This interview was conducted by the Remote Control project. 

Sascha Dov Bachmann, Assessor Jur, LLM (Stel) LLD (UJ), is an Associate Professor in International Law (Bournemouth University, UK), Extraordinary Associate Professor in War Studies (Swedish Defence University, Sweden) and Guest Speaker at NATO School. Outside academics, he served in various capacities as Lieutenant Colonel (German Army Reserve) taking part in peacekeeping missions in operational and advisory capacities. Sascha acted as NATO’s Rule of Law Subject Matter Expert (SME) in NATO’s Hybrid Threat Experiment of 2011 and in related workshops at NATO and national level. He would like to thank Brigadier (Rtd) Anthony Paphiti, former ALS officer, for his insightful comments and discussions.

In this interview, Dr. Bachmann discusses hybrid warfare, its use in Ukraine and Crimea by Russia, and whether NATO is adequately prepared to formulate effective responses to this method of warfare.

Q. What is ‘hybrid warfare’?

Hybrid warfare as a warfare concept is not new among those practising the art of war. However, contemporary events lead us to argue that today’s hybrid warfare “has the potential to transform the strategic calculations of potential belligerents [because it has become] increasingly sophisticated and deadly”.

Hybrid war is a concept that has emerged shortly after the end of the Cold War and sums up the complexities of modern warfare, which go beyond conventional military tactics, often involving cyberwarfare, propaganda and a fluid, non-state adversary.

The concept of hybrid warfare has been discussed by (mostly US) military writers since the beginning of the 21st century and its recognition as a theory in formal military doctrinal thinking is still not settled. Hybrid warfare may use elements from four existing methods and categories of full spectrum warfare, namely:

• conventional warfare;
• irregular warfare (such as terrorism and counter-insurgency);
• related asymmetric warfare (unconventional warfare such partisan warfare);
• and compound warfare (where irregular forces are used simultaneously against an opponent while being employed by state actors to augment their otherwise conventional warfare approach).

Hybrid warfare builds on existing doctrinal elements and adds the following: evolving war-fighting capacities in the fifth dimension such as “cyber-warfare”; and activities in the so- called information sphere.

Q. Who were the first actors to utilize hybrid warfare and why?

According to Hoffman’s seminal work “Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars”, it was Hezbollah in its 2006 war with the IDF. Here, a non-state actor (NSA) did utilise war fighting capabilities normally not used by non-state actors such as blending conventional warfighting on the ground and activities in the information sphere. Other examples are Islamic State/Daesh which show a blend of capabilities which blur the line of traditional warfighting: such as the use of suicide bombers, improvised explosive devices, and the use of ‘ground troops’ in a conventional manoeuvre context augmented by strong propaganda/information sphere activities.

Why: because these capabilities are available. Hezbollah (and IS) had and has a substantial potential of rockets/military hardware and is aptly using the possibilities available through social media in the information sphere unknown before. Both non-state actors are also utilising the opportunities of informing public opinion in the West thanks to a growing Muslim population in the West who have cultural and lingual access/connection to these conflicts/the nature of the conflict.

Q. Is hybrid warfare something that states have used?

Russia has used hybrid warfare.

How:

In a Keynote speech at the opening of the NATO Transformation Seminar on 25 March 2015, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg remarked:

“Russia has used proxy soldiers, unmarked Special Forces, intimidation and propaganda, all to lay a thick fog of confusion; to obscure its true purpose in Ukraine; and to attempt deniability.  So NATO must be ready to deal with every aspect of this new reality from wherever it comes. And that means we must look closely at how we prepare for; deter; and if necessary defend against hybrid warfare.”

Michael Kofman and Matthew Rojansky described Russia’s 2010 Military Doctrine of modern warfare:

“…… as entailing “the integrated  utilization of military force and forces and resources of a non-military character,” and, “the prior implementation of measures of information warfare in order to achieve political objectives without the utilization of military force and, subsequently, in the interest of shaping a favourable response from the world community to the utilization of military force.”

