NATO Preparation For Russia’s Hybrid Warfare

Over the past few weeks, fighting has reignited between Ukrainian military forces and pro-Russian separatists across eastern Ukraine in flagrant violation of a ceasefire agreement signed in Minsk last fall. Over 5,000 people have now been killed since the conflict began almost a year ago. As the death toll mounts and peace talks flounder, the Donbass civil war appears destined to become a “frozen conflict” in times ahead. With wily President Vladimir Putin at the helm, Russia has played an active role in destabilizing its Slavic neighbor, waging a kind of “hybrid warfare” with much success. The tragic state of current affairs in Ukraine offers clear warning signs for the nature of future threats to European security. NATO must develop further countermeasures to this subversive form of Russian aggression in order to better tackle the present crisis and to strengthen long-term deterrence strategies.Hybrid warfare is not a new phenomenon in modern military history, but Russia has innovated the approach to maximum effect in recent years. NATO defines hybrid threats as “those posed by adversaries, with the ability to simultaneously employ conventional and non-conventional means adaptively in pursuit of their objectives.” Common aspects include usage of traditional, irregular, and asymmetric forces, blurring of the line between soldiers and civilians, criminal and terrorist behavior, and undeclared kinetic activity. For an historical example, British conventional forces merged with Spanish guerrillas to fight Napoleon in the Peninsular War (1807-1814). In contemporary times, Russia has perfected these tactics and stretched them beyond the military realm. Political, economic, psychological, cyber, and information mechanisms of subversion serve as additional weapons in the Russian arsenal of hybrid warfare. Such a holistic approach to managing conflict proves to be highly effective.Even before the infamous “little green men” infiltrated Crimea, Russia exploited opportunities to test out its burgeoning form of hybrid warfare. In 2007, Russia and Estonia became embroiled in a dispute over the removal of a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn. Russian political elite retaliated with a hostile information operation that provided tacit and possibly even direct support to perpetrators of massive DDoS attacks across the Estonian cybersphere. The following year saw Russia integrate a combination of similar offensive cyber tools, conventional troops, Chechen mercenaries, and Ossetian separatists in the Five-Day War with Georgia.Ever since Euromaidan protestors toppled the Yanukovych regime last February, Russia has orchestrated a comprehensive campaign of hybrid warfare to destabilize Ukraine. Unmarked Russian special forces annexed the Crimean peninsula without firing a shot. Now an estimated 1,000 Russian military and intelligence personnel are fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and coordinating a steady influx of military hardware, such as the Buk missile launcher system that likely shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. Denial and deception alongside disinformation and propaganda mask Russian involvement in the conflict. President Putin and his colleagues propagate the following claims in the media: 1) soldiers deployed abroad are patriotic volunteers, not government-sanctioned and 2) humanitarian aid convoys sent to Donetsk and Luhansk delivered only much-needed relief to oppressed Russian-speaking minorities, not additional weapons to fight the neo-fascist Ukrainian junta. Though duplicitous, Russia’s efforts at plausible deniability have allowed it to leverage political and economic influence in ceasefire talks and gas price negotiations with Ukraine. Throw in a stream of cyber attacks against Ukrainian government networks and Russia meets all the facets of hybrid warfare.Russian involvement in Ukraine primarily stems from alarm over NATO expansion into Eastern Europe and beyond. In December, Moscow announced a new military doctrine that named NATO as a principal threat to Russian national security. To President Putin’s chagrin, Ukraine has expressed interest in joining the Atlantic alliance, potentially contributing to a long list of former Soviet states opting into the Western sphere of influence. Despite a declining economy hit hard by sanctions, Russia continues to invest in a costly military modernization program capable of executing multiple Ukraine-sized operations in a few years. NATO members in Eastern Europe, particularly the Baltic nations with sizable Russian-speaking minorities, fear they may be President Putin’s next target. Recent incidents of hybrid warfare have not been contained to the conflict in Ukraine. At least 40 close military encounters occurred between Russia and the West last year, including the abduction of an Estonian intelligence officer and Russian mock bombing raids over Sweden.Confronted with a resurgent Russia, NATO has taken a few steps to adapt to the new European security environment. In September, NATO’s chief military commander, U.S. Air Force General Phillip Breedlove, voiced concern for European defense preparedness in the face of Russian belligerence: “We have to adapt our responsiveness inside the NRF [NATO Response Force] so that we have a force that can respond at speed to address this new model of hybrid warfare we have seen out of Russia.” To improve responsiveness, General Breedlove called for a new rapid reaction force deployable within a few days in the case that Article 5, which states an attack on one member is an attack on all, must be invoked. This initiative coupled with additional troop presence aimed to reassure anxious Eastern European countries of NATO’s commitment to collective defense in the face of creeping Russian aggression. General Breedlove asserted that any Crimea-style infiltration into a NATO nation would prompt a military response. However, due to its unconventional nature, identifying the inception of a hybrid conflict poses challenges to invoking Article 5. The Tallinn Manual represents one attempt to dictate at what point NATO may militarily respond to cyber operations, a major asymmetric component of hybrid warfare.Although the recent escalation in violence across eastern Ukraine now appears to be rousing Western leaders toward broader action, military power alone is not sufficient to deter irregular threats. NATO announced plans to potentially double the NATO Response Force from its current level of 13,000 troops to about 30,000, including a 5,000-strong rapid reaction force and six command centers in Eastern Europe to quickly respond to any Russian military threat. This move comes as the Obama administration introduces a new U.S.-NATO weapon-sharing plan as well as considers providing lethal assistance to Ukrainian armed forces. Ultimately, more must be done to improve coordination between NATO and non-military security structures of the European Union in order to address all dimensions of Russia’s hybrid warfare. Though the proposed countermeasures should make President Putin think twice before widening kinetic operations beyond Ukraine, multilateral cooperation needs to expand in such areas as joint institutional planning, greater intelligence sharing, coordinated cyber defenses, and counter-propaganda campaigns. Only through innovative hybrid responses may the West begin to counter Russian aggression in Ukraine and to prepare for hybrid threats to European security in the future.