The wrong kind of hybrid is here to stay
On the Berlin Wall, hand-to-hand combat, and why we need to understand what gray zone conflicts look like before we get caught fighting in another
A significant aspect to the Cold War that often gets overlooked is that it was shaped largely by standoffs. The Berlin Wall was the most tangible example, but much of that era was characterized by posturing from behind each side’s own lines.
■ The current security environment has turned that old model on its head. We have entered a period of provocative “gray zone” or “hybrid” conflict. The first sign that tactics are outpacing our responses is that so few people would readily recognize those terms.
■ Muscular hand-to-hand combat still occupies enough space in the imagination that the Secretary of Defense very publicly railed against “fat troops” and “fat generals” during an extraordinary assembly of top officers this week. But what’s actually happening right now to some of America’s treaty allies is that drones are invading the skies, Russian warships are crossing lines and provoking defensive vessels, and hospitals and water systems are coming under cyberattack.
■ Problems like hostile drones in military airspace aren’t “fat troops” problems. They are complicated, technology-forward problems. Nobody’s going to arm-wrestle a drone out of the skies. Tactical creativity and strategic imagination are both in extremely high demand, because we don’t really have “muscle memory” for gray-zone conflict. Yet it’s here, and the longer it takes to realize that a sort of dull, persistently low-grade scale of trouble is likely to be here to stay, the farther we’re going to fall behind in staging an effective defense.
