{"id":2950,"date":"2022-07-04T04:34:40","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T04:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=2950"},"modified":"2022-07-04T04:34:42","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T04:34:42","slug":"hybrid-warfare-and-its-nuances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=2950","title":{"rendered":"Hybrid Warfare and its Nuances:"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><br><strong>A Case-Study from South Asia<\/strong><br><strong><em>Dr. Farah Naz* &amp; Dr Zia ul Haque Shamsi**<\/em><\/strong><br><strong>Abstract<\/strong><br>In a hypothetical sense, hybrid war, in its all nuances, may prove<br>extremely damaging for Pakistan due to certain evident fault lines<br>in country\u2019s security infrastructure and body politic. India and its<br>closest allies did try to find several avenues, which could be<br>exploited with their location within Pakistan\u2019s political, religious,<br>cultural, and psychological domains. Pakistan\u2019s response to<br>India\u2019s Hybrid War, as exposed recently by the European<br>Watchdog through the \u2018Indian Chronicles\u2019, has been of great<br>significance and worth investigating. Pakistan was able to sail<br>through the troubling times, unleashed by this Hybrid War<br>imposed by India. It retrospectively offers a formative case study<br>in this context. This paper aims to explore how and what kind of a<br>Hybrid War was imposed on Pakistan, which could rather prove a<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Dr Farah Naz has a doctorate in Government and International Relations from<br>the University of Sydney and is serving as an Assistant Professor at the<br>Department of Government and Public Policy, NUST. She is author of<br>\u2018COVID-19 Challenges for Pakistan\u2019, and \u2018Pakistan under Hybrid War.\u2019<br>**Dr Zia Ul Haque Shamsi is PhD in Strategic Studies from NDU, Islamabad. He<br>has authored books: \u2018Nuclear Deterrence and Conflict Management between<br>India and Pakistan\u2019 and \u2018South Asia needs Hybrid Peace\u2019 published by Peter<br>Lang, New York, USA. He also translated into Urdu, Sun Tzu\u2019s \u2018The Art of<br>War\u2019. He is presently serving as Director at the Centre for Aerospace and<br>Security Studies, Islamabad.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>@2022 by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute.<br>IPRI Journal XXII (1): 25-43<br>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.31945\/iprij.220102<br>Dr Farah Naz &amp; Dr Zia ul Haque Shamsi<br>26 IPRI JOURNAL \uf06e 2022<br>recurrent security threat. In addition, an effort has been made to<br>determine pathways and methodologies adopted by the hostile<br>neighbour to achieve its defined objectives by undertaking diverse<br>insidious pathways.<br>Keywords: Hybrid War, Economic Security, India, Pakistan,<br>Psychological Warfare, Informational Warfare<br>Hybrid Warfare and its Nuances: A Case-Study from South Asia<br>IPRI JOURNAL \uf06e 2022 27<br>Introduction<br>n the global strategic and security community, Hybrid War is meant<br>for gaining interest along with influencing strategic thinking by<br>engineering demoralization at several levels. The concept of Hybrid<br>War is as old as the warfare itself, but its canvass has expanded beyond<br>conventional techniques to other means and ways, including propaganda<br>campaigns.1 The nature and character of Hybrid War have transformed<br>into an extremely damaging instrument due to its execution and the<br>resultant impact on the people of the targeted country.2<br>Pakistan has been under the cloud of Hybrid War for the last two decades<br>by India and its Western allies particularly, since the overt nuclearization<br>of the Sub-continent in 1998.3 The concept became even more strenuously<br>popularized after the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2014.4<br>It combines<br>multiple complex avenues simultaneously, mainly purported to achieve<br>the desired goals and thus has become an integral part of modern warfare.