Currently our
society increasingly talks about the war; the war has become a topic on the
agenda in many families, collectives, organizations, institutions and others.
We watch war on television; we see it in magazines and newspapers and when we
make a reference to the history we remember the period between the two world
wars, when mankind has not recovered after a destructive war and was preparing
for another one. Will history be repeated under the same scenario again?; will
the humanity return to the armed struggle to comply with their different geopolitical
ambitions?
In the postwar
period, the war was named differently: nuclear war, asymmetric war, dissimetric
war and other ways, nowadays when Ukraine leads a decisive war for existence, another
name of war, such as "hybrid war ", has also appeared. What is
"hybrid war" about which is being talked so much today, according to
wich some states review their doctrines and strategies. Is there a type of war
that must concern all us, especially the military, or it is a worldplay, which
was meant to justify political and military leadership incompetence of some
countries, who could not cope with complex strategic situations.
In this article,
I will try to determine what changes produced in the phenomenon of war, which
resulted in renaming it in the "hybrid war". As a military expert, I
have tried to subject a detailed analysis determining the most violent part of
the war, namely the armed struggle. Given the fact that armed struggle is
conducted differently at the strategic, operational and tactical level, I will
try to analyze each level.
So, I'll start
with the highest level of leadership of the war, with the strategy. From the
definitions we know that strategy is the art of using instruments of national
power to ensure the objectives set by the politics. So, from the definition it
is clear that the strategy is a policy instrument meant to achieve the proposed
objectives. To achieve the objectives set by the politics, the strategy will
implement politics instruments of power having at its disposal, namely
informational tool, the diplomatic tool, economic and military instrument and the
results in achieving politics objectives will depend on the art of their
application.
Returning to the "hybrid war" and its significance in the Western literature,
we understand that "hybrid war"
is a term that
refers to a wide range of hostile
actions, in which the military
force is only a
small part, and which are executed
in concentration, as part of a flexible strategy with long-term
goals[1].
In Russian media
we find that "hybrid war" is a military strategy that combines a
conventional war, a small and cyber war[2].
In another source we find that in the "hybrid war", the actions go
primarily in the information space, and the one that will control this space,
will achieve victory[3].
The definitions
above were formulated according to the recent military events produced in
Ukraine, where it is clear that the enforcement of the informational instrument
of the power in this phenomenon has been more visible and created the feeling
of a change in both the art of war and military art. Is it a novelty in the
implement of more massive informational instrument of the power for achieving
the political objectives or not? No, it is not. There are many cases in the
history, in which the successful implementation of the information tool led to
some remarkable results in: at war and at the level of armed struggle. As an
example can serve the annexation of the Sudet in 1938, and then the entire
occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, where massive propaganda actions
in combination with riots of the majority German population have managed to
annex an area without opening a gunshot. It is a remarkable strategic result,
similar to the one of Crimea in 2014 with a simple difference that in the
latter case several means for conducting successful information war were used
(television, Internet and others).
Other events in history similar to the current war in eastern regions of
Ukraine can be: Soviet-Afghan
war (1979-1989); wars that took place in Korea (1950-1953) and Vietnam
(1957-1975), where insurgent forces were supported economic, military and
informational by major powers with geopolitical interests in above mentioned
regions. From all mentioned it is explicit that within the military events held
in Ukraine no changes have occurred in the strategic art, therefore the war
remained the same social phenomenon with a extremely destructive nature, and
what today is called "hybrid war" is a concept rather a strategic
plan of action in armed conflict or war.
At the military strategic level there has been no significant change,
remaining the same principles for the implementation of the armed forces to the
war’s military stage. Military successes or failures recorded in military
actions of our neighbors is not the result of mutations in the conduct of armed
struggle but is the result of the successful or less successful military
strategy tools.
Currently many military experts, under the influence of successful results
of the US military in the Gulf wars, increasingly predict changes in carrying
armed struggle, saying the armed struggle will not take place on large fronts,
there will be no need for huge army and entrenched military actions remained in
history. Fight armed forces will lead with small and mobile forces, in certain
directions guided to certain important objectives. Yes, I agree with my
colleagues, only when we are speaking about asymmetrical military actions
between a strong force endowed with high technology, such as the US Army and a
weak force with old technology, as Iraqi army. But something completely different happens when two relatively equal forces
with the same military potential strike. In this case, the armed struggle and
apply the same principles and procedures as 50-60 years ago, and military
action return again to the same positions; states with fewer technology
possibilities are trying to maintain or increase their military potential
increasing the number soldiers, returning to the same mass army.
