Hybrid Warfare in Azerbaijan: A Challenge to National Security

Emerging Europe, 2025

In the complex and dynamic geopolitical environment of the South Caucasus, marked by enduring political tensions, the legacy of armed conflicts, and the ongoing challenges of post-colonial transitions, Armenia finds itself increasingly targeted by hybrid warfare strategies designed to undermine its sovereignty and destabilize its societal foundations. This article explores the intricate and multi-dimensional tactics deployed by adversarial actors, including cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, manipulative strategic narratives, economic coercion, psychological operations (PsyOps), cognitive warfare, and more, to destabilize both state and non-state institutions in Armenia. By situating these threats within their historical, regional, and contemporary frameworks, this analysis seeks to unravel the mechanisms and objectives of these tactics, shedding light on their far-reaching consequences for Armenia’s national resilience, governance structures, and long-term security strategy.

Journal of Scientific Papers "Social development and Security"

Early identification of the most recent hybrid threats (incident at Keshikchidag, the escalation in the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in July 2020, etc.) in the South Caucasus, enabled the nations to sidestep the repercussions of the provocation, most probably initiated by the external actors. This is the primary reason why the authors developed this paper. The importance of early identification in fighting against hybrid threats has been highlighted in the paper. The authors elaborated on the examples occured in the South Caucasus countries, as well as beyond the region. The challenges of identifying hybrid threats ahve been specified. The scenarios have been presented regarding the hybrid aggressors and hybrid threats in the South Caucasus region.

2017

Currently, the nature of military conflict has suffered substantial changes, beyond conventional actions between state armies, towards non-conventional conflicts and hybrid warfare that brings about changes to the organization and structure of military forces, manner of action, fighting techniques and means. We are witnessing a new type of menace for military security, that proves to be a complex and multidimensional military warfare, with lethal consequences, and that includes strategies, tactics and symmetric, asymmetric, conventional and non-conventional techniques, its main subjects being both State and non-State actors that use information and communication technologies. As a result of the evolution of the technologies for developing modern conflicts/wars, we note the extension of the menace of hybrid non-conventional warfare, which generates an increased danger to all components of national security, as well as an impact on regional security.

Online Journal Modeling the New Europe, 2020

Despite the growing actuality of hybrid warfare, modern democratic political institutions have not yet been able to formulate a generally accepted and coherent view of hybrid warfare, nor formulate one consolidated definition for this new form of warfare. Considering the fact that for modern revisionist forces, hybrid warfare is a tool for changing the existing world order and achieving their political goals, it is worth noting that international law has not yet defined the legal status of "hybrid warfare". Therefore, there is a grey area which allows revisionist forces free rein, according to the current state of affairs, because they are not bound by appropriate legal obligations. In view of the above, understanding the political-strategic characteristics and concepts of hybrid warfare are essential for developing hybrid defence strategies and other mechanisms to protect against hybrid threats. This is also critical in terms of maintaining the world order, in a sustainable way, and for developing effective national security policies. Given the current state of affairs, this article analyses the key characteristics and political strategies related to the phenomenon of hybrid warfare, considers the approaches taken by individual states (including Georgia) and reflects upon scientific opinion. Then, based on the induction method and conceptual analysis, the latter part of this article proposes a political and strategic conceptual framework of hybrid warfare, in which the tools/methods and means of conducting hybrid warfare are explored, along with the groupings, objectives and actors involved in hybrid warfare

2017

The history of wars as a social phenomenon is continuously evolving. This has been determined by the factors which directly reflect who will "win the war", the most important factors being: changes in international relations, shifting the center of global power, the influence of global policy and the technical - technological development of weapons. The emergence of opponents who plan and organize wars in symmetric and asymmetric ways, implies the need for a new definition of war or the emergence of "hybrid warfare", which in itself represents a combination of:conventional, irregular, terrorist and criminal activities all aiming to "win the war". One of the basic purposes of this paper is to present the historical development of hybrid warfare by explaining its operational phases and methods. The main hypothesis of this paper based on a historical method and comparative analysis attempts to determine: "Were operational phases of hybrid warfare pres...

While traditional combat still remains a possibility, it will no longer be the primary means to victory on the battlefield of the 21st century. Hybrid challenges have become reality. Hybrid warfare will be a defining feature of the future security environment. The "Russian” model of hybrid war as shown in the Ukraine has unveiled three stages: • Destabilizing a country via inspiring domestic conflict; • Causing state collapse via ruining economy and destroying infrastructure; • Replacing local political leadership with own operatives as “invited saviour”. It appears to be achieving Moscow's desired results. In between the prospects for increased hybrid challenges in Asia have become considerable. This should widen Asian and European interest to cooperate in particular via adopting respective security concepts and instruments of power and via networking global knowledge of rele-vance to meeting hybrid threats.

Estonian National Defence College, ENDC Occasional Papers, 2017

The “hybrid warfare” is one of important topics of security related military thinkers and academics being an outcome of conflicts in Europe, Middle East and growing threat coming not only from military but mainly from non-military sources. It has been widely discussed also in the context of military developments in Russia. The paper is discussing the official approach to that term including NATO and Russian thinkers. It is touching also military developments of Russian Federation and non-military aspects of security based on perception of internal and external security threats.

Central European Journal of International and Security Studies

The essence and main characteristics of the hybrid war are reviewed as a means of destroying the enemy country from inside due to the effective combination of conventional armed forces, subversion, propaganda, and dissemination of misinformation. The hybrid tactics used by the Russian Federation in Ukraine and Georgia are investigated. A comparativeanalysisof the military component in the confrontation between Russia, Ukraine and Georgia is conducted, the peculiarities of informational and psychological confrontation and factors that led to the significant achievements of the Russian side in the hybrid warfare are revealed, economic aspect of the hybrid confrontation are clarified (especially regarding the factors of financial, energy and raw material dependence) and, finally, the key conditions for the widespread use of hybrid methods of confrontation during modern armed conflicts are identified. Thedifference is proved between conflicts in Georgia and Ukraine, mainly in the use of...

Defence Studies, 2022

The term “Hybrid Warfare” has been defined and redefined in multiple diverse manners in the past two decades. Conventionally the concept of Hybrid Wars referred to a combination of regular and irregular forces to obtain synergy on the battlespace. However, following the Russian annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of Eastern Ukraine, the Western community has revisited the definition of Hybrid Wars and reconceptualized it. Interestingly, this term is approached by Russia and the West in quite a different style, as per their own purpose, i.e Russia claims to be a victim of Hybrid Wards waged by the West. This research investigates the philosophy of the two mentioned versions of Hybrid Warfare and finds both irrelevant to comprehend Russia’s wars in the post-Soviet geography. Instead, it suggests to retreat to the original definition of hybrid warfare, in the context of Ukraine and Georgia cases and thereby argues that Russia performs hybrid warfare to restrict foreign policy maneuverabilities of the former Soviet republics.