No. 240, April 2009 Strategic Forum 1

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates directly 

challenged the Pentagon’s strategists and military chiefs in an important speech at the 

National Defense University in September 2008. 

The speech was a critical assessment of the prevailing U.S. military culture and the prism 

through which our Armed Forces see themselves. 

This prism clarifies what is important about

the future and how we posture our forces for the 

future. Secretary Gates questioned that mindset 

and its hold on the Services and the Department 

of Defense’s capitalization practices.

Secretary Gates also declared that “the 

defining principle of the Pentagon’s new 

National Defense Strategy is balance,”1 a 

principle that will also be key in the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). 

This principle will force the critical examination of assumptions about the future, 

our understanding of threats, and their relative priorities. Gates emphasizes achieving a balance between our current conflicts 

and the Pentagon’s penchant to plan toward 

more canonical, conventional scenarios. 

The Secretary believes that the Pentagon is 

devoted to postulated longer term challenges 

that have little to do with current conflicts 

and more likely threats. He used the term 

Next-War-itis to describe a prism that distorts 

the Services’ ability to see military affairs 

clearly and objectively.2

The concept of balance is central to 

today’s security debate, but it is a complex 

problem rather than a simple equation. To 

America’s ongoing battles in Afghanistan 

and Iraq have highlighted limitations in our 

understanding of the complexity of modern 

warfare. Furthermore, our cultural prism has 

retarded the institutionalization of capabilities 

needed to prevail in stabilization and counterinsurgency missions. 

An ongoing debate about future threats is 

often framed as a dichotomous choice between 

counterinsurgency and conventional war. This 

oversimplifies defense planning and resource 

allocation decisions. Instead of fundamentally different approaches, we should expect 

competitors who will employ all forms of war, 

perhaps simultaneously. Such multimodal 

threats are often called hybrid threats. Hybrid 

adversaries employ combinations of capabilities to gain an asymmetric advantage.

Thus, the choice is not simply one of 

preparing for long-term stability operations or

high-intensity conflict. We must be able to do 

both simultaneously against enemies far more 

ruthless than today’s.

This essay widens the aperture of the 

current debate to account for this threat. It compares and contrasts four competing perspectives and evaluates them for readiness and risk 

implications. This risk assessment argues that 

the hybrid threat presents the most operational 

risk in the near- to midterm. Accordingly, it concludes that hybrid threats are a better focal point 

for considering alternative joint force postures. 

 Strategic Forum No. 240

April 2009

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

http://www.ndu.edu/inss

Key Points

Hybrid Threats: Reconceptualizing 

the Evolving Character 

of Modern Conflict

by Frank G. Hoffman

what degree should investment resources 

be allocated to conducting current operations, and what needs to be invested in the 

future? How much should be devoted to socalled nontraditional or irregular missions 

such as counterinsurgency versus traditional 

military capabilities? How should we invest 

scarce funding to reflect this balance? How do 

we balance not only missions, but also force 

capabilities, risks, and resources?

In the defense community, this “fight over 

the next war” has been going on for some time.3

The debate has been poorly framed as a choice 

between idealized dichotomous options (see figure 

1). This distorted conception grossly oversimplifies 

critical defense planning and resource allocation 

decisions. Secretary Gates implied that this was 

not how he perceived balance in any event. This 

essay aims to widen the debate over post–Operation Iraqi Freedom defense budgets and the posture of the joint warfighting community.

This reconceptualization will have significant implications for military force design and 

posture. In a perfect world, our military would be 

robustly sized, and we would build distinct forces 

for discrete missions along the conflict spectrum. 

We would have separate forces to deal with counterterrorism, protracted counterinsurgencies, 

expeditionary missions, and the rare but existential interstate conflagration. The training and 

equipping of these forces would be well matched 

to their expected operating environments and 

threats. But we do not live in such a world, and 

we need to prepare and shape our forces in an 
2 Strategic Forum No. 240, April 2009

Lieutenant Colonel Frank G. Hoffman, USMCR (Ret.), is a Research Fellow in the Center for Emerging Threats 

and Opportunities at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

environment of greater uncertainty and fewer 

resources. As Secretary Gates has noted, the 9/11 

funding spigot is about to be turned off, requiring 

the Pentagon to rethink its priorities and make 

hard calls. We no longer have the resources to 

simply buy everything and eliminate every risk. 

The time for thinking anew has arrived.

