[Jim Sciutto, The Shadow War: Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America. Hasper-Collins. New York, 2019. 308 p.]

review / Álvaro de Lecea

With the end of the Cold War, which pitted the former Soviet Union against the victorious United States of America, the international system shifted from bipolar to a hegemony led by the latter. With the United States in the lead, the West focused on the spread of democracy and commercial globalisation, and if anything the geo-strategic preoccupation of the West was focused on the Al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers on 9/11, so the focus of attention shifted and today's Russia was pushed into the background. However, Russia continued to slowly reconstitute itself in the shadow of its old enemy, which no longer showed much interest. Russia was joined by China, which began to grow by leaps and bounds. At this point, the United States began to realise that it had two major powers on its heels and that it was engaged in a war it did not even know existed: the Shadow War.

This is the term used by Jim Sciutto, CNN's chief national security correspondent, to describe what he describes in detail throughout his book and what has largely come to be known as hybrid or grey zone warfare. Sciutto prefers to speak of Shadow War, which could be translated as war in the shadows, because this better denotes its character of invisibility under the radar of open or conventional warfare.

This new war was started by Russia and China, not as allies, but as powers with a common enemy: the United States. It is a hybrid war subject and therefore contains both military and non-military methods. On the other hand, it does not envisage a direct military confrontation between the two blocs. In The Shadow War: Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America, Sciutto explains seven situations in which the strategies being pursued by China and Russia to defeat the United States in order to become the world's major powers and impose their own international norms can be clearly observed.

First, it is important to note that Russia and China, while pursuing similar strategies, are different types of adversaries: on the one hand, China is a rising power, while Russia is more of a declining power that is trying to return to its former self. Nevertheless, both share a number of similarities. First, both seek to expand their influence in their own regions. Second, both are suffering from a crisis of legitimacy within their borders. Third, both seek to right the wrongs of history and restore what they perceive as their countries' legitimate positions as world leaders. And finally, they possess great national unity, so that the majority of their populations would do whatever is necessary for their nation.

In the shadow war, thanks to the rules established by Russia and China, any major actor can win, regardless of its power or influence over other international actors. Following the theories of International Office, these rules could be considered to follow a very realistic patron saint , since, in a way, anything goes to win. The power of lies and deception is the order of the day, and lines that were thought unthinkable are crossed. Examples of this, as the book explains and elaborates, are the militarisation of the artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea when Xi Jinping himself had promised not to do so, or the hacking of the Democratic Party's computer system in the 2016 US election campaign by Russian hackers, which may have helped Donald Trump emerge victorious.

To all this must be added an essential part of what is happening in this context of non-traditional warfare: the particularly mistaken idea that the United States has about everything that is happening. To begin with, the first mistake the US made, as Sciutto explains, was to neglect Russia as a relevant focus in the international arena. It believed that, having defeated it in the Cold War, the country would no longer re-emerge as a power, and so failed to see the clear clues that it was slowly growing, led by President Vladimir Putin. Similarly, it failed to understand the Chinese government's true intentions in situations such as the South China Sea or the degree program submarines. All of this can be summed up as the US believing that all international actors would play by the rules established by Washington after the Cold War, without imagining that they would create a new scenario. In conclusion, the US did not understand its opponents.

In his latest chapter, Sciutto makes it clear that the US is currently losing the war. Its biggest mistake was not realising status until it was in front of it and it now finds itself playing on a disadvantaged stage. It is true that the US remains the world leader in many respects, but Russia and China are overtaking it in others, following the new rules they themselves have set. However, a change of attitude in US policies could turn the tide. The author proposes a number of solutions that could help the US get back in the lead.

The solutions he proposes focus, in the first place, on the total knowledge of the enemy and its strategy. This has always been his great disadvantage and would be the first step to begin to control status. Similarly, it recommends greater unity within the Allied bloc, as well as an improvement of its own defences. He also recommends a better understanding of the new scenario in which the whole conflict is taking place, and therefore a series of international treaties regulating these new spaces, such as cyberspace, would be of great help financial aid. Further on, he proposes setting clear limits on enemy actions, raising the costs and consequences of such actions. Finally, it encourages the US to exercise clear leadership.

