Honest Assessment of Putin’s Hybrid World War Strategy Is Critical For Victory
Facing the Difficult Truth Is the Essential First Step to Maintain our Freedoms
The truth can hurt — but the lies will kill you.
-Sarah Kendzior
The United States stands at a crossroads of immense conflict, domestically, for the soul of the nation, but also for the security and freedom of the world. Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin, like Hitler decades ago, aggressively challenges the world order with terroristic invasion of a neighboring nation, a dire threat to global security. He currently wages hybrid world war against us, if we can believe Russia expert of impeachment fame, Fiona Hill.
Too lost in the weeds, we are missing the big picture. Our leadership and citizens must accept this reality, and accurately model Putin’s motivations and strategies to adequately counter them and achieve victory. We are up against forces as threatening to freedom as the Greatest Generation did with the rise of fascism then. We must wake up to the threat now before it is too late.
Hill’s argument is compelling: Russia, a great power, has leadership who feels fundamentally threatened and wages hot war to exact change to the world order to secure itself. It is a conflict that involves the whole world, if not in direct fighting, along economic, political and ideological fronts. Energy, inflation, food, information, ideology and democratic elections have all become weapons to effectuate Putin’s power play. Hill warns:
Part of the problem is that conceptually, people have a hard time with the idea of a world war. It brings all kinds of horrors to mind — the Holocaust and the detonation of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the dawning of the nuclear age. But if you think about it, a world war is a great power conflict over territory which overturns the existing international order and where other states find themselves on different sides of the conflict.
Russian Generals Gerisamov and Primakov are credited with innovating the concept of Russia’s hybrid warfare, a substantial twist on the total warfare of WWI and WWII. This theory holds that in the digital age dominated by free world governments and institutions, mutually-assured nuclear annihilation and other modern realities necessitate non-military domains being most central to resolving security conflicts. In other words, because direct violent confrontation among great powers must be avoided, influencing and corrupting key power centers with any tools at your disposal — economic, political, informational, cyber, diplomatic etc. — might force desired change in security arrangements.
But make no mistake, world war is here. Although hybrid and less centered on military fighting, the world is in an unsustainable security crisis among great powers that cannot be resolved without a new world order emerging. The horrors of hot warfare are extreme and traumatizing but also alert us to the massive importance of winning. Conversely, its absence for US citizens so far risks lulling us into complacency concerning the consequences of this conflict. The winners will decide the new world order. Until the next world war brings a new one, the victors of this one will necessarily determine global security arrangements. It is a moment where great shifts in power and freedom are possible for better or worse.
If this hybrid warfare theory holds true, the hot military front in Ukraine is not the most important one to effect this conflict’s resolution. The most important ones then likely concern US elections and political campaigns, particularly if these result in isolationism, civil war, and/or embrace of fascism in ideological alignment with Putin.
Volumes have been written defining fascism but unfortunately this word also became a trope against less abusive forms of right wing ideology. So, the word lost shared meaning and shame value. But its original meaning still holds true: fascism is an ideology based in populist nationalism, justified by grievance and powered by the cynical propaganda of an authoritarian leader and his cult of personality. The charismatic leader defines an aggrieved in-group. Playing on their biases and interests, the strongman defines the ‘other’ responsible for their demise. This justifies domination of the scapegoats.
In far-right fascism, the scapegoats tend to be ethnic and religious minorities as well as typical left-wing power centers like education, justice and media. It is essentially the ‘tyranny of the majority’ our founders feared taken to extremes with demagoguery. The more shamelessly cynical and extreme the propaganda, the more extreme the domination it justifies, sometimes leading to a dark cycle of escalating militarism and atrocity.
Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine now are on grand scale. Putin not only has engaged in terroristic invasion, often targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, he has also apparently ordered a campaign of systematic torture and kidnapping of countless thousands as weapons of population control and warfare — heinous atrocities. And Putin is not done yet. Don’t forget Hitler’s most horrible atrocities were at the later stages of his 1933-1945 rule. The Holocaust began in 1941 with the final solution formulated in early 1942.
Hitler’s Nazis won free democratic elections to gain power, as Putin and Trump did. It is removing them from power that is difficult, as was in Trump’s case and hasn’t yet happened in Putin’s. Fascists employ cynical propaganda to justify their whims and interests, like that an election was stolen to justify holding onto power; or that Putin is so acceptable as a father to Russia, he does not need to abide the Russian constitutions term limits, and they should be changed to accommodate him.
