hybrid Wars: The 21st Century Warfare. Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, 7(2), 63-87.

Rivkin, D. B. Jr., & Casey, L. A. (23 February, 2007). Lawfare. The Wall Street Journal.

Dunlap, C. Jr. (2017). Lawfare 101: A primer. Military Review, 97(3), 7-17.

Sources Sander Mulder 1

2 3

4

5

Davis II, J. S. et al. (2017). Stateless Attribution: Toward international accountability in cyberspace. California, Santa Monica: RAND Corporation.

O’Flaherty, K. (May 3, 2018). Cyber warfare: The threat from nation states. Forbes.

Asaro, P. (April 27, 2018). Why the world needs to regulate autonomous weapons, and soon. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Council on Foreign Relations (November 15, 2018). The UN doubles its workload on cyber norms, and not everyone is pleased. Retrieved from https://www.cfr.org/blog/un-doubles-its-workload-cyber-norms-and-not-everyonepleased https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/