Alternative War: Unabridged

by J. J. Patrick

  Capstone’s Integrated Project Team (IPT) was established in early 2009, indicating how long the threat we face now had been on the horizon. The IPT subsequently developed a detailed campaign to “assess both hybrid threats and the broader challenges facing NATO within the emerging security environment,” according to Royal Marine Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hills, the IPT’s Lead Concept Developer. “Between 2009 –2010 a number of ACT led international workshops were held to both focus the key analysis and better inform the development of the concept. The workshops included a broad range of participants from NATO and non-NATO organisations,” he said.

  Capstone, led by the IPT, asserted that hybrid threats involve any adversaries, including “states, rogue states, non-state actors or terrorist organisations,” who may employ a combination of actions in an increasingly unconstrained operating environment in order to achieve their aims. Almost ten years later, they were proven right.

  While not a new problem, at the time NATO said “the interconnectedness of the globalised environment now makes hybrid threats a far more significant challenge for the Alliance and its interests, whether encountered within national territory, in operational theatres or across non-physical domains.” I found the description used chill-inducing: “Hybrid threats will apply pressure across the entire spectrum of conflict, with action that may originate between the boundaries artificially separating its constituents. They may consist of a combination of every aspect of warfare and compound the activities of multiple actors.”

  On behalf of the IPT, Hills set out NATO’s role at an early stage, saying Capstone “also asserts that NATO’s role in managing the emerging security environment will invariably be a supporting one. The Alliance needs to develop its understanding of how it can cooperate with other organisations and stakeholders to both deter potential threats and mitigate their impact.”

  With principal support from Joint Irregular Warfare Centre (JIWC), NATO set out to conduct its first Counter Hybrid Threats Experiment in Tallinn6, Estonia. The primary purpose defined at the time was “to explore and discuss the key implications of the new draft concept and develop with other international stakeholders an understanding of potential approaches in addressing the likely challenge areas.” Academic centres, businesses and international bodies attended. Explaining the experiment, Hills said “one of the key outcomes of the event will be clear recommendations to NATOs Political and Military leadership of what the organisation must do to support the international community in tackling the array of potential hybrid challenges. The results will feed directly into the further development and refinement of the CHT Concept Paper with the aim to potentially produce a more informed draft, by late 2011.”

  The experiment, according to the official report, was conducted to examine the utility and feasibility of the Military Contribution to the Countering Hybrid Threats Concept. The Tallinn activity also centred on NATO’s potential support role in the wider context – what they called a “comprehensive approach” in addressing hybrid threats in a “steady state, security environment.” The complex environment of hybrid threats was “examined through three different lenses.” The first dealt with cyber, technology and economic threats – followed by the second on stabilisation, conflict prevention and partnership. The final aspect of the experiment examined the “Global Commons and Resource security.” The global potential for resource-based conflict has been well established in the defence community for many years, but this is the first time it appeared to have been fully considered in the context of a multifaceted conflict.

  During the Tallinn test, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, French Air Force General Stephane Abrial, stated: “Unforeseen NATO Operations in Libya remind us of a historical string of ‘strategic surprises’- central in assessing Hybrid Threats.” He went on to say that hybrid conflict situations are linked to “the versatility of threats and a lack of strategic predictability.”

  Hybrid threats gained renewed traction in response to Russian actions in Ukraine and the Da’esh campaign in Iraq. In 2014, Russian military forces made several aggressive incursions into Ukrainian territory. After subsequent protests and the fall of the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russian soldiers without insignias (often referred to as the Green Men) took control of strategic positions and infrastructure within the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Russia went on to annexe Crimea after a disputed referendum concluded the electorate wanted to join the Russian Federation. In August 2016 the SBU, the Security Service of Ukraine, published telephone intercepts7 – dated 2014 – showing details of Sergey Glazyev, a Russian presidential adviser, Konstantin Zatulin, a Russian politician, and others discussing the covert funding of pro-Russian activists in Eastern Ukraine and arranging the occupation of administration buildings, along with other activities, which led to the eventual armed conflict. Glazyev did not deny the authenticity of the intercepted records and Zatulin confirmed they were real but claimed they were “taken out of context.” The intercepts showed that, as early as February 2014, Glazyev was giving direct orders to pro-Russian parties in Ukraine, asking them to instigate civil unrest in the key locations of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, and Odessa.

