ANALYSIS: SMALL STATES AND HYBRID WARFARE

Can small states make themselves “poison pills” for invaders through asymmetric warfare? William Lind, Reihan Salam, Zenpundit, and John Robb think so. Lind and Robb advocate the creation of hybrid warfare militaries and deride ineffective “toy” conventional forces that small states are often encouraged to form, aping their larger great power counterparts.

Hybrid warfare forces are distributed and highly mobile light infantry trained to fight guerrilla war, positional warfare, and mobile warfare against conventional forces in urban environments or difficult natural terrain. Like Hezbollah’s 2006 defense against Israel, hybrid opponents will use layered networks of fortifications and cheap but highly effective weapons such as anti-tank missiles, rockets, and air defense artillery (ADA).

NATO’s Cold War “Gladio forces”—networks of stay-behind operatives—is also a good model for hybrid warfare planners to think about. Lind advocates a universal militia that will produce a populace willing to create organic networks of resistance---indeed, Russia may think twice about invading a Baltic state where every man, woman, and child knows how to blow up an armored vehicle.

The problem with hybrid defense is strategic in nature. How will these hybrid forces deter or beat back massive encroachment? One possible explanation is that the hybrid forces will exhaust the political will of the adversary. ATGMs ripping apart tanks in narrow city streets won't play well on the nightly news.

The problem with this assumption is that authoritarian governments will care little for public opinion and the people have precious few means of coercing them into doing so. While the example of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan demonstrates that authoritarian governments still cannot wage occupation war indefinitely, they still left behind a puppet government that frustrated guerrilla ambitions.

Even in a democracy or mildly authoritarian state, the public may still see the target as an important objective. Setbacks may enrage them and give them cause to redouble their efforts. Remove public support from the equation and you still get the possibility that a regime may fixate on a certain objective as a strategic imperative and pour more soldiers into the meat grinder. While they may eventually leave in defeat, the damage inflicted to the target state may be incurable.

John Robb, however, does provide a more plausible strategy to collapse state will---extensive covert operations forces as a kind of poor man’s air force targeting economic hubs. Such a strategy, Robb argues, will not only disrupt a state’s economic production but also convince foreign investors that their assets aren’t safe, causing a currency outflow. But this strategy runs into problems of capability.

Can a small state really create a covert operations force effective enough to so thoroughly infiltrate a target state that these super-spies can cause its economy to collapse? One might also look at the Allied bombing experience in Europe or America’s mixed record of coercion bombing against the North Vietnamese to see the problems with a wholly economic/industrial targeting sequence. Robb’s effects-based approach runs into effects-based operations (EBO)’s pitfalls: it is hard to guarantee a certain effect in a human system no matter how thoroughly one calibrates the system perturbation.

It is better for a state to employ hybrid operations and gain some chance of defeating external aggression than either give up or make a suicidal attempt to match an overwhelming adversary on his own terms.  Interestingly enough, this was exactly what Osama Bin Laden offered to Saudi Arabia after Kuwait was invaded—to use his guerrilla forces to defend Saudi Arabia against Iraq. And this is the very same strategy Iran may use to counter-act an American/Israeli bombing attack.

A small state at risk could augment Robb and Lind's already sensible suggestions with some other measures--none of which are necessarily new. They all have sizable drawbacks, but would round out a hybrid warfare arsenal. Let's put on our Dr. Strangelove hats.

• Cheap countervalue weapons. Hezbollah's rockets convinced the Israeli people that the government could not protect them. A small state could field series of cheap, easily deployable (but hard to target) systems that could frighten the adversary's populace.
• Extensive usage of access denial systems at key points.
• WMD. Strategic ambiguity is key here--don't admit to having them, but hint that they're available. If a non-state actor delivers them to the target zone, it will also be hard for the aggressor state to establish culpability. Or, one could adopt the Israeli or North Korean strategy of threatening to bring the house down in an apocalyptic blaze of glory.
• Non-state proxies. Involving a non-state actor, be it a large international terrorist organization or a criminal network, could assist in both offense and defense. Criminal networks have an immense organic intelligence network that could easily be harnessed for the purpose of guerrilla warfare or subversion. They also have the means to penetrate the aggressor's borders to carry out the kind of strikes Robb envisions. One doesn't have to limit themselves solely to the target state's borders. Wide-range corsair-style targeting of enemy commerce all over the world would be just as good. One need only observe the Mexican cartels' assassination strategy to think about the possibilities of an offensive criminal strategy. An international terrorist organization, especially one full of ideological hatred of the opponent, could also carry out the same functions.

