INTRODUCTION
The current era of globalization, the development of information technology and the revolution in management has been marked by substantial changes in the world and society, particularly in economic and military affairs. Military science is looking for new theories and concepts that reflect the new reality: unconventional wars of the 21st century are replacing the traditional armed conflicts of the 20th century.
Russian concept of “asymmetric”, “unconventional”, “non-linear” war is a new approach to the implementation of the theory of hybrid warfare. Having emergedas a counterbalance to the Western idea of hybrid warfare, it has been tested in the confrontation with Ukrainian troops during the annexation of Crimea and in the course of the current war.
The cornerstone of the concept of "New generation warfare" is the widely quoted formulation given by Russian General Valery Gerasimov in the article "The value of science in prediction": "In the 21st century there is a tendency to erase the distinction between the state of war and peace. Wars are not declared, and having started, they do not follow the pattern we are accustomed to".[1] Gerasimov estimates the ratio of non-military to military methods at four to one in new generation warfare, that is, a significant majority of actions in a hybrid war should be carried out without fighting. This concept is deliberately aimed at exploiting the weaknesses of a globalized world.
WAR WITHOUT LIMITS
In wide meaning, the Russian Doctrine of new generation warfare should be considered broadly as a complex phenomenon comprising of four main parts: military doctrine as an act of legislation;[2] Gerasimov’s concept of non-linear war; Russia's foreign policy strategy, adopted in 2023, which identifies the "policy of the collective West" as the main risks to Russia's security,[3] and doctrinal studies of military experts on the principles of “New Generation Warfare.”[4] Most often, it is defined by Russian military experts as the complex application of various methods, not only military but also economic, social, and political, to influence the enemy within the framework of interstate confrontation.[5]
In comparison to Russian approach, the NATO definition gives a more specific understanding of hybrid warfare as “broad, complex, adaptive, opportunistic and often integrated combinations of conventional and unconventional methods. These activities could be overt or covert, involving military, paramilitary, organized criminal networks and civilian actors across all elements of power.”[6] The EU explains the hybrid threats as a “mixture of coercive and subversive activity, conventional and nonconventional methods (i.e. diplomatic, military, economic, technological), which can be used in a coordinated manner by state or non-state actors to achieve specific objectives while remaining below the threshold of formally declared warfare.”[7]
Russian understanding of hybrid war is close to the P.R.C. concept of “unrestricted” war. High-ranking officers of the People's Liberation Army, Qiao Liang and Wang Xianxu, formulated it as a war “without rules” that “covers the
entire sphere of society: to achieve their goal, the actors of war can use any tools to protect national interests.”[8] The concept of “unrestricted” war expands warfare to the extreme, which coincides with the Russian approach of weaponizing any possible tool in the course of war, including International Law.[9] Both sides prefer the “combination method” of preemptive capital accumulation, financial and cyber attack, and an informational campaign designed to “cause the enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis.”[10]
The provisions of the Russian Military Doctrine have created a theoretical and normative basis to turn vulnerabilities of the globalized world into weapons of modern hybrid warfare. This doctrine has become an umbrella for illegitimate actions, illegal operations, irregular initiatives and other actions that corrupt the world without proper counteraction from the international community.
NEW GENERATION WAR OF CHAOS VS CONVENTIONAL WAR
Russian military doctrine is a product of the Postmodernist era. The philosophy of postmodernism explains that there is no clear division between reality and simulation, and no one appeals to the "real" object anymore with the entire world dominated by artificial models.[11] Postmodernist culture becomes "responsible" for virtually all aspects of society, including war. In traditional warfare, information and psychological confrontation accompany military operations, providing theappropriate motivation for fighting and justifying its necessity. In hybrid warfare, the emphasis is shifted to imposing one's own vision of reality and one’s own model of world order and interstate relations. This makes it possible to carry out tough (forceful) operations under the cover of attractive slogans, to construct certain simulacra, introducing them into public consciousness to justify the need for further forced actions. War spreads to all spheres of public relations, becoming global, universal, permanent and endless.
War is no longer an extreme situation and a tear in the fabric of ordinary social existence, it has become a quite stable form of public relations. Under the new conditions, Clausewitz's formula is turned inside out: war is no longer the continuation of politics by other means, but is war waged by other means; politics as one of the instruments, one of the embodiments of war. It is violence, passing through a phase shift from states to quasi-state actors, from the local to the global, from the public to the private, from the organized to the chaotic, and from the real to virtual.
