Tools and strategies in modern conflicts

Warfare has evolved throughout human history, adapting to technological and social changes. In recent decades, hybrid warfare has played an increasingly important role in conflicts. It combines traditional military operations, cyber warfare, and disinformation campaigns. In this post, we approach hybrid warfare from the context of conventional and cyber warfare, exploring the relationship between them, and briefly examine the typical methods, social context, and defenses against hybrid warfare.

Until recently, history and the battlefields were dominated by traditional warfare. It was based on direct military conflicts, such as combat operations, armed confrontations, and direct confrontations between opposing armies. Conventional warfare aims to resolve conflicts through the direct use of military force, with clear objectives and the physical presence of opposing parties.

Hybrid warfare, on the other hand, uses not only military means, but also information warfare and economic pressure. In information warfare, the opposing sides seek to influence public opinion by controlling, manipulating and distorting information. Information warfare can also include disinformation, the use of propaganda, troll factories, the use of bots and operations to spread fake news. The concept itself is not new, even ancient empires used propaganda and misdirection to weaken or intimidate their enemies. However, the method only became a central strategic tool from the 1900s, and from the 1990s onwards, the explosion of technology—in particular the internet and social media—opened a new era in information warfare.

In hybrid warfare, tools that aim to control and manipulate information, such as disinformation, propaganda, or cyber warfare, are given a prominent role. The essence of hybrid warfare is to use military, economic, political, and information tools (e.g. troll factories, bots, dissemination of fake news) in a coordinated way to achieve its objectives, while avoiding the clear boundaries of traditional war and accountability. By their nature, such conflicts are often hidden, where it is difficult to prove who is behind the attacks. If an attack cannot be clearly identified as an act of war, it is more difficult for the victim to provide an appropriate, legally justifiable response. For example, a military response to destabilization caused by the spread of fake news or the activities of troll factories may not be possible. Some forms of hybrid warfare can often remain completely hidden or difficult to see in the public domain, which also makes it difficult to plan a response.

Compared to conventional warfare, hybrid warfare is much less tangible and often generates “low-intensity” conflicts that are more difficult to link directly to a particular state or actor. For example, during the 2014 Crimean crisis, conflict actors engaged in various information operations to influence public opinion, using both traditional and social media to spread their own narratives. Social media, as one of the main spaces of the Internet, plays a particularly important role in information warfare, as it allows for rapid communication and broad reach, and its control is much looser than that of traditional media.

The social context of hybrid warfare is closely linked to globalization and technological developments, which have fundamentally changed the nature of international conflicts. In addition to traditional military confrontations, unconventional forms of warfare have emerged, which aim not only to gain military superiority but also to destabilize society and weaken political and economic systems. And the digital revolution of the 21st century has given attackers new tools to undermine social, political and economic structures.

The proliferation of social media and information technologies has enabled the effective use of disinformation campaigns to manipulate public opinion and increase social tension. Hybrid warfare is often directed against societies where political divisions or economic instability are already present. In such contexts, hybrid attacks are aimed at sharpening existing fault lines, increasing mistrust among the population, and possibly undermining the legitimacy of the government or of certain political actors.

The advent of generative artificial intelligence could give a further boost to similar operations. The rapid, largely automated text generation and the development of deepfake technologies mean that the human resources to be invested are decreasing, while the impact (presumably) is increasing. It is no coincidence that the major developers are seeking to discourage the use of their technologies for this purpose. The military use of GenAI in hybrid operations is far from the distant future. According to a recent report by OpenAI, threat groups using hybrid warfare, such as Bad Grammar, Spamouflage, and Zero Zeno, have attempted to use the company’s models for various purposes. These included automatic content generation, the creation of comments and longer articles, and the management of social media posts.

If we dig deeper, we can see that there are several different reasons behind the spread of hybrid warfare.

• Blurring of the boundaries between war and peace: hybrid warfare is characterized by the blurring of the boundaries between peace and war, with no clear declaration of war or recognizable battlefield. This allows states to pursue their interests in covert or difficult to prove ways, avoiding the international consequences of open military conflict.
• The dominance of non-military means: non-military means (political, economic, diplomatic, and information operations) are playing an increasingly important role in modern hybrid warfare. This allows objectives to be achieved without the need to use conventional military force, thus reducing the risk of direct confrontation.
• Technological advances and information superiority: advances in information technology provide new tools for hybrid warfare, such as cyber-attacks and information warfare. These tools make it possible to destabilize and influence an adversary without the need to use conventional military force.
• Asymmetric warfare and the emergence of irregular actors: non-state actors, such as terrorist groups and militias, are increasingly using hybrid tactics, combining conventional and non-traditional methods of warfare.
• Cost-effectiveness and lower risk: hybrid warfare offers the possibility for states and non-state actors to achieve strategic objectives at lower cost and with less political risk than in conventional military operations. This makes this form of warfare particularly attractive in the modern geopolitical environment.

István ÜVEGES, PhD is a Computational Linguist researcher and developer at MONTANA Knowledge Management Ltd. and a researcher at the HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences. His main interests include the social impacts of Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning), the nature of Legal Language (legalese), the Plain Language Movement, and sentiment- and emotion analysis.