Germany's defense minister is overly focused on "hybrid warfare":
"Here you are also confronted with a situation that represents another part of the Russian military doctrine: the idea of hybrid warfare," she told German troops stationed in Lithuania as part of a NATO force deployed to deter Russia.
NATO allies have accused Russia of using "hybrid warfare" techniques, including subversion, propaganda and cyber warfare, to undermine the West without triggering a full NATO military response.
Using propaganda and subversion is a normal practice for those who don't or can't use military force.
Raising this to the level of some new and novel form of warfare reminds me of the nonsense in the 1990s of calling any insurgent leader with an email address a practitioner of "netwar" (or "4th generation war" if I remember correctly), as I complained about here:
Ah, "netwar." Recall the first celebrated practioners of netwar--the Mexican Zapatistas in 1994. You remember them, they netwarred their way into power, seizing Mexico City. No? Then they succeeded in creating an independent state. No? Then they convinced the Mexican government to spend more there. Wow. This example of so-called netwar was a guy with a colorful name, some college education, an internet connection, and a bunch of ill-armed indigenous peoples following him. Add an adoring press and presto! Netwar!
Russia doesn't have the conventional military strength to take on NATO in a full-blown conventional war and so subverts NATO states. Germany doesn't want to pay for military strength and so pretends what Russia is doing is a new form of warfare that conveniently means Germany doesn't need a conventional military.
But you know my feelings about "hybrid war."