<br>Apart from employing a wide range of methods, strategies and<br>technologies, a wide variety of terminologies are also being used by<br>experts to explain Hybrid War phenomenon. Scholars belonging to<br>diverse regions and specialisms, define the concept according to their<br>regional situations and respective imperatives. Some scholars also include<br>state\u2019s coercion, conventional and non-traditional threats, grey-zone<br>conflict, financial sanctions, coercive diplomacy, cyber-attacks, irregular<br>criminality, and international pressure within an ever-expansive paradigm<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1 Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud &amp; Patrick Cullen, \u201cWhat is Hybrid War?\u201d (2016),<br>Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, https:\/\/core.ac.uk\/download\/<br>pdf\/52131503.pdf, accessed May 2, 2021.<br>2<br>Jack Brown, \u201cAn Alternative War: The Development, Impact, and Legality of<br>Hybrid Warfare Conducted by the Nation State,\u201d (2018), The Journal of Global<br>Fault lines, Vol. 5, Nos. 1-2. https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.13169\/<br>jglobfaul.5.12.0058#metadata_info_tab_contents, accessed 13 May 2021.<br>3 Munir Akram,\u201dHybrid Warfare\u201d, Dawn, December 9, 2018 vide<br>https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1450346, accessed May 18, 2021.<br>4<br>James K. Whiter, Making Sense of Hybrid Warfare, 2016, Connections, Vol.<br>15, no. 2, https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/26326441?seq=1#metadata_info_tab<br>_contents, accessed May 17, 2021.<br>I<br>Dr Farah Naz &amp; Dr Zia ul Haque Shamsi<br>28 IPRI JOURNAL \uf06e 2022<br>of Hybrid War.5 However, differences withstanding, distinguished<br>academics have mostly defined hybrid conflict trajectories as a<br>combination of conventional and unconventional tools for pursuing<br>hostilities.6<br>In this paper, Hybrid War is defined as the process and employment of<br>multiple avenues to hurt the enemy with all the available kinetic and non\u0002kinetic means of warfare making into a parallel or even complementary<br>pursuit of achieving the goals \u201cby other means.\u201d<br>Hybrid War has been the subject of intense debate in Pakistan over the<br>recent past because the country found itself under the spotlight by India<br>and a motley of its numerous supporters pursuing their own unilateral<br>agendas and interests. As per our premise in this paper, the concept of<br>Hybrid War is not new and dates back to the inception of the warfare<br>itself,7<br>India has often successfully employed all the available means at its<br>discretion to hurt its rival Pakistan militarily, economically,<br>psychologically, internationally, and domestically.8 The Indian Hybrid<br>Warfare strategy is\/was to exploit the existing fault lines in Pakistan\u2019s<br>political system, which is highly polarized and vulnerable to exploitation.9<br>From urban terrorism to sectarian killings, manipulation in stock<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>5 Viktant Deshpande, Hybrid Warfare: The Changing Character of Conflict, 2018,<br>Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis, https:\/\/idsa.in\/system\/files\/book\/<br>book-hybrid-warfare-vdeshpande.pdf, accessed May 10, 2021.<br>6 Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud &amp; Patrick Cullen, \u201cWhat is Hybrid Warfare?,\u201d 2016,<br>https:\/\/core.ac.uk\/download\/pdf\/52131503.pdf, accessed May 3, 2021.<br>7 Patrick J. Cullen, MCDC Countering Hybrid Warfare Project: Understanding<br>Hybrid Warfare, A multinational Capability Development Campaign Project,<br>2017, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. https:\/\/assets.publishing.<br>service.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/64777<br>6\/dar_mcdc_hybrid_warfare.pdf, accessed on May 11, 2021.<br>8 Muhammad Nadeem Mirza, Summar Iqbal Babar. The Indian Hybrid Warfare<br>Strategy: Implications for Pakistan. Progressive Research Journal of Arts and<br>Humanities (PRJAH), Progressive Research Journal of Arts and Humanities<br>(PRJAH), https:\/\/halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr\/halshs-03013546\/document,<br>accessed May 12, 2021.<br>9<br>Ibid.<br>Hybrid Warfare and its Nuances: A Case-Study from South Asia<br>IPRI JOURNAL \uf06e 2022 29<br>exchanges to kidnappings for ransom, bomb blasts in shopping malls to<br>suicidal attacks on military convoys, instigation for political uprisings to<br>separatist movements in Balochistan, and the country has several<br>defenseless areas. In addition, India has consistently mount everything<br>possible to hurt Pakistan\u2019s image in the international system. However,<br>what India could not achieve was its ultimate objective: weaken the<br>resolve of the Pakistani nation and turn them against its armed forces.