ANDREW KORYBKO

HYBRID WARS:
THE INDIRECT ADAPTIVE APPROACH
TO REGIME CHANGE

INTRODUCTION

Introduction 0.1: Topical Significance

“Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without
fighting.” – Sun Tzu1

Over two thousand years ago, the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu
realized that indirect warfare is one of the most efficient ways of fighting an
enemy. It allows an opponent to defeat their adversary without directly engaging
them, thereby saving themselves the resources that would have to be expended
in a direct confrontation. Attacking an enemy indirectly can also bog them down
and put them on the defensive, thereby making them vulnerable to other forms
of attack. It also carries with it a certain opportunity cost for the defending side,
since the time and resources that they spend in dealing with the indirect attack
could potentially have been put to better use elsewhere. Besides the tactical
advantages, there are also strategic ones as well. There may be certain
constraints (e.g. alliances, military parity, etc.) that prevent one entity from
directly launching hostilities against another. In this case, indirect warfare is the
only option to destabilize the other.
In the current day, weapons of mass destruction and the emerging multipolar
world place limits on direct confrontation between Great Powers. Even though
the US still retains the world’s strongest conventional military, the nuclear parity
it shares with Russia serves as a reminder that unipolarity has its limits.
Additionally, the international system is morphing in such a way that the political
and physical costs of waging a conventional war against certain countries (i.e.
China, Iran) are becoming too much of a burden for US decision makers, thereby
making this military option less attractive. Under such circumstances, indirect
warfare acquires a heightened value in strategic planning and its application can
take on a variety of forms.
Direct warfare in the past may have been marked by bombers and tanks, but if
the pattern that the US has presently applied in Syria and Ukraine is any
indication, then indirect warfare in the future will be marked by “protesters” and
insurgents. Fifth columns will be formed less by secret agents and covert
saboteurs and more by non-state actors that publicly behave as civilians. Social
media and similar technologies will come to replace precision-guided munitions
as the “surgical strike” capability of the aggressive party, and chat rooms and
Facebook pages will become the new “militants’ den”. Instead of directly
1 "Sun Tzu's Art of War - Chapter 3: Attack by Stratagem." John Watson. Web. <http://suntzusaid.com/book/3>.
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confronting the targets on their home turf, proxy conflicts will be waged in their
near vicinity in order to destabilize their periphery. Traditional occupations may
give way to coups and indirect regime change operations that are more cost
effective and less politically sensitive.

Introduction 0.2: Theory

The book focuses on the new strategy of indirect warfare that the US has
demonstrated during the Syrian and Ukrainian Crises. Both situations left many
wondering whether they were observing the export of Color Revolutions to the
Mideast, the arrival of the Arab Spring to Europe, or perhaps some kind of
Frankenstein hybrid. It is asserted that when the US’ actions in both countries are
objectively compared, one can discern a new patterned approach towards regime
change. This model begins by deploying a Color Revolution as a soft coup
attempt, only to be followed up by a hard coup Unconventional War if the first
plan fails. Unconventional Warfare is defined in this book as any type of
nonconventional (i.e. non-official military) force engaged in largely asymmetrical
combat against a traditional adversary. Taken together in a two-pronged
approach, Color Revolutions and Unconventional Warfare represent the two
components that form the theory of Hybrid War, the new method of indirect
warfare being waged by the US.

Introduction 0.3: Official Russian Position to the Topic

The Moscow Conference on International Security in May 2014 focused heavily
on the role of Color Revolutions in advancing US foreign policy goals across the
world. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that "Color revolutions are
increasingly taking on the form of warfare and are developed according to the
rules of warcraft."2 The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Anthony
Cordesman attended the conference and has published photos of the PowerPoint
slides presented there3. He also included notable comments from each speaker.
Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia,
had an especially important presentation. He introduced the concept of the
“adaptive approach” to military force. By this he means that non-military means
2 Golts, Alexander. "Are Color Revolutions a New Form of War?” The Moscow Times, 2 June 2014. Web. 7 July
2014. <http://www.themoscowtimes.com/…/are-color-revolutions-a-ne…/
501353.html>.
3 Cordesman, Anthony. "Russia and the "Color Revolution": A Russian Military View of a World Destabilized by the
US and the West (Full Report)." . Center for Strategic and International Studies, 28 May 2014. Web. 7 July 2014.
<http://csis.org/…/p…/140529_Russia_Color_Revolution_Full.pdf>.
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(identified as Color Revolutions) are aided by the concealed use of force and open
military interference (after a pretext is found) against an opposing state.

