[Editor: I just wanted to post this excellent article written by our colleague Greg Grant over at DoD Buzz as an add-on to my Afghan rant. He has a really helpful dissection of Hybrid Warfare (coined by old DT friend Frank Hoffman) and how the USMil is falling short.]
For the past fifty years, the military has sized, trained and equipped its ground forces to battle a conventional, mechanized, tank heavy opponent, organized in companies, battalions and brigades, with supporting artillery and aircraft. Training scenarios envisioned a repeat of World War II tank battles, Army units were run through simulated armored clashes in the open deserts at its premier training ground, the NTC at Ft. Irwin, Ca. Now, at its training centers, the Army, and Marines also train for urban counterinsurgency.
That the Armys big-battle mindset hasnt gone far, despite eight years spent fighting two counterinsurgency wars, can be seen in this article on the Small Wars Journal web site by an Army captain who recently completed the captains career course and had this to say: With rare exception, the exercises which hone officers skills in these areas are focused on the conventional Fulda gap-style battle Despite all that has been written about third-generation warfare (Blitzkrieg) and fourth-generation warfare (state vs. non-state), we operated largely in the second generation of warfare.
A small group of strategic thinkers are flexing their intellectual muscle, and a new opponent model is taking shape against which Americas ground forces will be configured to fight (with the Marines way ahead of the Army). Called hybrid enemies, they come equipped with high-end, precision guided weapons, yet fight in distributed networks of small units and cells more akin to guerrillas. One of the leading scholars in this group, Frank Hoffman, who advises the Marines and is a researcher at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, says hybrid wars, blend the lethality of state conflict with the fanatical and protracted fervor of irregular warfare. Theory moved to reality when Hezbollah, equipped with loads of advanced missiles and skillfully using urban terrain, fought the Israeli army to a stand still in 2006. Hezbollah, Hoffman says, is representative of the rising hybrid threat.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has given his imprimatur to the hybrid opponent as the new OpFor, first in his recent Foreign Affairs piece, and then again in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. In his Senate hearing, speaking about the Armys FCS program, Gates said that unless new weapons and vehicles can be shown to be effective in complex hybrid wars, they shouldnt be funded. Ive also heard that some services, Im thinking of the Marines here, were loathe to buy into the irregular warfare mission as they couldnt justify their more expensive new systems to fight counterinsurgencies, but they have a better chance at getting what they want if they play up the hybrid threat.
I thought Id flesh out a bit exactly what the military has in mind when they discuss hybrid wars. A good place to start is this article by Hoffman in Joint Forces Quarterly or this longer discussion here for those of you with more time.
While Hezbollah may be the hybrid archetype, Hoffman says theyre not limited to non-state actors. “States can shift their conventional units to irregular formations and adopt new tactics as Iraqs fedayeen did in 2003.” He said evidence shows that a number of Middle East militaries are modifying their forces to fight in a hybrid style, Iran being one such country. One of the challenges faced by the U.S. military, is it fights in largely predictable fashion, only with the Iraq war have efforts been made to adapt to different styles of fighting such as irregular warfare. What Hezbollah demonstrated, Hoffman says, is “the ability of non-state actors to study and deconstruct the vulnerabilities of Western-style militaries and devise appropriate countermeasures.”
Read the rest of this story over at DoD Buzz and be sure to bookmark the excellent Small Wars Journal which has been quietly influencing military thinking on this subject.
– Christian
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Perhaps it is time to build dedicated armed forces to fight irregular forces. It would seem that having 2 conventional (2nd generation) fighting forces is somewhat redundant. Realizing this would take greater vision than what the entire U.S. Military Possesses.
While i don’t disagree with the concept of “hybrid war,” it doesn’t seem too add much to the discussion. The Vietcong and the Japanese Military in WWII seemed equally fanatical and Islamist fighters in that they were willing to accept high casualties in the face of a stronger Western military. Sure, now they have precision weapons, but the tools they used in those fights were pretty cutting edge.
Essentially, “hybrid” tactics are defensive and can’t be used to seize and hold territory. As defensive tactics, they test the willingness of Western Democratic armies to accept high losses to achieve strategic ends. And perhaps that should be our measure of a good war – a democratic public is willing to accept high casualty rates for a good cause (WWII), not a colonial adventure of questionable strategic value.
“Essentially, “hybrid” tactics are defensive and can’t be used to seize and hold territory”….
That is linear battlefield thinking….things are changing radically and we can no longer think in terms of “well, we control the map, I guess we won….Mission Accomplished!” It doesn’t work that against some foes and the sooner we transform our way of thinking the better…we are already way behind the curve though.
Firstly, I would make the argument that a battle in the Fulda Gap between the Warsaw Pact/Soviets/Russian Republic vs. NATO would be a 3rd Gen Warfare (i.e., Blitzkreig) type battle. You can be sure that the attackers would be waging combined arms mechanized warfare with the intent of creating a breakthrough and gaining access to the enemies (NATO) rear areas and running amok and creating a strategic disadvantage out of a tactical exploitation.
As the prior poster said I too agree with the concept of “hybrid” war. But, what happens when the US has to go head-to-head with a nation state, who’s military includes strategic naval and air assets, as an outgrowth of some regional conflict between the US and some enemy fighting a hybrid war? I think there is a balance to be sought in doctrine, equipment, and training, but lets not let the pendulum swing all the way to the other side.
Good points but again we face a new reality….
What hapens when cyber attacks and electronic intrusion attacks are the opening salvo….how do we define an act of war then? How do we even know if we are at war?