This essay sets out to expand the array of 

potential posture options for the U.S. military set 

against an appreciation for the evolving character of modern conflict. There are far more contenders in this debate, and a far broader range 

of options with significantly different risks and 

distinct investment shifts. Given the economic 

crisis and the need to carefully husband our 

defense resources in the next decade, it is important that the Obama administration grasp the 

numerous modes of warfare that we face and 

have a broader spectrum of options. The administration needs to avoid strategic overstretch and 

make difficult decisions about what to emphasize and how to prudently balance risk.4

Moreover, the debate so far has focused 

on shaping land forces for future scenarios instead of understanding implications 

for the entire joint warfighting community. 

Inasmuch as the Navy and Air Force are relevant to both current conflicts and will 

undoubtedly be critical contributors to future 

fights, a wider lens is needed.

Competing Schools

Andrew Bacevich captures today’s post–

Iraqi Freedom strategy and forces debate 

in his widely cited article, “The Petraeus 

Doctrine.” He portrayed a stark choice 

between two competing camps in the U.S. 

military.5 At one end of the spectrum of conflict is a group that Bacevich derisively calls 

the Crusaders, who emphasize counterinsurgency and irregular threats as the proper 

focus for our Armed Forces. Proponents 

of the competing school of thought at the 

other end of the spectrum are labeled the 

Traditionalists, who argue for a force structure to fight conventional wars. Bacevich personalized the ongoing debate by using two 

prominent contemporary authors, John Nagl 

and Gian Gentile, as the polar protagonists.6

H.L. Mencken would have characterized 

Bacevich’s essay as offering something neat, 

clean, and completely wrong. His “black-andwhite” option set creates a false binary choice 

that is great for media consumption, but that 

represents a gross oversimplification and distorted conception of America’s strategic options.

Four of the various schools of thought on 

how to address this force posture problem will 

be assessed here. In each school, the principal military threat and its probability and 

consequences are identified. An alternative 

approach based upon the growing “hybrid 

threat” literature is also incorporated as a 

better construct for sizing and shaping the 

joint force. Additionally, the force structure 

requirements and posture shifts that would 

be required to support each school are examined. The four schools are:

■ Counterinsurgents, who emphasize 

the high likelihood and rising salience of 

irregular adversaries

■ Traditionalists, who focus on conventional threats

■ Utility infielders, who attempt to balance the risks posed by multiple threats by 

striving to create forces agile enough to cover 

the full spectrum

■ Division of labor proponents, who 

balance risk differently by specializing forces 

to cover different missions.

The Counterinsurgents.

Proponents of this camp challenge the narrow 

orientation of traditionally focused forces and 

argue for a transformation based on today’s 

fights. They believe that Iraq and Afghanistan 

represent far more than a passing trend in the 

evolution of conflict. The Counterinsurgents 

contend that massed formations comprised 

of traditional arms and large-scale conflict 

between conventional powers are not realistic planning scenarios and should not be the 

focal point for shaping tomorrow’s military. 

They maintain that the most likely challenges 

and greatest risks are posed by failing states, 

ungoverned territories, transnational threats, 

and followers of radical versions of Islam.

The Counterinsurgents contend that the 

purpose of a military is not to perpetuate its 

preferred paradigms but rather to prepare 

for likely contingencies and secure America’s 

interests. They worry that U.S. military culture 

will reject the primacy of, or even the need 

for, competency in irregular warfare as operations in Iraq wind down. That would be a strategic mistake, even more reprehensible than 

the institutional memory dump that occurred 

after Vietnam.7 In their opinion, preparing for 

an age of asymmetric wars is neither folly nor 

a matter of strategic choice or an “imperial 

delusion”; it is simply a strategic necessity in 

an era of persistent conflict.8

Advocates of this school stress that this 

should be the focus of effort for the American 

military. Some of them deride the notion of 

irregular warfare in our military’s culture as 

fallacious and criticize the U.S. military’s conceptual blindness about the frequency and 

complexity of nontraditional forms of conflict. 

As military expert Barak Salmoni has argued:

It will only be when American military and 

civilian leaders recast the irregular as regular that they will begin to fundamentally 

restructure forces, properly re-educate personnel, effectively plan operationally and usefully deploy as well as employ military forces.9

The Counterinsurgents believe that 

America’s enemies are learning and adaptive 

beings who recognize the futility of confronting the United States in open warfare. Rather 

than present predictable aim points for easy 

targeting and destruction, these opponents 

will continue to confound the American military until it demonstrates that it has mastered 

irregular warfare.

