{"id":8120,"date":"2015-09-15T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=8120"},"modified":"2015-09-15T12:00:14","modified_gmt":"2015-09-15T17:00:14","slug":"time-to-think-about-hybrid-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/15\/time-to-think-about-hybrid-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to Think About &#8220;Hybrid Defense&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/09\/soldier1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-8121\" src=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/09\/soldier1.jpg?w=620\" alt=\"soldier1\" width=\"620\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">By <strong><em>Mark Galeotti<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If the new threat is so complex, political, and subtle, shouldn\u2019t the response be the same?<\/p>\n<p>Much is made these days of the new challenge to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/warontherocks.com\/2014\/07\/on-not-so-new-warfare-political-warfare-vs-hybrid-threats\/\">hybrid warfare<\/a>\u201d \u2014 the kind of blended military-political-intelligence-economic operations Russia has launched in Ukraine. Whether or not this really is <a href=\"http:\/\/warontherocks.com\/2015\/04\/hybrid-warfare-wheres-the-beef\/\">something new can be debated<\/a>, as should whether it ought really be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.armedforcesjournal.com\/hybrid-vs-compound-war\/\">called something else<\/a>. In any case, it certainly now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defense.gov\/news\/newsarticle.aspx?id=128811\">shapes the Western defense agenda<\/a>. But if the threat is so complex and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.interpretermag.com\/the-menace-of-unreality-how-the-kremlin-weaponizes-information-culture-and-money\/\">political<\/a>, maybe Western countries need to be thinking more sharply and imaginatively about counter-measures? A \u201chybrid defense\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>After all, given that NATO is a military alliance, it is hardly surprising that it is concentrating on military means. Thus, U.S. heavy armor is to be <a href=\"http:\/\/warontherocks.com\/2015\/06\/warchives-prepositioning-combat-equipment-in-europe-been-there-done-that\/\">prepositioned<\/a>in the Baltic states, and a rolling series of exercises are seeing NATO troops and special forces in particular <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2015\/05\/06\/us-lithuania-wargames-idUSKBN0NR1PG20150506\">wargaming<\/a> various scenarios, including the kind of unacknowledged, unidentified Russian \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/warontherocks.com\/2014\/10\/ukraine-and-the-art-of-limited-war\/\">little green men<\/a>\u201d who took Crimea.<\/p>\n<p>This is all admirable and useful, but Moscow\u2019s current approach is based on the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bne.eu\/content\/story\/comment-putin-ukraine-and-asymmetric-politics\">guerrilla<\/a>\u2019s basic maxims: avoid doing the obvious, play to your strengths rather than your opponent\u2019s, and never get caught in a straight fight with a stronger enemy. If Russia ever does decide to make any moves against NATO, it will be with the intention of avoiding any direct war with an alliance that can outfight, outgun, and outman it. And it will try to avoid making a move for which the West is ready.<\/p>\n<p>Read the Remainder at <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/warontherocks.com\/2015\/07\/time-to-think-about-hybrid-defense\/\">War on the Rocks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Mark Galeotti If the new threat is so complex, political, and subtle, shouldn\u2019t the response be the same? Much is made these days of the new challenge to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from \u201chybrid warfare\u201d \u2014 the kind of blended military-political-intelligence-economic operations Russia has launched in Ukraine. Whether or not this really&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[74,1286],"tags":[2181,259,2182,1450,2183,1453,2184,1567],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}