  Meanwhile, Barack Obama declared Da’esh a hybrid threat in 20148, with world security services at the time reporting the sophisticated use of social media for worldwide propaganda in a campaign which attracted thousands of foreign fighters from Europe, the Maghreb and Asia. The combination of conventional and non-conventional warfare, with disinformation and terrorist operations, saw Da’esh placed in the centre ground of the hybrid conflict arena from that point on. The ripples spread rapidly and, by February 2015, EU Defence Ministers meeting in Riga called for more unity and decisive action across the union. By May, the European External Action Service had created a circular entitled Countering Hybrid Threats9, which encouraged member states to recognise the risks and build individual responses. The report was particularly bleak in its outlook, setting the full potential of hybrid threats against a more developed context than Capstone initially outlined. It stated: “Elements of hybridity can be traced in many other dimensions of the current security environment” with “various governments in the EU’s southern neighbourhood (i.e. the Gaddafi regime in Libya or the current government of Turkey)” having “used the complexity of migratory movements as a pretext to demand various concessions from the European Union.” It also concluded that ISIL/Da’esh simultaneously sought to instil fear in EU citizens and governments which, in turn, had the effect of “pushing them to take more hostile attitudes towards refugees, ultimately strengthening the image of the EU as an anti-Muslim society, to its discredit.” There is no doubt such a response, in fact, fed (and feeds) the continued propaganda necessary to drive the cycle, escalating the conflict steadily.

  In addition to intentional actions, the EU report cited increasing concerns about the potential consequences of complex crises resulting directly from, or even combining the different elements, which would require an equally complicated response. The concerns they documented included ideas rarely thought of in connection with war or conflict, including observations that: “Abnormal weather conditions and climate-induced resource scarcity, for instance, increasingly influence relations between states, and might provoke confrontation over access to water or crops production.” At the time, researchers on the impact of climate change in the Middle East and North Africa had estimated, by 2050, summer temperatures across the region would reach around 46 degrees Celsius and hot days would occur five times more often than at the beginning of the 2000s. “Such extreme temperatures,” the report stated, “in combination with increasing air pollution by windblown desert dust, will render living conditions in parts of the region intolerable, leading to a ‘climate exodus’ and social unrest, that might be exploited to destabilise the region by state and non-state actors alike.”

  An unchecked hybrid threat, such as any of these individual examples, ultimately results in the situation w
e now face: a full-scale, world hybrid conflict. The Alternative War.

  Most references to hybrid war are commonly based around the idea of the existence of an “adversary who controls and employs a mix of tools to achieve their objectives,” and this brings with it a layering effect, a structure obfuscating the direct responses available in a traditionally declared military conflict. A hybrid conflict has been given the globally accepted definition of “a situation in which parties refrain from the overt use of armed forces against each other, relying instead on a combination of military intimidation falling short of an attack, exploitation of economic and political vulnerabilities, and the deployment of diplomatic or technological means to pursue their objectives.” There is no doubt whatsoever we find ourselves in the middle of an Alternative War by this very description.

  Despite the relatively early horizon identification, the world’s response has not been sufficiently effective – or unified – in updating the international framework to reflect this developing landscape.

  As with all conflicts, attributing responsibility and intent is absolutely necessary, not only to ensure state and allied policy responses are proportionate, but they are legitimate and appropriately targeted. However, a cluster of problems is generated in hybrid conflict situations, arising from international law limitations, technological constraints, and the diffusion of actions to non-state actors working together to give an adversary in such a conflict substantial deniability. For instance, the involvement of a third party not immediately identifiable as being state-sponsored (such as Wikileaks) becomes incredibly difficult to set against the legal concept of beyond reasonable doubt when a response is being tabled. Nonetheless, the US have done this with North Korea after the Sony Pictures hack. Additionally, at a NATO Summit in 2014 the organisation set out that the application of Article 510 of the Washington Treaty in the event of a cyber-attack would apply.

  The heads of state of NATO's member countries met in Wales11 at what the organisation called a pivotal moment in Euro-Atlantic security. They released a joint statement which said: “Russia's aggressive actions against Ukraine have fundamentally challenged our vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. Growing instability in our southern neighbourhood, from the Middle East to North Africa, as well as transnational and multi-dimensional threats, are also challenging our security. These can all have long-term consequences for peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic region and stability across the globe.” Looking to the future of conflict, NATO correctly anticipated cyber threats and attacks would continue to become more common, sophisticated, and potentially damaging, and, in response to the developing challenges, the alliance endorsed an enhanced cyber defence policy. The commitment, they said, reaffirmed the “principles of the indivisibility of Allied security and of prevention, detection, resilience, recovery, and defence,” making clear the fundamental cyber defence responsibility of NATO was to protect its own networks. The policy emphasised assistance would always be addressed in accordance with the spirit of solidarity and went to lengths to press the understanding it remained the individual responsibility of allies to develop “relevant capabilities for the protection of national networks.”

