Mikael Weissmann
Swedish Defence University, Swedish Defence University Centre for Wargaming (CWG), Affiliated Researcher
Beskrivning om dig självDocent Dr Mikael Weissmann is a Senior Lecturer in Systems Science for Defence and Security in the Department of Systems Science for Defence and Security at the Swedish Defence University. He is also an Associate Professor in War Studies and an Affiliated Researcher at the Swedish Defence University Centre for Wargaming (CWG). He co-convenes the Hybrid Threats Research Group (HTRG) and serves as the Principal Investigator of the project “Building Resilience and Psychological Defence: Countering Hybrid Threats and Foreign Influence and Interference.”
Weissmann has previously held positions at, among others, the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI), the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), the University of Copenhagen, Stockholm University, Uppsala University, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). He has been a visiting fellow at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (Serbia), the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), the University of Warwick (United Kingdom), and at Peking University, Renmin University, and China Foreign Affairs University (China).
Weissmann is the lead editor for the books Advanced Land Warfare: Tactics and Operations (Oxford University Press, 2023), Hybrid Warfare: Security and Asymmetric Conflict in International Relations (I.B. Tauris, 2021), and Russia’s War in Ukraine and Modern Warfare (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and for two special issues in Asian Perspective (2019) and Asian Survey (2015). He is also co-editor of the book Russian Warfare and Influence: States in the Intersection between the East and West (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024). His work has appeared in journals like International Affairs, the Journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences, Washington Quarterly, Defence Studies, Asian Survey, and Asian Perspective. Weissmann is also the author of the monograph The East Asian Peace: Conflict Prevention and Informal Peacebuilding (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
Weissmann’s research focuses on Security, Strategy and Intelligence. His work is structured around six themes:
1) Hybrid Threats
2) Resilience & Psychological Defence
3) Intelligence analysis
4) Technology & Defence
5) Modern Warfare
6) China and the Indo-Pacific
In addition, Weissmann is interested in Teaching & Learning within Professional Military Education (PME), particularly practical and scenario-based exercises and assessments with special emphasis on staff rides and wargames.
He currently pursues research in a number of areas, including:
- Hybrid threats and whole-of-society defence, focusing on foreign influence and interference.
- Psychological Defence, focusing on the building resilience and psychological defence
- Intelligence Analysis, particularly the role of AI and the private sector and the dissemination of intelligence in the information environment in Strategic Early Warning.
- Technology and Defence, focusing on military innovation and the role of AI and autonomous systems in warfare.
- Russian Warfare and Influence, with a particular interest in Ukraine, the Balkans and Central Asia.
- Military Operations and Tactics, in particularly Urban Warfare and the ole of technology.
- China’s foreign policy and role in the world (including its role in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Global South, and the implication of the second Trump Administration).
- Security and Strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
- Foreign Influence and Local Adaptation in Post-Colonial States under Great-Power Influence (focusing on Central Asia and the Middle Corridor).
- Teaching & Learning in PME, focusing on staff rides, wargames, and scenario-based learning approaches.
Weissmann has previously held positions at, among others, the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI), the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), the University of Copenhagen, Stockholm University, Uppsala University, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). He has been a visiting fellow at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (Serbia), the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), the University of Warwick (United Kingdom), and at Peking University, Renmin University, and China Foreign Affairs University (China).
Weissmann is the lead editor for the books Advanced Land Warfare: Tactics and Operations (Oxford University Press, 2023), Hybrid Warfare: Security and Asymmetric Conflict in International Relations (I.B. Tauris, 2021), and Russia’s War in Ukraine and Modern Warfare (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and for two special issues in Asian Perspective (2019) and Asian Survey (2015). He is also co-editor of the book Russian Warfare and Influence: States in the Intersection between the East and West (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024). His work has appeared in journals like International Affairs, the Journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences, Washington Quarterly, Defence Studies, Asian Survey, and Asian Perspective. Weissmann is also the author of the monograph The East Asian Peace: Conflict Prevention and Informal Peacebuilding (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
Weissmann’s research focuses on Security, Strategy and Intelligence. His work is structured around six themes:
1) Hybrid Threats
2) Resilience & Psychological Defence
3) Intelligence analysis
4) Technology & Defence
5) Modern Warfare
6) China and the Indo-Pacific
In addition, Weissmann is interested in Teaching & Learning within Professional Military Education (PME), particularly practical and scenario-based exercises and assessments with special emphasis on staff rides and wargames.
He currently pursues research in a number of areas, including:
- Hybrid threats and whole-of-society defence, focusing on foreign influence and interference.
- Psychological Defence, focusing on the building resilience and psychological defence
- Intelligence Analysis, particularly the role of AI and the private sector and the dissemination of intelligence in the information environment in Strategic Early Warning.
- Technology and Defence, focusing on military innovation and the role of AI and autonomous systems in warfare.
- Russian Warfare and Influence, with a particular interest in Ukraine, the Balkans and Central Asia.
- Military Operations and Tactics, in particularly Urban Warfare and the ole of technology.
- China’s foreign policy and role in the world (including its role in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Global South, and the implication of the second Trump Administration).
- Security and Strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
- Foreign Influence and Local Adaptation in Post-Colonial States under Great-Power Influence (focusing on Central Asia and the Middle Corridor).
- Teaching & Learning in PME, focusing on staff rides, wargames, and scenario-based learning approaches.
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This chapter outlines the findings and implications of the case studies. It concludes with a perspective, which must remain speculative at this point in time, on how the war in Ukraine and its future trajectory may affect Russia’s 184continued capacity for exercising external influence in states located at the intersection of the East and West.
