NOTE-012: Russian Hybrid Warfare

Contribution

Clark reframes the Western debate over Russian “hybrid war”. The debate, he says, has used the term for a set of means below the threshold of armed conflict. He argues that Russian military writers use гибридная война for a coherently defined category of war, marked off by the scale of its objective rather than by its means (p. 16), and that this category includes conventional forces. From that reading he derives a critique of the 2018 National Defense Strategy and a set of US policy recommendations. The descriptive part is a synthesis of open Russian military journals, official newspapers and speeches from 2015 to 2020. The prescriptive part is ISW advocacy.

Key insight

According to the report, the Russian military separates hybrid war from ordinary competition by its aim, namely control of a target state’s “worldview”, governance and geostrategic orientation, and not by the means used. Because that aim is informational, kinetic operations, including conventional units, serve the information campaign rather than the reverse. In this frame the US split between “gray zone” activity and conventional war does not exist. The report’s policy conclusion follows from that: deterring the war Russia does not intend to fight leaves the US exposed to the one it is fighting (pp. 8, 13).

Assumptions

Premises and authorities the argument rests on:

• Open sources are representative. Public Military Thought, Army Collection, Red Star, VPK and Kremlin media are taken to be “very likely a good indicator” of Russian military thinking, including what is classified (p. 14). The support offered is that open journals reach more officers and have a lower barrier to authorship, and that the discourse is iterative, echoing interwar Soviet theory (p. 14). No sampling frame is given.
• Seniority confers authority. Gerasimov’s, Shoigu’s and Dvornikov’s statements and Military Thought’s status as the General Staff journal are treated as evidence that the views are institutional rather than fringe (pp. 14, 17–18).
• Stated worldview drives planning. The claim that the Kremlin believes the West has waged hybrid war on Russia since 1991 is taken as sincere, or else as having become self-driving (pp. 17–18).
• Mapping to Ukraine. Because Russian writers do not discuss Ukraine openly, the report infers that Bartosh’s generic recommendations “clearly match” Russian actions there, and that the theory is “likely informed by” that conflict (p. 20, n. 47).
• Time window. 2015–2020, before the 2022 invasion. Syria is the main discussed case.
• Interpretive lens. The author is an ISW analyst, and the report is framed around US strategy. Several supporting citations are ISW’s own work: Bugayova, “Putin’s Offset” (nn. 57, 63, 66, 77); Clark with Harris (n. 67); Bugayova & Clark (n. 111).

Key results

What the report argues and records (all attributed to Clark, reporting Russian authors unless stated):

• Definition (pp. 8, 11, 15). Hybrid war is “a strategic-level effort to shape the governance and geostrategic orientation of a target state in which all actions, up to and including the use of conventional military forces in regional conflicts, are subordinate to an information campaign”. It is not a descriptor for all future war, not an operational approach within conventional war, not a set of means, and not “gray zone” activity (p. 15).
• Threshold by objective (p. 16). A conflict is a hybrid war only if the aggressor explicitly aims to reshape the target’s strategic orientation and “worldview”. Many “hybrid means” can be used outside hybrid war.
• Perceived Western hybrid war (pp. 16–18). Russian writers (Gerasimov, Mar 2019; Kiselev; Dvornikov, Jul 2018; Bartosh, Oct 2018) cast the US as having waged hybrid war against Russia since the Cold War. They cite Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela, and Kiselev says the theory “developed in the bowels of the Pentagon”. Clark calls this worldview “deeply paranoid and frankly hyperbolic” and argues that it nonetheless shapes planning.
• Centralization (pp. 18–19). Bartosh calls for a “single governing center”. The National Defense Control Center (ordered December 2013, launched April 2014) is reported, via Red Star in February 2017, to link 73 federal executive authorities, all 85 federation subjects and 1,320 state corporations and defense enterprises.
• Whole-of-society preparation (pp. 19–20). Bartosh applies “fronts” to hybrid war and stresses “wear” on economy, ideology and information campaigns. The Military-Political Directorate (July 2018, Kartapolov) exists to instil a unified ideology, with work among the population and youth (“today’s student is a future soldier”).
• Conventional forces are integral (p. 20). Russian analysts are said to see conventional forces as most often “the concluding step” of a hybrid war, frequently under legal or “diplomatic cover” such as peacekeeping.
• Kinetic subordinate to information (pp. 21–22). The key change reported is a reversal of the historical relation, so that kinetic operations now support information campaigns and “cannot succeed” without them. Clark notes that Russian writers say little about the details of information operations, which he attributes to secrecy (p. 22).
• Diversifying participants (pp. 22–24). PMCs are conceived as state assets. A January 2015 General Staff piece argued that PMCs grant “immunity from the norms of international law”, and this preceded Kremlin denials in Syria. “Illegal armed forces” are treated as almost always state-directed. Clark judges that this view will “likely lead Russian planning and training astray” regarding jihadist groups (p. 23).
• Distributed operations (p. 24). Gerasimov (Mar 2018) describes operations as “continuous and distributed”. Longer weapon ranges blur the levels of war, tactical events can have strategic effects (Hmeimim, late 2015), and a common operating picture is needed.
• Implications (pp. 25–27). The US should analyse Kremlin decisions within the Russian frame, counter globally and not only in Europe, treat each hybrid war as a synthetic whole rather than by “domain”, coordinate information and kinetic assets (with Congress playing a role), and reinforce norms (for example by refusing to accept “peacekeeper” labels). It should also align NATO red lines, openly challenge information campaigns, strip PMCs and proxies (Wagner, DNR, LNR) of deniability, plan conventional military requirements and avoid “false red lines”, shift global posture, and use conventional deployments as a “baseplate” for non-kinetic assets. The report “does not argue against a robust conventional NATO presence in Europe” (p. 25).

