Dr Johann Schmid, Director COI Strategy & Defence, contributed to the webinar ‘Military police (MP) in hybrid war’ with a keynote lecture on ‘Hybrid warfare – a specific style of warfare’.
Key messages relayed about hybrid warfare during the webinar:
- Hybrid warfare exploits vulnerabilities in the grey areas of interfaces. Therefore, hybrid warfare actors tend to operate simultaneously in multiple domains in the shadows of various interfaces: e.g. between warand peace, friend and foe, internal and external security, civil and military domains, state and non-state actors, as well as between the virtual and the real world, and between reality and propaganda.
- In this way, hybrid warfare blurs traditional lines of order and responsibilities while aiming for their subsequent dissolution with the ultimate goal of creating ambiguities, making attribution difficult, andparalyzing the decision-making process of the opponent.
- Countering such a blended, non-linear hybrid warfare approach in multiple domains also poses new challenges for the traditional role of the military police.
The goal of the webinar was to provide the NATO MP Community of Interest with an opportunity to examine specific tactical issues of interest to the military police within the context of hybrid war, with the aim of benefitting NATO’s future capability development. The event drew on experience of hybrid warfare in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, and addressed topics relating to defence policing in the context of hybrid war.
The webinar was organized by the NATO Military Police Centre of Excellence (NATO MP COE) in cooperation with the Ukrainian Military Law and Order Service (MLOS). It included contributors from Canada, Germany, Slovakia, and Ukraine, as well as from NATO Headquarters and Allied Command Operations (ACO). In addition, a large number of participants from across NATO allies and Partnership for Peace countries were part of the endeavour.
For further information on the event, please see: here.
For further information on hybrid warfare, please see: here.