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that Russia is both prepared to go further in retaining its influence and domination in its ‘near abroad’, and to accept larger risks in this regard, than previously anticipated. Moreover, the preparations, 2planning and conduct of the Russian operation have revealed surprising degrees of incompetence and strategic miscalculation, and therefore of recklessness, which has served to alter the conceptions of deterrence previously applied. Previous instances of post-1991 Russian warfare abroad, in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine, were all delimited in scope, utilizing a controlled amount of force in operations designed to avoid triggering third-party involvement and unwanted escalation. Yet as an effect of its failure to subdue Ukraine, and the significance of Western military support in this regard, the Russian regime now claims to be at war with NATO. And while the Russian regime likely understands that this is not really the case and what a war with NATO would actually imply, escalation beyond Ukraine is a scenario that remains unlikely but whose consequences would be too serious to ignore.
However, while its engagement in Ukraine makes Russian military adventurism elsewhere unlikely at present, there is an extensive catalogue of other measures that Russia can employ in its conflict with the West. These capabilities have not receded to the same extent as Russia’s military capability and the risk of more brazen actions against states other than Ukraine grows in tow with the Russian regime’s desperation and the increasing threat to the longevity of the regime. A recent example is the apparent attempt to stage a coup in Moldova, disclosed in February 2023. Many of these are well known and have frequently been discussed in terms of a strategy of hybrid warfare or hybrid threats emanating from Russia (along with a whole range of similar but not synonymous terms).[1]
While the conflict with Russia warrants extensive rethinking and funding of defensive capabilities, military and civilian, across the West, nowhere is this conflict felt more acutely than in the states geographically located at the intersection between Russia and the West. Moreover, these states have considerably longer experience in managing the implications of ‘living close to’ Russia than their counterparts located further away from Russia. In this context, the states emerging after the break-up of the USSR have followed radically different trajectories in their foreign and domestic policies, and they have developed diverse relations with Russia along with the former imperial power’s increasingly assertive external policies.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
The handbook is laid out as follows: firstly, a presentation of the historical background to staff rides, along with a discussion of what a staff ride is and what types exist. Secondly, the focus moves to thoughts on planning and implementing a staff ride, in which we discuss the planning phase, lessons learned regarding the use of reconnaissance prior to implementation, and thoughts concerning the pedagogical aspect to the staff ride. Finally, the handbook closes with a discussion on how to plan and implement staff rides, both from practical and pedagogical perspectives. Here a schematic model is presented on the pedagogical dynamics of a staff ride as regards various target groups, based on their understanding and the varying complexities of staff rides.
To be able to build resilience and psychological defence, a shared analytical framework is needed, which provides a broader and more inclusive nation-state perspective than existing frameworks. The framework outlined in this paper is intended to be a starting point for analysis, usable for government and non-government actors alike. It aims to serve as a platform for addressing different dimensions of hybrid threats and malign foreign influence and interference. It also provides tools for comparing and analysing the dimensions within and across cases. The formation of responses to foreign interference should be seen as a process consisting of three distinct phases: 1) assessing situational awareness; 2) addressing defence and countermeasures; and 3) evaluating the state’s system for countering foreign interference.
This framework serves as the basis for the development of a practical analytical guidebook that is built to be modular, where one can pick and choose depending on own needs and questions asked. It is also developed to be suitable for both more structured analysis as well as less structured qualitative analysis. The guidebook is simplified into an analytical template that can be used as a readily available checklist for users.
Thereafter, the chapter presents two schematic models; the first locates land forces in the broader operating environment by outlining how the strategic environment, conflict intensity, interoperability, and multi-domain operations are constitutive enablers and/or constraints to activities in the land domain. The second outlines how the capabilities of forces in the land domain need to be understood as a function of the interaction between own capabilities, the adversary, the human- and physical terrain, and the information environment. The multidimensional demands placed on land forces in contemporary and future operational environments necessitate a conscious multi-pronged approach to the development of land warfare capabilities, aimed at gaining a versatile edge on tomorrow’s battlefields. In turn, this concerns both the build-up and construction of capabilities, and the means by which they are deployed and utilized in future conflict. The chapter argues that the achievement of versatility should be a crucial aim of contemporary land forces. As outlined in the integrated versatility model, versatility builds on two interrelated and mutually reinforcing qualities in a military organization, adaptability and flexibility. Together, they compose the underlying preconditions for truly versatile land forces.
Advanced Land Warfare explores the evolving role of land forces, paying particular attention to the changes that have taken place in the art of commanding and executing combat, as well as the role of rapid technological innovation and information dissemination in shaping warfare. The book provides insights into key contemporary developments in land warfare and presents case studies on land tactics and operations in different national contexts, drawing on the best of theory, practice, and professional experience and featuring chapters written by leading international scholars and practitioners. Relating to the realities of the modern battlefield, the book addresses a number of critical questions about land tactics and operations, combining a conceptual basis with empirical examples of tactical thinking and practice and emphasising the importance of understanding the perspectives of various national armies, in order to provide a current understanding of the central issues of land warfare.
An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence.
The article is organized as follows: first, the article gives a short overview of the history of staff rides, followed by a discussion on different types of staff rides. Then the focus shifts to ways to planning and carrying out a staff-ride. This includes the planning phase, reconnaissance, and the different pedagogical tools that can be used and their implementation. The article concludes with a discussion of how to think when planning and carrying out a staff rides, both practically and pedagogically. The article here presented a schematic model of the pedagogical dynamics of the staff ride for different target groups based on their pre-understanding and the complexity of different field exercises.