A principal feature of controlled chaos warfare is a paradoxical logic: it is the situation of neither war nor peace. This is due to the fact that, unlike traditional wars, hybrid wars focus on creating a situation of uncertainty and chaos. A state of peace means the establishment of order, the development or restoration of one’s ordered world.[12] The chaos of war is defeated by the new order of peace. But hybrid war in the Russian version does not need order - it is always an expanse of uncertainty, of chaos. The principal feature of the hybrid war of chaos is the action of paradoxical logic, when the state of war is at the same time a state of peace. At any given moment, war is not war in its pure form and peace is not peace. This is particularlyevident in the Russo-Ukrainian war when, for example, missile strikes are launched across the territory of Ukraine but simultaneously Russian gas and oil are pumped to EU countries through pipelines on Ukrainian-controlled territory.[13] Russian hybrid war is not declared and therefore neither has a beginning nor an end, while a peace agreement is impossible in the processes of war formation.
CENTER OF GRAVITY IN WAR OF CHAOS
Carl von Clausewitz, a 19th-century Prussian military theorist, is primarily known for his theoretical work on the nature of war. Clausewitz and his military theory are returning to the spotlight with the war in Ukraine. According to Clausewitz, the center of gravity in battle is always found where the mass is concentrated most densely. It presents the most effective target for a blow; furthermore, the heaviest blow is that struck by the center of gravity.[14] The center of gravity of the hybrid war is shifting from its power component to the psychological one, with human consciousness as the battlefield. In the information sphere, there are invisible but fierce battles for the possession of information. The global world space is narrowed by intensive communication and the denser nature of the interactions between peoples contributes to the growth of contradictions between them. To achieve information advantage, Russia has established several so-called “troll factories” that use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram under the guise of Ukrainian identities to criticize the authorities and spread rumors designed to cause panic.[15] This space of social media engenders the formation of a mass consciousness, according to certain ideological clich.s, to tune the population to the desired emotional state. Aggressive actions of the hybrid type are always of a disguised nature, and the true purpose of the war in Ukraine was and is the destruction of the state, the seizure of territory,[16] and the extermination of Ukrainian national identity and language.[17]
WAR OF CHAOS TECHNOLOGY
Clausewitz defines war as a chameleon, easily changing its appearance with environmental changes.[18] He also mentions the uncertainties of war. Nonetheless, two hundred years ago, there were no vulnerabilities such as nuclear or hydroelectric power plants, telecommunication cables that connect billions, social communication networks, pipeline networks, or space technologies. Hybrid warfare of 21st century is always an expanse of uncertainty and chaos. Russia uses resources that are not weapons as such but can be weapons with a real destructive effect. The special character of the Russo-Ukrainian war is that the factor of chaos has increased substantially. Russia aims to control and moderate, not overcome, chaos – this is the instance of war of “controlled chaos.” Since the level of chaos was far from being advanced everywhere, chaos had to be artificially provoked.
