Military Review English Edition September-October 2013 | Page 24

kept their adversary off balance. Another variable will be technology that accentuates the capabilities of the human element in warfare and presents an effective combat multiplier in a race to learn and adapt for the future. Army Training Circular 7-100 describes the hybrid threat as three distinctly different forces working collectively toward a common objective.2 The regular forces portion of the hybrid threat consists of national, uniformed military forces that engage in symmetric, conventional warfare. Regular forces will use identifiable military weapons and equipment with capabilities focused on battles reminiscent of high intensity conflict. Paramilitary forces consisting of insurgents, terrorists, and guerrillas represent the “irregulars” of the hybrid threat.3 Tactics including ambushes, terrorism, improvisation, information warfare, and other forms of asymmetric, unconventional warfare characterize their actions.

Hybrid Threat Constructs

Criminal elements, in the hybrid threat construct, create an enabling capability for adversary operations. Moisés Naím, an internationally renowned journalist and former editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, describes current global criminal acts as tactics criminal elements employ in a war enabled through globalization, including drug and arms smuggling, human trafficking, and money laundering.4 Criminal proceeds from these acts create funding for training and equipping hybrid forces. This presents a serious difficulty for the U.S. Army in an operational environment. The actions of criminal elements represent civil problems for a host nation government to address. However, if criminal actions support the combined efforts of regular and irregular forces, they necessitate a military response. To assess future implications, a realistic future hybrid threat model is continually under development and review. Recent conflicts, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have various elements of hybrid warfare. However, the actions of Hezbollah in the 2006 Second Lebanon War represent one example of a future hybrid threat that encompasses the essence of hybrid warfare. At the start of the conflict, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attacked into southern Lebanon in response to Hezbollah
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rocket fire into Israel and the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers.5 The Israeli government firmly believed that their advanced conventional warfare technology, combined with precision firepower superiority, would quickly overwhelm Hezbollah forces and bring the conflict to a decisive conclusion.6 The IDF developed a technology-driven strategy, heavily focused on air power, based on exploiting Hezbollah’s assumed weaknesses and limited warfighting capabilities.7 However, Hezbollah’s tactics rapidly transitioned the nature of the conflict from conventional warfare to hybrid warfare, effectively negating the IDF’s technological advancements. Hezbollah developed a strategy that combined conventional warfare tactics and capabilities with guerrilla warfare operations. In one sense, Hezbollah’s actions departed from historical asymmetric, irregular operations and shifted toward conventional tactics. These tactics included defending terrain from fortified defensive positions and maneuvering in formations with conventional warfare weapons and equipment.8 On the other hand, Hezbollah personified an “information-age guerrilla force” employing asymmetric military methods atypical of past nonstate actors.9 These methods included higher-tech versions of sniping, ambushes, harassing indirect fire, and the use of civilians, including houses, as shields from attack.10 As the weaker force in the conflict, Hezbollah realized it could not destroy the IDF or break the Israeli will through large force on force engagements. Instead, at the strategic level, Hezbollah employed an approach to the war that aligned with Thomas Schelling’s strategy of coercion and Robert Pape’s strategy of coercion by punishment.11 In contemporary international relations theory, coercion is persuading an adversary to stop or modify their actions by adjusting the costbenefit analysis of their current campaign.12 In essence, Hezbollah attempted to coerce the Israeli government by punishing the Israeli population with rocket barrages.13 In many ways this was reminiscent of some of the strategic bombing campaigns in previous wars, but with a different means of delivering the actual munitions.14 Hezbollah’s rockets served as an instrument of coercive pain inflicted to instill fear and break the resolve of the Israeli population.
September-October 2013 ? MILITARY REVIEW