The book covers numerous aspects of current Hybrid Warfare discourses including a discussion of the perspectives of key western actors such as NATO, the US and the EU; an analysis of Russia and China’s Hybrid Warfare capabilities; and the growing threat of cyberwarfare. A range of global case studies – featuring specific examples from the Baltics, Taiwan, Ukraine, Iran and Catalonia – are drawn upon to demonstrate the employment of Hybrid Warfare tactics and how they have been countered in practice. Finally, the editors propose a new method through which to understand the dynamics of Hybrid Threats, Warfare and their countermeasures, termed the ‘Hybridity Blizzard Model’. With a focus on practitioner insight and practicable International Relations theory, this volume is an essential guide to identifying, analysing and countering Hybrid Threats and Warfare.
This focus puts the spotlight on the nature of the threats and adversaries and the challenges they pose to Western democracies. However, it fundamentally boils down to the question of the capacity in Western-style democracies and Western security institutions to confront HT&HW, by comprehending the particular vulnerabilities in their societies and addressing them, as well as devising responses to hostile measures by external actors. The particular vulnerabilities and limitations, as well as advantages of Western democracies, call for particular approaches in this environment. Open societies built on the normative foundations of the rule of law, human rights and democracy, necessarily protective of the freedoms of speech, association and the press, need to devise solutions that not only preserve these fundamental freedoms but also draw on their particular strengths. As has been demonstrated in previous chapters, this work is well underway, in the form of numerous entities tasked with analysing and addressing the problem.
264
Against the backdrop of the existing overload of overlapping concepts coined or reintroduced to capture the nature of the contemporary security environment, and the controversy surrounding their use, the volume has refrained from attempts to invent new labels or engage at length with the conceptual debate. Instead, we have settled for the use of HT&HW as unifying themes for the volume in an attempt to move the discussion away from how phenomena are supposed to be termed to how they can be understood and addressed. As demonstrated by the range of contributions, there is undoubtedly much to be said on this topic. In this light, a particular contribution of the volume is the unified effort of academic scholars and practitioners, from different fields, to provide a common perspective on HT&HW, based on experiences from a wide set of empirical contexts.
For this purpose, the volume was structured into three parts, each providing a distinct perspective on HT&HW. This was intended not only to allow scholars and practitioners, as well as thematically and area-focused authors, equal chance to present their perspectives in their own right. The aim was also to create synergy effects between the different areas of expertise.
The first part gathered perspectives of key Western collective security actors represented by the two international organizations with primary responsibility for upholding the Western security community, NATO and the EU, as well as the single largest and most influential security actor, the United States. With a common point of departure in Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, all three actors have faced a necessary reevaluation of their conceptualizations of adversaries, threats and countermeasures. Indeed, the key challenge posed by the events in 2014 was the ambiguity and obscurity of events taking place on the ground, raising serious questions regarding if, when and how to respond to similar attacks against NATO or EU members, below the threshold of actual armed attack. Both NATO and the EU have since devised a series of detection and response mechanisms focused on providing early warning and attribution of aggressive actions, as well as deterrence and retaliation. The reactions can be summarized as a common realization of previously unidentified weaknesses in Western societies and joint efforts to close these gaps.
Given the composite nature of the threats at hand, the responses need to be organized according to the same principles, integrating societal sectors as well as states. Another important takeaway from these chapters is the importance of knowing your adversary. Whereas identifying and attributing threats produces reactive responses, proactively addressing existing vulnerabilities in order to build resilience requires awareness not only of what an adversary does but also why. In this regard, it becomes pertinent to view the world through the adversary’s eyes in order to identify strategic objectives and ways to achieve them as well as the adversary’s vulnerabilities.
The validity of this perspective becomes particularly salient in the second part focused on the tools and means employed to conduct and counter-hybrid warfare. Indeed, the analyses of the approaches of major actors associated with HT&HW in a Western perspective, Russia and China, reveal that the conceptual overstretch accompanying these labels, considered a problem in the Western debate, instead functions as an asset in the strategic thinking of these challengers to the Western security order. In Russia, gibridnaya voina, with its inherent assumption that most of the West’s international activity aims to undermine Russia one way or another, functions as a rhetorical 265device for identifying domestic or external threats and interpreting these as parts of the West’s concerted offensive against Russia. In Chinese writings on the topic, the range of methods associated with HT&HW amount to a comprehensive, cross-domain spectrum denoting perceptions on threat, response and operationalization of hybrid warfare. These increasingly fluctuating borders between the different means associated with HT&HW are apparent in the analyses of information, cyber, intelligence capabilities and the military – indeed, it is questionable to what extent binary divisions into military/non-military or kinetic/non-kinetic means make sense in the current security environment. All the more so since binary thinking regarding the threat risks reproducing itself into the response, thus counteracting the proactive, comprehensive societal approaches deemed necessary to counter HT&HW.
This point is further va lidated by the contributions in the third section, presenting case studies of the United States, Taiwan, the Baltic States, Ukraine, Iran and Catalonia – demonstrating how the tools and means of HT&HW have been put to use and countered in a diverse set of empirical contexts. The problem of defending against adversaries and hostile actions that – very consciously – operate in the grey zone, below the threshold of actual war, is a recurring theme in these studies. And even if deterrent capabilities in the sense of military force may be very strong, as in the case of the United States, divided responsibilities between civilian agencies and the military, based on perhaps outdated understandings of war and peace, place limitations on the ability to respond. The contrast could not be more apparent when compared to China’s policies against Taiwan, which amount to a concerted, sophisticated and strategic combination of means, which nevertheless does not (presently) include the active use of military force.
The point that strategies involving HT&HW are enacted out of a perceived necessity to challenge Western military supremacy by other means is underscored by the example of Iran, which has, due to the perceived existential threat posed by the United States, devised a strategy of guerrilla warfare, in large part performed by proxy forces and in areas outside Iran’s territory. In Spain, a concerted Russian information campaign aiming to fuel and broaden national divisions over the Catalonian referendum is a clear example of how actors employing HT&HW seek out and attack vulnerabilities in target countries that are nevertheless pre-existing and do not emerge primarily as an effect of external influence or aggression.
