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HYBRID WARFARE
THE NEW FORM OF CONFLICT
AT THE BEGINNING
OF THE CENTURY
Rzvan MUNTEANU*
The recent events in Ukraine have driven the
term hybrid warfare out of the bailiwick of
specialists and into the public discourse. For the
first time, it lies at the boundaries of Europe and
NATO, risking to export insecurity in the above
mentioned areas, therefore this article intends to
identify its fundamental characteristics.
Technological revolutions led to the
transformation of warfare, giving it new
dimensions, especially that the boundary
between military and civil areas sometimes tends
to be more and more uncertain. Therefore, in
expert analyses, hybrid warfare is used in the
same time with the term conflict, as in the
present case. The use by state or non-state actors
of conventional or non-conventional means of
combat and also of political, economical, social,
humanitarian, diplomatic and informational
measures, alongside with the involvement of the
local population, are featured as some of the
defining elements of hybrid warfare.
Keywords: hybrid warfare, asymmetric
threats, security, proxy war, strategic thinking,
crisis, non-state actors, international relations,
geopolitics.
Introduction
More than a decade later (than the fall of
USSR), a new type of conflict is brewing at
European Unions and NATOs borders. The
annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation,
after the pro-Russian paramilitary forces occupied
administrative buildings and supervised the
referendum on the incorporation of the peninsula
in the Russian state, and also the secessionist
movements that manifested in eastern Ukraine, do
not fall in the category of classic armed conflicts
in Europe. The use of military troops without
national trappings, of asymmetric battle tactics
and also of psychological and media measures
are only a few of the specific characteristics of
this form of conflict, named by military strategists
hybrid, special or non-linear warfare. Although
highly publicized in the Western media with the
outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, hybrid warfare is
not exactly a new term in expert analyses, having
been used for the first time in 2006 as a result
of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
All these events not only threat EU and NATO
security, but also raise serious questions with
regards to the validity of international treaties. at
the expense of national interests, Moscow itself,
alongside Washington and London, being the
guarantors of the Ukrainian territorial integrity
* Rzvan MUNTEANU, PhD student in Political Sciences at the National University of Political Studies
and Public Administration in Bucharest, Romania is researcher and project manager for Middle East
Political and Economic Institute, General Director of newsint.ro and Columnist for Adevrul. E-mail:
razvan.munteanu@newsint.ro
STRATEGIC IMPACT No. 3/2015
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is-libya-a-proxy-war/.
14
Ibidem.
15
Andrew Mumford, Proxy Warfare and the Future of
Conflict, in The RUSI Journal, Volume 158, Issue 2,
available at http://iissonline.net/proxy-warfare-and-thefuture-of-conflict/.
16
Jon B. Alterman, The Age of Proxy Wars, Center for
Strategic and International Studies, in Policy Brief, May
2013, available at http://csis.org/files/publication/0513_
MENC.pdf.
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permission.