When we return again to Ukraine, it was clearly seen that at the beginning
of the war military actions have had a maneuvering character from both sides
–having certain directions- then at the end of 2014 military actions took a
static position, and soldiers from both camps spent the winter in trenches
similar to 100 years ago in the first world War.
And finally, making a balance of the analysis of armed
combat strategic element we concluded that at this current level there have
been no significant changes. Within the actions named "hybrid war"
was applied more intensively -in addition to armed combat- the information
tool, which gave the feeling of a change.
Today under the basic concept of "hybrid war", some military
experts increasingly promote the idea of radical changes at the operational
level of armed combat. To reason this phenomenon, there is a
frequent refer to events that occurred and are held in Ukraine, as well as to
the strategic level. Actually, you cannot find any sources that
bring arguments to the forecasted changes at the operational level, all of them speaking only in general.
To see if other changes occurred or not at the operational level we must
analyze the determinants at this level, namely: the structure of operative
level task groups of their own forces and the enemy’s; areas of operations;
lines of operations; existing objectives of operational level and not the least
the weapons systems with an operative
effect. I would prefer to write about the first factor, the structure of task
groups, since today, when talking about changes, it is considered the factor of
task groups. It is known that at the operative level of armed
struggle, task groups have a flexible structure and form depending on the
target, the area characteristics, operations, and other. After conducting military operations during World War II were established
clear principles and rules about the formation of operative task groups, the
implementation of diverse types of weapons and force categories in operations.
The same principles and rules have been applied in the postwar period when
the rules were applied correctly, remarkable results were obtained. As an example can be the two wars in
Iraq that took place at the end of twentieth century the beginning of the
twenty-first century, where the correct application of the principles and rules
of operational art led to excellent results for the multinational coalition. In today's war in Ukraine the
battle at operational level is conducted with serious violations of the art
operative requirements. These variations relate to distinguish both groups:
the structure of task groups at the operative level and the usage of force
categories and types of weapons in operations. Finally the armed struggle takes a long time, operational
targets set by both parties are not achieved, the loss of lives is high, and
finality both opponents have put troops in the trenches -like 100 years ago-
and all the attempts of carrying out offensive operations ended unsuccessfully.
Finally, concerning the operational level of fight we can conclude the
following, only a small deviation from the rules and principles of operational
art, which is manifested through the misapplication of the principles of task
groups formation, and the principles of task groups use in operations have led
to negative military results, creating a feeling of mutations at this level of
military art.
Tactical level of armed
struggle is the smallest and the most dynamic level of the military art. Let us
see if there were changes at the tactical level during the last 20 years, as
well as at the operational level the main determinants are required to be
analized. The history shows that in all relevant factors, namely the armament
and military development factor has produced the biggest changes in tactics. If
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until the appearance of automatic
firearms with the automatic firing, in the armies of those times the linear
tactic was applied, and later the tactic of columns and tactical firing line,
in the late nineteenth early twentieth century with the adventcment of
automatic firearms tactic changes substantially and lead to chain shooters,
applied and nowadays. By making this analysis, I wonder if in the last 20-30
years appeared such a weapon system that would produce radical changes in
tactics on the battlefield. No, it did not appear. The fact that weapons
systems with high precision strikes appeared on the battlefield and
sophisticated command and control systems have not produced significant changes
to the tactical level of armed struggle, producing only some adjustments to
what already existed in the wars from the past.
And finally, current events taking place
in Ukraine produced no mutation in the phenomenon of war. The war remained to
be, as Carl von Clausewitz used to say and now 184 years ago, a continuation of
politics by violent means. The notion of "hybrid war" so often
promoted today remains a older strategic action process, reactivated today by
some geopolitical actors in order to achieve geostrategic objectives in their
areas of interest. Armed struggle, like the other components of the war
remained the same and it runs similarly to existing laws and principles at all
three levels: strategic, operational and tactical.
