While the world remains transfixed with the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war, it is important to note that the current conflagration is somewhat of an anomaly in the context of what had transpired over the past decade.
Ever since the intervention in eastern Ukraine in March 2014 by Russian troops in unmarked uniforms — the so-called “little green men” — most analysts have argued that low-key “hybrid conflict” has been the norm in the war.
If it does happen, it would be an affirmation of the importance of indirect strategy in global geostrategic competition.In his classic Introduction to Strategy , French military strategist Andre Beaufre argued that in the direct mode of warfare, military strategy plays the decisive role; in the indirect mode, military force plays a secondary role.
The United States military acronym Dime — diplomatic, informational, military, and economic elements of state power — helps illustrate the point. Hence, in his book Battlegrounds , H. R. McMaster argues that Russia has — since the breakup of the Soviet Union — engaged in so-called hybrid “new-generation warfare” that seeks to avoid direct military confrontation with the West, seeking instead to “disrupt, divide and weaken societies” regarded as competitors.
As a result, hostile state actors could mount cyberattacks on a state’s vulnerable, digitally interconnected homeland and cripple it, while bypassing the massed strength of its conventional armed forces. To illustrate, much has been made of US-Chinese strategic competition for control of the manufacturing supply chains for “semiconductors” and “high-performing microchips” that are vital for “everything from artificial intelligence to cell phones”.
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