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Hybrid Warfare as Lawfare: Towards a Comprehensive Legal Approach

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A Civil-Military Response to Hybrid Threats

Abstract

Hybrid Warfare—while not necessarily new as a category of war—is a notion that has the potential to change future conceptualisation of conflicts. This re-conceptualisation also involves a need to rethink the law paradigms applicable to modern conflicts, which do not neatly fit the categorisation outlined in the jus ad bellum (right to wage war) and jus in bello (the conduct of parties engaged in an armed conflict).

This chapter draws on the paper ‘Understanding Lawfare in a Hybrid Warfare Context’, 37 NATO Legal Gazette, 2016, 38–48.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Term coined by Colonel Dunlap in 2001. C. Dunlap, ‘Law and Military Interventions: Preserving Humanitarian Values in 21st Conflicts’ (2001) Humanitarian Challenges in Military Intervention Conference, November 2001, Harvard University. C. Dunlap, ‘Lawfare today: A Perspective (2008) 3 Yale J. Int’l Affaires 146, 146.

  2. 2.

    See Chaps. 12 and 13 by Rogers and Gawthorpe in this volume.

  3. 3.

    Frank G. Hoffman , Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars (Arlington, VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, December 2007), p. 8. See also Hoffman ‘Hybrid threats: Reconceptualising the evolving character of modern conflict’ (2009) Strategic Forum 240. See also Hoffman ‘Hybrid Warfare and challenges’ (2009), Joint Forces Quarterly 52.

  4. 4.

    E. Tenenbaum ‘La piège de la guerre hybride’ (2015), Focus stratégique n. 63, p. 5.

  5. 5.

    NATO – Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Headquarters, ‘Military Contribution to Countering Hybrid Threats Capstone Concept’, www.act.nato.int/the-countering-hybrid-threats-concept-development-experiment, 22 February 2017; see also S Bachmann, “Hybrid Threats, cyber warfare and NATO’s comprehensive approach for countering 21st century threats – map** the new frontier of global risk and security management”, (2011) 88 Amicus Curiae 24.

  6. 6.

    NATO ACT, BI-SC Input to a new NATO Capstone Concept for the Military Contribution to Countering Hybrid Threats, http://www.act.nato.int/images/stories/events/2010/20100826_bi-sc_cht.pdf 22 February 2017; also in S. Bachmann & H. Gunneriusson ‘Hybrid Wars: The 21st Century’s New Threats to Global Peace and Security’, Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2015, p. 79.

  7. 7.

    Ibid., Referring to J. Sanden, S. Bachmann ‘Countering hybrid eco-threats to global security under international law: The need for a comprehensive legal approach’, Liverpool Law Review 33, 2013, 16.

  8. 8.

    S. Bachmann and J Sanden, “Countering Hybrid Eco-threats to Global Security Under International Law: The Need for an Comprehensive Legal Approach”, 33 (3) Liverpool Law Review 261–289.

  9. 9.

    See “Updated List of Tasks for the Implementation of the Comprehensive Approach Action Plan and the Lisbon Summit Decisions on the Comprehensive Approach”, dated 4 March 2011, p. 1–10, paragraph 1 cited in S. Bachmann & H. Gunneriusson, ‘Russia’s Hybrid Warfare in the East: Using the Information Sphere As Integral to Hybrid Warfare’, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs: International Engagement on Cyber V (2015): 204.

  10. 10.

    CHT hereafter.

  11. 11.

    See NATO ACT, “NATO countering the Hybrid Threat”, http://www.act.nato.int/nato-countering-the-hybrid-threat, 22 February 2017.

  12. 12.

    NATO Wales Summit Declaration, par 13 Sept 2015, at http://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm?selectedLocale=en

  13. 13.

    (n.9).

  14. 14.

    See for example Davis, J A, “Continued Evolution of Hybrid Threats – The Russian Hybrid Threat Construct and the Need for Innovation”, http://www.jwc.nato.int/images/stories/threeswords/CONTINUED_EVOLUTION_OF_HYBRID_THREATS.pdf

  15. 15.

    See NATO Press Statement by the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_125361.htm, 01 December 2015.

  16. 16.

    See for instance the Readiness Action Plan (RAP) adopted by NATO during the 2014 Wales Summit.

  17. 17.

    P. Pomerantsev, ‘How Putin is Reinventing Warfare’ (2014) Foreign Policy, 4 May 2014, foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/05/how-putin-is-reinventing-warfare/, 5 October 2015.

  18. 18.

    See S. Bachmann & H. Gunneriusson, ‘Eyes Wide Shut: How Russia’s Hybrid Warfare Exposes And Exploits Western Vulnerabilities’, (2017) Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 18 January 2017, http://journal.georgetown.edu/eyes-wide-shut-how-russias-hybrid-warfare-exposes-and-exploits-western-vulnerabilities/, 17 February 2017.

  19. 19.

    https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/ctc/uncharter.pdf

  20. 20.

    http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm

  21. 21.

    S. Bachmann & A. Paphiti, “Russia’s Hybrid War and its Implication for the Defence and Security in the United Kingdom”, 44 (2) Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, (2016), p. 46 for a further discussion in an international law context.

  22. 22.

    See Interview: Sascha Dov Bachmann http://remotecontrolproject.org/interview-sascha-dov-bachmann/

  23. 23.

    C. Dunlap ‘Lawfare Today: A Perspective’, YALE Journal of International Affairs (Winter 2008), p. 146.

  24. 24.

    O. Kittrie, Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015), p. 8. Kittrie provides in his seminal book on lawfare examples of other users of lawfare and points out that China has been develo** successfully lawfare capabilities since 1996.