Finally, the case studies also include (at least partially) successful examples of countermeasures against hybrid warfare. In the Baltics, the relatively low level of Russian hybrid activity is attributed partially to the low priority given to the Baltic States in Russian foreign policy, but also to a largely successful deterrence strategy combining military means and broad deterrence by denial below the threshold of an armed attack. Ukraine has, in the midst of an armed but covert attack against the country, proved capable of combining a conventional military response with a sustained informational campaign that has, despite the severe losses incurred, served to expose Russia as the aggressor and consolidated domestic cohesion as well as international support for the country.
The result is a comprehensive view of what may be termed ‘hybridity’ that, rather than a static picture of actions and responses, provides a cross-sectional and cross-temporal understanding of the interaction between actors, threats, responses and results. Hybridity is a suitable label, having been used in the social sciences ‘to 266designate processes in which discrete social practices or structures, that existed in separate ways, combine to generate new structures, objects, and practices in which the preceding elements mix’.[1] Modelled below, the Hybridity Blizzard Model provides a picture of how ongoing or potential adversarial hybrid measures and responses to these dynamically impact long-term societal vulnerabilities and resilience.
To counter HT&HW, there is a need for a range of actors to work together and use the full range of tools at their disposal. This chapter focuses on one part of the toolbox for countering HT&HW: the military. What role, if any, can and should the military play against hybrid scenarios such as the presence of green men, infrastructure and logistics protection, cyber defence, information and influence operations, or simply in support of civil society?
It is crucial to understand the role of the military in the grey zone. Unless HT&HW can be successfully handled there, the war is likely to have been lost before a conventional war breaks out. Sun Zsu’s age-old wisdom that ‘[t]he greatest victory is that which requires no battle’ is as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. This is also a wisdom encapsulated in Russia’s style of warfare which ‘combines the political, economic, social and kinetic in a conflict that recognizes no boundaries between civilian and combatant, covert and overt, war and peace . . . [where] achieving victory – however that may be defined – permits and demands whatever means will be successful’.[4]
In other words, when preparing for a conventional high-intensity conflict towards a qualified opponent, you are preparing for a situation that will not happen if your opponent succeeds wi th its strategy. Thus, it is of paramount importance to analyse and understand what role the military can and should play in responding to HT&HW today and in the future. The important thing is not if or how the military should contribute, but to allow for making informed decisions and to know what the consequences are with one’s choices. Or lack of choices; not choosing is also a choice. It might be that the sole role for the military is to fight during a conventional war – but then this decision should be taken based on well-informed analysis.
The overarching question guiding this chapter is ‘Where do the military fit in when countering HT&HW?’ More specifically, it is asked, ‘What is the role of the military – if any – to counter HT&HW?’. This chapter focus on the role of the military in Western democracies in the Baltic Sea region (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany). With its focus on the Baltic Sea region, the chapter will focus on analysing HT&HW relating to Russia. The reason for this limitation is that Russia is identified as the main threat in the threat assessments across the countries in the Baltic Sea region.[5] This is not to say there are no other actors active in the region, but the key actor is nevertheless Russia.
The analysis is conducted using a proposed analytical framework outlining seven dimensions of HT&HW. Using this framework, it will first be analysed what role the military have today and in the future across the Baltic Sea region. After that, it will be asked what role the military should have in the future according to the members of the military themselves. Here Sweden is used as a case study and structured interviews are conducted with senior officers. The latter dimension is important as it allows to better understand what the profession itself thinks about their role and responsibilities. If able to identify possible discrepancies between the officer’s perception and the official strategy, it is possible to enhance ones’ ability to operationalize and implement the strategy successfully. One should also note that as a collective, the officer corps can be expected to have shared insight and knowledge on their capabilities, or lack of the same, which if taken into consideration may enhance the ability to defence against HT&HW.
The chapter is structured as follows. First, the two concepts in focus – HT&HW – will be presented and defined. In the following section, the concepts will be operationalized, and an analytical framework of HT&HW that draws together existing Western thinking and the understandings in military and policy frameworks is proposed. Thereafter, the proposed framework is discussed and contrasted with the Russian approach to HT&HW. In section three, the existing official discourse on how the military fit in the context of HT&HW among countries in the Baltic Sea region will be analysed. This is followed, in section four, with a case study analysing what role the members of the military themselves think it should have. The case used is Sweden, and the analysis builds on structured interviews with eighty-two senior officers.
Over time the grey zone between peace and war has grown considerably, underscoring the necessity of understanding hybrid warfare and related threats. Russia’s actions in Ukraine have manifested this paradigm, being a good example of the problem in thinking about war and peace as binary categories. How does a country or group of countries deal with threats and aggression in this grey area, such as ‘little green men’ that appear in uniform but without national denomination and refuse to tell where they come from, election-influenced operations or cyberattacks, to mention but a few possible actions.
By uniting the knowledge of both practitioners and scholars, the volume aims to identify the existing tools for countering HT&HW, as well as experiences from a wide set of empirical contexts. Mirroring this, the project is a cross-sector collaboration between the Department of Military Studies and the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies (CATS) at the Swedish Defence University. The former represents an academic environment where research and teaching are intertwined in a range of subjects 2including War Studies, Military Technology and Military History. The latter is a national centre within the Swedish Defence University tasked with developing and disseminating knowledge about asymmetric threats within the context of societal security and resilience.