Non-military means of poison pilling are also available.

• Economic warfare against the opposing state's neighbors or supporters. Witness, for example, the effect of OPEC's boycott after the 1973 war. China's "unrestricted warfare" manual also outlines numerous ways that China could
• An effective information operation designed to destroy the opposing state's public stature. If no atrocities are suitable for prime time, you could always falsify them. The Palestinians, after all, had tremendous success with Mohammed Al-Dura.

Of course, the best strategy is the one Lind describes--do not put yourself into a position where you could be at risk of being invaded. Being a satellite or client state is much better than invasion if you have no one to protect you.

Comments

[Yours Truly]

I wonder if the experience of the Vietnamese count? They drove out the French, withstood American might, & tackled the chinese. Lessons to be gleaned from 'em in relation to "hybrid war" or 4GW? Poison pill indeed.

I've heard rumors of "Vietnam Rose" as well, bio war? Anyway to clarify?

[A.E.]

I wouldn't necessarily count the Vietnamese example--it took them about twenty years to get both the French and Americans out. A better example would be the Chechens in 1995. Pick up Robert Bunker's "Non-State Threats and Future Wars" and flip to Dave Dillege (of SWJ's) interview with the Chechens at the back.

I'm not sure what you're referring to re: bio war.

[Yours Truly]

"Vietnam Rose" : I've no idea how much truth there is to this. Rumored that Viet prostitutes under the charge of the Viet Cong would transmit some sort of disease (decomposing of phallic parts)to the soldiers of the South along with the US troops.

Thanks for the suggested book, I've seen it but have yet to pick it up.

[A.E.]

The advantage of that Bunker book (vs. the others in the collection) is that it's the cheapest and has some very interesting theoretical stuff. His other book "Criminal-States and Criminal Soldiers" has a lot of interesting stuff on gangs and black globalization.

If the brothel bio-warfare example is true, it seems like more of a psyop, as it had limited effectiveness in downgrading combat operations. It certainly sounds like it would scare the shit out of people deployed over there, though.

[Yours Truly]

Yeah, mosquitoes & other jungle pests + VietCong + ambuscades + lack of clear strategy from top brass - young nubile Vietnamese girls = Hell on Earth Tour of Duty

[Sven Ortmann]

Those people who consider guerrilla warfare as an acceptable form of national defense seem t ignore too much of the damage that such warfare does t the society.

Proposals to apply the Guerrilla concept to national defense in the Baltic states are outright nonsense.

http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2008/09/critique-william-s-lind-on-defending.html

Austria had (and a German general proposed in the 70's) a defense concept that called for many infantry units that operated behind enemy lines (if the WP had invaded) to tie down enemy land forces and disrupt communications - a strategy that aimed at making Austria a very disadvantageous route for WW3 operations.
That was reasonable. It was not like today's Guerrilla war proposals about self-sacrificing conflicts. The deportation of Baltic people and the end of their Guerrilla efforts by about '52 shows that it's a poor strategy for them.

The fate of Chechnya shows that it's a poor strategy for Georgia.

The first component of every national security strategy needs to be to ensure that you've got no overly aggressive idiot as head of government/state.
That's the real national security problem for several nations today.

[fairhavenhorn]

Another variation is the Swiss model. They have survived a long time by appearing to be a small threat and very hard to conquer.

[A.E.]

I honestly agree with Ortmann--it won't work as a deterrent and it will only devastate the country that employs it.

[Yours Truly]

The Swiss, in my mind they seem to have adopted a sort of 'porcupine' like form of defense.

[Jay]

Adam, off topic but Congratulations on the John Boyd Roundtable book! Very much looking forward to reading it.