THIS PAPER PROVIDES a guide to Russian subversive warfare by examining, in detail, three tranches of leaked emails apparently belonging to Kremlin officials ─ including, primarily and critically, Vladislav Surkov, the man known as President Vladimir Putin’s ‘Rasputin’ ─ who have been closely involved with the Eastern Ukraine conflict, and in particular with the political and economic management of two statelets established by the Kremlin in Donetsk and Luhansk.1 In addition, it ...Read more >

The EU has embarked on a strategic reflection process which should result in a document called the Strategic Compass. It aims to update elements of the EU Global Strategy from 2016, while retaining a more focused and operational tilt. The Compass should clarify the EU’s assessment of the security environment, define the level of ambition in security and defence matters, and offer concrete tools and proposals to achieve that level of ambition.1 The Compass is set to be finalized during ...Read more >

Since Vladmir Putin s inauguration as Russia s president following the tumultuous tenure of Boris Yelsin, Russia has implemented a coordinated policy of conventional espionage measures, cyber intrusions, and information operations targeting the United States. Validated on the multi-domain battlefields and computer networks of vulnerable Baltic neighbors, Russia s active campaigns of intelligence and influence operations have caught the United States off-guard. Four successive U.S. presidential ...Read more >

The international security environment has in recent years evolved into a volatile and increasingly grey zone of war and peace. Security challenges arising from hybrid threats and hybrid warfare, henceforth HT&HW, are today high on security agendas across the globe. However, despite the attention, and a growing body of studies on specific issues, there is an imminent need for research bringing attention to how these challenges can be addressed in order to develop a comprehensive approach ...Read more >

The National Security Strategy (NSS) dictates America’s transition to “Great Power Competition.” While the 2017 NSS fails to define the term and uses it only once, the tone of the document is rife with its essential idea: The United States is no longer the hegemon and must operate in a global milieu of rising nations whose interests only sometimes align with the United States’ own. Within this context, the NSS dedicates itself to “preserv(ing) peace through strength.”[1] In no ...Read more >

The NATO Defense College fulfils its mission against the backdrop of world events and rising challenges to North Arlantic security. As the Alliance s primary academic institution, the College has made it its business to look beyond the apparent, and to take nothing for granted. The curriculum evolves along with the international security situation as it develops (and sometimes erupts). Those participating in our courses and events are thus faced ...Read more >

In 2018, CEPA examined Russia’s approach to nonlinear competition in its wellreceived report “Chaos as a Strategy: Putin’s ‘Promethean’ Gamble.”1 The report’s initial assessment was that Kremlin leaders were applying military and nonmilitary means as one in the same, that they were strategic in intention and opportunistic in their use of chaos, and that they were succeeding by effectively managing two of the most essential variables in their strategy: time and risk. ...Read more >

The so-called ‘Jasmine Revolution’ during the Arab Spring of 2011 challenged the political order in the Maghreb and the whole Middle East. While some of the protests led to actual regime changes and a move towards freedom and democracy – such as in Tunisia – events in other states in the region, such as Bahrain and Syria, had been less successful and saw the return of the ‘old order’ of autocratic governments. The collapse of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in ...Read more >

Are conventional wars or ‘war as we knew it’ over? A scan of recent conflicts, which are characterised by blurring lines between war and peace, state and non-state, regular and irregular, conventional and unconventional, seems to suggest so. An attempt to answer this question in binaries is fraught with complications. A positive proclamation would render a nation vulnerable to conventional ...Read more >

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. The committee meets today to examine the challenge posed by unconventional forms of warfare. A variety of terms are used to describe it: hybrid warfare, indirect warfare, the gray zone, and others. Americans are used to thinking of a binary state of either war or peace. That is the way our organizations, doctrine, and approaches are ...Read more >

Hybrid warfare is the synchronized use of multiple instruments of power tailored to specific vulnerabilities across the full spectrum of societal functions to achieve synergistic effects. The challenge presented by revisionist actors who exploit hybrid warfare has a broad impact across societies, national government and multinational institutions. The purpose of this handbook is to inform national and multinational ...Read more >

Mr. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member Mr. Smith, and distinguished members of the committee, it is an honor to appear again before you and speak on the threats facing our country. I thank you for this opportunity to participate and address the key challenges generated by the convergence of modes of warfare represented by hybrid threats and other forms of conflict. Our Joint forces must be ready and able to respond to challenges across the full spectrum of ...Read more >

In recent years, the topic of Hybrid Threats has dominated the security landscape in Europe. Whereas it may be considered a new topic by several stakeholders, in actual fact it is not. It is as old as conflict and warfare, but repackaged and empowered by changing security environment dynamics, new tools, concepts and technologies targeting vulnerabilities in several domains in an unprecedented ...Read more >

“Russia has dedicated their efforts over the last 20 years to two main areas: learning from their own conflicts in Chechnya and Georgia, and learning from our involvement in the Global War on Terror. The combination of these has resulted in focused modernization that began in earnest in 2008 designed to defeat U.S. systems, prevent effective command and control, and deny key weapon systems access to the battlefield. Now the onus is on the U.S. Army to look inward and determine how to ...Read more >

Tackling hybrid threats, particularly from state actors such as Russia and China, remains one of the greatest challenges for the transatlantic community. Hybrid threats have gained more traction among policymakers and publics across Europe and the United States, especially in a world with COVID-19. The recent coronavirus pandemic has thrust hybrid activities to the center of transatlantic debates. Both China and Russia capitalized on the crisis to wage ...Read more >