“Controlled chaos” should be regarded not as a strategy but as a technology. One of the chaos instruments is privatization of the war. The traditional two sides of a military conflict are joined by other actors – criminal gangs and other armed formations of an irregular type. Acting independently, these formations actively contribute to the additional escalation of chaos and confusion and lead to unjustified casualties among civilians and other war victims. Such formations are often called "warriors" rather than soldiers.[19] The difference between “warriors” and soldiers lies in their lifestyle and activities. “Warriors” are characterized by disregard for the oath, the transition from one “master” to another, the habit of cruelty and the complete neglect of civil order. Unlike soldiers, “warriors” follow no rules other than their own; they do not obey any orders they do not like. It was reported that over 100,000 Russian murderers, looters, and rapists were released from Russian prisons in exchange for participating in the war as “warriors” as members of the socalled “Wagner’” private military company.[20] “Wagner” played a key role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as in Russian operations in Syria and African countries, including Libya and Mali. However, as the legal status of private military companies is not defined in Russian law, their involvement in international armed conflict using all kinds of armament, except air forces, should be regarded as privatization of war by illegal warriors.[21] The Wagner “warriors” have been accused of various crimes, including killing and torturing Ukrainian citizens. The mercenary organization was proscribed as a terrorist organization by the UK government on September 15, 2023.[22] Eight months prior, the U.S. Department of Treasury sanctioned the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization on January 26, 2023.[23]
Despite old history’s concept of false flag operations, they still have widely used in Russo-Ukrainian war. Russians spread disinformation in cynical attempts to blame Ukraine for their own war crimes. In February 2022, they committed several acts of provocation in occupied Eastern Ukraine to create a pretext to invade Ukraine;[24] later Russian state media falsely accused Ukraine, the United States, and NATO of plotting a chemical or radiological attack on Russia or Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.[25]
As the current war has shown, in the kinetic phase Russia is waging warfare according to classical standards of the last century, responding to network-centric challenges in a reactive and defensive manner. The Russian military reflects a historic Russian phobia toward decentralized decision making. Military organization in Russia is a self-limited centralized hierarchical system based on subordination to directives from above. In the Russian army, the decision-making instances are separated from executors by numerous formal stages.[26] When Russia’s military leadership realized that Russian forces were losing in mobile warfare, they demonstrated their preference for more conventional methods. Russian infantry tactics shifted from trying to deploy separate “tactically independent” Battalion Tactical Groups as combined arms units of action to large units, such as divisions and armies. Their strategy now is frontal attack warfare, for which minimal training is necessary.
Unable to wage modern warfare, Russia, in the course of its invasion, has extensively used the entire arsenal of weapons available, ignoring the norms and principles of International Humanitarian Law. Missile strikes on power plants, water supply, and heating systems in peaceful cities and villages are intended to return society to the dark ages.[27] The goal is to force civilians into an atmosphere of total fear to put pressure on the political authorities in Ukraine to stop resistance.
According to UN statistics, in the course of the war, European countries have received and sheltered almost 6 million Ukrainians.[28] Refugees have become a factor in the domestic political life in Central European EU countries. Kremlin propaganda has made discrediting Ukrainian refugees in the EU one of the main areas of its external information operation track since the beginning of the fullscale invasion using European pro-Russian media activists, experts, and individual political forces.[29]
After failing to occupy Ukraine and capture Kyiv in three days, the Russian leadership began to look for new strategies to create chaos. One of these was to exploit the dependence of European countries on Russian energy resources. Unlike Russian oil and coal, natural gas has been exempted from any formal sanctions; however, Russia stopped supplying gas to the EU through the Nord Stream pipeline to hurt the bloc for its overwhelming support for Ukraine.[30] Rapid reduction of supplies was aimed at freezing the EU in the winter of 2022/2023 but failed.
Nuclear blackmail and the threat to unleash World War III was successfully used by Russia a long time ago. Russia received a very mild international reaction to the annexation of Crimea and the unleashing of war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Since the beginning of the war, Russian officials have voiced more than fifty nuclear “warnings.”[31] Moscow irresponsibly brandished the threat of nuclear fire to try to force Ukraine to capitulate to its demands and dissuade NATO countries from aiding Kyiv.[32] Putin likes to repeat successful practices, and, in the current conflict, the Russian approach has not changed: if conventional forces cannot win it, the threat of nuclear weapons can be used.
CONCLUSION
Hybrid (non-linear) war is the main idea of doctrine, but it is a broad, “frame” concept. The Russian version of war may be called a hybrid war of controlled chaos. This term is not strictly an academic or professional but rather a layman’s term, emphasizing the characteristic essence of a new type of war – creation of global chaos. Russian Military Doctrine, in its actual, not declared, content is not about military technology – it is a collection of covert special operations. Ironically, the biggest war in Europe after WWII is officially called in Russia a “special military operation,” not war.
The war against Ukraine has shown that Russia failed to implement new warfare technologies on the battlefield and used many controlled chaos operations against Ukraine and the world. However, the chaos tools cease to work when the target begins to understand the degree of threat, the goals, and the mechanism of such threats. The war has shown that chaos technologies also have vulnerabilities. They are highly dependent on initial conditions: any minor change in the initial state leads to disproportionately divergent negative consequences, and chaos becomes a boomerang. In June 2023, the “Wagner” rebellion of thousands of pardoned criminals seriously affected the stability of Putin’s regime. In this war, Ukrainians’ ability to fight was clearly underestimated; on the other hand, Russia's own ability to perform a complex military operation was overestimated.
