Capstone: Russian Hybrid Warfare
Abstract
On 17 March 2014, the Crimean Parliament formally declared independence from the Ukraine and, in the same breath, asked to join the Russian Federation. This came just a day after a sizeable majority of Crimean's voted to leave Ukraine.1 The same day as the Crimean Parliamentary decision, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing the independence of the Crimea and paving the way for the Russian Duma to vote on annexation in the following days.2 Two days later, on 20 March 2014, the Russian Federation began the process of annexation for the Crimean Peninsula with a vote in the lower house of the Duma.3 The annexation was finalized when Putin signed the order the following day.4 The annexation capped off months of crisis in the Ukraine and scheming in the Kremlin, and marked the end of a major chapter in recent Russian activity in Ukraine. It also demonstrated to many the power of a new type of warfare that incorporated both conventional military forces as well as irregular activities and non-violent means to reach a political goal. While this type of warfare has been referred to by many terms within the literature,5 in order to describe it, we will use the phrase hybrid warfare. The purpose of this project is to provide an overview of the components of hybrid warfare, their use by the Russian Federation, and ways these components can be mitigated by actions taken by the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the United States Government (USG) as a whole.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2017
- Accession Number
- AD1123177
Entities
People
- Andrew Koch
- Kaitlyn Neuberger
- Victoria Barber
Organizations
- Tufts University