Economic and political stability are the fortresses that defend a country against hybrid warfare of the current era, experts said at a webinar organised by the National University of Sciences and Technology’s (NUST) Institute of Policy Studies.
Speaking at the occasion, a Russian geopolitical expert and global authority on the subject Dr Leonid Savin characterised hybrid warfare as a combination of conventional and unconventional military and non-military means aimed at overthrowing rival political regimes and destabilising adversaries’ social orders.
He stated that many countries, including Russia and Pakistan, had been targets of hybrid warfare attacks and campaigns in recent years. He underscored the need for transnational cooperation for coordinating an effective response against this global threat.
Journalist Ejaz Haider said that indirect warfare typified by hybrid warfare needed to be contextualised properly as a concerted strategy for simultaneous and synchronised exploitation of multiple domestic and local fault lines to reduce the system’s capacity for survival.
He was of the view that only by promoting and prioritising a patient, participatory, horizontal, growth-led and consensus-based negotiation of political differences could a developing country like Pakistan hope to counter non-linear conflict.
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Also speaking on the occasion, former caretaker defence minister of Pakistan Lt Gen (retd) Naeem Khalid Lodhi highlighted the need for distinguishing between hybrid warfare and different generations of warfare after the fourth-generation warfare. Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies President Air Chief Marshal (retd) Kaleem Saad proposed that it was essential to develop broadly accessible means for the systematic fulfilment of people’s aspirations for a better life as a long-term strategy against hybrid warfare.
Meanwhile, former Intelligence Bureau director-general Dr Shoaib Suddle opined that societies with major development and growth deficits tended to be especially vulnerable targets of hybrid warfare.
Furthermore, Dr Vladimir P Kozin, leading expert at the Centre for Military-Political Studies, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) of the Russian Foreign Ministry, shared that one of the advisors of Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, had recently coined the term ‘mental hybrid warfare’ to denote systematic activity aimed at the destruction of people’s national consciousness and national identity to paralyse their will to defend themselves.
Moreover, former defence secretary and former president of National Defence University (NDU) Lt Gen (retd) Tariq Waseem Ghazi put forward the novel idea of establishing ‘hybrid peace’ as a response to hybrid warfare activity.
Meanwhile, Interactive Group Chairman Dr Shahid Mahmud highlighted the importance of technology-based platforms against hybrid warfare activity.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 29th, 2021.
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