Hybrid Warfare is a creative combination of different battlefields on multiple domains by the dynamic use of multidomain operations and shifting centres of gravities.
Therefore, hybrid warfare could also be described as “mosaic warfare” on interconnected multidomain battlefields.
Empowered by globalization and new technologies and inspired by the “promise”/perception of unpretentious political success at supposedly manageable military risk and political cost, it can be expected, that the future of war to a large degree will be hybrid warfare.
To counter hybrid warfare calls for a comprehensive hybrid answer on multiple domains including multidomain and cross-domain operations. Multidomain situational awareness would therefore be a necessary precondition.
As hybrid warfare may include “conventional” combat at all stages of escalation against a militarily symmetric or even superior opponent, the EU, NATO and the member states must re-evaluate their conventional military warfare capabilities to provide national and collective defence, while at the same time protecting themselves against downward and horizontal escalation and threats from within, in the form of subversion, infiltration and disintegration on multidomain battlefields. It is paradoxical that the threat of hybrid warfare highlights, among other things, the necessity to re-establish substantial conventional warfare capabilities. 10
Countering hybrid warfare in addition requires the ability to protect vulnerable interfaces and to operate in the grey areas of multidomain battlefields by adopting a truly comprehensive approach. This includes a whole-of- government approach, a wholeof-nation/society approach, as well as international cooperation and coordination, particularly between and within EU and NATO. 11
Warfighting on multidomain hybrid battlefields is neither exclusively nor primarily a soldiers’ task. Hybrid Warfare is characterized by multiple and shifting centres of gravity while creatively making use of multi-vector attacks on various domains and dimensions. To counter hybrid warfare thus calls for a coordinated multidomain answer and includes a broad variety of relevant, civil as well as military, state as well as non-state actors.