Claims

id	claim	strength	support
C1	Russian military writers define hybrid war as a type of war whose objective is a target state’s orientation, with all actions subordinate to an information campaign	moderate	primary sources cited (Chekinov & Bogdanov 2017; Bartosh 2018; Kiselev 2015), paraphrased and synthesized by the author; no single doctrinal text quoted
C2	This view is institutional, not fringe	weak–moderate	the standing of the outlets and authors (General Staff journal; Gerasimov speeches); no systematic sample or count of dissenting views (pp. 14, 17–18)
C3	The Kremlin sincerely believes the West is waging hybrid war on Russia, and this drives planning	weak–moderate	repeated statements by senior officers; argued by elimination against the propaganda reading, with a fallback (“tail … wagging the dog”, p. 18)
C4	Russian hybrid war includes significant conventional force; Syria (VKS), Belarus (three BTGs, Tu-160s) and Libya (PMCs) are examples	moderate for the Russian writings; weak for the executive-summary force details	body cites Russian analysts (p. 20); the Belarus and Syria force specifics appear in the Executive Summary (p. 8) without notes
C5	Russian writers hold that kinetic operations now support information operations, the reverse of the historical pattern	moderate	several cited authors (nn. 79–93); the “four times the impact” figure is second-hand via Bartosh citing a closed speech (n. 82)
C6	The NDCC connects 73 federal authorities, 85 subjects and 1,320 enterprises	moderate	single Russian official-press source (Red Star, Feb 2017, n. 54), reported not verified
C7	PMCs are seen by Russian analysts as state assets that provide legal deniability	moderate	Belokon & Bytyev (Military Thought, Jan 2015) and Red Star; Western secondary sources on deployments (n. 104)
C8	Russian doctrine on hybrid war is “likely informed by” Ukraine, though Ukraine is not discussed openly	weak	inference from resemblance between Bartosh’s generic prescriptions and Russian actions (p. 20, n. 47)
C9	A US strategy focused on deterring great-power conventional war can “technically succeed” while the US suffers “serious strategic defeats”	weak (as a prediction)	informal argument from C1–C5; no case analysis of outcomes
C10	The US should adopt the listed measures (global posture, deniability-stripping, avoiding “false red lines”, etc.)	assertion / advocacy	policy recommendation derived from the analysis; costs and trade-offs not assessed

Concepts

• Hybrid war (гибридная война) — as the report attributes it to Russian writers: a war aimed at the long-term governance and orientation of a target state, in which all instruments, including conventional forces, serve an information campaign. It is distinguished from competition by scale of objective, not by means.
• Hybrid means — non-kinetic or non-traditional instruments, which Russian writers name with loose terms (“asymmetric operations”, “non-military struggle”, “information warfare”) and which can be used outside a hybrid war (p. 16).
• Gray zone / competition space — the US frames; the report calls the Russian concept “incompatible” with them because it has no threshold separating proxy and disinformation activity from conventional war (p. 11; n. 3).
• Wear — Bartosh’s term for the economic, physical, moral and ideological attrition of prolonged hybrid war (p. 19).
• Fronts — Bartosh’s borrowing of the Soviet army-group echelon for the lines of effort of a hybrid war (n. 58).
• Illegal armed forces (IAFs) — the Russian catch-all for militants, terrorists and non-state formations, treated as state-directed (p. 23).
• National Defense Control Center (NDCC) — the MoD’s central command, coordination and planning centre (p. 18).

