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The Hybrid Challenge and Small States

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Small States and the New Security Environment

Part of the book series: The World of Small States ((WSS,volume 7))

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Abstract

Hybrid warfare is currently a fashionable phrase utilised to analyse a specific form of warfare waged against both large and small states. Currently, concern is raised about how China or Russia may be attempting to influence the domestic politics of states or alliances regarded as hostile to their interests. This could be mischief making in electoral politics or stirring up unrest in an age of populism to weaken and fragment state authority. This chapter examines how small states may be exploited in the age of the hybrid challenge but how sheltering may permit resistance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    National power is defined as the combination of Diplomatic, Informational, Military and Economic (DIME) Power of a state. Used originally in the US military, the UK’s Royal College of Defence Studies has also embraced this typology. It is this definition to which we refer. We include ‘Culture’ as a separate and influential component of National Power which in the UK and US constructs is not treated separately. See RCDS (2017).

  2. 2.

    The concept of Total war appeared in the nineteenth century and involved a blurring of lines between combatants and civil targets and the application of a nation’s total might e.g. diplomatic, informational, military, economic, moral and social resources against the elements of national power of the enemy including its entire population. See Ludendorff (1935); Martin Shaw, ”Dialectics of War: An Essay in the Social Theory of Total War and Peace,” https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2718985 and SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2718985; Chickering and Förster (2003).

  3. 3.

    Williamson and Mansoor (2011).

  4. 4.

    See Thorhallsson (2011), pp. 324–336.

  5. 5.

    Lisaka (1962). See also Osgood (1966).

  6. 6.

    Allison and Zelikow (1999).

  7. 7.

    Mueller (1995).

  8. 8.

    Keohane and Nye (1998).

  9. 9.

    Hassner (2009).

  10. 10.

    Ignatieff (2001).

  11. 11.

    Zaidi (2009).

  12. 12.

    For further discussion on generational shift in how insurgencies operate and what their future direction may be, see Ifti Zaidi, “Insurgencies: The Third Generation,” Conference paper presented at the AOC Crows, Edinburgh, Online: https://www.eweurope.com/Content/14th-15th-May-Main-Conference-Programme/6_12/.

  13. 13.

    Monaghan (2015).

  14. 14.

    Ibid.

  15. 15.

    Giles (2016).

  16. 16.

    McDermott (2015).

  17. 17.

    Ari Heistein and Vera S. Michlin, “Russia’s Hybrid-Warfare Victory in Syria,” The National Interest, 19 May 2016, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/russias-hybrid-warfare-victory-syria-16273.

  18. 18.

    McDermott (2015).

  19. 19.

    Korybko (2015), pp. 1574–1586.

  20. 20.

    Mintzberg (2007).

  21. 21.

    Johnson et al. (2017).

  22. 22.

    Tzu (2000).

  23. 23.

    Heifetz et al. (2009).

  24. 24.

    Rittel and Webber (1973), pp. 155–169.

  25. 25.

    Grint (2010), pp. 169–186.

  26. 26.

    Korybko (2015), op. cit.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the help of Dr Duncan Depledge of Loughborough University, UK.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK

    Caroline Kennedy-Pipe

  2. Cranfield University, Bedford, UK

    Iftikhar Zaidi

Authors
  1. Caroline Kennedy-Pipe
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  2. Iftikhar Zaidi
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Correspondence to Caroline Kennedy-Pipe .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Sciences and International Relations, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Anne-Marie Brady

  2. Faculty of Political Science and the Centre for Small State Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Baldur Thorhallsson

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Kennedy-Pipe, C., Zaidi, I. (2021). The Hybrid Challenge and Small States. In: Brady, AM., Thorhallsson, B. (eds) Small States and the New Security Environment. The World of Small States, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51529-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51529-4_3

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