Hybrid Warfare: A Military Revolution or Revolution in Military Affairs?

In the last decade, a new term, hybrid warfare, has been surfacing amongst scholars of warfare. The latest Swedish Military Strategic Doctrine also uses the term. Proponents of hybrid warfare use the term to describe the area in which regular warfare and irregular warfare intersect and blend to create a new form of warfare. This thesis uses the Williamson Murray and McGregor Knox definitions of Military Revolution MR and Revolution in Military Affairs RMA to determine whether hybrid warfare falls under MR or RMA. As necessary, insights from other sources will further help define Murray and Knoxs concepts of MR and RMA. Section 2 of the thesis, a literature review, presents the views of some of the most prominent writers on hybrid warfare, namely, Frank G. Hoffman, Thomas M. Huber, David Kilcullen, Bill Nemeth, John J. McCuen, and Nathan Freier. Chapter 3 is an indepth look at the definitions of hybrid warfare, MR, and RMA. Chapter 4 is a case study of the 2006 Hezbollah war with Israel, and how that war supports whether hybrid warfare falls under MR or RMA. Chapter 5 presents conclusions and recommendations. The purpose of this thesis is not to settle an argument about the validity of the concept of hybrid warfare, nor to verify whether there are grounds for using the term hybrid warfare in Swedish Military Strategic Doctrine. The thesis simply tries to analyze a concept brought forward in recent theoretical military discourse.