The Russian hybrid warfare strategy – neither Russian nor strategy

Sandor Fabian

Defense & Security Analysis, 2019, vol. 35, issue 3, 308-325

Abstract: Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its initial actions in eastern Ukraine in 2014, the term hybrid warfare has received much public attention. Many have argued that the Russian actions we saw in Ukraine were part of a completely new strategy while others have suggested that there was nothing new in Russia’s actions. This article takes a critical look at these claims. Through the assessment of the history of the term hybrid warfare and a rigorous analysis of the so-called Gerasimov doctrine, this study finds that the Russian hybrid warfare strategy is rather a western myth than a formal comprehensive Russian strategic concept. Additionally, through the assessment of the Russian use of information operations and the way she has utilised the cyberspace in several recent conflicts, the study finds that against all claims Russia did not make these areas its main battlefield, but rather has been using them in support of its traditional concepts.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14751798.2019.1640424 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cdanxx:v:35:y:2019:i:3:p:308-325

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CDAN20

DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2019.1640424

Access Statistics for this article

Defense & Security Analysis is currently edited by Martin Edmonds

More articles in Defense & Security Analysis from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().