Some highly regarded military officers 

who are part of this school are concerned that 

the U.S. military is misreading the shifts, especially in ground force training and capabilities, 

that will be required to create forces capable of 

Figure 1. Balancing the Joint Force

Desired General Purpose

Forces Capability Portfolio

Irregular

Capability

Traditional

Capability
No. 240, April 2009 Strategic Forum 3

producing the same dominance in irregular 

warfare that we currently have in air and naval 

warfare. As one author put it:

Today’s wars represent the latest data 

points of a continuum of experience in 

the next phase of conflict. This new epoch 

of wars in the “American era” has fundamentally changed how America has fought 

its wars since the end of the industrial age 

and will shape how we fight our wars for a 

generation or more to come.10

The Counterinsurgent school argues that 

irregular warfare is not only different and 

of greater priority, but it also cannot be successfully conducted by general purpose forces 

that prepare for it only marginally. Its proponents challenge “current orthodoxy [which] 

says that what is needed is a one-size-fitsall medium force that is both strategically 

mobile and tactically robust.”11 Instead, they 

argue for a greater emphasis on wars among 

the people, and a force particularly shaped for 

sustained irregular warfare.

The Traditionalists. At the 

opposite end of the spectrum of conflict are 

the Traditionalists, who seek to reestablish 

the focus of the Armed Forces on “fighting 

and winning the Nation’s wars.” They focus 

on major, high-intensity interstate wars. They 

advocate against reorienting forces, especially 

ground forces, away from their traditional 

emphasis on large-scale, Industrial Age warfare against states or alliances.

Proponents of this school do not ignore 

the frequency of irregular warfare or dismiss its persistent nature; they just believe 

that such scenarios are not amenable to military intervention and that these contingencies should not be the focus of the American 

military. Traditionalists want to retain the 

Pentagon’s current procurement profile and 

its emphasis on the “big guns” for a future 

they predict will be conventional in nature 

and for which a large and expensive military 

is strategically necessary.12

This school would concur with a key 

assessment in U.S. Joint Forces Command’s 

Joint Operating Environment that concludes 

“competition and conflict among conventional powers will continue to be the primary 

strategic and operational context for the Joint 

Force over the next 25 years.”13

Traditionalists are particularly wary 

about the newfound embrace of messy, protracted counterinsurgencies such as Iraq and 

Afghanistan. They are rightfully concerned 

about the degradation of combat skill sets 

within the Army and Marine Corps due to the 

severe operational tempo of today’s conflicts.

The debate is inherently mixed 

with the strategic lessons of Iraq. To the 

Traditionalists, our experiences in Iraq 

should have “raised questions about the wisdom of employing American military power 

to build nations where none exist or where an 

American military presence is not wanted.”14 

The Traditionalist proponents make clear that 

irregular warfare/counterinsurgency/nationbuilding does not match well with U.S. culture or priorities. As Gentile has argued:

The real question . . . is whether the Army 

should be prepared to conduct stability operations, nationbuilding, counterinsurgency, 

and related operations for more than very 

brief periods. Experience to date both indicates the limitations of American military 

capability to reshape other people’s societies 

and governments and points to the limits of 

American military and economic resources 

in the conduct of these operations.15

Traditionalists also ask the valid question 

of whether our culturally based inadequacies 

against ambiguous threats are largely immutable.16 Can America’s military culture be sufficiently adapted to deal effectively with the 

insidious character of irregular combat and terrorism? How real and permanent are the institutional adaptations that have been made since 

2003? Is being prepared for irregular warfare 

really “folly”?17 Should we dismiss the irregular 

foe as merely “mischievous,” or will this result 

in reruns of the “David over Goliath” show?18 As 

one critic of this school observes, “The institutional military still seems to think that the current conflicts are mere temporary distractions 

from some future main showdown with an asyet-undefined peer force.”19

All in all, the Traditionalist school presents strong arguments for not conducting stability operations, but it has not tested much less 

defended its assumptions about the salience of 

interstate conflict. Most of the geopolitical arguments for focusing on near-peer or large states 

presume automatically that conflicts will be 

essentially conventional and high intensity.20 The 

results of these assumptions will be tested later.

Utility Infielders. The third 

and most prevalent school, at least among 

American ground force commanders, is the 

Utility Infielder school. Its advocates recognize the need to adequately deal with 

both strictly conventional tasks and irregular threats. They propose covering the entire 

spectrum of conflict and avoiding the risk of 

being optimized at either extreme. Instead, 

they seek to spread this risk across the range 

of military operations by investing in quality 

forces, educating officers for agility in complex problems, and conducting tough but 

flexible training programs.

The Utility Infielders school is officially 

represented in the Army’s new doctrinal publication Field Manual 3–0, Operations, which 

declares “stability operations are a core U.S. 

military mission that must be given priority comparable to that of combat (offensive and defensive) operations.” This construct rejects the narrow mission profile of 

the Traditionalists and claims that the Army 

must train its units in the application of fullspectrum operations to ensure it provides a 

balanced, versatile force to joint and combined force commanders. These full-spectrum operations emphasize the importance of 

adaptive, flexible forces able to fight and win 

in combat, whether facing a terrorist entity 

or the modern forces of a hostile nation. 

