The Lexicon of War

Abstract

The term "hybrid" gained widespread use in military and political discourse; it grabbed the headlines and eventually reached the general public. We refer to "hybrid warfare" or "hybrid conflict", most likely without fully comprehending the term's meaning and ramifications. The question is whether and when hybrid warfare should be regarded an armed attackthat exceeds the threshold of damage and devastation caused by a kinetic action. The purpose of this article is to provide light on the consistency of the growing doctrine of hybrid warfare with current international (humanitarian) law, beginning with a lexical and logical analysis of the words. ; This poster is derived from the paper Hybrid Warfare: Above or Below the Threshold of Armed Conflict?, to be published in the Hungarian Defence Review, Special issue, Vol. 149, No. 1., and presented at the international scientific conference on Soldiers and Hybrid War: The Role and Missions of Armed Forces in Below-Threshold Conflicts, held on 17-18 November 2021 at the Hungarian Defence Forces Zrínyi Miklós Barracks Theater, Budapest, Hungary. This work was supported by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under grant No. SFRH/BD/136170/2018.