In conclusion, Sciutto's thesis is that the United States finds itself fighting a war whose existence it has only just discovered. It is a subject war that it is not used to and with a set of rules that are alien to what it preaches. While it is still the leader of the current international system, it finds itself losing the game because China and Russia have been able to discover its rival's weaknesses and use them to its advantage. America's biggest mistake was to ignore all the signs of this shadow war and do nothing about it. New scenarios have been introduced and the rules of the game have been changed, so the US, if it wants to turn status around and once again emerge as the victor, the author argues, will have to unite more than ever internally as a nation and strengthen its alliances, and know its enemies and their intentions better than ever before.

In terms of a evaluation of the book, it can be said that it succeeds in concisely and clearly conveying the most relevant points of this new contest. It manages to make clear the strengths and weaknesses of each actor and to take stock of the current status . However, the author does not manage to be too goal judgemental. While admitting the failings of the US, he gives a negative picture of its rivals, taking for granted who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Objectivity is lacking in some cases, as the good guys are not always so good and the bad guys are not always so bad. That said, Sciutto provides a great analysis of the current international status in which the world's major powers find themselves.

▲ Operations in cyberspace can be part of a status of hybrid warfare carried out by state or non-state actors [Pixabay]

essay / Ana Salas Cuevas

The hybrid threat is an all-encompassing term subject coordinated actions to influence the decision-making of States, making use of political, economic, military, civil and information means. These actions can be carried out by both state and non-state actors.

The term "Grey Zone" is used to determine the boundary between peace and war. It is a new tactic that has nothing to do with the real war that pits armies of different states against each other. Hybrid warfare is about achieving results by directly influencing society by demoralizing it. It is undoubtedly an effective tactic and much simpler for the attacking countries, since the investment, both economic and human, is lower than in real war. Resources such as propaganda, manipulation of communications, economic blockades, etc. are used. And in the absence of strong international legislation in relation to these conflicts, many countries consider this conflict to be a serious problem. subject of actions as tolerable.

Introduction: The Hybrid Threat

The term hybrid threat was popularized after the clash between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 to designate "the integration of unconventional and irregular tactics, techniques, and procedures, mixed with terrorist acts, propaganda, and connections to organized crime."[1]

The goal Essential to the hybrid threat is to achieve results without resorting to actual war, pitting societies and not armies against each other, almost completely crumbling the distinction between combatants and citizens. The goal the military takes a back seat.

The actions carried out within this subject of conflicts focus on the employment from media such as cyberattacks, disinformation, and propaganda. They have as goal the exploitation of economic, political, technological and diplomatic vulnerabilities, breaking communities, national parties, electoral systems and producing a great effect on the energy sector. These performances are not random, they are planned and organized. These attacks are not linear in nature. They can have direct consequences in another area. For example, the drone attack on wells in Saudi Arabia in September 2019 had a direct impact on the Economics global.

Cyberspace has become a novel aspect in this scenario. Thanks in large part to the technological and information revolution, we are now facing a changing world order, in which the information provided by the media is accessible to anyone from anywhere in the world. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the Internet is one of the most important fronts when talking about hybrid warfare. In this area, the rules are not clearly established and States and non-State actors have a greater margin of action in the face of the classical power of States. Fake news, disinformation and opinion-based facts are tools at anyone's fingertips to influence public order.

Through manipulation in these areas, the hybrid enemy manages to considerably weaken one of the most important pillars of the state or community to which its actions are directed: the trust of citizens in its institutions.

Ambiguity is one of the distinguishing characteristics of cyber activity. The hybrid enemy not only exploits the inherent difficulty of the network It is not only a global approach to attributing hostile actions to a particular actor, but rather reinforcing it through the use of hybrid strategies such as synchronization.

