Content Piracy
30 DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020 www.vanguardcanada.com
BY HugH l. StEpHEnS
CYBER
W
ar, unfortunately, is as
old as history. Usually
violent and involving the
use of force to compel
or resist, in recent years,
the nature of warfare has begun to change.
While physical force is still part of the mili-
tary's repertoire, today we are moving into
an era of so-called "hybrid warfare" or
"grey zone" strategies. There are various
dimensions of this new phenomenon, in-
cluding social media disinformation cam-
paigns (particularly to manipulate election
results or to create internal dissension),
cyber-attacks, use of remote vehicles and
drones, use of supposedly "private armies"
to seize territories, economic measures
– such as sanctions, but going beyond
sanctions to include disruption of supply
chains – and other measures that fall short
of outright use of force or that are "plau-
sibly deniable."
Good examples of some hybrid war-
fare measures are Russian meddling in
the U.S. presidential election campaign
of 2016, Russian use of proxy forces in
eastern Ukraine, various forms of cyber-
warfare employed by the U.S. (to disrupt
Iran's nuclear program) and others, such
as China, to access classified informa-
tion, and more recently, the drone attacks
on Saudi oil production facilities back in
September. All fingers pointed to Iran as
the perpetrator of this attack, although it
denied the charge and another (Iranian-
backed) group, the Houthi rebels in Ye-
men, claimed responsibility. Whether that
attack was "plausibly deniable" – or "im-
plausibly deniable" – is an open question.
Much of this hybrid warfare has been
taking place in the Middle East, a peren-
nial powder-keg. Just about every country
in the region is either at someone else's
throat over one issue or another or is in
one form of loose alliance or other. Iran
and Saudi Arabia – along, of course, with
as Hybrid Warfare
