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In both Crimea and the subsequent fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine, Russia\u2019s signature tactic has been the use of so-called \u201cGreen Men,\u201d soldiers without identifying insignia whose identity as Russian soldiers the Kremlin denied. Ukraine, Georgia, and even NATO members like Estonia<\/a> now fear that they could be the next target for Russia\u2019s Green Men.\u00a0 NATO, alarmed by the need to prepare for this unexpected tactic, has committed<\/a> to develop new countermeasures to defend against this threat. Green Men, or deniable forces, are a central part of what has come to be called \u201chybrid warfare<\/a>\u201d in the \u201cgray zone<\/a>\u201d between war and peace.\u00a0 All of this seems to be a new and innovative departure from traditional tactics, perhaps even a new model for conflict in the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n However, deniable forces are nothing new. Nor, in fact, is the specific phenomenon of using them to seize a piece of territory, as Russia did in Crimea. There is a long history of hybrid warfare in general and of intervening with deniable forces in particular. This history points not just to the enduring nature of the threat, but also to the contours of a \u201ccounter-hybrid\u201d strategy to defeat it.<\/p>\n In the course of a broader research project<\/a> for which I compiled data on every land grab since 1918, 105 land grabs<\/a> in total, I found three instances before Crimea of deniable forces seizing territory. In 1999, Pakistani forces crossed the Line of Control<\/a> in the Kargil region of Kashmir, occupying positions overlooking strategically important roads in Indian territory. Like the Russians, Pakistan used deniable forces that they described as Kashmiri insurgents. Unlike the Ukrainians, the Indians counterattacked, absorbing heavy casualties to expel the Pakistanis.<\/p>\n