Cyberterrorism and hacktivism

As we have just seen, cyberspace is one of the preferred domains of the hybrid enemy. In it, he will frequently resort to cyberthreat, a cross-cutting threat with a very difficult attribution of authorship. This cannot be reliably substantiated in most cases, in which there are only suspicions, making it very difficult to obtain evidence. These cyberthreats could be divided into four blocks that we will proceed to analyze one by one.

First of all, cyber espionage has as its goal the political, economic and military spheres. Numerous states routinely resort to cyber espionage. Among them, some such as China, Russia, Iran or the United States stand out. States can carry out cyberespionage actions directly, using their intelligence services, or through intermediary agents such as companies influenced by those States.

Secondly, cybercrime, in most cases carried out for profit, and whose impact on the Economics global GDP is estimated at 2% of the world's GDP. The main targets of cybercrime are information theft, fraud, money laundering, etc. It is usually carried out by terrorist organizations, organized crime, and hackers.

Thirdly, cyber-terrorism, the main objectives of which are to obtain information and everything else. subject communications to citizens. The main actors, as can be deduced, are terrorist organizations and intelligence agencies.

Cyberterrorism has a series of advantages over conventional terrorism, and that is that it guarantees greater security over anonymity, in addition, there is a greater cost-benefit ratio and in the geographical scope there is a great advantage in terms of delimitation. In Spain, there was a reform of terrorist offences through Organic Law 2/2015, in which articles 571 to 580 of the Penal Code were fully reformed. At the same time, Organic Law 1/2015 also approved the reform of the Penal Code, affecting more than 300 articles[2].

Finally, fourthly, hacktivism, whose main targets are web services, along with the theft and unauthorized publication of information. When hacktivism is used for the benefit of terrorism, it becomes terrorism. The group Islamic terrorist DAESH, for example, uses cyber means to recruit fighters into its ranks. As agents, two groups stand out, the group "Anonymus" and "Luizsec," in addition to the intelligence services themselves.

Cyberterrorism has very specific aims: to subvert the constitutional order, to seriously disrupt social peace and to destroy our model global. This is an emerging threat of leave Probability, but high impact. The main problem with all this is the lack of existing legislation in this regard, but which is gradually emerging; For example, in 2013 the starting point was given with the publication of a communication from the committee of the European Union on security – the "European Union Cybersecurity Strategy"[3] – from which the strategies must be reviewed every 5 years. This is in addition to Regulation 2019/881 of the European Parliament and the committee (EU) of 17 April 2019.

Grey Zone

The concept of the grey area has recently been coined in the field of programs of study to describe the framework of the hybrid enemy's performance. The term describes a state of tension as an alternative to war, operating in a stage of formal peace.

The conflict in the grey zone is centred on civil society. Its cost, therefore, falls directly on the population. In any case, it operates within the limits of international legality. The protagonist is usually a major international state (a power) or a non-state actor of similar influence.

The actions of an enemy operating in the gray zone are aimed at dominating certain "zones" that are of interest to them. The types of responses within what is defined as the grey area will depend on the threat faced by the country in question.

Legal point of view

If we speak from a legal point of view, it is more accurate to use the term hybrid war, only when there is an open and not covert armed conflict.

Indeed, a major problem arises from the difficulty in applying appropriate national or international legislation to hybrid threat actors. Agents involved generally deny hybrid actions and try to escape the legal consequences of their actions by taking advantage of the complexity of the legal system. They act on the edge of the box, operating in unregulated spaces and never exceeding legal thresholds.

Hybrid Threat Responses

The response to the hybrid threat can occur in different areas, not mutually exclusive. In the military sphere, a direct military confrontation can even be conceived, which can be seen as "tolerable" if it avoids confrontation with a great power such as the United States or China. In the same way, these military confrontations are respected because of the defenselessness of the occupied territories in the face of the threat that the occupying State seeks to prevent.

In the economic sphere, the answer makes it possible to impose on an enemy the costs of subject which are sometimes more direct than military responses. In this field, one way to adopt non-provocative defensive measures is through the imposition of immediate and formal economic sanctions on an aggressor.

An example of this is the economic sanctions that the United States imposed against Iran for considering it a nuclear threat. To this end, it is important to highlight the substance of this matter.