Connections

The report positions itself against Western work that treats hybrid war as means (Galeotti, Russian Political War; Fridman, Russian Hybrid Warfare; RAND’s “Russia’s Hostile Measures”; the CSIS Gray Zone Project; the AWG “Russian New Generation Warfare Handbook”). It accepts their descriptions of means but faults them for not engaging the Russian category (pp. 12–13; nn. 1–15). It critiques the 2018 NDS and Multi-Domain Operations framings (n. 5). It belongs to ISW’s “Military Learning and the Future of War” series and leans on Bugayova’s “Putin’s Offset” (September 2020). Within this record, the nearest document is the US joint doctrine on cyberspace operations (LIT-015). That is a “domain” framing of the kind Clark argues compartmentalizes responses, although the report does not cite JP 3-12.

Bearing on the record

No THEORY document in this record is affected, and the report carries no instruction for machine-learning practice. It is filed as military-strategy and area-studies reading. Its one methodological echo is its insistence on reading an adversary’s concepts on the adversary’s own terms rather than through one’s own category boundaries. That is a general analytic caution, not an ML result.

Limitations

• There is no stated method for selecting sources. Representativeness is argued, and a small set of authors carries much of the weight.
• Interpretation of Russian-language sources is the author’s own. Quotations are translated and cannot be checked from the report.
• The headline definition is a synthesis presented in the executive summary as “the Russian military[‘s]” definition.
• Some executive-summary factual specifics (Belarus BTGs and Tu-160s; Syria force mix) carry no endnotes.
• The Ukraine inferences are explicitly by analogy (n. 47).
• The recommendations do not assess escalation risk, cost or feasibility.
• Publication in September 2020 means nothing after that date is addressed. This reading does not assess how later events bear on the report’s claims.

Open questions

• Whether the “type of war” reading holds across a systematically sampled corpus of Russian military writing, including dissenting authors, rather than the core cited set.
• How the 2022 full-scale invasion, a large conventional operation against a non-NATO state, fits the attributed Russian view that conventional war is a “legacy” form. A post-2022 study of Russian military journals using the same sources would settle this.
• Whether the “kinetic supports information” reversal is observable in operational planning, as opposed to theory articles.

Corrections to the seeded skim

• The skim says the executive summary “quotes the Russian military definition”. It does not quote one. The definition is Clark’s paraphrase, attributed to “the Russian military”. In the body its core (“all efforts, including military operations, are subordinate to an information campaign”, p. 15) is footnoted to a single Military Thought article (Chekinov & Bogdanov, Jan 2017, n. 22). The “strategic-level effort to shape the governance and geostrategic orientation” half comes from Bartosh and Kiselev (nn. 23–25). The definition is therefore the author’s synthesis of several writers, not a doctrinal text.
• The skim has p. 20 citing “Bartosh, Kartapolov” writing openly on offensive hybrid-war doctrine. The offensive-doctrine passage on p. 20 cites Bartosh only (nn. 74–75). Kartapolov (pp. 19–20, nn. 68–73) is cited on the Military-Political Directorate and “patriotic” ideology work with the population and youth, not on offensive doctrine.
• The skim frames the 2022 full-scale invasion as a “natural test” of a claim that “Russia seeks to avoid major conventional war”. The report’s claim is narrower. It says Russia seeks to avoid “major conventional wars between great powers” and “force-on-force conflict against NATO” (pp. 12–13), while its hybrid wars “include significant conventional conflict” (p. 8). It also reports the Russian view that conventional war is a “legacy type of conflict that is increasingly unlikely” (pp. 9, 11). A large conventional war against a non-NATO state therefore bears on that last attributed view and on the report’s emphasis, but it does not cleanly falsify the thesis as the report states it.
• The skim says a deeper reading “should check how representative the cited theorists are”. The report takes up this question itself, by argument. It says the public discussion is “very likely a good indicator” of overall thinking (p. 14), calls its authors “respected military academics … not fringe analysts” (pp. 17–18), and offers a fallback: if the worldview is propaganda, “a fake tail … is now wagging the dog” (p. 18). It does not describe how articles were selected. The notes rely heavily on a handful of pieces: Bartosh (Military Thought, Jan and Oct 2018), Kiselev (Army Collection, Dec 2015; Military Thought, Mar 2017), Chekinov & Bogdanov (Military Thought, Jan 2017), and Gerasimov’s speeches.
• One headline figure is second-hand, which the skim did not note. The report says Gerasimov stated that non-military efforts have “four times the impact” of military ones (p. 21). Endnote 82 shows that this comes from Bartosh citing a closed March 2017 Gerasimov speech.