However, the real priorities of this school 

might be found in this crucial statement: 

full-spectrum operations “will take us into 

the Counterinsurgents 

believe that America’s 

enemies are learning 

and adaptive beings who 

recognize the futility of 

confronting the United 

States in open warfare
4 Strategic Forum No. 240, April 2009

does not give comfort. Both Services emphasize the same hardware priorities they held 

before the current operations.

The Army has not seriously altered its 

move toward modular force structures or its 

$200 billion Future Combat System, despite 

the fact that those plans were predicated 

upon a different threat and an untested concept and an even less mature suite of technologies. Critics suggest that the Marine 

Corps should stop perceiving its mission 

based on the iconic Iwo Jima model built 

around its World War II experiences and urge 

it to conceptualize its development efforts on 

more relevant and modern enemies.23

Understandably, both Services have their 

particular mask of war, but it is hard to square 

their fixed programmatic priorities with a 

newly expressed understanding of irregular 

warfare. Will either Service move past concepts and doctrine and adapt longstanding 

organizational models? Is the current mantra 

of full-spectrum operations and “multi-capable” MAGTFs simply more of the same? Are we 

really going to be ready against more implacable and irreconcilable enemies who seek adaptive and asymmetric means? How do we measure that commitment and readiness, and how 

do we test the assumptions and risk exposure 

that this force posture presents?

Division of Labor. A number of 

analysts reject the fundamental premise of the 

Utility Infielders school. They instead take a 

page from C.E. Callwell and argue that irregular 

and conventional warfare are markedly different 

modes of conflict that require distinctive forces 

with different training, equipment, and force 

designs.24 This camp places a great emphasis on 

preventing conflict, preparing for stability operations, and investing in indirect forms of security forces with a greater degree of specialization 

for security cooperation tasks and warfighting. 

Because this school specifically divides roles and 

missions between the Services, it can be labeled 

the “division of labor” option.

One of the earliest proponents of this 

particular option is Thomas P.M. Barnett. In 

The Pentagon’s New Map, he argued that 

the U.S. military needed to perform two distinctly different missions: maintaining stability 

around the globe on a daily basis to dampen 

the dysfunctional “nonintegrating gap,” and 

traditional warfighting. The first mission, 

the 21st-century urban battlefields among the 

people without losing our capabilities to dominate the higher conventional end of the spectrum of conflict.”21 The assumption inherent in these statements is that conventional 

conflict is at the higher end, but that urban 

battlefields and today’s emerging threats are 

somehow less demanding and less costly.

Likewise, the Marine Corps’ long-range 

vision and capstone operating concept that 

extols the versatility of “multi-capable” Marine 

Air-Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs) across the 

full range of military operations reflect this 

school of thought. In its latest long-range 

Service vision, the Marines Corps claims to 

cover an “extraordinary range of operations,” 

but seeks to add new competencies only “without losing our conventional capabilities.”22

The proponents of the Utility Infielder 

school do not address a number of crucial 

questions. How reasonable is it for general 

purpose forces to be able to train, equip, and 

be proficient at such a wide range of operational missions and contexts? How can our 

ground forces be good at many things, and 

shift emphasis in training, doctrine, and 

equipment without losing time and resources 

for so-called conventional capabilities? Are 

increased resources or a much larger ground 

force implied? An even more critical question 

is whether the new version of full-spectrum 

operations is any different than the 1990s 

version, when nontraditional programs got 

so little attention. Since full-spectrum operations and the Marine “3-block-war” were 

prevalent before 2003 but apparently given 

only lip service, how can defense policymakers now be assured that our general purpose 

forces will truly be ready across a broadening 

spectrum of tasks in an increasingly complex operating environment? Is it operationally feasible for troops to cover such a wide 

mission profile, and is the military hiding 

behind the rhetoric of full-spectrum dominance while remaining devoted to yesterday’s 

battles? Aside from the experience gained 

painfully in Operations Enduring Freedom

and Iraqi Freedom, are the Services really 

making the necessary doctrinal, organizational, and equipment changes needed to succeed across the range of military operations? 

