When War Doesn't Look Like War

Traditional conceptions of war — armies clashing on battlefields, formal declarations of conflict, clear winners and losers — have given way to something far more ambiguous. Strategists, defense analysts, and policymakers increasingly use the term hybrid warfare to describe the use of a blend of conventional military force, irregular tactics, cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, economic coercion, and proxy forces to achieve strategic goals — often while deliberately maintaining plausible deniability.

Understanding hybrid warfare is essential for making sense of some of the most significant security developments of the past two decades.

The Core Components of Hybrid Warfare

Conventional Military Force

Traditional military assets — troops, tanks, aircraft — remain part of the toolkit, but are often held in reserve or deployed in ambiguous ways. The use of unmarked soldiers ("little green men") during Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 is a widely cited example of blurring the line between military presence and official military action.

Cyberattacks

Attacks on critical infrastructure — power grids, financial systems, government networks, communications — have become a standard tool of hybrid campaigns. These attacks can cause significant disruption while leaving attribution difficult, giving aggressors a degree of deniability. Estonia (2007) and Ukraine (repeatedly since 2014) have experienced some of the most consequential state-linked cyber operations.

Disinformation and Information Operations

The deliberate spread of false or misleading information to confuse populations, undermine trust in institutions, and sow social division is a core element of modern hybrid strategy. Social media platforms have amplified the reach and speed of disinformation campaigns, making them a low-cost, high-impact instrument of statecraft.

Economic Coercion

Using trade dependencies, energy supply manipulation, investment, or sanctions as leverage in geopolitical disputes constitutes economic warfare — a form of coercion that stops short of physical conflict but can be highly destabilizing. Energy has been a particularly potent lever in Europe.

Proxy Forces and Irregular Actors

Supporting non-state armed groups, militias, or separatist forces in another country allows state actors to pursue strategic objectives while maintaining distance from direct involvement. This has been a feature of conflicts from Syria to Yemen to eastern Ukraine.

Why Is Hybrid Warfare So Challenging to Counter?

  • Attribution is difficult: Establishing who is responsible for a cyberattack or a disinformation campaign takes time and is often contested.
  • Legal and institutional frameworks lag: International law and defense alliances were largely designed with conventional warfare in mind. Defining what constitutes an "attack" in hybrid contexts — and what responses are proportionate — remains unresolved.
  • Democratic vulnerabilities: Open societies with free media and political pluralism are particularly susceptible to disinformation and interference in domestic politics.
  • Escalation risks are poorly understood: The thresholds and red lines that govern conventional conflict are less clear in the hybrid domain.

How Are States Responding?

NATO has developed a hybrid warfare strategy that includes better attribution capabilities, enhanced cyber defenses, and a commitment to respond collectively to hybrid attacks against member states. The EU has invested in counter-disinformation task forces and media literacy programs. Individual nations are hardening critical infrastructure and reforming intelligence agencies to address non-conventional threats.

The Bigger Picture

Hybrid warfare reflects a broader reality: that great power competition and regional conflicts increasingly take place in the "gray zone" between declared peace and open war. For citizens and policymakers alike, developing the literacy to recognize and understand these tactics is itself a form of security — and increasingly a civic necessity.