However, the danger the doctrine still poses should not be underestimated. Instead of seeking constructive ways to resolve crises as a nuclear-armed country and permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia, under the threat of destruction, is only picking at the painful boils of the international community. Here lies the true power of hybrid warfare: resisting an adversary you cannot predict is very difficult. Russian hybrid war has shown how easily vulnerabilities can be transformed into weapons of hybrid warfare. In this war everything can be a weapon: civil population, social media, corrupt political elite, refugees, criminals, natural gas, nuclear blackmail.
Each historical period is pregnant with its own military theory. Russian “NewGeneration Warfare” provides no ethical or legal constraints. The extant regulatory framework of International Law, based on 20th-century military theories, cannot protect global security. Privatizing war and other hybrid threats cannot ensure International Humanitarian Law principles, which only provide binding obligations for state actors. Therefore, the international community should develop common approaches and innovative international principles and norms to address these new hybrid challenges.
[1]Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science in Prediction,” in Connections: The Quarterly Journal, July 6, 2014, https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/the-gerasimov-doctrine-and-russian-non-linearwar/.
[2]Военная доктрина Российской Федерации, Указ Президента РФ от 25.12.14 г. № 815 [Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, Order of the Russian President dated December 12, 2014 # 815], http://static. kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d527556bec8deb3530.pdf.
[3]Ольга Лебедева and Александр Бобров, "Концепция внешней политики Российской федерации [Concept of Russia's Foreign Policy]," Russian International Affairs Council, May 2, 2023, https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/analytics/kontseptsiya-vneshney-politiki-rossii-2023-strategiyamnogopolyarnogo-mira/.
[4]A. Bartosh, “Вопросы теории гибридной войны [Issues of the Theory of Hybrid Warfare],” Goryachayaliniya- Telecom (2022), 24.
[5]A. Bartosh, “Туман гибридной войны. Неопределенности и риски конфликтов XXI века [The Fog of Hybrid War. Uncertainties and Risks of Conflicts of the XXI Century Moscow: Goryachaya liniya],” Hotline Telecom (2022), 43.
[6]“NATO Transformation Seminar,”Atlantic Council, May 4, 2015, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depthresearch-reports/report/nato-transformation-seminar/.
[7]“Joint Framework on Countering Hybrid Threats a European Union Response,” EUR-Lex, April 6, 2016, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52016JC0018.
[8]Go Fenli, “Гибридная война в исследованиях ученых Китайской Народной Республики [Hybrid Warfare in the Studies of Scholars of the People's Republic of China],” Истина ЦЭМИ РАН 1, no. 23 (2022), 140-152.
[9]Jyun-Yi Lee, “Chinese and Russian Lawfare and the Implications for Legal Resilience,” Defense Security Brief 12, no. 2 (2023), 9-18, https://indsr.org.tw/uploads/enindsr/files/202312/9fe60331-f219-4d0c-87ac-661f9cf052a6.pdf.
[10]Nils Peterson, “The Chinese Communist Party’s Theory of Hybrid Warfare,” ISW, November 21, 2023, https:// www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/chinese-communist-partys-theory-hybrid-warfare.
[11]Даниил Полулях, “Гибридная война сквозь призму постмодернизма и критических теорий [Hybridwar from the per-spective of postmodernism and critical theory],” Academia, https://www.academiaedu/12545860/Гибридная_война_сквозь_призму_постмодернизма_и_критических_теорий.
[12]CarlClausewitz, On War (Kharkiv: Vivat, 2018), 43.
[13]Сергій Барбу, “Газ і нафта: чому Україна не зупиняє російського транзиту? [Gas and Oil: Why does Ukraine Not Stop Russian tTansit?],” LB, November 16, 2023, https://lb.ua/economics/2023/11/16/584379_gaz_i_nafta_chomu_ukraina_zupinyaie.html.
[14]CarlClausewitz, On War (Kharkiv: Vivat, 2018), 233.
