I recently wrote about how democracy was vulnerable to digital subversion, and how it interfaces into a larger hybrid warfare strategy, also known as grey-zone conflict. Known for decades, “Hybrid Warfare” as a strategic concept is still lacking agreement on a single definition.
By its behavior, Hybrid warfare is a combination of conventional military and non-conventional means that ranges beyond conventional military scope to achieve pre-defined objectives. Hybrid warfare’s intent is to find a low-cost means to replicate or at least reduce the use of costly military force against a target group, nation or state.
Hybrid Warfare Is Born In Modernity
With hybrid warfare, the ability of a state actor with a small military force to defeat an adversary with a larger military force is common. Many states like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates refined their digital subversion modelling on their own people.
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It was the United Arab Emirates who first went international by targeting the Egyptian regime under the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2013, the successful Emirates campaign led to the fall of the Egyptian regime. A UAE friendly regime replaced them. A loose alliance of like-minded authoritarians saw this success and the potential it offered.
Military conquest by invading states have been a historic reason for the suppression of a society’s freewill. It’s costly in people, finance and resources to execute, and often has a counter strike risk. At its heart, above-the-threshold of war actions polarize opinions in the target nation into one of joint resistance.
Hybrid Warfare Mix Is Unique
Authoritarians, spooked by the rise of independent thinking during the Arab Spring of 2011, realized suppression of freewill is no longer a fully effective tool for their governance modal. Social media platforms allowed its citizenry to bypass censorship and information control, along with regime manipulation of societal discourse.
The creation of digital subversion as a working tool allowed subversion of freewill, rather than its suppression, to be implemented via a more invasive approach. Its success is now recognized as a national security threat in democracies, and its use is a core element of hybrid warfare.
Each nation will experience a unique blend that is tailored to be effective in their local environments. The hostile actor will refine it over time to increase penetration and effectiveness. Digital subversion may be enough for the pre-defined objectives of the hostile actor. Even at that, a physical presence in the target nation is required for supporting a surrogate-network.
Hybrid Warfare and Dirty Tactics
These on-the-ground professionals will manage those who have accepted disinformation campaigns as real, and are now loyal to the weaponized false-narratives they have adopted. In hybrid warfare, the physical presence is more extensive and has a wider skill set.
The expanded skill set will include traditional spy craft, assassination, and criminal underworld network management. In hybrid warfare, business and people are targets for manipulation, and in a tiny amount of cases, direct interference.
Of note, as a kernel feature for all ongoing campaigns is the utter reliance on subversion of freewill in target nations. This digital subversion reliance is also its Achilles’ heal. The United States would be wise to reform social media and its data/AI rights over users.
Hybrid Warfare And Its Achilles Heal
That is one of many initiatives government can implement in a policy response. However, digital authoritarians thought of the risk from policy responses in advance. The answer was to implement erosion of trust in government into all digital subversion campaigns, which also feeds hybrid warfare success. The keyword here is ‘trust’.
This, at scale, breaks down the perceptual trust in government. It also reshapes any destructive behavior or actions against the target society, as has been in the best interests of the society. Over time, this disruptive-fog saps the will of a nation to resist. In effect, when we see the first enemy ship, we have already lost the war.
By simply becoming information resilient, we are doing our part. Pushing back on aggressive and pushy people online or in the physical world helps immensely. Scale as a community with this assertive validation of fact approach, and the digital subversion affect materially reduces in effectiveness to a point of failure. The result will see reliant and active hybrid warfare campaigns collapse.
The will to be free is our birthright, as digital subversion has shown us. Their strategic targeting of inter-societal trust and cooperation has placed flags in the sand for our response. Trust and cooperation starts with our neighbors and extends to a family of like-minded nations. When we accept, learn, and respond to this new threat, our unborn children will thank us for the effort.
About the Author
John is a versatile author known for his gripping fiction narratives in the thriller, action, and suspense genres. With a background as a journalist since 2016, and expertise in cloud technologies as an engineer; John brings a unique blend of storytelling prowess and technical acumen to his work.