On these questions, the jury is still out, and a 

look at the Army and Marine equipment lists 

Systems Administration, would be assigned 

to the naval Services. The second task, fulfilling the role of the warfighting Leviathan, 

would belong to the Army and Air Force. The 

Systems Administration force would maintain 

the global commons and provide constabulary and crisis response forces.25 Other observers reinforced this concept and recommended 

that the Marine Corps return to its small wars 

roots and drop its pursuit of major programs 

designed to preserve its forcible entry mission.26

A team from RAND proposes a different approach that also rationalizes roles 

and missions, and offers a means of guiding 

future defense investments:

The imperative to promote stability and 

democracy abroad will place the greatest demands on the Army, the Marine 

Corps, and special operations forces. The 

most plausible regional wars that U.S. 

forces might be called on to fight—involving Iran, China (over Taiwan), and North 

Korea—call for heavy commitments of 

air and naval forces and, in the first two 

cases, fewer U.S. ground forces.27

Accordingly, RAND recommended that 

the Department of Defense consider focusing a 

much larger proportion of U.S. ground forces 

on direct and indirect stability operations and 

“accept the risk of shifting some of the burden for deterring and defeating large-scale 

aggression to air and naval forces.”28 This recommendation appears based upon a set of 

assumptions: that the three scenarios listed 

represent the most serious force-driving contingencies for U.S. planners; that all three are 

vulnerable to standoff precision warfare; and 

that U.S. political interests can be guaranteed 

or obtained reliably without ground forces.

Instead of inter-Service divisions of labor, 

Andrew Krepinevich proposes that the Army 

divide its ground forces between stability operations and warfighting.29 He challenges the critical assumption of the Utility Infielder school:

Because the range of missions is so broad, 

and the skill sets required sufficiently different, attempting to field forces that can 

move quickly and seemlessly [sic] from 

stability operations to high-intensity conflict appears destined to produce an Army 
No. 240, April 2009 Strategic Forum 5

that is barely a “jack-of-all-trades” and 

clearly a master of none.30

His proposal would bifurcate the Army 

into two components: a warfighting force 

of 27 Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), and 

a stability operations force comprised of 15 

Security Cooperation BCTs. The National 

Guard would also be similarly reconfigured. 

This arrangement would ensure higher readiness for these distinct tasks by ensuring that 

forces were organized, trained, and equipped 

to fulfill the missions. Should a sustained 

conventional fight arise, the stability formations could be cycled into more traditional 

combat forces over a 12- to 18-month cycle.31

Hybrid Threats

There is a fifth potential perspective on 

this critical debate. Some analysts have suggested that future conflict will be multimodal or multivariant rather than a simple 

black-or-white characterization of one form 

of warfare. These analysts call for greater 

attention to the blending of war forms in 

combinations of increasing frequency and, 

perhaps, lethality. This construct is most frequently described as hybrid warfare. This 

concept builds upon other noteworthy conceptions about conflict.32

In hybrid warfare, the adversary most likely 

presents unique combinational threats specifically designed to target U.S. vulnerabilities. 

Instead of separate challengers with fundamentally different approaches (conventional, irregular, or terrorist), we can expect to face competitors who will employ all forms of war, including 

criminal behavior, perhaps simultaneously.

This expectation suggests that our greatest challenge in the future will come not from 

a state that selects one approach, but from 

states or groups that select from the whole 

menu of tactics and technologies and blend 

them in innovative ways to meet their own 

strategic culture, geography, and aims. As 

Mike Evans wrote well before the last QDR, 

“The possibility of continuous sporadic armed 

conflict, its engagements blurred together in 

time and space, waged on several levels by 

a large array of national and sub-national 

forces means that war is likely to transcend 

neat divisions into distinct categories.”33

This conception of blurring modes of 

war was a subtext to the Bush administration’s National Defense Strategy of 2006. It 

is also central to Secretary Gates’ prodding 

of the Pentagon and the false depiction of 

a binary choice. In addition, it is reflected 

in newly issued joint concepts as well as the 

maritime strategy and Marine Corps capstone 

concept. These documents reflect the understanding that outdated assumptions about 

states (conventional) and nonstate actors 

(unconventional and weak) are no longer the 

basis for realistic defense planning. Future 

threats can be increasingly characterized by a 

hybrid blend of traditional and irregular tactics, decentralized planning and execution, 

and nonstate actors, using both simple and 

sophisticated technologies in innovative ways.

Hybrid threats incorporate a range of different modes of warfare including conventional 

capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts (including indiscriminate violence and 

coercion), and criminal disorder. Hybrid wars 

can be also be multinodal—conducted by both 

states and a variety of nonstate actors.34 These 

multimodal/multinodal activities can be conducted by separate units or even by the same unit 

but are generally operationally and tactically 

directed and coordinated within the main battlespace to achieve synergistic effects in the physical and psychological dimensions of conflict. 

The effects can be gained at all levels of war.

