Hybrid threats require hybrid resistance and now the European Union and NATO have established their first joint center to counter the multifaceted menaces to the stability of their members. Finland is the host of the new European Center of Excellence (CoE) for Countering Hybrid Threats, a facility officially inaugurated by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and EU High Representative Federica Mogherini.
If "little green men" or tanks show up in your country, you don't need any complicated "hybrid" counter-tactics to cope. You send your trained military to kill the invaders. Throwing your center of excellence at them won't do a darned thing.
I have repeatedly complained about the apparent analysis paralysis that has arisen in response to obvious Russian aggression.
Honest to God, I feel like I'm on crazy pills.
And if your people are facing propaganda, spies, or cyber-war, you counter it. And send a little the foe's way to let them enjoy it, too.
We need a NATO center of multi-national and inter-organizational excellence (thank God it isn't a center of adequatulence, eh?) for that?
Crimea was not some magical new form of warfare that the evil mastermind Putin devised. It worked for Russia because of unique circumstances. Operationally, it really had more in common with our 1989 Panama invasion, where we could reinforce existing forces without overtly attacking.
Otherwise, "hybrid war" is just Russia invading a country; denying they are invading; and the West largely going along with the fiction. As I've complained in utter frustration:
Good Lord people, Russian "hybrid warfare" is just Russian aggression that we pretend isn't happening. Sadly, there's nothing new or novel about that.
Maybe that center of excellence could start with accepting the bloody obvious.
UPDATE: On the bright side, America is involved in training Ukrainian units to head east to fight Russian aggression. And the Americans are working on training Ukrainians to train Ukrainian units that fight the Russian invasion.
