ESSENTIAL FEATURES AND FUNCTIONAL COMPONENTS OF MODERN UNCONVENTIONAL (HYBRID) CONFLICT

Abstract

In the article the authors argue that the strategy and arsenal of hybrid (asymmetrical, unconventional) warfare in the contemporary world are fundamentally based on the qualitative changes that took place at the turn of the XXI century as a result of radical changes in the balance of power in the international arena, chaos in international relations, the development of new types of lethal and non-lethal weapons, new technologies of constructing and dismantling social communities with predetermined characteristics. These changes involved the conceptual framework, structure, strategy and tactics, forms and methods of the military and political confrontation between modern states and their blocks, as well as between states and non-governmental organisations. The authors identify the essential features and functional components of hybrid warfare, such as its latency phases; the remote undermining of national defense capabilities by non-military and non-contact means; breaching the international law of war; the integrated use of military methods as well as specific means of non-military, diplomatic, financial and economic, humanitarian pressure on a victim state. They also include the extensive use of anti-government groups and movements; illegal armed groups, separatists, irredentists, radical ethnic and religious groups, extremist organizations, and artificially constructed destructive groups; the privileged role of intelligence services, special operations forces and their use for engineering a powerful anti-government infrastructure designed to destabilize the legitimate state system; the priority role of targeted influence on public opinion through the extensive use of methods of information and psychological warfare and cyberwarfare.

Keywords

• national security, art of war, unconventional warfare, hybrid conflicts, conflictology, security studies.