Description
Proposal:
Aim: The primary aim of this project is to examine the state centered western military thinking and strategy through the methodological prism of hybrid warfare and how it relates to international relations and security studies. The research raises a question of concern on efficacy of conventional western thinking by bringing forth the cases of jihadism and global war on terrorism.
The winter-2022 for Ukraine will be genocidal, it will also witness massacre of Ukrainians who considers them as an ally of west and their European dream will be sabotaged by Russian aggression. The attack of Febraruy-2022 on Ukraine is unfolding, but it’s another sobering reminder to western military thinking and strategy that their state centered and international organizations led liberal warfare is principally flawed. Though liberal and post-modernists will dislike this realist argument, but “the social institution and phenomenon popularly known as war survived the agrarian revolution of c.6000 BC. It adapted and evolved in the industrial and scientific revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and reached its zenith in the digital revolution of twenty first century[1]. Similarly, the bloody twenty first century for Asia, Africa and Middle East is not only showcasing that war is a constant human phenomenon and civilizational reality. But it is also asserting that the “security and insecurity narrative” of 21st century is principally realist that is grounded on the Thucydides central thesis of “fear, honor and interest”. The revolutions in military affairs have changed the character of war, from conventional and interstate warfare to hybrid, sub state and non-state actor’s level[2]. Within western military discourse, Hoffman (2009) coined the term hybrid warfare by examining Hezbollah and Israel’s conflict of 2006. Building on Huber’s compound war conceptualization of modern military warfare, Hoffman work tried to provoke western military thinking towards hybridism and compound character of warfare[3]. Similarly, Mumford (2013) in his research on 21st century warfare pointed towards a drastic shift in conventional wisdom of warfare and highlighted futuristic wars as a hybrid of ideological proxies and non-state actors. Thus, to address the gaps in our theoretical understanding of hybrid war, hybrid threats and actors, and how western military thinking and strategy can cope with the hybridism of modern warfare. This research is defining Hybrid warfare as: a hybrid of metaphysical utopia, ideologies, organized crime, and political violence, that tend to use kinetic and non-kinetic strategies and never-ending political violence against an adversary or adversaries.
Hybrid wars have two simultaneous theatres of violence: Kinetic: which is fought on ground, it is comprised of the so-called rebels, non-state actors, nation state armies, interventionist western allies and international organizations. While the non-kinetic is fought on cyber space and comprises narrative, information, intelligence, subversive, and political warfare. A characteristic feature of these wars is ideological, nationalistic, and revolutionary that is aimed to disrupt fault ethnic lines of the society and instigate insurgencies, civil wars, and terrorism, to essentially achieve the goals of a conventional army or armies. The underlying aim of hybrid wars is to keep the adversary occupied in a vicious circle violence without any decisive conclusion and provision of alternate system of politics and governance. The evolution of hybrid wars can be traced back to post-colonial wars of independence in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Middle East, cold war, and struggle for unipolarity in the global order. The roots are grounded on asymmetric wars of Vietnam, jihadi insurgency of mujahedeen movement against former USSR, GWoT in Afghanistan and Iraq, Arab spring in Middle East, jihadi wars in Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan. Though not declared explicitly, but the adversary of these wars is U.S. led western nation states, international politics, and order. These wars are all about politics of international order, race for consolidating power in international politics and are fought in eastern theatre of the world.
Background and Research Questions- On September 11, 2001, nineteen warriors of Al Qaeda (AQ) perpetrated jihadi attacks on USA, they killed 2977 Americans, challenged American superpower and ultimately compelled USA to respond to AQ led global jihadism. These attacks led to GWoT, which engaged NATO and non-NATO allies of USA and committed military and diplomatic resources of USA, UK, and other European nations. GWOT in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), promised to eradicate terrorism, maintain American leadership, and stabilize international security and order. Since 2001, the U.S. military has fought in twenty-two countries and spent $6.4 trillion. These U.S. led wars have also resulted in a death tool of approximately four million Afghani, Iraqi, Yemeni, Syrian and Pakistani combatants, civilians and bystanders, tens or more likely hundreds of thousands have also died in seventeen other theatres of GWoT [4]. Despite of these military efforts to contain hybridism of jihadi violence, on August 15, 2021, Taliban fighters carrying their white flags sworn Kabul’s entry points and seized the presidential palace. Ghani: “the president on the run”, maintained a delusional stance, left whiplashed capital to its new masters and paved the way for a humiliating and chaotic termination of western adventures in Afghanistan [5]. Based on these empirical facts, research aims to deconstruct jihadism on a hybrid wars premise and answer following questions: Is western military thinking receptive and responsive to the eastern military thinking and strategies of hybrid wars? How and why western militaries intervene and engage in hybrid wars of the east? To find answers to these questions and meet the aims of the study, the research used critical discourse analysis on war on terrorism in Afghanistan, Fall of Kabul to Taliban and Russian attack on Ukraine to find the dominant military and strategy discourse on character and methods of modern war. The research concludes by providing a theoretical framework of hybrid warfare, hybrid strategies and tactics of waging war in 21st century.
Keywords: Warfare, Hybridity of War, Hybrid Warfare, Russia, Ukraine, Taliban, Global war on Terrorism
References:
1. Gray, C.S., Another bloody century: Future warfare. 2012: Hachette UK.
2. Mumford, A., Proxy warfare and the future of conflict. The RUSI Journal, 2013. 158(2): p. 40-46.
3. Hoffman, F.G., Hybrid vs. compound war. Armed Forces Journal, 2009. 1.
4. Hirshberg, L., The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State by David Vine. 2021, MIT Press One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209, USA journals-info ….
5. Khan, A.S., F. Kosar, and S.F. Sarfaraz, THE RETURN OF TALIBAN TO KABUL CAUSES, CHALLENGES AND THE WAY FORWARD. Pakistan Journal of International Affairs, 2021. 4(4).
