Hybrid wars and international conflicts: what is the difference?

in #history2 years ago

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A number of terms are used to describe various crises: "war", "armed/military/military/local conflict", "hot spots", "frozen conflict", etc., which often creates confusion and leads to a misunderstanding of the nature and characteristics of these conflicts.
The understanding of these concepts is also influenced by semiotic aspects and the context of their use. There are two asymmetrical modes of war - physical and discursive. In the context of modern hybrid warfare, the discursive modus is of fundamental importance, since the conflict of interpretations in hybrid warfare is used as a type of weapon along with other non-military components of hybrid actions.
The term "armed conflict" is most often used to describe the clashes in the post-Soviet space, which began to be actively used in international legal practice after the adoption of the Geneva Convention of 1949. Experts define a "frozen" armed conflict as a situation where an active armed conflict has de facto ceased, but no peace treaty has been signed or other compromise political solution has been adopted that would satisfy the parties to the conflict. At the same time, the conflict can flare up with renewed vigor and on a larger scale at any time.
By their very nature, these conflicts are hybrid and military-political, i.e., aimed at achieving political goals, which are

  • the struggle for dominance in a particular region, which ensures the priority of realization of national interests at this level
  • creation of dependent/loyal political regimes that will implement favorable policies (primarily foreign policy);
  • forceful influence on the nature and orientation of foreign policy if loyal regimes cannot be created;
  • restraining the development of a particular state due to the need for it to spend/divert significant material and human resources to counteract hybrid confrontation and artificially generated instability within society.