  NATO’s cyber defence policy, a key concept developed through Capstone, recognised something crucial: that international law, including international humanitarian law and the UN Charter, applies equally in cyberspace. According to the policy, a decision as to when a cyberattack would lead to the invocation of Article 5 would be taken by the North Atlantic Council on a case-by-case basis. “Cyberattacks can reach a threshold which threatens national and Euro-Atlantic prosperity, security, and stability,” the NATO leaders agreed, adding their impact could be as harmful to modern societies as a conventional attack, before confirming the provision of cyber defences as part of NATO's core task. This marked an extraordinary development in respect of the recognition of hybrid conflicts as the future battleground, making the internet inseparable from a traditional, hot war zone. The phrase “without a bullet fired” suddenly looks grim when you realise a legitimate military response could be launched in response to a technology-based campaign. Article 5 of the Washington Treaty sets out the principle of collective defence – the very heart of NATO’s founding treaty signed in the ashes of World War 2. It remains, NATO says: “A unique and enduring principle,” which “binds its members together, committing them to protect each other.” Collective defence as a term means an attack against one NATO member is considered to be an attack against all and the response is subsequently a joint one. They invoked Article 5 for the first time since the treaty was formed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States.

  In Wales, NATO made a clear commitment to developing national cyber defence capabilities, saying they would “enhance the cyber security of national networks upon which NATO depends for its core tasks, in order to help make the Alliance resilient and fully protected.” They identified bilateral and multinational cooperation played – and would continue to play – a central role in building the cyber defence capabilities of the organisation and its members. All the members also agreed to integrate cyber defence into NATO active operations and operational contingency planning, with enhanced information sharing and situational awareness as a focus. Other international organisations, including the EU, agreed and NATO also set out to intensify cooperation with private industry through the NATO Industry Cyber Partnership12 – having identified technological innovations and expertise from the private sector were crucial to achieving their objectives. Currently, however, no specific international legal framework is in place to regulate hybrid warfare, despite the efforts of NATO and others, which creates a conflict between the ability to invoke Article 5 and compliance with the regulations and legalities established and monitored by the UN. Use of force in international relations is still catered for under the United Nations Charter, which states: “In the absence of an armed attack against a country or its allies, a member state can use force legally only if authorised by a United Nations Security Council resolution.”

  The grey area, of sorts, arises in the definition of using force at Article 213 of the Charter, which reads: “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Article 2(4) does not use the term “war", sticking to “the threat or use of force,” which creates an ambiguity as to whether the provision refers to pure military force or extends to incorporate “economic, political, ideological or psychological force.” The Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations, signed in 1970, states: “No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed intervention and all against its political, economic and cultural elements, are in violation of international law.” The absence of a specific provision for hybrid use of force clearly arises from the dated nature of the charter itself and, to muddy the waters further, while a number of developing nations continue to argue force includes non-military force, it is the well-established states within the UN who resist adaptation.

  The charter also permits self-defence and first strike, but both fall foul of the elderly definition of force, which has doubtlessly caused some hand-wringing among the states wishing to openly respond to live hybrid threats. Of course, the secondary issue with the dated law, is the UN are subsequently hamstrung by the charter in identifying and dealing with those actively engaged in hybrid conflicts. In addition, while the rules regarding traditional armed conflict are firmly laid down in international humanitarian and human rights law, hybrid conflict and threats are only covered by a patchwork of legal instruments covering specific policy areas. These are the seas, counter-terrorism, money laundering, terrorist financing, and human rights.

  The impact of this coalition of defects allowed the growth of complex hybrid conflict operations to run
almost unchecked, despite the best efforts of parties such as NATO and the EU, leading the world almost inevitably to the precipice it now stands upon. Trump, Brexit, the attacks on the French and Dutch elections, the world cyber-attack on infrastructure and health organisations, even fake news – these are the multiple fronts in a very real conflict from which there may be no return unless a response begins. Yet, any such response is hampered at the outset by the very structure which has permitted the threat to grow – made it necessary, even, by leaving room for tactics to be developed which exploit the inherent weaknesses.

  Europe itself, along with much of the West is, in spite of the complex problems, very much aware of the ongoing war. A fact made even clearer by the attendance of a substantial number of delegates at a Summit held in Prague, in May 201714. The specific focus of the partly open, partly restricted meeting was to discuss a coordinated international response to Russian aggression and to collaborate on addressing the fact “a wide gap remains between mere acknowledgement of the threat and the development of concrete and viable counter-measures.” Senior NATO figures and high-ranking representatives from a large number of countries were in attendance, including a senior specialist delegate from the United Kingdom. Over one hundred people representing twenty-seven countries attended the restricted part of the summit, apparently a Chatham House Rules type of affair. The obviously controversial and diplomatically delicate meeting was facilitated by the Czech Think-tank European Values, no stranger to pushing boundaries themselves.