Suchergebnisse

<i>In this article, hybrid warfare challenges and their impact on the evolution of warfare in the
new dynamic security environment are analysed. The aim of the research was to identify
hybrid threats, explore the complexity of the hybrid conflict that involves professional
Armed Forces and irregular (paramilitary) forces. The research has been conducted through
two case studies of hybrid warfare: the Israeli - Lebanese conflict in 2006 and the Lebanese
militia organisation Hezbollah as a prototype of hybrid opponents; and the contemporary
hybrid conflict in Ukraine through the Russian paradigm of hybrid warfare. The conducted
research showed that the decisive role that influenced the outcome of the conflict belonged
either to rapidness or inertia in of the making of political decisions. The research results
showed further that revision of the existing strategic and doctrinal documents are required,
as well as reorganisation of the national security system (and the Armed Forces as part
of it), without which they will not be able to deal successfully with the dynamic nature
of future conflict and complexity of threats ("synergy of threats"). The political decision
is the most essential parameter for sizing military organisation. The rapidity of response
in the event of emergencies (especially outside the national territory) also depends on the
promptness of political decisions in order to activate the Armed Forces.</i>

Abstract
As Montenegro sough to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2015, an attempted coup erupted within the country in October of that year. The Telegraph's Ben Farmer reported that, 'An officer with Russia's GRU military intelligence service, is accused of running a web of Serbian and Russian nationalists and paramilitaries who plotted to assassinate the Montenegrin prime minister.'
Farmer, B. (2017, February 26). Montenegro to Indict Russian Spy Behind Coup Plot. The Telegraph. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/26/montenegro-indict-russian-spy-behind-coup-plot/. [accessed 5 March, 2017].
The failed coup and attempted assassination were conducted by Russian intelligence in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin's vision for a modern Eurasia in which NATO discontinues encroaching on Russia's sphere of influence and in which Russia ascends to regional hegemony.
Knezevic, G. (2017, January 2). Montenegro's NATO-Russia Chess Match. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Available at: http://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-nato-russia-chess-match/28210094.html. [accessed 5 March, 2017].


Although unsuccessful, this covert operation—conducted by Russian intelligence working in conjunction with disaffected Russian partisans within Montenegro—to stymie NATO's expansion captures the essence of modern Russian hybrid warfare. Nevertheless, Montenegro is not unique, but instead is one of many recent hybrid conflicts propagated by the Russian government. Speaking on the spectre of Russian operations in Eastern Europe, American general Michael Williamson commented, 'In terms of state-based challenges, Russia's purported annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine demonstrated a sophisticated combination of diplomatic, informational, military, and economic means to achieve objectives below a threshold that the Russian leadership believe would elicit a concerted NATO response.'
Lt. Gen. Michael Williamson, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, and Lt. Gen. John Murray, statement to the Subcommittee on AirLand, Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, on Army Modernization in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2017, Second Session, 114th Congress, 5 April 2016.


Since 2008, Russia's operations throughout Europe, its Near Abroad and Syria signal an evolved approach to the conduct of war. Many terms and phrases have been attributed to Russia's evolved model of war to include Grey Zone conflict and new generation warfare. However, hybrid war or hybrid warfare is quite useful, despite the contention the term generates. The term hybrid warfare is useful because it speaks of the bundling of capabilities, technology and ideas in a coherent, purposeful manner to accomplish tactical, operational and strategic objectives on behalf of policymakers and strategists.
The work starting position is that the Russian hybrid warfare is in fact an applied way of war. Despite many arguments to the contrary, Russia's applied way of war introduces important nuances to the conduct of war. Resultantly, the purpose of this work is to clarify the concept of Russian hybrid warfare and to identify the characteristics that make it worthy of examination.
Two basic methods exist to explain an observable way of war. The first is to paraphrase existing primary source information on the subject. This method requires access to primary source information and the physical ability to read that material. That method is not employed in this work because access to Russian strategic and tactical doctrine is not readily available to the layperson. Furthermore, in many cases doctrine is a preferred way of war-fighting, a narrative and tied to procurement strategies, and thus, not an applied method. Therefore, merely relying on doctrine or policy statements can mislead the researcher about the true character of a given way of war.
That notwithstanding, the second method is to observe the phenomenon in multiple situations over a period of time. In doing so, the observer seeks to identify trends, inconsistencies, rules, relationships, reactions and boundaries that surface and recur therein and then generate an over-arching assessment about that phenomenon's boundaries and inner workings. That is the technique employed here.

What do we speak of when we speak of 'hybrid warfare', a notion that has become prominent in discussions of European security? The article shows that this question is difficult to answer, as the hybrid warfare discourse is not only vague, but also consists of multiple, and at times contradictory, narratives. While talking and writing about supposedly the same thing, participants in the hybrid warfare debate often suggest markedly different ideas about the precise nature and target of the threat, offer different responses and draw upon different expertise. Grounding our argument in critical scholarship on narratives, security knowledge and hybrid warfare, we build a framework for studying security narratives around the four elements of threat, threatened value, response and underlying knowledge. This framework is utilised in a case study of Czechia, a country that has played a pioneering and outsized role in European hybrid warfare debates. We identify three narratives of hybrid warfare – defence, counterinfluence and education – which present markedly different understandings of 'hybrid warfare', and ways to defend against it. Our intervention hopes to contribute to disentangling the contradictions of the hybrid warfare discourse, itself a necessary precondition for both sound state policy and an informed public debate.

The European Union is in a political and security crisis. The crisis tends to become existential, which undermines the future of the EU as an integration project. The conflict of values between liberal democracy and authoritarianism is becoming an important factor in international security.
Negative current trends in the international security environment increase risks for the EU. In its foreign policy the EU does not demonstrate the ability to speak with one voice. It does not support EU's ambition to be a global international actor. Within the EU, centrifugal tendencies and Euroscepticism appear to be gaining ground. Among the destructive external and internal factors affecting European security, the hybrid threat posed by Moscow's ambitious plans and aggressive actions is at the forefront. These actions are aimed at undermining democracies, international solidarity and security. Russia is systematically acting to destabilize the EU, using a set of means of destructive influence, trying to undermine European unity both externally and internally.
Russia's aggression against Ukraine, operations in Syria and Libya, interference in domestic processes in the EU, etc., are exacerbating destructive trends in the European security environment. In this con- text, the EU faces the need to increase its resilience, as a tool to deter destructive actions of the Russian Federation and a means to mitigate their effect.
The purpose of the article is to analyze the causes and consequences of Russia's hybrid influence against the EU, plus to identify the means of Russia's destructive impact, such as the spread of misinformation, active special operations, energy pressure, etc.
The article examines the imperatives of Russian foreign policy, the impact of the value crisis on the European project and its future, as well as obstacles to strategic dialogue between the EU and Russia.
Europe returns to searching for its collective European identity, discussing revitalization of the global European narrative. Maintaining a system of liberal democratic values is a key precondition for the future of the EU in order to avoid the risk of disintegration of the European Union.
Sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, its national security could be guaranteed only by full-fledged integration into the European political, economic and security space. Europe's hesitations regarding the European perspective for Ukraine, which arise under pressure from the Kremlin and internal contradictions in the EU, negatively affect the security environment in Europe.