Hybrid threats blend the lethality of state 

conflict with the fanatical and protracted fervor 

of irregular warfare. In such conflicts, future 

adversaries (states, state-sponsored groups, or 

self-funded actors) exploit access to modern 

military capabilities including encrypted command systems, man-portable surface-to-air 

missiles, and other modern lethal systems, as 

well as promote protracted insurgencies that 

employ ambushes, improvised explosive devices, 

and assassinations. This could include states 

blending high-tech capabilities such as antisatellite weapons with terrorism and cyber warfare directed against financial targets, as suggested by the pair of Chinese officers who wrote 

Unrestricted Warfare.

So instead of seeing the future as a suite 

of distinct challengers in separate boxes on 

a matrix, a more complex future may be 

ahead. Traditional or conventional capabilities will remain an important part of war, 

and the United States must preserve its competitive advantages in this domain. It is 

increasingly probable, however, that we will 

face adversaries who blur and blend the different methods or modes of warfare. We do 

not face a widening number of distinct challenges but rather their convergence.

Hybrid challenges are not limited to 

nonstate actors. States can shift their conventional units to irregular formations and adopt 

new tactics as Iraq’s fedayeen did in 2003. 

Evidence from open sources suggests that several powers in the Middle East are modifying their forces to exploit this more complex 

and more diffused mode of conflict. We may 

find it increasingly irrelevant to characterize 

states as essentially traditional forces, or nonstate actors as inherently irregular. Future 

challenges will present a more complex array 

of alternative structures and strategies, as 

was seen in the battle between Israel and 

Hizballah in the summer of 2006. Hizballah 

clearly demonstrated the ability of nonstate 

actors to study and deconstruct the vulnerabilities of Western-style militaries and devise 

appropriate countermeasures. Ralph Peters 

described the combination of Hizballah’s 

combat cells and militia as “a hybrid of guerrillas and regular troops—a form of opponent that U.S. forces are apt to encounter with 

increasing frequency.”35 This prism also offers 

an interesting angle through which to reexamine the conflict against Serbia in Kosovo 

and Russia’s latest intervention in Ossetia, 

which was also markedly hybrid in character.

The lessons from these confrontations are 

filtering to other states and nonstate actors. 

With or without state sponsorship, the lethality 

and capability of organized groups are increasing, while the incentives for states to exploit 

nontraditional modes of war are on the rise. 

This requires that we modify our mindsets with 

in hybrid warfare, 

the adversary most 

likely presents unique 

combinational threats 

specifically designed to 

target U.S. vulnerabilities
6 Strategic Forum No. 240, April 2009

The Counterinsurgent school focuses on 

today’s fights and what could be tomorrow’s 

most likely scenarios. This school would markedly improve our preparation for stability operations and counterinsurgency tasks by improving 

individual cultural and language skills, small 

unit tactics, and training/advisory missions. At 

the same time, this focus would leave the United 

States less prepared for rare but demanding conventional conflicts and for hybrid threats that 

would severely maul light forces not ready for 

the ferocity of some scenarios. But this school 

would reduce defense spending overall by precluding the need for heavy and expensive 

ground forces and attendant aviation support for 

multiple interstate wars.

The Traditionalist camp preserves 

today’s competitive advantages in large-scale 

conflicts and avoids entanglements in messy 

protracted stability operations. It focuses on 

conventional combined arms in the most 

dangerous of scenarios and emphasizes traditional kinetic maneuver. This posture would 

perpetuate the sine wave of American military 

disinterest in small wars, the “small change 

of soldiering” in Kipling’s phrase. What this 

school overlooks is America’s global leadership role and the destabilizing effects of the 

withdrawal of U.S. forces and the concomitant decline in American access and influence it would produce. As Secretary Gates 

has noted, “The United States does not have 

the luxury of opting out because these scenarios do not conform to preferred notions 

of the American way of war.”36 This option 

only ensures that the military “remains [an] 

expensive tribute to the past” that will “both 

bankrupt the taxpayer and perpetuate anachronistic military organizations.”37

The Utility Infielders have no specific posture or focal point. They accept risk 

that forces will be suboptimal for any specific threat but strive to increase their effectiveness across the range of military operations. This posture may make the unlikely 

assumption that force size and resources will 

remain high. Under all but the most favorable resource projections, the force would 

be spread thin, and most units and individuals would not obtain proficiency in many 

tasks. Because of the manpower, training, 

and equipment costs, the Utility Infielders 

force is slightly more expensive than those 

respect to the relative frequency and types of 

threats of future conflict. Irregular tactics and 

protracted forms of conflict are often castigated 

as tactics of the weak that are employed by nonstate actors who do not have the means to do 

anything else. Future hybrid opponents may 

exploit combinations and profoundly asymmetric means not because of the opponents’ weakness but because of the proven effectiveness of 

those means; they are the evolving tactics of the 

smart and nimble.

