Hybrid Warfare

"This collection of essays on international hybrid threats and proper responses is a veritable cornucopia of empirical research findings and analytic insights, in the manner of so much good research and writing coming out of Sweden on matters of war and peace. With a wide array of authors from the world’s democracies, the contributions in this volume will be attractive to professionals and the public alike who are interested in the gray zone falling between outright war and peace in this trouble world---the space that Russia likes to operate within, for example, as Moscow attempts to manipulate Western opinion and undermine the open societies. One of the volume’s great strengths is its melding of thinking on this subject by both scholars and practitioners. Fascinating, too, are a series of case studies included among the chapters, with probes into hybrid threats and warfare as seen from the perspectives of China, Iran, Russia, the United States, and several other illustrations. The relevance, thoughtfulness, and practicality of this book cannot be overstated. * Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor Emeritus, University of Georgia, USA * The new form of global competition being waged in the Grey Zone between peace and war is a struggle for our minds. This curated collection of articles by international experts in hybrid warfare is a timely warning of what is at stake for us in the digital age. Read it to find out what we must do to defend ourselves and our democracy. * Professor Sir David Omand, former UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator and Director of GCHQ * War is not what it used to be in the industrial age. As we are entering the digital age, we often find ourselves in a grey zone of contest, conflict and confrontation where a wide array of means are used to influence, disrupt and sometimes - although more seldom - also to destruct. This collection helps us to understand and to navigate in today’s far more complex reality with an ongoing contest between the different rising and declining powers of our time. * Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister (1991-1994) and Foreign Minister (2006-2014) of Sweden. Currently Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations * The edited volume Hybrid warfare: Security and Asymmetric Conflict in International Relations provides timely summary of conceptual origins of the hybrid war within the western research community, accompanied with insightful analysis of how this concept has been interpreted in Russia, Iran and China. The key contribution of the volume for further expert and policy debate is however combination of conceptually oriented research with the high-quality empirical analyses. The latter highlight concrete cases of hybrid war, focusing on the methods used (from informational, cyber to military) as well as on the efforts to counter hybrid war in different political contexts. The Hybridity Blizzard Model developed by the authors provides a good overview of the complexity of the problem. * Katri Pynnöniemi, Assistant Professor and holder of the Mannerheim Chair of Russian Security Studies at the University of Helsinki and National Defence University, Finland * Hybrid Warfare is one of the most misunderstood concepts in modern security studies, this volume goes a long way towards clearing up the confusion by providing a viable path towards understanding the evolution of warfare. Western nations will face the challenge of hybrid threats well into the future because of the opportunity new methods of political warfare offer, the ""blizzard"" is coming for us all. * Brandon Valeriano, Bren Chair of Military Innovation at the Marine Corps University *"