In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Kiran Sridhar about his article “Russia’s Hybrid Warfare Strategy and How to Combat It,” from Telos 193 (Winter 2020). An excerpt of the article appears here. Their conversation addressed the ways in which Putin’s Russia, guided by the Gerasimov Doctrine, has mounted an effective asymmetrical challenge against the West through the spread of mendacious information online and in social media, thereby empowering elements of society distrustful of democracy and fomenting conspiratorial thinking; the launching of cyberattacks against the West’s technological infrastructure; and the use hybrid forces that operate at the behest of the Russian government without being directly controlled by it. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 193 are available for purchase in our store.
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Assessing asymmetric wars in the abstract is a problematic task, even though most are “small wars” fought by “big nations.” Armed conflicts with these characteristics brim with persistent, undeclared, and low-intensity violence. It rarely is extinguished, and the lingering injuries sustain even more violence on the same scale. Many of these small wars began in Asia, Africa, Latin America, or the Middle East during, or not long after, World War II. Armed resistance there never completely ended; instead it intensified with decolonization and/or postcolonial state failure. Now virtually institutionalized in many violent wild zones around the world, low-intensity wars also flare up as asymmetric conflicts between rich countries and poor peoples, Westernized nations and anti-Western movements, liberal democratic states and illiberal theocratic insurgents after 1989. At the 2017 Telos-Paul Piccone Institute Conference, held this past weekend in New York City, Kenneth Anderson delivered a keynote address entitled “Situating Asymmetrical Warfare among Forms of Emerging Conflict in the Post–New World Order World.” We are delighted to present the full video of the address here. Most people think that the military is all about killing other people. I, on the contrary, follow van Creveld. He states that serving in the military means more to be prepared and willing to risk one’s life then to endanger other lives. You could argue that military technology provides tools that have kinetic effects over huge distances without any risk for one’s personnel. Drones, for example, are such weapons. However, can you win a war with only drones? We have relearned the lesson that it takes “boots on the ground” to win “the better peace,” as Clausewitz carefully worded it. It takes soldiers on the ground to control an area, to protect the population, to de-escalate a situation, and to win hearts and minds. |
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