Hybrid as Focal Point

The hybrid threat construct appears 

valuable at this point in time for a number of 

reasons. It serves as a concept that:

■ describes the evolving character of 

conflict better than counterinsurgency

■ challenges current “conventional” 

thinking and the binary intellectual bins that 

frame debate

■ highlights the true granularity or 

breadth of spectrum of human conflict

■ raises awareness of potential risks 

and opportunity costs presented by the various options in the ongoing threat/force posture debate.

The hybrid threat could be viewed as a 

better focal point for the development of capabilities on the range of military operations, 

and it should weight our effort in the upcoming QDR and inform our investment portfolio 

and risk assessment. The increasingly probable scenario of preparing to win a hybrid conflict and operate in contested urban zones is 

a stressing one that generates the most operational risk in the near- to mid-range. Stability 

operations may occur more frequently, and 

the rare conventional war may generate the 

most consequence or perception of danger. However, the hybrid threat, especially by 

states such as China, Russia, Iran, and North 

Korea, actually presents the greatest operational risk, which is represented in figure 2 

by the greater intensity of conflict and greater 

frequency of occurrence. This focal point 

should be the “sweet spot” around which to 

prepare our joint forces of the future. This 

spot is depicted as the knee in the curve of a 

modified spectrum of conflict in which missions and tasks converge in time and are not 

executed in linear fashion.

Risk Analysis

The benefit of this new focal point is 

best depicted by the risk analysis displayed in 

the table, which reflects the potential benefits and disadvantages by the four prevailing schools today, and their relevance to the 

hybrid threat.

Noncombat Evacuation

Peace Enforcement

Show of Force

Figure 2. Implied Change in Spectrum of Conflict

Humanitarian Assistance

Peacetime and Crisis Low-intensity Conflict Mid-intensity Conflict High-intensity Conflict

Selective Strike

Terrorism Civil War

Terrorism

Global

 War

Most Likely, 

More Complex, 

Increasingly More Lethal

Frequency

Relief Operations

Train/Advise

Major

 Combat

Nationbuilding

Counterinsurgency
No. 240, April 2009 Strategic Forum 7

of the other options because it underwrites 

the retention of many legacy systems and the 

development of high-end systems, receiving 

criticism from Secretary Gates for preserving 

a notional American Way of War.

Finally, the Division of Labor school 

proposes dedicated and separate forces or 

Services for discrete missions. It offers high 

levels of unit readiness for stability operations and conventional state-based scenarios. 

However, it exposes the United States to some 

risk that its forces would lack the depth and 

capacity for long-duration scenarios. Because 

the specific options described represent the 

two extremes of the conflict spectrum, this 

posture option produces forces suboptimized 

for hybrid threats, but optimized for the two 

extremes. There are risks attendant here, too. 

As a former British officer noted, the blurring of neat delineations in modern operations risks troops of one specialization finding themselves in situations for which they 

are unprepared and unsuited.38

This option would have little impact on 

total resources projected; however, investment in 

ground forces would be reduced since they would 

not be required to provide combat formations for 

more than one scenario. The resources could be 

shifted to the Air Force and Navy to ensure that 

their modernization needs are met.

Overall, the Division of Labor school 

approaches balance differently and with greater 

attention to the resource balance dilemma. This 

approach acknowledges that the Services do not 

have to receive fixed shares of the budget and 

that each Service does not play equally in all 

modes of war. However, the RAND team’s version noted earlier is largely incongruent with 

Secretary Gates’ conclusion that “we should look 

askance at idealistic, triumphalist, or ethnocentric notions of future conflict that aspire to transcend the immutable principles and ugly realities of war, that imagine it is possible to cow, 

shock, or awe an enemy into submission.”39

The hybrid force has greater focus of effort, 

orienting the joint force on the hybrid threat in 

complex operating terrain. Its lower readiness 

for initial and protracted stability operations of 

the type envisioned by Krepinevich is an admitted risk. But this risk is offset by the potential 

that the joint force will end up being employed in 

scenarios for which the law enforcement, intelligence, and nongovernmental agency communities are better suited. Shifting forces toward 

the middle of the conflict spectrum to address 

its complexity may come at the expense of conventional capacity such as tank divisions or 

some number of artillery battalions. This might 

increase the risk that the joint force may not 

have as much capability for large-scale, multidivisional maneuver against a great power. That 

possibility might have to be mitigated by other 

military means or coalition assistance. Resource 

implications depend on ground force modernization needs and the anticipated extensive training requirements but should be easily accommodated within today’s anticipated funding levels.

