RUSSIA: FROM COLD WAR VIA “PEACE DIVIDEND” TO HYBRID WAR IN EUROPE. HOW TO RECONCILE EUROPE'S STRATEGIC INTERESTS WITH RUSSIA'S LEGITIMATE INTERESTS

Abstract: As of today, Europe has to face new asymmetric threats, including Hybrid Warfare, terrorist attacks, and illegal migration that transcend the common security aspects and have further roots beyond its borders, in unsolved hot spot areas, like Eastern and Southern neighbourhood. For many military theorists, the Ukrainian Crisis represented a huge opportunity to restart debates regarding hybridity in future warfare. Some definitions and conceptual elements regarding hybrid threats and hybrid challenges have been developed since the Second Lebanon War of 2006 and were improved after the 2008 Chechen War. Hybrid Warfare theory has been developed by Russia since 2004, as the future conflict concept to counter NATO’s expansion to the East and the installation of the US Anti-Missile Shield in Europe. meanwhile, Western Governments has defined the hybrid threat as an issue rather than as an operating concept that requires a solution. as a result, up to now no American National Strategy or doctrine has incorporated this theory as a new form of future conflicts. In conjunction with reviewing and adjusting strategies and war fighting concepts, the defence community must re-evaluate the force structure needed for future conflicts and build adequate capabilities. With a wider range of threats that may require the need to employ various capabilities simultaneously, NATO and member states must continue their efforts to strive for greater joint operations and possibly inter-dependence. With EU support, they must transform their industrial-era organizational structures into more agile, information-, and knowledge-based enterprises, which requires a large investment in ideas, technology, and people.