Think of it….if no bombs are being dropped but the enemy compromises our networks and we end up downing our own aircraft….and it can’t be traced with 100% confidence what do you do?
CR, I agree that talking about territory is linear battlefield thinking – but my broader point is that “hybrid” tactics are defensive and tied to insurgencies. No state is going to seize and hold southern Florida using only irregulars with shiny new anti-tank weapons, just like no state can seize and hold a desert country with loads of M1A1s but an army with no constabulary aptitude.
As I see it, the bigger issue is how to adjust forces to combat heavily armed hybrid forces – either accept much higher rates of casualties or risk diluting the military’s force posture or develop a constabulary force adept at these policing/special forces duties.
Just to fix a few ground rules to the discussion. I think we need to clear up a few definitions:
1st Gen warfare: linear tactics and close order drill (19th century firing lines)
2nd Gen warfare: combined arms, but more concerned with firepower than manuever. Also marked by centralized control of forces (WWI French, WWII-modern US forces)
3rd Gen warfare: combined arms maneuver warfare that relies on speed and surprise rather than breaking the enemy’s toys. Nearly all tactical decisions are decentralized. Orders from above are mission oriented; more concerned with the result and not the how-to. (WWI & WWII Germany).
4th Gen warfare: nonstate actors vs states (AQ, Hezbollah, drug lords, mafia, gangs)
The US military is still stuck in 2nd Gen warfare for the most part. Before we can hope to do well fighting a 4th Gen opponent, we have to move into the 3rd Generation. Which means more reliance on leadership, training, and decentralized decision making rather than putting warheads on foreheads. You don’t bomb your way out of a 4th Gen war and how many kills you score isn’t a concern of a 3rd Gen army – results are.
This “Primer” article is about how future enemies of the US who use guerilla tactics will be able to cut into the technology advantage currently enjoyed by the US in Iraq & Afghanistan. It’s not about the concept of 4th generation warfare.
Apologize for going off on a tangent, but:
1st generation warfare: Direct fire directed at military forces – 19th century
2nd generation warfare: Indirect fire directed at military forces – WW1
3rd generation warfare: Indirect fire directed at civilian & military means of production – WW2
4th generation warfare: Any means available directed at the political will to participate in a conflict – Vietnam
A strategy that is based on 2nd, 3rd or 4th generation warfare can & probably will include activity that is described as 1 or more of the earlier generations.
I disagree with this author’s opinion that the Hezbollahs became the first hybrid fighters in the World, back in 2006 (he described them as the “hybrid archetype”).
In my not so humble opinion the Chechnyans in Grozny were that, in the two wars that lasted from 1994 to ~ 2004.
The first results of that can already be recognized in some construction details of the latest Russian tank models, rather layed out for asymmetrical warfare (“M.O.U.T.” = “Military Operations in Urban Terrain”) instead of for the old, classical tank duels in the Fulda Gap:
1) Narrow frontal silhouette.
2) Stronger all-around armour, including on the roof, engine exhaust and at the rear, instead of optimizing only the frontal armour for tank-to-tank horn-locking, even ignoring all previous weight limitations for air transport. This goes not only for their (and the “Israeli”) most recent battle-tanks, but also for their latest armoured personnell carriers too (as well as for the later U.S. American “Stryker” = an armoured wheeled vehicle for urban combats and a large replacement of the Humvees)
3) Better all-round visibility for the drivers and tank commanders.
4) Better protection against mines, I.E.D.’s and R.P.G.’s.
5) The main armament consists less of a heavy anti-tank gun but is a broad mix of guided weapons, medium calibre machine-cannons, grenade-throwers and heavy machine-guns.
And
6) an Active Protection System (= a RUSSIAN invention
I think I’m missing something here. Even though we’re not seeing threats in the conventional warfare arena, isn’t that because we’ve maintained such a dominance in that arena? If we shift away from that to focus on irregular warfare, wouldn’t we then weaken our ability to fight conventional wars?
I always thought that it’s potential opponents like China or Russia that could pose an existential threat to us and our allies, not the likes of Al Qaeda or insurgents Iraq. The reason the latter have to fight irregular wars is because they’re too weak to fight in a conventional war with us.
To the poster “Tu”:
You wrote: “Even though we’re not seeing threats in the conventional warfare arena, isn’t that because we’ve maintained such a dominance in that arena? If we shift away from that to focus on irregular warfare, wouldn’t we then weaken our ability to fight conventional wars?”
Crying about “foul play” from the hybrids?
Back in the Cold War, when the masses of the U.S. Armed Forces lined up in front of the masses of the Warsaw Pact, as you probably still prefer, you U.S. Americans would have had to resort to NUKES (for example to neutron bombs) to even survive!!!
And didn’t you HEROES threaten to use nukes against Saddam Hussein and against Iran too, for example if they sank a single U.S. aircraft carrier?!
Say: Which kind of warfare are you really good at?!
What happens for example when a 100 % conventional enemy Armed Force visits Pearl Harbour?
@ Freefallingbomb
What are you blabbering about. You are always posting long winded nonsense. If you like the russians so much better go tell them. How about you try staying on topic for once.
To the poster “Greg”:
You wrote: “If you like the russians so much better go tell them. How about you try staying on topic for once.”
Do you need extra help from other readers to understand whom this phrase in the article refers to:
“With RARE EXCEPTION , the exercises which hone officers’ skills in these areas are focused on the conventional Fulda gap-style battle…” ?
Gee, thanks. That was completely useful.