The employment of hybrid methods has been evident from Russia’s activities in Crimea and the Donbas region of Ukraine, with its deployment of “little green men”, namely, soldiers wearing unmarked uniforms that make direct state attribution difficult. According to Mark Galeotti, Professor of Global Affairs at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs:

“The conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated that Moscow, in a bid to square its regional ambitions with its sharply limited resources, has assiduously and effectively developed a new style of ‘guerrilla geopolitics’ which leverages its capacity for misdirection, bluff, intelligence operations, and targeted violence to maximise its opportunities.”

While there may be limitations to the way in which these methods were used in Ukraine, the use of non-attributable military personnel provides expert assistance to an enemy and, even if not directly engaged in hostile acts, provides advice and assistance to those who carry out such acts. Nevertheless, the seriousness of the threat posed by such forces should not be under-estimated. General Breedlove, currently Commander, US EUCOM and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), is reported as saying,

“if Russia does what it did in Crimea to a NATO state, it would be considered an act of war against the alliance.”

In Ukraine, Russia employed a hybrid strategy by combining irregular warfare and cyber warfare to achieve its strategic objectives. Reuben F Johnson, writing in IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, on 26 February 2015, considered that “Russia’s hybrid war in Ukraine ‘is working’.” They had combined a substantial ground force of 14,400 Russian troops supported by tanks and armoured fighting vehicles, backing up the 29,300 illegally armed formations of separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Q. Does hybrid warfare hold military advantages for states over conventional warfare?

Russia is winning the hybrid war in Ukraine: it has successfully annexed Crimea, and effectively turned Ukraine into a state on the brink of wider failure. In the process, Russia has successfully divided Western countries on how to respond to this act of aggression. Russia also successfully reactivated its Cold War disinformation mechanisms, successfully blurring reality and fiction for global observers. Russia has uncovered the West’s inability to find a common policy to respond to the unfolding events in Ukraine.

Q. How does hybrid warfare relate to international law? Is this way of waging war covered in current international legal paradigms?

Generally speaking, hybrid warfare does not change the international legal paradigms such as Article 2(4), 51 UN Charter and in the context of NATO, Article V of the NATO Treaty. Whether any form of hybrid attack, alone or cumulatively, amounts to a use of force and, if so, reaches the threshold of an “armed attack” to justify a military response under Article 51 – and what form that response would take – are very difficult questions to answer. They are situation/fact specific. Moreover, attribution may be problematic. In addition, hybrid warfare – with its possible elements of cyber, terrorism, asymmetric warfare etc. – might not reach the threshold of such an attack and hence allow affected states to ‘deny’ the existence of such warfare in order to continue with their diplomatic relations, trade  etc with the ‘aggressor’ state. Such behaviour might undermine existing alliances and weaken international comity.

Q. How prepared, or perhaps unprepared, are NATO for formulating effective responses to hybrid warfare?

NATO is in my opinion well prepared to formulate effective responses given its substantial work undertaken in the context of hybrid threats. NATO recognized as early as 2010 hybrid threats were a new security risk and designed a new NATO Bi-Strategic Command Capstone Concept, describing hybrid threats as emanating from an adversary who combines both conventional and unconventional – military methods to achieve its goals.

In the two years following 2010, NATO drew up a specific threat catalogue, which identifies security-specific risks beyond conventional warfare threats: nuclear proliferation, terrorism, cybercrime and cyber-war, organized crime and its role in drugs, arms and human trafficking, migration, ethnic and religious conflicts, population conflicts due to resource scarcity and globalization.

