The Defense Identity Crisis: It’s a Hybrid World

If at the end of the day, we drop the hybrid term and simply gain a better understanding of the large gray space between our idealized bins and pristine western categorizations, we will have made progress. --Frank Hoffman (1) The defense enterprise is abuzz with lively debates on "hybrid threats" and "hybrid war." Yet, newly emergent defense trends do not automatically merit exquisite definitions, new doctrine, or new operating concepts. As Frank Hoffman implies, such a caveat might be true of "hybrid warfare." Hybrid war may not yet be reducible to a pristine, doctrine-ready definition. Continued efforts by Hoffman and others to describe it, however, remain invaluable. (2) This trend is admittedly unsatisfying to concept developers and doctrine writers. By nature, they want to neatly categorize and define every aspect of military affairs. Yet, in this instance, patience is a virtue. For its part, too, the defense bureaucracy cannot rush to artificially dismiss a wider universe of defense-relevant, "wicked" challenges, in favor of a more limited and "tame" set of not-so-new, defense-specific ones. (3) Unfortunately, the hybrid debate is moving in this direction. Too many analysts gravitate toward solving only narrow tactical-to-operational hybrid military problems. In that context, hybrid threats are nettlesome "high-low" combinations of capabilities and methods--i.e., violent "irregular" forces that possess advanced military capabilities or "regulars" who skillfully combine conventional and unconventional warfare. A similar "reduction" occurred with irregular warfare (IW) following the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review. As a consequence, the Department of Defense (DOD) quickly took refuge in IW's "military science"--direct-action counterterrorism, application of the military aspects of counterinsurgency, and security force assistance--without fully recognizing that DOD would, under many circumstances, be responsible for much of IW's "social science" as well. Following a similar course regarding hybrid challenges is a grave mistake. Any rush to define DOD's "hybrid" challenge too precisely is a diversion for a Defense Department facing more fundamental issues. It is unclear whether hybrid military threats will ever be singular points of emphasis for doctrine, concepts, or material solutions. For many strategists, the defense challenges described as hybrid are actually examples of cunning leadership in opposition to US or western military superiority. (4) What is clear, however, upon even a cursory examination of current and future operating environments, is that the word hybrid itself aptly describes the majority of DOD's contemporary missions and responsibilities. In short, war alone is not the only thing that is hybrid; an array of broader defense issues is hybrid as well. The defense portfolio is irrevocably diverse. It should be permanently acknowledged as such in defense management practices. DOD in totality--its subordinate service departments and agencies, varied capabilities, and mosaic of existing military and nonmilitary missions--is a complex hybrid national security, vice national defense, institution. (5) Defense capacity and demands suggest that DOD could be thought of as the "Department of Doing or Defending Against Many Things." (6) For better or worse, DOD is America's most viable first responder. It is in the unenviable position of "if not you, then who" when contingency events involve major violence or conditions exceed the capacity of US government agencies or foreign partners. An undeniable strategic reality for DOD today is: If a contingency is big, bad, sudden, complex, expensive, actually or potentially violent, and strategically important, it is likely to vault to the top of the Defense priority list. Few of the world's problems are unambiguously nails. As a consequence, DOD can ill afford to make use of its "hammer" alone. The following partial list of current challenges shows which agency is perceived as best-equipped to respond. …