War mutates again to create a new strain: “hybrid warfare”.

Summary:  For the next chapter in our series about the 4th generation of war we have an essay by Gary Anderson (Colonel, USMC, retired), who draws on his long experience to explain the important role of hybrid warfare in our world, a new mutation of the ancient arts of war.  {2nd of 2 posts today.}

4th Generation Warfare, Hybrid Warfare & Unconventional Warfare:
Similar but not Interchangeable

By Gary Anderson

The terms Fourth Generation Warfare, Hybrid Warfare, and Unconventional (Irregular) Warfare have been used interchangeably lately; they are different things. They employ some of the same tactics, but they are distinct concepts.

It has been a quarter of a century since a group of Marine Corps officers and civilian theorist William Lind coined the concept of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) — “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation”. This refers to warfare being conducted by armed non-state actors capable of challenging the mighty war machines of first world nations.

Martin Van Crevald, an Israeli historian and military theorist, reached similar conclusions in his book The Transformation of War (1991), at about the same time.

The Cold War was ending and many optimists such as Francis Fukiyama in his book The End Of History (1992) expected a new era of peace and democratic growth. Conservative military observers were pointing to the results of Operation Desert Storm as proof that conventional warfare was not yet dead. It turned out that the 4GW visionaries were correct, but it would take nearly two decades to prove them right.

By 1993, a US-led UN Coalition force had been bested by a non-state grouping of Somali tribesmen using asymmetric tactics that conventional forces were not prepared to deal with. A year later, the Russians were dealing with similar problems in the breakaway region of Chechnya. Meanwhile, the Israelis were trying to cope with similar asymmetric problems in the Palestinian Intifada.

The final signal that something had changed came on September 11th 2001 when a non- state group destroyed the World Trade Center and badly damaged the pentagon by making asymmetric weapons out of commercial airliners. 4GW had arrived with a vengeance and achieved strategic significance as an existential threat to the American homeland.

By 2015, non-state actors were ruling large populations in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Nigeria. And by 2015, non- state actors were actively beginning to challenge European nations with jihad on their home ground, and a 4GW actor in the form of the Islamic State is making a laughing stock of American military power in the Middle East. Lind and his marine co-authors had been vindicated although they probably wish they had been wrong.

The world had not seen armed non-state actors make a major strategic impact since the series of treaties collectively called the Peace of Westphalia that concluded the Thirty Years War. At that point non-state actors were eliminated as serious actors until the Cold War ended the nation-states’ monopoly on warfare.  By that time, the last great non-state Islamic jihad had evolved into the Ottoman Empire which was a nation-state by another name. The Mongol Empire had also evolved into a nation-state, and it was breaking up into a series of proto-nations.  Until the end of the Cold War, with a few notable exceptions, serious war was the province of nation-states; the exception that many ignored was the rise of Hezbollah in the 1980s.

The inability of world powers to deal effectively with 4GW was noted by many of America’s potential adversaries. Saddam Hussein belatedly attempted to use non-state actors to save his regime in 2003. He failed, but the exploits of the “Saddam Fedayeen” caught the attention of many of America’s potential adversaries. Some, reportedly including China and Iran, are seriously considering what military theorist Frank Hoffman coined as “Hybrid Warfare” in which nation-states would employ thinly disguised non-state warriors using unconventional tactics and methods not sanctioned by the Law of War to offset the American military-technological edge. {See his article in the Armed Forces Journal; see Wikipedia for other uses of term.}

Today, the Russians are actively employing hybrid warfare in the Ukraine to further their objectives in a situation where a naked conventional invasion might not be tolerated by the world community.

Hybrid Warfare is seductive to potential adversaries because it negates much of the technological and training advantages that make American forces near unstoppable in open combat. As Williamson Murray and Peter Mansoor pointed out in their excellent work, Hybrid Warfare, this approach is not new. They noted that the American Revolution was a mix of hybrid and conventional war.

Unconventional (Irregular) Warfare is not new; it has been used for millennia as an auxiliary to conventional warfare and has been waged largely by what we now call Special Forces. The primary difference between 4GW, Hybrid Warfare and unconventional warfare is that Special Forces are covered by the Law of War.

All three types of warfare use asymmetrical tactics some of which are listed below (the list is not all-inclusive:

1. Use of civilians as human shields. *
2. Use of snipers, IEDs, and suicide bombers against noncombatants as well as legitimate military targets. *
3. A reversion to communications that do not depend on the electronic spectrum for communications.
4. Fighting in civilian clothes when it suits their objectives.
5. Assassination as a military tactic.
6. Use of criminal enterprises and activities to raise funds.
7. The use of internet technology and social media for information operations (propaganda) and recruiting.