This volume focuses on the challenge posed by HT&HW to Western democracies, and their ability to address it. Western democracies are not only the type of states most frequently targeted by hybrid measures, but also the most vulnerable. By virtue of being open, pluralistic and liberal societies with freedom of the press and rule of law, Western democracies display both inherent weaknesses that can be targeted and inherent constraints – in particular through the rule of law and basic freedoms – that limit the scope for defensive actions. These vulnerabilities are increasingly recognized by Western governments, which have developed a range of entities to address them, although coordination in many instances remains weak. The later sections outline the growing significance of HT&HW on the security agendas of Western democracies and the challenges they imply, as well as the entities these states have established in response. Although neither list is complete, they provide an overview of the current situation. The final sections provide an outline of the volume’s structure and a summary of each chapter.
This chapter outlines the findings and implications of the case studies. It concludes with a perspective, which must remain speculative at this point in time, on how the war in Ukraine and its future trajectory may affect Russia’s 184continued capacity for exercising external influence in states located at the intersection of the East and West.
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that Russia is both prepared to go further in retaining its influence and domination in its ‘near abroad’, and to accept larger risks in this regard, than previously anticipated. Moreover, the preparations, 2planning and conduct of the Russian operation have revealed surprising degrees of incompetence and strategic miscalculation, and therefore of recklessness, which has served to alter the conceptions of deterrence previously applied. Previous instances of post-1991 Russian warfare abroad, in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine, were all delimited in scope, utilizing a controlled amount of force in operations designed to avoid triggering third-party involvement and unwanted escalation. Yet as an effect of its failure to subdue Ukraine, and the significance of Western military support in this regard, the Russian regime now claims to be at war with NATO. And while the Russian regime likely understands that this is not really the case and what a war with NATO would actually imply, escalation beyond Ukraine is a scenario that remains unlikely but whose consequences would be too serious to ignore.
However, while its engagement in Ukraine makes Russian military adventurism elsewhere unlikely at present, there is an extensive catalogue of other measures that Russia can employ in its conflict with the West. These capabilities have not receded to the same extent as Russia’s military capability and the risk of more brazen actions against states other than Ukraine grows in tow with the Russian regime’s desperation and the increasing threat to the longevity of the regime. A recent example is the apparent attempt to stage a coup in Moldova, disclosed in February 2023. Many of these are well known and have frequently been discussed in terms of a strategy of hybrid warfare or hybrid threats emanating from Russia (along with a whole range of similar but not synonymous terms).[1]
While the conflict with Russia warrants extensive rethinking and funding of defensive capabilities, military and civilian, across the West, nowhere is this conflict felt more acutely than in the states geographically located at the intersection between Russia and the West. Moreover, these states have considerably longer experience in managing the implications of ‘living close to’ Russia than their counterparts located further away from Russia. In this context, the states emerging after the break-up of the USSR have followed radically different trajectories in their foreign and domestic policies, and they have developed diverse relations with Russia along with the former imperial power’s increasingly assertive external policies.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
The handbook is laid out as follows: firstly, a presentation of the historical background to staff rides, along with a discussion of what a staff ride is and what types exist. Secondly, the focus moves to thoughts on planning and implementing a staff ride, in which we discuss the planning phase, lessons learned regarding the use of reconnaissance prior to implementation, and thoughts concerning the pedagogical aspect to the staff ride. Finally, the handbook closes with a discussion on how to plan and implement staff rides, both from practical and pedagogical perspectives. Here a schematic model is presented on the pedagogical dynamics of a staff ride as regards various target groups, based on their understanding and the varying complexities of staff rides.
To be able to build resilience and psychological defence, a shared analytical framework is needed, which provides a broader and more inclusive nation-state perspective than existing frameworks. The framework outlined in this paper is intended to be a starting point for analysis, usable for government and non-government actors alike. It aims to serve as a platform for addressing different dimensions of hybrid threats and malign foreign influence and interference. It also provides tools for comparing and analysing the dimensions within and across cases. The formation of responses to foreign interference should be seen as a process consisting of three distinct phases: 1) assessing situational awareness; 2) addressing defence and countermeasures; and 3) evaluating the state’s system for countering foreign interference.
This framework serves as the basis for the development of a practical analytical guidebook that is built to be modular, where one can pick and choose depending on own needs and questions asked. It is also developed to be suitable for both more structured analysis as well as less structured qualitative analysis. The guidebook is simplified into an analytical template that can be used as a readily available checklist for users.
Thereafter, the chapter presents two schematic models; the first locates land forces in the broader operating environment by outlining how the strategic environment, conflict intensity, interoperability, and multi-domain operations are constitutive enablers and/or constraints to activities in the land domain. The second outlines how the capabilities of forces in the land domain need to be understood as a function of the interaction between own capabilities, the adversary, the human- and physical terrain, and the information environment. The multidimensional demands placed on land forces in contemporary and future operational environments necessitate a conscious multi-pronged approach to the development of land warfare capabilities, aimed at gaining a versatile edge on tomorrow’s battlefields. In turn, this concerns both the build-up and construction of capabilities, and the means by which they are deployed and utilized in future conflict. The chapter argues that the achievement of versatility should be a crucial aim of contemporary land forces. As outlined in the integrated versatility model, versatility builds on two interrelated and mutually reinforcing qualities in a military organization, adaptability and flexibility. Together, they compose the underlying preconditions for truly versatile land forces.
Advanced Land Warfare explores the evolving role of land forces, paying particular attention to the changes that have taken place in the art of commanding and executing combat, as well as the role of rapid technological innovation and information dissemination in shaping warfare. The book provides insights into key contemporary developments in land warfare and presents case studies on land tactics and operations in different national contexts, drawing on the best of theory, practice, and professional experience and featuring chapters written by leading international scholars and practitioners. Relating to the realities of the modern battlefield, the book addresses a number of critical questions about land tactics and operations, combining a conceptual basis with empirical examples of tactical thinking and practice and emphasising the importance of understanding the perspectives of various national armies, in order to provide a current understanding of the central issues of land warfare.