NATO recognized that these may amount to a concrete threat to the alliance or that it could be authorized by the United Nations, because of their capacity, to intervene. Recognizing this, NATO worked on a related global approach (Comprehensive Approach) in order to counter these risks. This approach envisaged involving state and non-state actors in a comprehensive defence strategy that combines political, diplomatic, economic, military technical and scientific initiatives. Despite intensive work on this approach as part of a “Countering Hybrid Threats” experiment in 2011, the NATO project work in 2012 had to stop due to lack of support from their members. (From our submission to the UK DC)

Given this existing framework/ capstone on how to respond to hybrid threats and the inter-related nature of hybrid threats and warfare, I would like to argue with some confidence that NATO has the capability to formulate an effective doctrinal approach, notwithstanding the initial discontinuation of the work on the hybrid threat concept.

Q. Do you think that hybrid warfare will be the main method of waging war in the future and how do you see the use of this form of warfare evolving?

Hybrid warfare with its various forms such as cyber-attacks, the use and abuse of the information sphere, the use of a holistic mix of conventional and irregular warfare, the exploitation of country specific vulnerabilities, law fare etc, is here to stay due to its obvious benefits to the using power/state/actor: deniability and the possibility of staying under the threshold of an armed attack which would in a likeliness trigger a military/kinetic response. I am convinced that the elements of hybrid warfare will evolve further and will eventually be used by state and non-state actors alike. Whether the overall term “hybrid warfare” for such multi-modal forms of warfare/threats is to stay we will see. Hybrid war’s impact on international law and comity is significant and it will question some of our established doctrines/concepts.

The significant imbalances in the distribution of aid between different geographical areas in the current Syrian war threaten not only the immediate survival of civilians, but also the future prospects for peace.

The Syrian crisis counts among the direst of our times, and never has there been a humanitarian emergency reaching comparable volumes of assistance. Formerly a relatively prosperous middle income country of about 21 million people, more than five years of war have plunged Syria into staggering poverty. Having lost their livelihoods, 13.5 million people are dependent on humanitarian aid.

Irrespective of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), belligerents have targeted residential areas and vital infrastructure such as water and electricity supplies, as well as medical facilities. In a desperate effort to survive, half the country’s population have been forced to leave their homes, not knowing whether they will ever be able to return. Of these, 4.8 million have crossed the borders as refugees, while a further 6.1 million people remain uprooted within the country.

While humanitarian assistance such as food and water, shelter, and medical aid are indispensable, it is deeply problematic that the distribution of aid in different areas in the country is highly uneven. Needs are estimated to be greatest in territory controlled by opposition forces – yet it is here that least aid is being delivered. In 2015, for example, only 27% of World Health Organisation administered medical aid reached opposition areas, as did the same share of food aid delivered by the World Food Programme only last month. Under the umbrella of the UN, both are the biggest humanitarian actors in their fields. Why are these imbalances occurring, and why are they critical for future peace negotiations and reconstruction?

The Syrian war

In Syria, the multitude of armed groups, estimated to number several hundred, complicates the distribution of aid as much as the fact that the country is now engulfed in not one, but two wars. Since 2011, civilians have been caught up in the original conflict between the regime and opposition groups seeking a change of government. But another battle is being fought between these opposition groups and Daesh, which proclaimed the establishment of their so-called Islamic State in July 2014. In areas controlled by the latter, the US-led international alliance is attacking Daesh positions across Syria and Iraq, while the Syrian and Russian air forces target other opposition-held areas.

Given that the presence of armed groups, their alliances and infighting differ significantly at the local level, humanitarian actors are thus operating in a highly fragmented terrain that requires often daily negotiations and re-evaluation of safety concerns for their own staff.

An aid system controlled by the government

Image credit: IOM Iraq/Flickr.

To some extent, aid imbalances occur in war zones anywhere in the world. Generally, humanitarian aid can only be delivered when belligerents grant aid organisations permission to access people in need and guarantee for the security of their staff. Syria is exceptional, however, in the severity and persistence of aid imbalances. Although belligerents on all sides have interfered with aid deliveries, the Syrian government still controls about half the Syrian territory, thus presenting the single largest threat to impartial aid. By claiming to uphold Syrian sovereignty, it has quietly retained tight control over the aid system in place.