<br>In response to the involvement of the Indian security agencies purported<br>to destabilize Pakistan, Pakistani armed forces successfully blunted the<br>Indian efforts, arrested its operator Kulbushan Jadhav10 near the Iranian<br>border, and exposed him to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).<br>Pakistan also presented a dossier of India\u2019s nefarious activities at the<br>United Nations,11 and its stance was vindicated once the European<br>Union\u2019s DisInfoLab released its report on the Indian subversive activities<br>against Pakistan over the last fifteen years. This study discusses the nature<br>and character of this Hybrid War unleashed against Pakistan; highlights its<br>target type and approaches; discusses the issues and challenges associated<br>with the phenomenon of the Hybrid War in the country and provides some<br>recommendations along with drawing some pertinent conclusions.<br>The Concept of Hybrid Warfare:<br>Terms including hybrid conflict, hybrid threat, hybrid approaches, hybrid<br>efforts, manipulative cyber techniques, propaganda onslaughts and such<br>others are applied to define Hybrid Warfare positing it as a multi-pronged<br>trajectory.12 The term encompasses all other praxis to explain the nature of<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>10 Kulbushan Jadhav, an Indian Navy serving officer was found guilty of spying<br>and terrorism charges after he was caught near the Iranian border.<br>11 Anwar Iqbal and Naveed Siddiqui, \u201cPakistan shares dossier on India\u2019s \u2018terror<br>campaign\u2019 with UN Secretary General,\u201d Dawn, November 25, 2020.<br>https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1592313, accessed May 25, 2021.<br>12 The Conversation, June 17, 2019, Explainer: What is \u2018hybrid warfare\u2019 and what<br>is meant by the \u2018grey zone\u2019? https:\/\/theconversation.com\/explainer-what-is\u0002hybrid-warfare-and-what-is-meant-by-the-grey-zone-118841, accessed May 10,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" start=\"2021\"><li><br>Dr Farah Naz &amp; Dr Zia ul Haque Shamsi<br>30 IPRI JOURNAL \uf06e 2022<br>war in this age.13 It is a catchall expression to denote various<br>characteristics of war by using all available means of power that involve<br>both political and military strength, tactics, strategies, operational means<br>and latest technologies. The term \u2018hybrid\u2019 was initially applied in the field<br>of biology with a Latin etymology that means, producing different breeds,<br>varieties and species of both animals and plants through human<br>manipulation. However, in this context, the term hybrid is new to the<br>lexicon of conflict and war. If we reflect on the traditional meaning of<br>war, all wars were hybrid but with the changing nature of the world and<br>the rise of technology and media, the characteristics of war also changed.<br>Predominantly with the blend of various means of war, Hybrid War has<br>emerged as an important tool for showcasing the state\u2019s power design and<br>strategic moves without engaging in the actual conventional war itself.<br>In the emerging and ever-changing world of strategy and geopolitics,<br>states use four triads of Hybrid Warfare: statecraft, technological,<br>coercive, and conventional.14 The states harness economic pressure, legal<br>hairsplitting, diplomatic means, information, and technological spaces,<br>cyber threats and attacks, actual surgical strikes, military, and intelligence<br>operations; and, air, sea, and land as tools to weaken their enemy. They<br>create an environment that may disable the smooth functioning of their<br>targeted enemy just making its structures almost dysfunctional. These<br>mentioned measures, among others, allow states to resort to the overt use<br>of armed forces and mix other means such as coercive economic, political,<br>and diplomatic pressures against another country to achieve their desired<br>objectives. In an emphatic way, the flow and reception of information and<br>its subtle manipulation turn into an important tool lodging itself at the<br>heart of any successful operation against a targeted enemy.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>13 Sean Monaghan, Countering Hybrid Warfare So What for the Future Joint<br>Force?, 2018, https:\/\/ndupress.ndu.edu\/Portals\/68\/Documents\/prism\/prism_8-<br>2\/PRISM_8-2_Monaghan.pdf, accessed on May 17, 2021.