In 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran's nuclear programme was signed, committing Iran to comply with the agreement and the United States to withdraw the economic sanctions imposed. However, in 2018 Trump announced the withdrawal of the agreement and the reinstatement of sanctions. In the course of these events, several countries have spoken out about these unilateral decisions taken by the U.S. government. China and Russia, for their part, have expressed their disagreement, making official statements in favor of Iran.

Iran's case is a clear example of an economic response to the grey zone, where states use this element of power to deny the aggressor's participation in different institutions or agreements and control their zone of influence.

The United States, like many other powers, finds this status of superiority a decisive advantage in conflicts within the grey zone. Because of the importance of the financial and political power of the United States, the rest of the countries, including the European Union, cannot but accept this subject unilateral actions.

Conclusions

By way of conclusion, we can conclude that hybrid activity in the grey zone has important consequences for the society of one or more States as a whole, and produces effects that can have a global reach.

Hybrid threats fundamentally affect civil society, and can have a demoralizing effect that leads to the psychological collapse of a state. The employment This tactic is often referred to as "formal peace." Despite the fact that there is no direct confrontation between armies, this technique is much more effective since the attacking country does not need to invest as much money, time and people as in real war. In addition, the application of international law or the intervention of third countries in the conflict is minimal, as many consider this to be the case. subject of actions as "tolerable".

Undoubtedly, the gray zone and hybrid threats have become the new military technique of our era due to their effectiveness and simplicity. However, there should be tighter controls to ensure that this subject of such harmful military techniques cease to go unnoticed.

A characteristic aspect of hybrid warfare is the manipulation of communications and the use of propaganda. These actions are managed to sow citizens' distrust in their institutions, as is currently the case in the relationship between China and the United States, weighed down by US statements to the press about the plan presented by Xi Jinping in 2014 on the New Silk Road, and which denote a halt to the Degree distrust and rejection of the Middle Empire.

It is therefore appropriate for States and international institutions to establish "rules of the game" for this subject and thus maintain world order and peace.
 

A first essay of this text was presented as a paper at the XXVII International Defense Course held in Jaca in October 2019

Bibliography

Carlos Galán. (2018). Hybrid threats: new tools for old aspirations. 2019, from Real Instituto El Cano. Website

Lyle J. Morris, Michael J. Mazarr, Jeffrey W. Hornung, Stephanie Pezard, Anika Binnendijk, Marta Kepe. (2019). Gaining Competitive Advantage in the Grey Zone. 2019, by RAND CORPORATION. Website

Josep Barqués. (2017). Towards a definition of the "Grey Zone" concept. 2019, from Instituto Español de programs of study Strategic. Website

Javier Jordán. (2017). Hybrid Warfare: An Catch-It All Concept. 2019, from the University of Granada. Website

Javier Jordán. (2018). International Conflict in the Grey Zone: A proposal from the perspective of offensive realism. 2019, from Revista Española de Ciencia Política. Website

Javier Jordán. (2019). How to counter hybrid strategies. 2019, from the University of Granada. Website

Guillem Colom Piella. (2019). The Hybrid Threat: Myths, Legends, and Realities. 2019, from Instituto Español de programs of study Strategic. Website

Murat Caliskan. (2019). Hybrid warfare through the lens of strategic theory. 2019, from Defense & Security Analysis, 35:1, 40-58. Website

Rubén Arcos. (2019). EU and NATO confront hybrid threats in centre of excellence. 2019, from Jane's Intelligence Review. Website

Publisher: Geert Cami Senior Fellow: Jamie Shea Programme Manager: Mikaela d'Angelo Programme Assistant: Gerard Huerta publisher: Iiris André, Robert Arenella Design: Elza Lőw. (2018). HYBRID AND TRANSNATIONAL THREATS. 2019, by Friends of Europe. Website

An interview with Seyed Mohammad Marandi, University of Tehran. (2019). Iranians Will Not Forget the Hybrid War Against Iran. 2019, by Comunidad Saker Latinoamérica. Website