An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence.
The article is organized as follows: first, the article gives a short overview of the history of staff rides, followed by a discussion on different types of staff rides. Then the focus shifts to ways to planning and carrying out a staff-ride. This includes the planning phase, reconnaissance, and the different pedagogical tools that can be used and their implementation. The article concludes with a discussion of how to think when planning and carrying out a staff rides, both practically and pedagogically. The article here presented a schematic model of the pedagogical dynamics of the staff ride for different target groups based on their pre-understanding and the complexity of different field exercises.
The book covers numerous aspects of current Hybrid Warfare discourses including a discussion of the perspectives of key western actors such as NATO, the US and the EU; an analysis of Russia and China’s Hybrid Warfare capabilities; and the growing threat of cyberwarfare. A range of global case studies – featuring specific examples from the Baltics, Taiwan, Ukraine, Iran and Catalonia – are drawn upon to demonstrate the employment of Hybrid Warfare tactics and how they have been countered in practice. Finally, the editors propose a new method through which to understand the dynamics of Hybrid Threats, Warfare and their countermeasures, termed the ‘Hybridity Blizzard Model’. With a focus on practitioner insight and practicable International Relations theory, this volume is an essential guide to identifying, analysing and countering Hybrid Threats and Warfare.
This focus puts the spotlight on the nature of the threats and adversaries and the challenges they pose to Western democracies. However, it fundamentally boils down to the question of the capacity in Western-style democracies and Western security institutions to confront HT&HW, by comprehending the particular vulnerabilities in their societies and addressing them, as well as devising responses to hostile measures by external actors. The particular vulnerabilities and limitations, as well as advantages of Western democracies, call for particular approaches in this environment. Open societies built on the normative foundations of the rule of law, human rights and democracy, necessarily protective of the freedoms of speech, association and the press, need to devise solutions that not only preserve these fundamental freedoms but also draw on their particular strengths. As has been demonstrated in previous chapters, this work is well underway, in the form of numerous entities tasked with analysing and addressing the problem.
264
Against the backdrop of the existing overload of overlapping concepts coined or reintroduced to capture the nature of the contemporary security environment, and the controversy surrounding their use, the volume has refrained from attempts to invent new labels or engage at length with the conceptual debate. Instead, we have settled for the use of HT&HW as unifying themes for the volume in an attempt to move the discussion away from how phenomena are supposed to be termed to how they can be understood and addressed. As demonstrated by the range of contributions, there is undoubtedly much to be said on this topic. In this light, a particular contribution of the volume is the unified effort of academic scholars and practitioners, from different fields, to provide a common perspective on HT&HW, based on experiences from a wide set of empirical contexts.
For this purpose, the volume was structured into three parts, each providing a distinct perspective on HT&HW. This was intended not only to allow scholars and practitioners, as well as thematically and area-focused authors, equal chance to present their perspectives in their own right. The aim was also to create synergy effects between the different areas of expertise.
The first part gathered perspectives of key Western collective security actors represented by the two international organizations with primary responsibility for upholding the Western security community, NATO and the EU, as well as the single largest and most influential security actor, the United States. With a common point of departure in Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, all three actors have faced a necessary reevaluation of their conceptualizations of adversaries, threats and countermeasures. Indeed, the key challenge posed by the events in 2014 was the ambiguity and obscurity of events taking place on the ground, raising serious questions regarding if, when and how to respond to similar attacks against NATO or EU members, below the threshold of actual armed attack. Both NATO and the EU have since devised a series of detection and response mechanisms focused on providing early warning and attribution of aggressive actions, as well as deterrence and retaliation. The reactions can be summarized as a common realization of previously unidentified weaknesses in Western societies and joint efforts to close these gaps.
Given the composite nature of the threats at hand, the responses need to be organized according to the same principles, integrating societal sectors as well as states. Another important takeaway from these chapters is the importance of knowing your adversary. Whereas identifying and attributing threats produces reactive responses, proactively addressing existing vulnerabilities in order to build resilience requires awareness not only of what an adversary does but also why. In this regard, it becomes pertinent to view the world through the adversary’s eyes in order to identify strategic objectives and ways to achieve them as well as the adversary’s vulnerabilities.
The validity of this perspective becomes particularly salient in the second part focused on the tools and means employed to conduct and counter-hybrid warfare. Indeed, the analyses of the approaches of major actors associated with HT&HW in a Western perspective, Russia and China, reveal that the conceptual overstretch accompanying these labels, considered a problem in the Western debate, instead functions as an asset in the strategic thinking of these challengers to the Western security order. In Russia, gibridnaya voina, with its inherent assumption that most of the West’s international activity aims to undermine Russia one way or another, functions as a rhetorical 265device for identifying domestic or external threats and interpreting these as parts of the West’s concerted offensive against Russia. In Chinese writings on the topic, the range of methods associated with HT&HW amount to a comprehensive, cross-domain spectrum denoting perceptions on threat, response and operationalization of hybrid warfare. These increasingly fluctuating borders between the different means associated with HT&HW are apparent in the analyses of information, cyber, intelligence capabilities and the military – indeed, it is questionable to what extent binary divisions into military/non-military or kinetic/non-kinetic means make sense in the current security environment. All the more so since binary thinking regarding the threat risks reproducing itself into the response, thus counteracting the proactive, comprehensive societal approaches deemed necessary to counter HT&HW.