Only 17 INGOs are permitted to operate in designated areas of the country with limited reach, and their choice of local partners is limited to NGOs licensed by the government. Even after more than five years, the UN are still not allowed to carry out needs assessments in the country independently of the government, and they have remained obliged to issue the annual Syrian Humanitarian Response Plan (SHARP) – which is the basis for planning and monitoring the response each year – jointly with them. Even if convoys are approved for deliveries into opposition areas through rapidly changing bureaucratic procedures which can stretch over months, they are regularly stripped of surgical equipment and even delivery kits at government checkpoints.

Contravening the Hippocratic Oath and IHL, anti-terrorism legislation has rendered the medical treatment of anyone associated with the opposition a crime since June 2012. Intimidation, arrests and killings of medical staff, such as ambulance drivers, doctors and nurses were common at the beginning of the war, while medical facilities including hospitals, blood banks and coordination centres are regularly being subjected to targeted attacks.

Horrifying accounts have emerged from those trapped in such conditions, such as in Eastern Aleppo, where the remaining population was evacuated over the past week after years of heavy assault. By designating all opposition-held areas as being controlled by “terrorists” – an expression which is by no means limited to Daesh – the regime has portrayed the populations in these territories as undeserving of aid. In so doing, it puts the lives of millions in need at risk.

Fear of losing access

Although the UN have long denounced the blockade of aid to opposition areas as an illicit  war tactic, they have continued to compromise for fear of losing access, which is becoming more and more restricted. Today, 5.47 million live in hard-to-reach areas and 861,200 are trapped in areas under siege in Syria alone. Although, again, it is not only the government conducting sieges, 15 out of 18 areas are currently besieged by its armed forces. Sieges seek to enforce surrender – just as as Darayya did after 2.5 years without aid to civilians. Where humanitarian aid does reach opposition areas, airstrikes by Syrian and Russian government forces destroy residential neighborhoods and carry out targeted strikes on medical facilities, leaving not only wounded fighters, but also civilians without resort.

Conversely, not only has the government ensured that the vast majority of aid is channeled towards areas under its own control, but it has also used its leverage to strengthen its economy. Citing a lack of alternatives, the UN have paid tens of millions of US-dollars to implementing organisations and suppliers owned or run by individuals associated with the government who are under EU sanctions. These are not legally binding for the UN – yet current practice render them devoid of meaning. All these measures are without consequences for the government.

A parallel system: the unofficial humanitarian response

While opposition areas are systemically being deprived of direly needed humanitarian aid, an unofficial response has quietly emerged in parallel to the UN-led response which is co-ordinated with the government through SHARP. Early in the conflict, hundreds of local NGOs and expat-founded NGOs abroad sought to fill the gap the UN-led response left in opposition-held territory. From the conflict’s onset, the government refused to licence local NGOs in these areas, knowing full well that these are indispensable partners for major INGOs, most of whom had no prior experience of working in the country.

While it is impossible to establish the actual financial volume of the unofficial deliveries, which are not accounted for in the annual SHARPs, they are highly unlikely to reach levels anywhere near that of the official UN-led response. Although Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) warned that since the beginning of the war that opposition-areas were being strongly disadvantaged in life-saving aid, it took three years until UN resolution 2156 was implemented, which allowed for additional cross-border deliveries mainly from Turkey – with deeply insufficient results, as present figures show. If local NGOs are permitted to work with the official response at all, strict monitoring processes are put in place on money spent, and rightly so. In the view of some, however, the recent revelations on UN-suppliers render these requirements into a farce.

Why do belligerents seek to control aid?

Where belligerents can ensure access to aid in areas under their own control, a resemblance of normality can be maintained in which former state services are being replaced by external assistance. Before the war, the Syrian government implemented socialist-inspired welfare programmes over the course of decades, including needs assessments, which aimed to maintain political consent even within a highly repressive dictatorship. It is now drawing on humanitarian aid as a substitute. In a similarly systemic manner, Daesh have sought to control humanitarian actors, of which only very few are managing to uphold access and operational independence. In areas controlled by Kurdish forces and different groups affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, aid deliveries are often facilitated and coordinated by the Local People’s Committees or Local Administrative Councils, respectively.