As fascist dictator, Putin wages hybrid war covertly, obscuring his motivations and strategies as he attempts to secure Russian leadership and rebuild the Russian Empire. A former KGB officer, Putin leans on secrecy and subterfuge. Putin must realize the longer the world does not accept Russia wages world war, the more he benefits from our lack of clarity and will to resist. Unlike Hitler, Putin lacks a dominant military force, and cannot realistically attempt military domination on anything but Russia’s neighbors.
But, Putin must understand WWII was won by a coalition of Western Liberal governments teaming with Soviet communists to defeat the Axis powers, mostly fascists. He must know that victorious but uneasy coalition formed the security arrangement that emerged: mostly rules-based world order led by the Liberal West with limited tolerance for authoritarian security partners USSR and China. So, Putin seeks a new coalition to win a new world order: he leads the remnants of Soviet power and seeks to empower and then ally with far-right groups throughout the free world, exploiting our free democratic elections. Also, with sizable allied Chinese power waiting on the sidelines for opportunities, a dramatic shift in the balance of global power towards autocracy might spark Chinese interest and involvement. Putin’s strategy runs most directly through the US political system, as ours is dominant, but also the free political systems all over the world.
Like Nazi Germany on the heels of Germany’s WWI loss, Putin’s Russia has experienced a crushing defeat with the fall of the Soviet Union and massive loss of prestige and power. And whats more, democratic protests in Ukraine in 2013, EuroMaidan, toppling Putin’s pawn, Victor Yanukovych, were perceived as an attack by the West. To Putin’s inner circle, Russia’s great enemy was at the border having subsumed a critical, long term colonial asset.
Calculating his autocratic rule fundamentally threatened as the West exports culture and values eastward, to secure himself and Russia’s continued autocratic governance, Putin then directed the first mobilizations of the new world war: his ‘little green men’ secured Crimea February 20, 2014 in the chaotic aftermath of EuroMaidan. Soon afterwards, Putin’s secret services pointed a new political warfare weapon onto the free world, the same weapon they’d honed on Ukraine to help elect Yanukovych, pushing autocratic values westward. Russia has waged hybrid, covert world war ever since, disguised as regional conflict.
This war’s primary form is coordinated political, informational and psychological warfare to subvert, corrupt and influence Liberal democracy via its elections. With its non-dominant military, Russia calculates the ones controlling the dominant global security force — the US military — are the most important to corrupt. Advantaging an ideologically-aligned strongman, Donald Trump, by dumping Russia’s compromising secret service files on his electoral opponents Hillary Clinton (her emails), and later Joe Biden (his son’s laptop) onto the center of our political campaigns, Putin turned us against ourselves with remarkable success. This pushed the USA along a path towards authoritarianism that might abide Putin‘s tyranny, as Trump did.
We’ve been truly dysfunctional ever since. While Trump didn’t initiate our dysfunction, and earlier corruptions enabled his rise, Trump accelerated it dramatically. It continues today, serving Russia’s interests enormously in this conflict. If the world loses faith in Liberal democracy and its ability to competently govern, then Liberal democracy will fail. And it is failing. Fascism will win. And it is winning. Unless this changes, it will be a dark world order we pass to our children.
One needs look no further than Putin’s atrocities to understand what will become of our freedoms should fascism ultimately prevail. While our weakening institutions still protect our freedoms, fascist leadership breaks them down the moment they stand in the way of their whims and goals, using cynical lies they know will appeal to their in-group. Trump systematically degrading the FBI and intelligence services threatening him is an excellent example. When leadership can lie their way out of any crime, rule of law fails. Rule of law underlies citizens protections against abuses and atrocities and without it, citizens effectively have lost their rights.
Unfortunately, rather than hold Trump and Russia appropriately accountable for their illicit attacks on our sovereignty, the legacy Republican establishment allowed Trump and his MAGA gang to corrupt their party and sideline more moderate conservative voices. The isolation of Liz Cheney for participating in the appropriate Congressional process to investigate the events of January 6 is an excellent demonstration of the completeness of this takeover. That patriotic duty to investigate Trump’s attack on electoral sovereignty serves to maintain Constitutional governance and is conservative by definition. But it runs afoul of the new Republican Party’s core goals: capturing power to dominate the left.