Introduction 0.4: The Shortcomings of the Russian Position

The Adaptive Approach first introduced by Gerasimov must be further examined,
and this is one of the goals of the book. Because it is so new, the concept has not
been fully developed and must be refined. For example, the absence of
Humanitarian Intervention/Responsibility to Protect à la the Libyan scenario in
Syria and Ukraine needs to be accounted for. It is therefore theorized that in
today’s complex international environment, the closer that US destabilization
operations get towards their targeted cores (Russia, Iran, China), the lower the
probability of direct warfare and the higher the chances that indirect means
(Color Revolutions and Unconventional Warfare) will be applied. Of course, this
axiom can theoretically be reversed as the respective cores become weakened,
distracted, or lose their strategic initiative and unipolarity goes on the upswing.
Because Libya is on the extreme periphery of Russia and Iran, direct regime
change methods were eventually applied, but since Ukraine and Syria are much
closer to the targeted cores, indirect regime change attempts via Color
Revolutions and Unconventional Warfare have been the primary plan in the
evolving multipolar world. Since a repeat of the Libyan War so close to core
states’ borders is extremely difficult for the US because of the international
situation (more so for Ukraine than for Syria, since Russia is much stronger of a
core than Iran, which has undergone a relative weakening in the past year), it is
proposed that the Syrian and Ukrainian models will become the standard in the
future. Although the Libyan scenario may be the ultimate goal of American
military planners, it will come to be seen as more of an anomaly than a rule as the
US advances deeper into Eurasia.
Additionally, the Adaptive Approach as expressed at the Moscow Conference on
International Security 2014 has not been placed into a geopolitical context, nor
does it provide an in-depth explanation of Color Revolutions or Unconventional
Warfare. There is also no mention of how these two concepts are bridged
between one another, which is because the Adaptive Approach idea is very new
and had only been first coined in May 2014. Accordingly, the field is open for new
research into these topics that can connect everything together into a unified
theory. Since the understudied and newly unveiled Adaptive Approach is
identified as an emerging threat to global security, the book takes on a more
pressing and timely character than ever before.
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Introduction 0.5: Object, Subject, Scope, and Aim of the Book

The object of research is US grand strategy and the new patterned approach to
regime change is the subject. The book restricts itself towards only analyzing the
Color Revolution and Unconventional Warfare aspects of the Adaptive Approach,
believing them to be a new theory of warfare in and of themselves. The fusion of
these two can stand alone from the third step of military interference, and it will
be argued that this hybrid may be more preferable than expanding the
destabilization operation to Humanitarian Intervention/Responsibility to Protect.
The structural events in Syria and Ukraine serve as the case studies for testing this
new theory, and it will be taken for a given that the reader has some level of preexisting
knowledge about these situations. The book aims to elaborate upon and
analyze the evolving US regime change template and method of warfare first
described at the Moscow Conference on International Security 2014, as well as
showing that the combination of Color Revolutions and Unconventional Warfare
represents a new theory of state destabilization that is ready for strategic
deployment all across the world.

Introduction 0.6: Methodology

The book will undertake a specific methodology in order to clearly elucidate its
findings, with examples from Syria and Ukraine being used to bolster the new
theory’s claims. The first chapter will deal with the theoretical contexts
underpinning the new concept. It will first look at the progression of geopolitical
theories that place the US’ anti-Russian foreign policy actions into perspective.
Then it will examine military theories that explain the preference for covert and
indirect destabilization against Russia. The end of the chapter will briefly speak
about Full Spectrum Dominance and how Color Revolutions and Unconventional
Warfare fit into this paradigm.
The second chapter will focus on how Color Revolutions are applied. It will begin
by looking at the theory and strategy behind them, placing a hardened focus on
network warfare and the influence of social media. Then it will show that the end
result of these efforts is to create a “swarm” of anti-government actors, which
will in turn follow the tactical dictates advocated by Gene Sharp. Finally, brief
commentary on two key individuals who have experience practicing these
methods will conclude the chapter.
The third chapter follows the skeleton of the second one, except instead of Color
Revolutions, it speaks upon Unconventional Warfare. It starts by offering an
official US military definition of Unconventional Warfare before modifying it for
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the context of the book. It then looks at the history of the US’ traditional
Unconventional Warfare operations and the rise of non-state actors in the post-
Cold War world. Following this, it is then explained how Unconventional Warfare
follows the same strategic paradigm as Color Revolutions. Finally, the leaked TC
18-01 Unconventional Warfare handbook from the US military will be partially
analysed to show its relevant application to the book, thereby ending the
chapter.
Chapter Four connects the concepts of Color Revolutions and Unconventional
Warfare and shows how they are mutually complementary parts of the same
regime change whole. This important chapter brings the previous findings
together in order to construct the new theory of “Hybrid Wars”. It is at this point
that one should be able to clearly see the uniqueness of the concept and how
each of its two constituent parts seamlessly flow into one another to create the
integrated theory.
The final chapter is the Conclusion, and it offers limited forecasts and general
recommendations about Hybrid War. The last section briefly summarizes the
book and finishes with a couple concluding thoughts. By this point, the goal is
that the reader will have developed an understanding of Hybrid War that can be
used as the basis for further research into this revolutionary topic.