Russia Wages War On the West

But we created theories that let us study it into our passivity with analysis paralysis

I’ve long been frustrated that all the talk of Russia’s hybrid warfare with little green men is just a means for the West to avoid the need to admit Russia is waging war on the West.

This essay is dense, but is absolutely correct in framing the problem of hybrid war—or gray zone war, “little green men,” or whatever other term is coined for the low-level attacks that don’t look too much like high-intensity, large-scale combat operations:

[The gray zone activity] name incorrectly implies an area of uncertainty. This perception of uncertainty is the result of a culture that perceives war in a binary state – where a country is either at war, or at peace. This is in contrast to the reality that adversaries are surreptitiously conducting non-kinetic warfare against the US across multiple domains to prevail before kinetic fighting is needed, or to set victory conditions for an upcoming kinetic war of their choosing.

I hoped that Russia’s open invasion of Ukraine in 2022 would at least kill the notion that Russian “hybrid warfare” was some novel means of aggression that made it unnecessary to unleash the dogs of open warfare.

And boy, since Russia’s 2014 operation to seize Crimes, we built it up as some magical formula for bloodless victory, requiring a NATO “center for excellence” to figure out what to do.

I judged that the Crimea operation was not a template for future action against a NATO state:

In Crimea, Russia had a major base. Russia could reinforce the base pre-H Hour without a problem.

Ukraine was in chaos with the overthrow of the government and no clear authority in place.

The Ukrainian military was unsure of who to obey even if the government still forming was capable of issuing orders.

Nearly all of the Ukrainian military in Crimea was composed of support troops (a single marine battalion was the only combat unit).

The Ukrainian military was a shambles after years of deliberate near-sabotage by the pro-Russian government that didn't want an effective military.

And Ukraine was not a member of NATO.

Yet despite those unique features, it was really a simple formula that at its foundation relied on the West not believing its own lying eyes:

On February 28, 2014, I thought Russia was invading Crimea (and I mentioned the east as a target, as well), even though conflicting reports led me to be cautious in assuming what I thought I saw happening was happening. But that fog quickly lifted despite the Russian deception techniques described in the article.

Over-analyzing Russia's deception causes the West to miss the point that "hybrid warfare" is very simple: Russia invades a country; Russia denies it has invaded a country; and the West goes along with Russian denials.

That's it. The West could have reacted very differently by simply refusing to go along with the Russian denials and acting on what we knew was going on--Russia had invaded a free (if corrupt) country.

Instead we act is if we need CSI: Donbas to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Russians are fighting inside Ukraine on the orders of Putin.

Analysts seriously acted as if it was a deep mystery how Donbas “separatists” suddenly had more tanks than leading military powers in NATO, organized in conventional units.

That initial author advocates being willing to use regular warfare against so-called gray zone activities. And I noted the weakness of little green men against such a response if we would let go of our analysis paralysis:

If Ukraine had even 20,000 effective troops at that time, Ukraine could have scattered the little green men and shot down any Russian transports trying land in Sevastopol.

And nobody would even remember 600 bloggers and Facebook posters peddling Russian lies.

The effects of refusing to admit Russia is attacking us lingers on. Russia has escalated its attacks on the West during the Winter War of 2022 without drawing a meaningful response.

And yet we refrain from planning the obvious solution to Russia’s preferred form of attacks when it can’t invade and quickly win:

Make Russian invaders without unit insignia patches Little Green Dead Men and they'll be no problem at all.

Still, there are signs of hope that NATO is beginning to overtly resist Russia’s subliminal offensive.

Russia is fortunately having great problems subduing Ukraine. Russia may realize that it will be many years before it can think about openly invading NATO. I believe that the Baltic region is the central front for NATO defense efforts. Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave greatly complicates NATO defense efforts if not captured or suppressed early in a war. And Narva, Estonia is the new West Berlin of NATO resolve.

Russia may not be in position to openly attack NATO, but my worries have intensified that Russia may step up its intensity of so-called gray zone activities by seizing the Estonian city of Narva using unmarked uniforms and vehicles, while pretending they are Estonian separatists.

Russia could think that NATO’s determination to avoid calling Russia’s current campaign of sabotage and propaganda an attack on NATO is so ingrained that NATO will recoil from calling even this level of attack an actual Russian invasion. LINK Europe is an economy-of-force front for America. But it is still a front. America should prepare to lead NATO combat operations for that contingency, as I explored in Army magazine recently.

NOTE: I made the image with Bing.