A team of four SEAL trainees prepare to breach a room during a training exercise.

A team of four SEAL trainees prepare to breach a room during a training exercise. Navy Media Content Services by Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher Menzie

Why the US Needs a Strategy To Counter 'Hybrid Warfare'

The Pentagon should expect more than a conventional fight in any military conflict with Russia, China, Iran or Syria. And it should start preparing for it immediately. By Robert A. Newson

The U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) released a timely white paper last month, titled “Counter-Unconventional Warfare (Counter-UW).” This white paper correctly argues that the United States requires, but does not have, a credible strategic-level ability to interdict and roll back external sponsorships of insurgent and separatist movements.

The Growing Threat of Hybrid Warfare

Counter-UW, to a large degree, is about responding to the increasing use of hybrid warfare. Hybrid warfare has been defined as a combination of conventional, irregular, and asymmetric means, including the persistent manipulation of political and ideological conflict, and can include the combination of special operations and conventional military forces; intelligence agents; political provocateurs; media representatives; economic intimidation; cyber attacks; and proxies and surrogates, para-militaries, terrorist, and criminal elements.

Hybrid warfare places a premium on unconventional warfare (UW)—defined in military doctrine as activities conducted to enable a resistance movement to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government. External sponsorship often provides the motivation, resources, and support to people attempting to destabilize international and regional security. Some examples of this strategy include the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008, Russia’s current activities in Ukraine, and potential future Russian moves in the Baltics, as well as Iran’s use of surrogates such as Hezbollah. Accordingly, a United States capacity for counter-UW is absolutely necessary.

What’s Different About Counter-Unconventional Warfare?

Counter-UW is distinct from counter terrorism (CT) and counter insurgency (COIN). CT operations tend to be short-term, time-sensitive, intelligence-driven (reactive) operations with immediately visible results; i.e., has the kill or capture been achieved or not? Counter-UW, by contrast, is protracted and proactive. The results are expressed in negative terms: what areas are not under insurgent control? What opportunities have been denied to them, and what objective has the enemy failed to achieve?

Meanwhile, COIN operations are designed to contain and defeat an insurgency while simultaneously addressing the root cause. As a result, COIN tends to generate a very large footprint and high U.S. signature. Counter-UW, on the other hand, is executed by a smaller force and is more narrowly scoped. It has a small footprint, a low signature, and is specifically designed to deny an adversary the ability to use surrogates as a path to strategic success.

Building upon the lessons learned from more than a decade of CT and COIN, U.S. special operations forces (SOF) can develop this military capability to deny adversaries the capacity to employ unconventional warfare to achieve strategic goals. USASOC is uniquely suited for counter-UW because of its combination of capabilities, including military information support operations (formerly known as psychological operations or PSYOPS), civil affairs, Special Forces (Green Berets), robust and scalable command and control capacity, and a growing “reach-back” capability in all these areas to support forward operations from the U.S.

More Than Special Operations Forces

While SOF will have the primary counter-UW role within a larger whole of government effort, hybrid warfare and counter-UW have implications beyond SOF. China’s pursuit of unrestricted warfare has not yet included the use of surrogates or para-military forces—unless you count the intimidating use of the Chinese Coast Guard —but their UW capabilities should not be discounted. The U.S. should expect more than a conventional fight in any military conflict with Russia, China, Korea, Iran, or Syria.

Hybrid warfare, on display now in regional conflicts, will one day be turned against the U.S. and our military forces. Counter-UW should be included in joint and service exercises, as well as operational and contingency plans. Additionally, the military services should explore how to integrate a supporting SOF counter-UW campaign within their broader operations.

An Uncertain Path Ahead

Counter-UW requires a whole-of-government approach and a comprehensive and integrated pursuit of political warfare, including economic sanctions, diplomacy, the use of surrogates, military and law enforcement support to partner nations, and strategic communication and information operationsThe U.S. has not displayed a strategic whole-of-government capacity beyond CT, counter-narcotic, and counter-proliferation tactical operations coordinated by joint interagency task forces. A considerable effort and strong leadership will be required to create this capacity. This task is so enormous it may take congressional legislation to create a strategic-level national counter-UW capability.

Much depends upon the willingness of national leaders to commit to conducting protracted counter-UW operations in sensitive, hostile, and denied environments. Counter-UW requires early and long-term investment. Timely decisions—prior to a crisis—are needed, presenting a real problem. Since the end of the Cold War the U.S. has rarely invested in developing long-lead options like counter-UW.  It should start now, immediately preparing counter-UW capabilities in eastern Europe and the Baltics to counter future Russian use of hybrid warfare.

It will be all too easy for institutional forces to argue against counter-UW activities and related preparation based on fears that they will be destabilizing, escalatory, or difficult to control due to the central role of surrogates. Regardless of the potential downsides of counter-UW, the alternative—allowing our adversaries strategic advantage through the unopposed use of surrogates and proxies—will always be the worse option.

This post appears courtesy of CFR.org.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.