This point is further va lidated by the contributions in the third section, presenting case studies of the United States, Taiwan, the Baltic States, Ukraine, Iran and Catalonia – demonstrating how the tools and means of HT&HW have been put to use and countered in a diverse set of empirical contexts. The problem of defending against adversaries and hostile actions that – very consciously – operate in the grey zone, below the threshold of actual war, is a recurring theme in these studies. And even if deterrent capabilities in the sense of military force may be very strong, as in the case of the United States, divided responsibilities between civilian agencies and the military, based on perhaps outdated understandings of war and peace, place limitations on the ability to respond. The contrast could not be more apparent when compared to China’s policies against Taiwan, which amount to a concerted, sophisticated and strategic combination of means, which nevertheless does not (presently) include the active use of military force.
The point that strategies involving HT&HW are enacted out of a perceived necessity to challenge Western military supremacy by other means is underscored by the example of Iran, which has, due to the perceived existential threat posed by the United States, devised a strategy of guerrilla warfare, in large part performed by proxy forces and in areas outside Iran’s territory. In Spain, a concerted Russian information campaign aiming to fuel and broaden national divisions over the Catalonian referendum is a clear example of how actors employing HT&HW seek out and attack vulnerabilities in target countries that are nevertheless pre-existing and do not emerge primarily as an effect of external influence or aggression.
Finally, the case studies also include (at least partially) successful examples of countermeasures against hybrid warfare. In the Baltics, the relatively low level of Russian hybrid activity is attributed partially to the low priority given to the Baltic States in Russian foreign policy, but also to a largely successful deterrence strategy combining military means and broad deterrence by denial below the threshold of an armed attack. Ukraine has, in the midst of an armed but covert attack against the country, proved capable of combining a conventional military response with a sustained informational campaign that has, despite the severe losses incurred, served to expose Russia as the aggressor and consolidated domestic cohesion as well as international support for the country.
The result is a comprehensive view of what may be termed ‘hybridity’ that, rather than a static picture of actions and responses, provides a cross-sectional and cross-temporal understanding of the interaction between actors, threats, responses and results. Hybridity is a suitable label, having been used in the social sciences ‘to 266designate processes in which discrete social practices or structures, that existed in separate ways, combine to generate new structures, objects, and practices in which the preceding elements mix’.[1] Modelled below, the Hybridity Blizzard Model provides a picture of how ongoing or potential adversarial hybrid measures and responses to these dynamically impact long-term societal vulnerabilities and resilience.
To counter HT&HW, there is a need for a range of actors to work together and use the full range of tools at their disposal. This chapter focuses on one part of the toolbox for countering HT&HW: the military. What role, if any, can and should the military play against hybrid scenarios such as the presence of green men, infrastructure and logistics protection, cyber defence, information and influence operations, or simply in support of civil society?
It is crucial to understand the role of the military in the grey zone. Unless HT&HW can be successfully handled there, the war is likely to have been lost before a conventional war breaks out. Sun Zsu’s age-old wisdom that ‘[t]he greatest victory is that which requires no battle’ is as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. This is also a wisdom encapsulated in Russia’s style of warfare which ‘combines the political, economic, social and kinetic in a conflict that recognizes no boundaries between civilian and combatant, covert and overt, war and peace . . . [where] achieving victory – however that may be defined – permits and demands whatever means will be successful’.[4]
In other words, when preparing for a conventional high-intensity conflict towards a qualified opponent, you are preparing for a situation that will not happen if your opponent succeeds wi th its strategy. Thus, it is of paramount importance to analyse and understand what role the military can and should play in responding to HT&HW today and in the future. The important thing is not if or how the military should contribute, but to allow for making informed decisions and to know what the consequences are with one’s choices. Or lack of choices; not choosing is also a choice. It might be that the sole role for the military is to fight during a conventional war – but then this decision should be taken based on well-informed analysis.
The overarching question guiding this chapter is ‘Where do the military fit in when countering HT&HW?’ More specifically, it is asked, ‘What is the role of the military – if any – to counter HT&HW?’. This chapter focus on the role of the military in Western democracies in the Baltic Sea region (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany). With its focus on the Baltic Sea region, the chapter will focus on analysing HT&HW relating to Russia. The reason for this limitation is that Russia is identified as the main threat in the threat assessments across the countries in the Baltic Sea region.[5] This is not to say there are no other actors active in the region, but the key actor is nevertheless Russia.
The analysis is conducted using a proposed analytical framework outlining seven dimensions of HT&HW. Using this framework, it will first be analysed what role the military have today and in the future across the Baltic Sea region. After that, it will be asked what role the military should have in the future according to the members of the military themselves. Here Sweden is used as a case study and structured interviews are conducted with senior officers. The latter dimension is important as it allows to better understand what the profession itself thinks about their role and responsibilities. If able to identify possible discrepancies between the officer’s perception and the official strategy, it is possible to enhance ones’ ability to operationalize and implement the strategy successfully. One should also note that as a collective, the officer corps can be expected to have shared insight and knowledge on their capabilities, or lack of the same, which if taken into consideration may enhance the ability to defence against HT&HW.
The chapter is structured as follows. First, the two concepts in focus – HT&HW – will be presented and defined. In the following section, the concepts will be operationalized, and an analytical framework of HT&HW that draws together existing Western thinking and the understandings in military and policy frameworks is proposed. Thereafter, the proposed framework is discussed and contrasted with the Russian approach to HT&HW. In section three, the existing official discourse on how the military fit in the context of HT&HW among countries in the Baltic Sea region will be analysed. This is followed, in section four, with a case study analysing what role the members of the military themselves think it should have. The case used is Sweden, and the analysis builds on structured interviews with eighty-two senior officers.