While these are often credited for their efficiency, they are nonetheless political bodies who should not seek to monopolise aid deliveries for political gain. Belligerents seek to portray access to aid as a testimony to their ability to fulfill basic needs and protect survival. Where they manage to secure regular access to aid, the result is an order which is functional and might appear as either a continuation of the previous status quo or as a credible alternative to the latter. It is that perception which, by blocking aid deliveries to populations in territories under the control of the enemy, is sought to be destroyed with the aim of undermining their respective quest for legitimacy.

The dangers of Syria’s aid imbalances

Aid imbalances are dangerous not only because they raise the question as to who is most disadvantaged in receiving aid, but also because other wars have shown that access to social services and aid influence the directions in which people move. Demographic changes are a decisive factor in the outcome of war. From the viewpoint of belligerents, deserted neighborhoods are more difficult to defend because they lower the morale amongst fighters. For civilians, aid imbalances which privilege areas under the control of a given warring party over others deepen existing divides. Populations in areas less reached – especially if imbalances occur over long periods of time – will be physically and mentally weaker, exposed to poorer living conditions, and with comparatively fewer options to reach out for assistance. Violence, and in the Syrian case aerial bombardments in particular, prompt populations to flee; access to life-saving resources influence where they seek refuge.

In Syria, data on population movements within the country are still scarce, but the key question is whether those who cannot afford to leave the country are drawn from opposition- into government-held areas out of sheer need. If so, the international aid system threatens to not only enhance social fragmentation, but also further depopulation. In a country where a third of the population has been forced to flee, how will peace negotiations allow for their voices to be heard? For those who remain in the country, in which areas are residents still strong enough to engage, where do factories and business remain functioning that can stem the unfathomable project of future reconstruction, and how will the divides that have been deepening for so long now be bridged?

Future outlook

With every day passing, the aid delivered contributes to shaping the conditions under which peace will be concluded and reconstruction will begin. Aid imbalances are no new phenomenon, but the scale at which opposition-held areas are being disadvantaged in the Syrian case is. The present war has plunged organisations in the official response into a most severe crisis.

In an unprecedented decision, 73 local NGOs declared stopping all collaboration with the UN in October this year in protest against their perceived partiality. It has long been argued that in line with IHL, humanitarian aid must be carried out independently and it must be neutral and impartial in intent, but it is inevitably political in effect. In the Syrian war, however, humanitarian aid has become politicised to the point that it may severely impact on the outcome of the war.

The idea that delivering some aid is better than no aid at all thus represents a dangerous approach. Although slow progress has been made in raising awareness of government interference over the course of this year, the struggles of the unofficial response in opposition areas in particular remain underestimated and underreported. With added pressures resulting from chronic shortages of funding, humanitarian organisations on all sides are caught up in having to reach as many recipients as possible – regardless of where they are located – to meet donor expectations. As a result, there is little room for self-critical reflection, and internal divides on the present responses remain largely invisible for the public.

In contrast to these trends, concrete measures to counter present imbalances are urgently required. These could mean greater numbers of aid drops — similar to those recently resumed in Dayr al-Zur — in areas under siege, hard-to-reach areas, and others where ground access cannot be secured. They also require a coherent approach which does not tolerate interference by any warring party – including the government. For cases where belligerents insist on unacceptable compromises, protocols are needed which allow for humanitarian deliveries to be stopped as result.

If it comes to a point where these measures are being taken, it must be clear that responsibility does not lie with the humanitarian system, but the warring party refusing to abide by the very principles on which humanitarian aid  is based. Addressing these challenges remains an indispensable condition for ensuring even and fair access to humanitarian aid for those in dire need now, and for their prospects of living in the country in the future.

Dr. Esther Meininghaus is a Senior Researcher at the Bonn International Center for Conversion.