The Republican Party is now clearly remade in Trump’s image, fascist not conservative. The signs are now everywhere and unavoidable. It is indeed an excellent moment for us to reach out to our right wing friends and family that may remain persuadable because the signs of fascism are now hard to deny and yet our divisions remain surmountable within our system. Extend an olive branch. Perhaps let them know if you are worried.
It might be helpful to realize, or remember, that our enemy in world war is magnifying our conflicts to subvert us, provoking and radicalizing us to co-opt us, in ever-widening political rift. Our enemy’s attacks are the source of so much of our misunderstandings of one another — these intend to confuse us so we talk past one another. The more we polarize, the more we help Putin spread authoritarian control over us and the world. But the more we understand the weapon directed against us, the better chances we have to blunt it.
Russia has lobbed a new, 21st century WMD at us — a combination of Russia’s expertise in psychological manipulation and population control forged over decades of Soviet rule merged with 21st century networking and artificial intelligence technology. Manipulate social media algorithms. Inject toxic viral ideas and ideology bent on widening our divisions. Push our polarization to ever more extremes, undermining our ability to see one another’s perspectives, and ultimately compromise to address our conflicts. It has been remarkably effective and traumatized all of us, left and right. Unfortunately, media barons and others are interested also in this dynamic, as this sort of toxic politics has pushed “engagement” aka addictive psychological habits that drive profits. Indeed, such co-option is at the heart of Russia’s strategies to corrupt us (Hi Elon!)
Recently, Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigoshin cryptically admitted online: “We have interfered (in US elections), we are interfering, and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.” Later, “During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once”. This coordinated psychological, political and information warfare is what he refers to, and demonstrating strength in this regard is critical to their propaganda within Russia, helping justify their authoritarian rule. Our kidneys and liver help us to break down break down toxic chemicals and rid them from our system. He cryptically refers to Russia capturing power via Republicans in a way that will not allow us to eject the poisonous foreign influence. Most fundamentally, Prigoshin is attacking Liberal democracy, propagandizing the notion it is weak and can be manipulated by powerful Russian autocratic leadership.
We must register the attack, recognize the conflict’s core and move forward with the will and tools to win. While Russia flounders in Ukraine militarily, the US just endured a coup attempt and Donald Trump continues to promote the Big Lie to justify stealing power. To counter, Liberal democracy must function effectively. To best do so, ground-up debate, grass roots action and meaningful coalitions that bridge the partisan gap are most healthy. Changes to our institutions might also help. For example, one we desperately need is for social media providers to intentionally adjust algorithms to promote moderation rather than radicalization.
One beautiful aspect of our free society is that we as citizens collectively hold the strings to such changes in our institutions and governance. But if we do not believe in ourselves and our own ability to effect change on a small level, contribute ideas and engage in debate in our friendships, families, businesses other networks, then we do not truly believe our bottom-up system is worthy of winning against the top-down authoritarians, do we?
It may be wise to remember authoritarianism necessarily involves corruption — it does not seek meritocracy. Conversely, Liberal governance while corruptible and imperfect, from the bottom up, empowers interested parties to manage and compete for their own interests, engendering motivation and efficiency and striving towards meritocracy. This is the rational basis of our American Dream and while more dream than reality, it should not be taken for granted. Our Liberality is only held up by our common goodwill, and meanwhile such unifying mythos like the American Dream is much of what binds us.
We must accept the seriousness of our global and domestic problems to adequately react. Biden must lead America to clearly reframe this struggle, and act accordingly. If this is world war, and our freedoms are legitimately threatened as they are, then Biden and Democrats must act like it. Controversial policy changes must be delayed while we rally around the flag to face this threat. Biden is already quite moderate in policy, however he has failed to lead the more extreme flanks of the Democratic party away from controversial positions, which sends only the worst signals regarding rejecting cynicism to partners across the aisle, playing into Putin’s mind games.
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this was a great article. loved that you cited fiona hill--i've found her analysis to be some of the very best since this war began. eager to find out more about ur proposed solutions. as regards national politics, i wonder who from gen x / millennia will be next. we need someone who knows how to move in a hostile information space. i like jeff jackson.
This makes total sense to me; thank you for writing this! I'm sure this makes total sense to Jim Stewartson & others immersed in these ideas too.
Any ideas how to mobilize/engage people from the ground up? How to explain Hybrid World War III/Active Measures?...explain this to everyone we know (including friends, family, but also educators, media, artists, musicians, etc., etc). Maybe a film by Billy Ray or Adam McKay??