About the Book

A scan of recent conflicts indicates blurring lines between war and peace, state and non-state, regular and irregular and conventional and unconventional. The prevailing security environment is radically different from what it was even a decade ago. The probability of conventional conflict between states or groups of states has been steadily declining while, at the same time, sub-conventional conflict is gaining prominence. These small wars, or niggling wars as some have called it, have also been called hybrid, non-linear, gray zone, unrestricted and a plethora of such names. The ontological and epistemological enquiry of these terms is essential to understand if they allude to the same phenomenon through different frames. Are they the convention or an aberration? The book tries to fill this crucial research gap related to the changing character of conflicts in the strategic discourse in India.

The contributors have made an attempt to identify various components of hybrid warfare at play in contemporary conflicts. The work does not intend to be judgmental of the nation-states involved in these conflicts or their context and purpose. Instead, the contributors have viewed these conflicts through the prism of the changing character of war, as students of defence and strategic studies, to draw relevant lessons.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part dwells on conceptual issues related to hybrid warfare and comprises two chapters. The second part has six case studies. In the last part, the book has two concluding chapters.

A cursory literature review indicates that while a lot has been written on contemporary conflicts and there are collected essays on hybrid warfare, such an approach as attempted in this book, of scanning the geopolitical space to deconstruct modern conflicts and draw out lessons learnt, is unique. The authors hope to initiate a debate and contribute to the discourse on the way India will have to fight its conflicts in the future in order to equip its armed forces to be better prepared for the next Trojan horse.

About the Editor

Colonel Vikrant Suresh Deshpande joined IDSA as a Research Fellow in September 2016. An MPhil in Defence and Strategic Studies from the Devi Ahilyabai University, his research focuses on ‘Notions of Victory and its Implications on Strategy and Capability Development of the Armed Forces’

Contents

Preface
Contributors
List of Abbreviations
List of Tables and Figures

1. The Changing Character and the Taxonomy of Conflict
   — Gurmeet Kanwal
2. Contextualising Hybrid Warfare
   — Vikrant Deshpande and Shibani Mehta
3. Pakistan’s Hybrid War in South Asia: Case Study of India and Afghanistan
   — Vivek Chadha
4. Russia and Hybrid Warfare: Achieving Strategic Goals without Outright Military Force
   — Aman Saberwal
5. The Mutating Wars: ‘The Hybrid Threat’ in Iraq and Syria
   — Shruti Pandalai
6. Lebanon–Yemen Marathon: Hezbollah Head and Houthi Legs
   — Kishore Kumar Khera
7. Israel and the Challenges of Hybrid Warfare
   — S. Samuel C. Rajiv
8. Expanding the Turbulent Maritime Periphery: Gray Zone Conflicts with Chinese Characteristics
   — Abhay K. Singh
9. India and Hybrid Warfare
   — Alok Deb
10. Conclusion
    — Neha Kohli

Index

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