[15]Александр Надельнюк, “Как российская «Фабрика троллей» пыталась влиять на повестку дня вУкраине. Исследование 755 000 твитов [How the Russian “Troll Factory” Tried to Influence the Agenda in Ukraine. Study of 755,000 Tweets],” VOX UKRAINE, https://voxukraine.org//longreads/twitter-database/index-ru.html.
[16]Clara Apt, “Russia’s Eliminationist Rhetoric Against Ukraine: A Collection, Just security, April 18, 2024, https://www.justsecurity.org/81789/russias-eliminationist-rhetoric-against-ukraine-a-collection/.
[17]“Stop linguocide Issue 13,” State Language Protection Commissioner, June 23, 2023, https://movaombudsman.gov.ua/en/news/stop-linguocide-issue-13.
[18]Carl Clausewitz, Природа війни [On war], 48.
[19]Jake Russell, “Asymmetric Warfare - the New Face of Warfare in the 21st Century,” in David Potts, ed., The Big Issue: Command and Combat in the Information Age (CCRP, February 2003), 243-266, http://www. dodccrp.org/files/Potts_Big_Issue.pdf.
[20]Isabel van Brugen, “Exclusive: Russia Has Recruited Over 100,000 Convicts Since Ukraine War Began,” Newsweek, December 5, 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/russia-recruited-prisoners-convicts-ukrainewar-1849292.
[21]“Wagner's Legal Status Needs Reviewing, Kremlin Says,” Reuters, July 14, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-says-wagners-legal-status-needs-be-considered-2023-07-14/.
[22]“Wagner Group Proscribed,” GOV.UK, September 15, 2023, https://www.gov.uk/government/newswagner-group-proscribed#:~:text=This%20order%20comes%20into%20force,in%20place%20of%20a%20 fine.
[23]“Treasury Sanctions Russian Proxy Wagner Group as a Transnational Criminal Organization,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, January 26, 2023, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1220.
[24]Ярослава Вольвач, How Russian Proxy Forces are Attempting to Provoke the Ukrainian Army and are Lying about a New Ukrainian Offensive,” The New Voice of Ukraine, February 18, 2022, https://english. nv.ua/nation/how-russian-proxies-are-attempting-to-provoke-the-ukrainian-army-lying-about-a-ukrainianoffensive-50218033.html.
[25]Katherine Lawlor and Katheryna Stepanenko, “Warning Update: Russia May Conduct a Chemical or Radiological False-Flag Attack as a Pretext for Greater Aggression against Ukraine,” Institute for the Study of War, March 9, 2022, https://understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Radiological%20Chemical%20False%20Flag%20Warning.pdf.
[26]Mikhael Kofman and Rob Lee, “Not Built for Purpose: The Russian Military’s Ill-failed Force Design,” War on the Rocks, June 2, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-illfatedforce-design/.
[27]“Ukraine: Russian attacks on critical energy infrastructure amount to war crimes,” Amnesty International, October 20, 2022, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/10/ukraine-russian-attacks-on-criticalenergy-infrastructure-amount-to-war-crimes/.
[28]“United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees / Refugees from Ukraine recorded in Europe,” Operational Data Portal, https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine.
[29]Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group, “Ukrainian Refugees in Europe: A Target of Russian Propaganda,” Ukraine Crisis Media Center, December 30, 2023. https://uacrisis.org/en/ukrayinski-bizhentsi-v-yes-u-fokusirosijskoyi-propagandy.
[30]Ashutosh Pandey, “EU Gas supply: When Russia Went into Self-destruct Mode,” DW, August 31, 2023, https: //www.dw.com/en/eu-gas-russia-nord-stream-crisis/a-66668256.
[31]Читати українською, “Сколько раз в месяц Медведев угрожает ядерным оружием – исследование [How Many Times A Month Medvedev Threatens Nuclear Weapons - Study],” Слово і Діло , July 5, 2023, https://ru.slovoidilo.ua/2023/07/05/infografika/obshhestvo/skolko-raz-mesyacz-medvedev-ugrozhaetyadernym-oruzhiem-issledovanie.
[32]Pierre Goldschmidt, “Why is the UN Secretary-general So Worried about Gaza but not Ukraine?,” Atlantic Council, January 4, 2024, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/why-is-the-un-secretarygeneral-so-worried-about-gaza-but-not-ukraine/.