  25. 25.

    G. Lasconjarias, J. A. Larsen, NATO’s Response to Hybrid Threats, (Rome, DeBooks, 2015) NATO Defense College, p. 117.

  26. 26.

    C. Lin ‘Israel, China, and US/NATO – Counter-Terrorism as War Crimes?’ ISPSW Strategy Series: Focus on Defense and International Security, (Issue 287) September 2014, p. 1.

  27. 27.

    A commonly recognised methodology for defining the nature of conflict was established by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in Tadic. These criteria appear to be inadequate or insufficient to characterise conflicts dominated by Hybrid Warfare methods, as these are intended to disguise the actual facts. Therefore, the necessary attribution of direction or control in a conflict, which entirely depends on the appreciation and assessment of facts, becomes a ‘mission impossible’ in Hybrid Warfare environments where subterfuge dominates the stage. This situation diminishes the authority of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law (and Public International Law in general). International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Tadic Case (Judgement) ICTY-94-1 (26 January 2000).

  28. 28.

    See for example E. Buckley, I. Pascu ‘NATO’s Article 5 and Russian Hybrid Warfare’ (17 March 2015), www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/nato-s-article-5-and-russian-hybrid-warfare, 17 August 2015; see more on the subject in S. Bachmann and A Mosquera, “Lawfare and hybrid warfare – how Russia is using the law as a weapon”, 102 Amicus Curiae 2015, 25–28.

  29. 29.

    S. Reeves, R. Barnsby ‘The New Griffin of War. Hybrid International Armed Conflicts’, Harvard International Review, (winter 2013), p. 18. See also Bachmann, supra note 6, pp. 90–93.

  30. 30.

    This term has been drawn by The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, a 2003 American documentary on the former US Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara with his views of the nature of modern warfare and refers to the above-identified ambiguity.

  31. 31.

    See http://www.theLawfareproject.org/what-is-Lawfare.html for the term and related discussions.

  32. 32.

    C. Dunlap ‘Lawfare Today: A Perspective’, YALE Journal of International Affairs (Winter 2008), p. 146.

  33. 33.

    United Nations Document A/49/765, S/1994/1399, 19 December 1994, www.cfr.org/nonproliferation-arms-control-and-disarmament/budapest-memorandums-security-assurances-1994/p32484, 12 August 2015.

  34. 34.

    The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation , Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich answers a media question about the situation around the Budapest Memorandum , 12 March 2015, archive.mid.ru//brp_4.nsf/0/CC1C845CAA26D5A043257E07004BF6EB, 12 August 2015.

  35. 35.

    See for example E. Buckley, I. Pascu ‘NATO’s Article 5 and Russian Hybrid Warfare’ (17 March 2015), www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/nato-s-article-5-and-russian-hybrid-warfare, 17 August 2015.

  36. 36.

    M. Voyger, ‘L-Element of RUS Comprehensive Strategy’, NATO Land Command Izmir LAND POWER Magazine, Spring 2015, Volume 1, Issue 2, page 20.

  37. 37.

    ‘1075th Meeting’, Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1970, vol. 1 (New York: United Nations, 1971) 181 at para. 40. See also the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts 2001, legal.un.org/avl/ha/rsiwa/rsiwa.html, and the Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations New York, 9 December 2011, legal.un.org/avl/ha/ario/ario.html, 19 August 2015.

  38. 38.

    C. Dunlap ‘Lawfare: A Decisive Element of 21st Century Conflicts?’ Joint Force Quarterly (2009), p. 35.

  39. 39.

    T. Pfanner ‘Asymmetrical warfare from the perspective of humanitarian law and humanitarian action’, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 87 (2005), No. 857, p. 165.

  40. 40.

    Dunlap, supra note 37.

  41. 41.

    S. Bilsborough ‘Counterlawfare in Counterinsurgency’, Small War Journals, 14 December 2011, p. 2.

  42. 42.

    ‘[T]he PA and its allies have turned numerous international organizations into Lawfare battlegrounds. As a result, one international organization (UNESCO) has been weakened by having its budget slashed, and another (the UN Human Rights Council) has been largely diverted from accomplishing its original mandate’, in O. Kittrie, Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015), p. 339.

  43. 43.

    Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, www.ngo-monitor.org/article/ngo_Lawfare, 21 February 2016.

  44. 44.

    As targets, note the hacking of Sony before the premier of ‘The Interview’, www.Lawfareblog.com/sony-hack, 20 February 2016. As weapons, Linde v. Arab Bank, www.osenlaw.com/case/arab-bank-case, 20 February 2016.

  45. 45.

    Diplomatic, Informational, Military, Economic, Financial [and Legal] (DIMEFIL).

    http://jfsc.ndu.edu/Portals/72/Documents/library/Bibliographies/Elements_of_National_Power.pdf

  46. 46.

    Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure and Information Systems (PMESII).

  47. 47.

    O. Kittrie, Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015), p. 339.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., p. 215.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bournemouth University, Poole, UK

    Sascha Dov Bachmann

  2. Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA

    Andres B. Munoz Mosquera

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  1. Sascha Dov Bachmann
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Eugenio Cusumano

  2. The Hague, The Netherlands

    Marian Corbe

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Disclaimer: All references made to NATO documents are open source and can be found on the Internet. The text is in a personal capacity and should not be intended to represent the views of their employers or the organisations they are a member of.

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Bachmann, S.D., Munoz Mosquera, A.B. (2018). Hybrid Warfare as Lawfare: Towards a Comprehensive Legal Approach. In: Cusumano, E., Corbe, M. (eds) A Civil-Military Response to Hybrid Threats. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60798-6_4

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