*  Not authorized for legitimate state sponsored special unconventional operators.

American forces in the field have actually adapted fairly well to Hybrid Warfare and have adopted it in Iraq and Afghanistan when it suits their purposes. The Sons of Iraq movement in was a very successful tactical response to combating the Islamic State’s predecessor al Qaeda in Iraq. Sadly, the Iraqi government turned its back on the concept, and the present success of the Islamic State is largely attributable to that.  The Afghan National Police program has been less successful due to Afghan governmental shortsightedness.

A comparison of the three shows the differences:

(1)  4GW features an armed non-state actor attempting to fill a power vacuum in an area where governance has failed or a challenge to an existing system of governance that attempts to replace it with a totally different form of rule using largely asymmetrical techniques.

(2)  Hybrid Warfare is when a state-sponsored non state actor uses asymmetrical tactics to defend the existing regime or help that regime overcome another nation state or 4GW opponent using asymmetrical tactic and techniques.

(3)  Unconventional (Irregular) Warfare occurs when a branch of a nation-state’s armed forces uses asymmetrical means as an auxiliary of combat multiplier in support of conventional operations against a conventional, 4GW, or Hybrid opponent.

At the present time in Iraq and Syria, the conflict has become a somewhat ironic Devil’s brew. Hezbollah, which was really the prototype 4GW actor, has become a hybrid surrogate for the Assad regime’s conventional forces in Syria. Meanwhile, the Islamic State (ISIS if you will), is evolving from a 4GW entity into something more resembling a third generational nation-state with a conventional army. It may be a rogue state, but so was Nazi Germany.

In some ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Machiavelli would be very comfortable in today’s world.

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About the author

Colonel Gary W. Anderson retired from the Marine Corps in 2000 after 29 years of service. He served for a year as senior advisor for the State Department in Iraq, and then again in Afghanistan. He has a decade of experience in the defense industry with both profit and non-profit firms. He is a lecturer with the adjunct faculty at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

Anderson graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and received his Masters Degree in Public Administration from Pepperdine University.

He serves on the executive committee of the National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue and sits on several DAPRA panels studying urban warfare technologies. He also contributes to the opinion and book review pages of The Washington Post and Washington Times and wrote two monographs in the Newport Paper series: “Beyond Mahan” and “Toward a Pax Universalis“.

See his articles at the Small Wars Council and the Washington Post. For more information see his work history here and his bio at GW U.

Posts in this series about 4GW, reflecting on 25 years of 4GW defeats

1. Chuck Spinney asks why we choose to lose at 4GW.
2. William Lind: thoughts about 4GW, why we lose, and how we can win in the future.
3. “SAS kill up to 8 jihadis each day, as allies prepare to wipe IS off the map.” Bold words we’ve heard before.
4. What is a fourth generation war, the wars of the 21st century? Who fights them, and why?
5. The battle that mattered most to America: the Pentagon vs. Military Reformers. It’s over.
6. What is a fourth generation war, the wars of the 21st century? Who fights them, and why?.
7. Understanding 4GW, the first step to winning the Long War — #1 of GI’s series.
8. DoD defends itself against dangerous new ideas about 4GW. — #2 of GI’s series.
9. 4GW allows ISIS to fight and win against more powerful armies. Like ours. — #3 of GI’s series.
10. Using 4GW might give the Islamic State a big future. — #4 of GI’s series.

For More Information

(a)  The “Anwar Awakening”, (of which the Sons of Iraq were a part), ran from roughly September 2006 to October 2008. By early 2009 it was falling apart. The Iraq insurgency had ended by late-2007 with the de facto division of Iraq in to 3 parts. By Summer 2008 the new 3-part Iraq had become visible to anyone who cared to see. Now its visible to all.

(b)  How DoD sees hybrid warfare:

1. “Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept“, DoD, 17 May 2010.
2. “Hybrid Warfare“, GAO, 10 September 2010

(c)  How often do insurgents win using 4GW against foreign armies? Almost always. Seeing this simple fact could change the course of American foreign policy.

1. How often do insurgents win?  How much time does successful COIN require?, 29 May 2008.
2. Max Boot: history suggests we will win in Afghanistan, with better than 50-50 odds. Here’s the real story., 21 June 2010 — Boot discusses 7 alleged victories by foreign armies fighting insurgencies.
3. A major discovery! It could change the course of US geopolitical strategy, if we’d only see it, 28 June 2010 — The doctoral dissertation of Erin Marie Simpson (Political Science, Harvard) examines the past & present of counter-insurgency.
4. A look at the history of victories over insurgents, 30 June 2010.
5. COINistas point to Kenya as a COIN success. In fact it was an expensive bloody failure., 7 August 2012.