<br>14 Ehsan Mehmood Khan, Hybrid Warfare: A Conceptual Perspective,<br>https:\/\/www.hilal.gov.pk\/eng-article\/hybrid-warfare:-a-conceptual\u0002perspective\/MjYz.html, accessed May 7, 2021.<br>Hybrid Warfare and its Nuances: A Case-Study from South Asia<br>IPRI JOURNAL \uf06e 2022 31<br>Nature and Character of Hybrid War<br>Since the objective of every war and escalation is to win over the<br>argument&#8211;whether on the battlefield or on the negotiating table as per the<br>Chinese philosopher and strategist Sun Tzu who pronounced it some 2500<br>years ago\u2014triumph remains the ultimate focal point. Sun Tzu insisted that<br>the \u2018acme of the skill is not to defeat the enemy on the battlefield but to<br>win a war without fighting.\u201915 However, history is replete with violent<br>physical engagements over territorial and such conflicts without<br>deterrence in place, making them into unilateral walk-overs.<br>The history of world\u2019s warfare so far indicates that all the wars are<br>inherently political because the stakeholders often aim to subdue each<br>other by utilizing all available means to achieve their objectives.16<br>Warfare by its very nature reflects physical destruction, deaths,<br>devastation, and chaos in the country on the receiving end.17 However, the<br>character of modern wars is changing at a rapid pace, perhaps because the<br>wars have become more expensive than ever before and there are more<br>avenues and optional stratagems available to subjugate the enemy at a<br>lesser cost. Interestingly, neither the concept of Hybrid War is new nor the<br>objectives of the perpetrators, however, the scope of execution has<br>expanded beyond the usual due to the technological developments,<br>nations\u2019 capacity to absorb shock, and resistance to foreign interventions.<br>No matter how big the enemy is, even the small and weak states can go to<br>any length in defending their territorial integrity and sovereignty. In the<br>process, states may suffer beyond economic recovery, but people are<br>willing to take on the aggressors making it into a more drawn and<br>multidimensional pursuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>15 Sun Tzu, \u201cThe Art of War,\u201d (ed.) James Clavell (Lahore: Combine Printers<br>Ltd., 1983).<br>16 Jordan Lindell, Clausewitz: War, Peace and Politics, 2009, https:\/\/www.e\u0002ir.info\/2009\/11\/26\/clausewitz-war-peace-and-politics\/, accessed May 11, 2021.<br>17 Claude Berrebi and Jordan Ostwald, \u201cExploiting the Chaos: Terrorist Target<br>Choice Following Natural Disasters,\u201d 2013, Southern Economic Journal, Vol.<br>79, No. 4, https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/23809493?seq=1#metadata_info_<br>tab_contents, accessed May 21, 2021.<br>Dr Farah Naz &amp; Dr Zia ul Haque Shamsi<br>32 IPRI JOURNAL \uf06e 2022<br>Afghanistan is an example of people\u2019s resistance and pride in their land,<br>culture, and Islamic values. The country may be in ruins today, but, to<br>some persuasive extent, its people have defeated at least two superpowers<br>in the last 40 years.18 Historically speaking, Afghanistan was used both as<br>a buffer and a battlefield between the British and the Russians during the<br>19th century due to its unique location.19 The Russians, in their quest to<br>secure their expanded southern borders and to obtain \u201caccess to warm<br>waters,\u201d pursued a forward policy whereas the British incessantly strove<br>for extending their Sub-continental outreach to the northwest.20 However,<br>soon these two contemporary global imperial powers realized that the<br>hardships due to the mountainous terrain and the unreliability of the local<br>support, would permit them just about to keep Afghanistan as a buffer<br>state between them.21 Therefore, through \u201cthe Anglo-Russian Convention<br>of 1907, Russia promised to consider Afghanistan as outside her sphere of<br>influence and agreed to conduct relations with Afghanistan through the<br>British. Britain, in return, promised not to occupy or annex any Afghan<br>territory or to interfere in the country\u2019s internal affairs.\u201d22 Now, after over<br>a century, Afghanistan, following a type of reenactment of that experience<br>is in the process of restarting afresh following the withdrawal of the US\u0002led NATO troops in August 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>18 Mujib Mashal, \u201cHow the Taliban Outlasted a Superpower: Tenacity and<br>Carnage,\u201d 2020, The New York Times,<br>https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/05\/26\/world\/asia\/taliban-afghanistan-war.html,<br>accessed on May 10, 2021.