Over time the grey zone between peace and war has grown considerably, underscoring the necessity of understanding hybrid warfare and related threats. Russia’s actions in Ukraine have manifested this paradigm, being a good example of the problem in thinking about war and peace as binary categories. How does a country or group of countries deal with threats and aggression in this grey area, such as ‘little green men’ that appear in uniform but without national denomination and refuse to tell where they come from, election-influenced operations or cyberattacks, to mention but a few possible actions.
By uniting the knowledge of both practitioners and scholars, the volume aims to identify the existing tools for countering HT&HW, as well as experiences from a wide set of empirical contexts. Mirroring this, the project is a cross-sector collaboration between the Department of Military Studies and the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies (CATS) at the Swedish Defence University. The former represents an academic environment where research and teaching are intertwined in a range of subjects 2including War Studies, Military Technology and Military History. The latter is a national centre within the Swedish Defence University tasked with developing and disseminating knowledge about asymmetric threats within the context of societal security and resilience.
This volume focuses on the challenge posed by HT&HW to Western democracies, and their ability to address it. Western democracies are not only the type of states most frequently targeted by hybrid measures, but also the most vulnerable. By virtue of being open, pluralistic and liberal societies with freedom of the press and rule of law, Western democracies display both inherent weaknesses that can be targeted and inherent constraints – in particular through the rule of law and basic freedoms – that limit the scope for defensive actions. These vulnerabilities are increasingly recognized by Western governments, which have developed a range of entities to address them, although coordination in many instances remains weak. The later sections outline the growing significance of HT&HW on the security agendas of Western democracies and the challenges they imply, as well as the entities these states have established in response. Although neither list is complete, they provide an overview of the current situation. The final sections provide an outline of the volume’s structure and a summary of each chapter.
East Asia is home to the fastest growing economies in the world. It contains both like-minded partners, economic powerhouses, and a number of developing countries with an interest in learning from the EU experiences. The EU has a unique advantage in the region; besides having economic weight it is seen as a non-threatening partner in the region, giving a comparative advantage over other major powers such as the US and China. However, the success of the EU’s strategy requires a unified approach with clear prioritisation of areas where the EU realistically can have an impact. Emphasis should be put on enhancing the bilateral trade and investment conditions, and pursuing principled polices in particular towards Southeast Asian nations that are going through a democratisation process. Being a region with widespread ecological problems, the impact of knowledge and technology transfers would benefit the EU’s global interests in the environment, energy and climate change areas, as a more sustainable East Asia would have direct impact on a global scale.
When designing an EU strategy towards East Asia it is important to start from where we are, even if that is not where we would like to be. The European Union is not viewed as a serious political or security actor in East Asia among the regional countries. It is best understood as an outside-actor, with no hard power in the region. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead, the EU has a unique position, being seen as a non-threatening partner. If used wisely, the role as a non-threatening partner can, together with the EU’s economic weight, secure a leading position together with China and the US not only in the region but in the world.
There are many areas of shared concern between the EU and the US. However, the EU should be cautious when cooperating with the US to avoid losing its credibility and becoming irrelevant as an independent actor. Despite sharing principles, there are major differences between the EU’s attempt to combine principled policies with economic and security concerns, and US policy, which, in contrast, focuses on the security first, almost always ahead of democracy.
The strengthening of bilateral trade and investment flows, including interlinked areas such as improved market access and investment conditions, should be the main focus of the EU’s strategy towards East Asia. The pursuit of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with East Asian counterparts should be continued, with special emphasis on Japan and Indonesia. The EU should avoid making economic concessions in exchange for concessions on principles. The current practice of pursuing policies aimed at maximising European access and competitiveness rather than pursuing multilateralism for its own sake should be continued.
The EU should be selective in pursuing principled policies, to create a greater impact for those policies and to avoid undermining either its role in the region or the bilateral trade and investment relations. The EU should focus on cooperation with like-minded partners (Japan, South Korea and the ASEAN countries). Such a focus will have the best possible spill-over effects in the region, and globally, as East Asian partners will also benefit the EU’s work on the global level.
To develop EU-China relations is essential, with China already being the world’s 2nd largest economy and the EU being China’s largest trading partner. Being a country with widespread ecological problems, the impact of knowledge and technology transfers would benefit the EU’s global interests in the environment, energy and climate change areas, as a more sustainable China would have direct impact on a global scale. The China strategy should stand on three legs; economic cooperation – with a focus on protecting European interests such as investments and intellectual property rights as well cooperation around green technology – people-to-people exchanges, and the strengthening of the strategic partnership. For the latter to succeed there is a need to overcome diverging value expectations, and to try to reach a pragmatic consensus on how to make Beijing and the EU’s policies complementary. All the above needs to be accomplished while the EU continues to be vocal concerning the human rights situation in China.
It is important to recognise that East Asia is not only China. The EU should prioritise relations with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). After a long period of scepticism, ASEAN has opened up to learning from the EU experience, making it a potentially major success in the EU’s global strategy. Particular emphasis should be put on Indonesia, one of the region’s most democratic countries and home to the largest Muslim population in the world. Relations with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan should be enhanced – these are partners that are not only major economic powers, but also ones with whom the EU shares similar values and similar challenges.
It is in the EU’s interest to contribute to the safeguarding of regional peace and security. The EU should work together with regional partners, in particular ASEAN, and the US on issues concerning regional peace and security on all levels, including, but not limited to, forums such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia Summit."
In particular, the book will elaborate on the following themes:
general and NGO approaches to third-party mediation in conflict situations;
regional conflict management approaches in East Asia; and
third-party interventions in the context of Beijing-Taipei.
The volume examines third-party mediation experiences from both theoretical and historical/practical perspectives, arguing that mediation is of great significance for regional peace and stability in East Asia, with a focus on the important case of Taiwan-China.
This book will be of interest to students of regional security, Asian studies, peace studies, conflict studies and international relations.
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