The phrase “hybrid warfare” has recently been in the press, but what exactly does it mean? The best answer is to give examples of it.
Fox News reported that “the U.S. Secret Service dismantled a massive telecommunications network hidden throughout the New York City area, forcing investigators to confront a startling reality surrounding threats to national security.” The Secret Service said they found a network of hostile electronic devices in New York City, the financial capital of America and home to the United Nations.
NEW YORK – The U.S. Secret Service dismantled a network of electronic devices located throughout the New York tristate area that were used to conduct multiple telecommunications-related threats directed towards senior U.S. government officials, which represented an imminent threat to the agency’s protective operations.
We tend to think of invaders as uniformed armed men arriving in boats. But instead, the Secret Service found more than 300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards across multiple sites that potentially had the power to disable cell phone towers, jab websites and anonymously and securely coordinate action teams on the ground. The Secret Service knows who built the network, but they’re not saying. “While forensic examination of these devices is ongoing, early analysis indicates cellular communications between nation-state threat actors and individuals that are known to federal law enforcement.”
There were no uniformed men, but the Associated Press says that the 300 SIM servers filled with more than 100,000 SIM cards discovered throughout various sites within the tri-state area “possessed the capability to transmit up to 30 million text messages a minute.” They could jam cell phones in the Big Apple, guide commando teams, paralyze a city.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, in another example of hybrid war, European airports continue to close as mystery drones intruded on restricted airspace. The incidents have been highly disruptive to aviation, a sector handling over 10 million daily passengers in Europe. Closures typically last 1–4 hours per event, but ripple effects (diversions, manual operations) extend into the next day. Munich has become the latest European airport to close after sightings of drones nearby. Like the Secret Service, European authorities suspect who is behind this, but they’re not saying. Vladimir Putin scoffed at Western claims of possible Russian involvement, though not everyone believes him.
Still, it has the effect of a military operation, and the fact remains that someone is doing this, though they will not be named. The key characteristic of hybrid warfare is plausible deniability. Russia’s “ghost fleet” illustrates the lengths to which these people go to obfuscate their hostile activities. This refers to a large, clandestine armada of commercial vessels—primarily aging oil tankers—that Moscow uses to evade international sanctions imposed after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Even though everyone knows what this fleet does, no one will admit it.
The Chinese captain of a Russian ghost ship with many names sailing under many flags following an evasive route was charged in a French court. He said nothing. There are said to be a thousand such vessels in Moscow's spectral fleet.
The Boracay is currently registered in Benin, but has changed name and flag several times in recent years as part of alleged efforts to evade sanctions brought in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The French prosecutor's office said the captain was unable to give a coherent answer about the flag the ship was carrying. He and the second captain, also a Chinese national, had been detained since Tuesday while French authorities investigated them on suspicion of two offences: refusing to comply with naval orders and failing to justify the nationality of the ship's flag.
You would think it impossible to hide a thousand ships. But if you couch it in terms diplomats don't recognize, apparently you can.
Yet another way to wage hybrid war is to cover belligerence in flags sacred to the Western left. For example: “BANGKOK (AP) — China’s coast guard on Wednesday raised the country’s red and yellow flag to celebrate its National Day in the waters near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, shortly after declaring the area a nature reserve.” Basically, China hoisted its flag over Philippine territory. This is out-and-out invasion, but since it is occurring under the guise of “environmentalism,” then how can it be bad?
Stirring up domestic unrest is a time-honored tactic of hybrid war, so old it was once called a Fifth Column, a term which goes back to the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. Apparently, Franco claimed that there were four Nationalist columns approaching Madrid, and a fifth column waiting to attack from the inside, hence the name. In recent days, "Gen Z" protests are taking place in the Third World. Some of this can hide a Fifth Column, but it is often hard to tell when. Often the tell is when outside support supercharges it.
It can take many forms. In Madagascar, thousands of young people have gathered in Antananarivo, the capital, demanding the government step down for its failure to deliver basic needs, most notably reliable electricity and water. These are young people’s issues, and there are plenty of young people in the Third World. But Europe is old. Only the Muslim "migrants" are young there, so the issues are different there. In the UK, protest groups are actually rallying for dentistry. "We may be dentistless and toothless, but we can still bite!" Who could have predicted the modern Patrick Henry would cry, "Give me dentures or give me death!"
One way to bring down a country is to collapse its healthcare systems. Illegal immigration could be a form of hybrid warfare. It's no coincidence that one of MAGA's most mordant talking points is that illegal aliens are using up the ER hospital budgets; it’s just that in the UK, it manifests itself as the British working class snapping at Starmer. Given its broad scope, hybrid warfare can be waged without crossing any obvious Red Lines. Russian drones recently wiped out 13,000 pigs in Ukraine. War is tough on critters, too. “The pigs were held in eight stalls spanning just over 140,000 square feet, all of which burned down in the fire, the emergency service added. Animals have suffered along with people throughout the three-and-a-half-year war. Previous Russian strikes have hit stables and zoos.” But is it war? In a manner of speaking it is – or could be.
Hybrid warfare can include any activity which promotes chaos, social breakdown or devilry. Recently, US intel tracked down "La Diabla," the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, who lured destitute pregnant women, killing the mothers and allegedly harvesting their organs postmortem, and placing newborns into illicit markets.The infants were then sold to couples in the United States for as much as 250,000 pesos, or roughly $14,000 each, according to the senior intelligence officials.
Some would say this is an instance of Donald Trump militarizing what would normally be regarded as criminal activity. But you could also understand it as a defensive operation against hybrid war against the morale of a nation. It’s often said the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist. Similarly, the cleverest thing the enemies of civilization may have come up with is persuading the public that they are not, in some sense, at war. But it’s there. Oh say can you see it?