<br>19 William Byrd, Lessons from Afghanistan\u2019s History for the Current Transition<br>and Beyond, 2012, United States Institute for Peace,<br>https:\/\/www.usip.org\/sites\/default\/files\/SR314.pdf, accessed May 20, 2021.<br>20 William C. Green, \u201cThe Historic Russian Drive for a Warm Water Port:<br>Anatomy of a Geopolitical Myth,\u201d 1993, Naval War College, Vol. 46, No. 2.<br>https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/44642451?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents,<br>accessed May 12, 2021.<br>21 Thomas T. Hammond, \u201cRed Flag Over Afghanistan: The Communist Coup, the<br>Soviet Invasion, and the Consequences,\u201d (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press,<br>1984), 6.<br>22 Louis Dupree, Afghanistan, (Oxford University Press, 1973), 433.<br>Hybrid Warfare and its Nuances: A Case-Study from South Asia<br>IPRI JOURNAL \uf06e 2022 33<br>On the other hand, traditionally, India has made use of all elements of the<br>Hybrid War to weaken Pakistan from within to make it a pliant state so<br>that it can resolve all its disputes including Jammu and Kashmir (J&amp;K) on<br>its own terms. While India applied its regular military force across the<br>LoC aiming at the military and civilian targets, it concurrently harnessed<br>Special Forces for a covert instigation of Baloch nationalists to raise<br>alarms in the Western capitals. The same has been highlighted in the<br>report of EU DisinfoLab that India spent 15 years spreading anti-Pakistan<br>sentiments through some 750 fake media outlets all over the world.23<br>Simultaneously, India used its diplomatic leverage effectively to hurt<br>Pakistan\u2019s economy and stature by implicating it in money laundering and<br>terror financing.<br>Hybrid War and its Perceptions in Pakistan:<br>Hybrid War, though not new to warfare, is far more effective than violent<br>and direct military engagements between known adversaries.24<br>Conventional wars are more expensive due to advanced technology<br>weapons but remain short-lived, whereas Hybrid War acts as a slow<br>poison on the target state and delivers a deeper impact. It aims at<br>disrupting the daily lives of the people on the receiving end by affecting<br>their psychology and emotions due to its inherently propagandist nature.<br>Moreover, \u201cHybrid Warfare uses coordinated military, political,<br>economic, civilian and informational (MPECI) instruments of power that<br>extend far beyond the military realm.\u201d25 That is why the challenges to deal<br>with the Hybrid War like situations are far more complex and need a<br>carefully crafted strategy to deny success to the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>23 Alaphilippe et al. Indian Chronicles, 2020, https:\/\/www.disinfo.eu\/publications\/<br>indian-chronicles-deep-dive-into-a-15-year-operation-targeting-the-eu-and-un\u0002to-serve-indian-interests\/, accessed May 13, 2021.<br>24 James K. Wither, \u201cMaking Sense of Hybrid Warfare,\u201d 2016, Connections, Vol.<br>15, No.2, https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/26326441?seq=1#metadata_info_<br>tab_contents, accessed May 2, 2021.<br>25 MCDC Countering<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reference Link:- <a href=\"https:\/\/journal.ipripak.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Article-2-IPRI-Journal-XXII-I-Dr.-Farah-Naz-Dr-Zia-ul-Haque-Shamsi.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/journal.ipripak.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Article-2-IPRI-Journal-XXII-I-Dr.-Farah-Naz-Dr-Zia-ul-Haque-Shamsi.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Case-Study from South AsiaDr. Farah Naz* &amp; Dr Zia ul Haque Shamsi**AbstractIn a hypothetical sense, hybrid war, in its all nuances, may proveextremely damaging for Pakistan due to certain evident fault linesin country\u2019s security infrastructure and body politic. India and itsclosest allies did try to find several avenues, which could beexploited with their location [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2952,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2950\/revisions\/2952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}