Hybrid Warfare: The Changing Character of Conflict

Wars and conflicts have become a near constant presence today, brought to us on a realtime basis on myriad communication devices. A cursory scan of recent conflicts reveals the blurring lines between war and peace, state versus nonstate, regular and irregular, and conventional visàvis unconventional. Over the past decade or so, the prevailing security environment in many regions changed radically. Simultaneously, the probability of conventional conflict between states or groups of states declined steadily while subconventional conflict gained prominence. These small, niggling wars have been termed as hybrid, nonlinear, gray zone, or unrestricted, among others. It thus becomes necessary to enquire ontologically and epistemologically into these terms to understand if they allude to the same phenomenon through different frames. Furthermore, are these an aberration or, increasingly, the convention? This book tries to address this crucial research gap related to the changing character of conflicts in the strategic discourse in India.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part dwells on conceptual issues related to hybrid warfare; the second comprises six case studies of conflict zones from around the world; and the third concludes the exhaustive discussion on the core theme. The contributors, including both scholars and practitioners, have attempted to identify the various components of hybrid warfare at play in contemporary conflicts. They have viewed these conflicts through the prism of the changing character of war, as students of defence and strategic studies, to draw relevant lessons for India.

It is hoped that this book would initiate a debate and contribute to the discourse on the way India will have to prepare for and fight conflicts in the future. It would be a valuable reference for defence and military personnel, students and scholars of defence, military and strategic studies, practitioners and policy makers, and the informed reader.