Hybrid Threats: Reconceptualizing the Evolving Character of Modern Conflict

Frank G. Hoffman | Institute for National Strategic Studies | 2009-04-01

This April 2009 essay published in Strategic Forum, a publication of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, credits battles in Afghanistan and Iraq with highlighting limitations within America’s understanding of the complexity of modern warfare. Future threats are too often framed as a “choice between counterinsurgency and conventional war,” according to the essay, which calls on U.S. defense planners to better focus on “hybrid threats" presented by competitors who employ combinations of capabilities to gain an asymmetric advantage.