Introduction

In the 21^st century, technology is evolving rapidly which enables and fosters strategic innovation along with technological development. The traditional war fighting styles of comprehensive battles, designated battlefields, military to military engagement etc. gave birth to the notion of hybrid warfare. This research article aims to establish the pertinent role of hybrid warfare in revolutionary military affairs (RMA) while highlighting its role in modern warfare.

Hybrid Warfare

Hybrid Warfare is described as the blend of unconventional and conventional war fighting strategies to attain the strategic goals without engaging with your adversary militarily. It consists of;

• Conventional Warfare.
• Irregular Warfare.
• Cyber Warfare.
• Psychological Warfare.
• Economic Warfare.
• Political Warfare.

The employment of hybrid strategy aims to exploit the weaknesses or vulnerabilities of adversary by employing these war tactics in a coordination. This creates challenging multiple dimensional war fronts for the enemy.

Influence of Hybrid Warfare on Revolutionary Military Affairs (RMA)

• Differentiation between War and Peace

Hybrid Warfare possesses the ability to enhance the difficulty to discriminate between peace time and war time. The traditional war fighting included guns, artillery, and armor with clear distinction of adversary wearing combat uniform in a defined military war zone. Now, hybrid warfare challenges these aspects of war by conducting prolonged warfare. It doesn’t follow war declaration protocols. These aspects of hybrid warfare have forced the military commanders to revisit their operational and tactical strategies to ensure preparedness and victory.

• Cyber Warfare: A Pertinent Component of Modern Military Strategy

Cyber warfare is a bold component of hybrid warfare. The potential of cyber warfare to steal confidential information, plant malwares, induce misinformation, and disrupt enemy’s entire C2C infrastructure makes it a bold component. Kimusky is a North Korea hacking group which has generated billions by hacking and targeting the US, South Korean and Japanese officials. Similarly, the Russian cyber ops in western countries and particularly in Ukraine has showcased the effectiveness of cyber warfare in modern warfare. This potential of cyber warfare tactics has forced the RMA to integrate this with conventional forces to increase the force multiplier effect.

• Autonomy of Strategic Players: Non-State Actors (NSAs)

With the emergence of hybrid warfare, NSAs have gained strategic autonomy by becoming major players in global conflicts. Major NSAs like Hezbollah, Houthis, and ISIS have employed hybrid war fighting tactics like digital propaganda, guerilla warfare, and cyber ops. This provoked traditional militaries to develop and implement the concepts of counterinsurgency and hybrid military doctrines while broadening the horizon of RMA.

• From King to Kingmaker: Psychological Warfare

Psychological warfare is the most crucial and powerful pillar of hybrid warfare. The capabilities of psywar include fake news, manipulation of public perception, digital propaganda, and deep fakes. These aspects of psywar make it easier but time-demanding to alter public opinion in one’s favor along with undermining foundations of a government to submit. Since psywar is one of the oldest yet effective component of warfare, RMA has retaliated to this challenge via strong cyber infrastructure for military operations and counter-disinformation campaigns.

• Evolution of Military Doctrines and Force Structures

With the introduction of hybrid warfare, modern military doctrines have also been revised by incorporating multi-domain operations (MDO). MDO focuses on collaboration between space and cyber components of air, land, and sea. As a consequence, new initiatives can be witnessed. For instance, the military of United States has recently incorporated Joint All-Domain Command and Control System (JADC2). This system serves to increase and enhance the coordination between tri-forces via real-time information sharing.

Case Studies

1. Russia-Ukraine Conflict

• Annexation of Crimea (2014): Russia took the control of Crimea via combination of cyberattacks, information warfare, and little green men who were Russian military personnel.
• Cyber Warfare: Russia has been conducting continuous cyber-attacks on Ukrainian power plants, communication networks, and financial institutions which demonstrated the worth of cyber ops in any war.
• Disinformation Campaigns: Russia has been occupied in carrying out disinformation campaigns against Ukraine on a broader scale. Russian propaganda has undermined the Ukrainian national morale to fight back, induction of political instability within Ukraine, and creation of obstacles for global support to Ukraine.

2. Hezbollah’s Hybrid Warfare Strategy

• Conventional War Fighting: Hezbollah has been utilizing precision missiles and drones to attack Israel while it is using underground tunnels to take cover and minimize the damage from Israeli advanced weaponry.
• Psyops Via Media: Just like ISIS, Hezbollah used social media to recruit fighters, influence regional politics, and spread propaganda.
• Guerilla Warfare: Hezbollah is a conventionally weak group with limited resources and weaponry. But, they still manage to hit their enemy very hard and disperse rapidly. This showcases the importance of hybrid warfare in modern conflicts especially in conventional disparity cases.

Future of Nation States in Realm of Hybrid Warfare

1. Cyber and information warfare will dominate the future conflicts.
2. NSAs will play a significant role in global security.
3. Traditional militaries must look towards revolution in terms of multi-domain and adaptive strategies.
4. Continuous development of military doctrines is pertinent to tackle new, dynamic and emerging challenges.
5. States should invest in the domains of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cyber resilience to stay put with hybrid warfare challenges.

Conclusion

By posing new challenges and compelling military institutions to modify doctrines, tactics, and technologies, hybrid warfare has been instrumental in framing Revolutionary Military Affairs (RMA). A paradigm changes in military philosophy emerged from the blurring lines of distinctions between traditional fighting and contemporary conflicts due to the combination of cyber warfare, information operations, and guerilla warfare.

Hybrid tactics will continue to be a major force for military revolutions in the future as warfare evolves. It will impact the state warfare styles. It is recommended that states should negotiate the challenges of warfare while establishing rigid frameworks because world and its inhabitants are becoming more and more unpredictable with thwarting hybrid threats.