The new NATO: Prepared for Russian hybrid warfare?

• Author: Oguz, Safak
• Position: ARTICLE - Report

ABSTRACT The Ukrainian crisis altered the security paradigm in Europe by forcing NATO to revise its stance towards Russia, as it employed a wide array of military and non-military tools and tactics called "hybrid warfare." To counter Russian hybrid warfare in future, the NATO Alliance implemented functional and structural changes known the Readiness Action Plan (RAP) and endorsed the New Strategy on Hybrid Warfare. This paper will study Russian hybrid warfare activities and the preparedness of an Alliance shaped by the RAP and the New Strategy on Hybrid Warfare. It discusses whether this new NATO will be able to deter Russia from resorting to hybrid warfare against a NATO ally. While the Alliance has enhanced its military capabilities to a great extent, the Allies' ability to achieve consensus on a response is the factor most likely to deter and dissuade Russia from engaging in hybrid warfare.

Introduction

The Russian military activities that resulted in the illegal annexation of Crimea and the crisis in Eastern Ukraine have been defined as "hybrid warfare" by Western countries and declared one of the greatest security threats facing Europe and NATO. There is consensus among most observers, including NATO officials, that the Alliance was caught by surprise, failing to deter Russian activities and prevent the annexation of Crimea. In the face of reluctance amongst member countries to invest funds and attention, the Ukrainian crisis served as a warning on the new security risks facing the Alliance.

Under pressure from Eastern European members who felt under imminent Russian threat, the Allies opted for structural and functional improvements to NATO's military systems. Convened in the midst of the crisis, the Wales Summit played an important role in framing the new NATO. Today the Alliance is expected to provide military capabilities to counter Russian hybrid warfare activities that threaten European security in addition to emerging threats from Northern Africa to the Middle East. Allied leaders accepted the Readiness Action Plan (RAP), which consists of assurance measures (including continuous air, land, and maritime presence and meaningful military activities in Eastern European countries), as well as adaptation measures, ensuring the Alliance can respond swiftly, firmly and fully to security challenges.

Given its success in the Ukrainian crisis, Russia is expected to continue covert military activities on the NATO border in pursuit of two goals: its political ambitions in the region and its effort to dissuade the Alliance from continuing the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System. The latter constitutes one of the most serious potential crisis points, alongside the possibility of Ukraine or Georgia joining the Alliance. Given Russia's agenda, the next challenge for NATO may well be hybrid warfare in a member country. Those particularly susceptible or vulnerable to Russian hybrid activities may include the Baltic countries or Poland.

In such a scenario, the main question will be whether the "New NATO," whose military capabilities have been enhanced through the RAP and the New Strategy on Hybrid Warfare, will possess the political will to deter and counter this threat. Consensus on invoking Article 5 for the sake of Vilnius or Warsaw, in the face of "undeclared and unattributed warfare" by Russia, will constitute one of the most difficult decisions the Alliance may be called upon to make.

Hybrid Warfare Theory

Although the Ukrainian crisis has sparked debate on hybrid warfare, no comprehensive definition or consensus on its characteristics has emerged. Some analysts argue these strategies have been employed since ancient times: Peter R. Mansoor places the historical pedigree of hybrid warfare at least as far back as the Peloponnesian War of the fifth century B.C., (1) while Timothy McCulloh dates it to 66 A.D., arguing that during the Jewish rebellion a hybrid force of criminal bandits, regular soldiers, and unregulated fighters applied such tactics against Vespasian's Roman Legions. (2) Both argue that most wars since then have included a hybrid warfare component.

Hybrid warfare theories became an intense area of study after the Cold War. The term "hybrid warfare" is attributed to Robert G. Walker, who in 1998 defined it as "lying in the interstices between special and conventional warfare." (3) Retired United States Marine Corps Officer Frank G. Hoffman contributed one of the most widely referenced definitions with "the blend of the lethality of state conflict with the fanatical and protracted fervor of irregular warfare." Hoffman further argued that "hybrid warfare incorporates a full range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder." (4)

The 2006 second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah also played an important role in the evolution of hybrid warfare studies, as Hezbollah's irregular tactics had success against the conventionally superior Israeli Defense Forces. As Copeland pointed out, "the very origin of the term hybrid warfare appears in an implied way to come from the leader of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, who stated in an interview that his new model army was not a regular army but not a guerilla in the traditional sense either but it was something in between." (5) Hoffman described the Lebanon war as "the clearest example of a modern hybrid challenger." (6)

Even before the crisis in Ukraine, NATO identified hybrid threats as significant challenges to the security of the Alliance. The working study group organized by Allied Command Transformation in 2011, one of two Strategic Commands of NATO, defined hybrid threats as "threats posed by adversaries, with the ability to simultaneously employ conventional and non-conventional means adaptively in pursuit of their objectives." (7) However, NATO tended to neglect studies designed to counter hybrid warfare despite Russian regular and irregular military activities during the Georgian war, instead focusing on crisis management and partnership.

In the U.S., there was intense study of hybrid warfare, although official documents did not employ the term "hybrid warfare." It is worth noting that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in 2010 that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) had not officially defined "hybrid warfare" and has no plans to do so because DOD does not consider it a new form of warfare. (8)

Russian Hybrid Warfare in Ukraine

The removal of Ukraine's pro-Russian President Victor Yanukovich through street protests resulted in mass demonstrations in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, supported overtly and covertly by Russia. To keep Ukraine out of the NATO and European Union orbits, Russia resorted to strategies the Western countries termed "hybrid warfare," and succeeded in illegally annexing Crimea while creating what was first a prolonged, and then a frozen, conflict in eastern Ukraine. As a result of Russia's actions, hybrid warfare emerged as one of the most serious threats to European security and prompted a significant, if non-military response from NATO. In the Wales Summit declaration, NATO leaders agreed Russia's aggressive actions against Ukraine have fundamentally challenge the vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace. (9)

Russian military activities in Crimea and eastern Ukraine have also been described as hybrid warfare by Western officials, scholars, and the media. The Washington Post described it as "a conflict waged by commandos without insignia, armored columns slipping across the international border at night, volleys of misleading propaganda, floods of disinformation and sneaky invasions like the one into Crimea." (10) The noted German magazine Der Spiegel called it "war without a formal declaration, rules, or borders; the belligerent is anonymous, does not identify itself and often operates invisibly; rather than weapons, fighting is done with words; the Internet is the most important battlefield." (11) Numerous other definitions describe Russian military activities as "hybrid warfare," but as McCulloh and Johnson point out, definitions of hybrid threats and hybrid warfare vary and contradict one other. (12)

Studies of Russian hybrid warfare began mainly in the wake of the Color Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine in the early 2000s. The role of Western countries in the Color Revolutions and in the Arab Spring figured significantly in the evolution of Russian hybrid...