Hybrid capabilities were most useful in converting conventional forces to the exigencies of irregular war, as against fighting a hybrid foe, which really were common only in the eighteenth century. For Britain, the normal problem in hybridity was in recalibrating forces from one task to another rather than in handling two competitions at once. Fail

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counterinsurgencies, and the Gulf War did nothing to convince the American military to abandon that attitude. During the 1980s, the United States had successfully supported a counterinsurgency campaign in El Salvador with just 55 military advisers – a light footprint of Special Forces replicated in the U.S. support of the Northern Alliance in Afgha

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“Hybrid threats,” writes Frank Hoffman, “blend the lethality of state conflict with the fanatical and protracted fervor of irregular warfare.”5 Hybrid war does not change the nature of war; it merely changes the way forces engage in its conduct. However it is waged, war is war. Much as the term “combined arms” describes the tactical combination of

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From 1880 onward, it also strove to deny that technology to non-European peoples, which became a hidden element to its military superiority, as was the isolation of each theater through naval superiority and politics, and the ability to keep the dirty side of empire from public scrutiny. In East Asia, Western power was manifested through maritime a

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The basic units of exchange in imperial power were battalions, which were sterling but above which expertise was mixed. Only in India and England did divisions really exist and hardly ever corps. Most specialized troops were raised, cheaply, from local populations, their loyalty secured by status and salary. This burden sharing reduced the financia

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Prime Minister Winston Churchill also recognized the power of using irregular forces to combat the Wehrmacht in conjunction with regular military operations. In July 1940, he charged a new organization, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), with the mission to “set Europe ablaze.”9 For the next several years, British agents assisted local resista

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This collection of essays represents a first step toward examining the nature of hybrid conflicts more closely. We have defined hybrid warfare as conflict involving a combination of conventional military forces and irregulars (guerrillas, insurgents, and terrorists), which could include both state and nonstate actors, aimed at achieving a common po

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In contrast, there was an attempt to create an elite unit specialized in counterinsurgency operations in the final phase of the war. In September 1943, the north China special security force was organized with intelligence, counterintelligence, and combat capabilities. It was specifically designed to deal with the Communists, whose influence kept g

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Special Forces and Central Intelligence Agency operatives teamed up with indigenous Afghan irregular forces of the Northern Alliance to battle Taliban militia. The U.S. military bolstered the war effort with heavy doses of air power and a conventional infantry unit, the 10th Mountain Division. This hybrid combination proved extremely effective at d

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