Potential Construct

A key element that this debate will eventually inform is the force sizing and shaping 

model that will come out of this year’s QDR. 

A revised force planning construct is certainly 

needed; it should place far more emphasis on 

unconventional or hybrid combinations of 

irregular war, terrorism, and socially disruptive challengers. It must differentiate between 

forward deployed and steady-state and surge 

levels of effort, home and abroad. As Michael 

Vickers has stressed, the construct must be 

able to explain the application of forces, in 

form, scale, and duration, in major combat 

operations.40 However, we should not automatically assume that these are synonymous with Cold War models. Undoubtedly, the 

Nation should preserve the capacity to engage 

in more than one major conflict, but the force 

sizing and shaping concept should include 

more than just conventional conflicts and 

should posture itself for success against enemies using more advanced approaches such as 

the Chinese “Assassin’s Mace” concept.41

A joint force prepared to conduct two 

major regional conflicts of a hybrid nature is 

suggested as the best force posture construct 

to adopt. The aggregate “conventional” combat capabilities of these two asymmetric scenarios could constitute the required total combat 

power for a purely conventional contingency, 

should one ever arise. More likely, the composite stability operations capacity in the two 

hybrid scenarios would provide the requisite 

assets for some sustained failed state scenario 

that did not require the ability to defeat modern 

armed groups. How the Air Force is best shaped 

for these models, and what the role of special 

operations forces and their degree of integration within the joint force will be, are excellent 

issues for the QDR to resolve. The inherently 

complex nature of hybrid threats suggests that 

a truly joint combined arms approach will be 

necessary to prevail.

The current bifurcation of the spectrum 

of conflict between irregular and conventional 

Counterinsurgents Traditionalists Utility 

Infielders Division of Labor

Threat focus Irregular adversaries: 

most likely

Conventional 

threats: most 

dangerous

No focus Ready for failed and 

conventional states

Readiness 

emphasis

Individuals and 

small units for 

counterinsurgency

Traditional kinetic 

maneuver

Full range 

of military 

operations

Higher readiness for 

two polar missions

Operational risk

Unprepared for 

conventional war by 

regional threats, force 

suboptimized for 

hybrid threats

Ignores 

destabilizing 

effects of failed 

states, loss of 

global leadership; 

perpetuates 

learning curve 

for irregular and 

hybrid threats

Spreads force 

thin, seeks 

journeyman 

level of 

individual and 

unit readiness 

Less joint capacity 

in conventional 

scenarios for 

decisive results

Hybrid threats 

readiness Less prepared Unprepared Partly prepared Suboptimized

Resource impact Reduced spending Current levels Highest Current levels

Table. Assessment of Potential Postures
8 Strategic Forum No. 240, April 2009

wars is a false choice that intellectually blinds 

us to a number of crucial issues. We need 

to assess our beliefs about frequency, consequences, and risk far more carefully and analytically. The choice is not simply one of preparing for either long-term stability operations or 

high-intensity conflict. We must be able to do 

both and do them simultaneously against enemies far more ruthless than today’s.

While we continue to compartmentalize 

the various modes of war into convenient categories, future adversaries will not gaze through 

our analytical prism. There is a greater 

amount of granularity across the spectrum 

of conflict, and a greater potential for hybrid 

types of war. Future opponents will exploit 

whatever methods, tactics, or technologies they 

think will thwart us. We need to better posture our forces, reduce the risks we face, and 

allocate scarce resources against threats that 

pose the most operational risk. Hybrid threats 

are profoundly asymmetric and do present the 

greatest operational risk to U.S. forces and to 

the attainment of America’s strategic interests.

We must maintain the ability to wage successful campaigns against both large, conventionally armed states and their militaries and 

against widely dispersed terrorists—and against 

everything in between. We must be smart 

about our force posture and lean toward agile, 

rigorously multipurpose forces capable of being 

adaptive in approach to the unique conditions 

each conflict poses. Some degree of specialization might be necessary, but for a joint perspective, forces should be postured not for just one 

end of the spectrum or the other but rather for 

the greater lethality and complexity of hybrid 

threats in urban terrain and complex operating environments. This focal point will minimize risks and maximize readiness demands 

within constrained resources. This posture offers 

a different kind of balance between competing 

demands and constrained resources.

Notes

1 Robert M. Gates, “A Balanced Strategy: 

Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age,” Foreign 

Affairs (January-February 2009), 28.

2 Michael P. Noonan, “Next-War-itis, This-Waritis, and the American Military,” Foreign Policy Research 

Institute E-note, January 2009, available at <www.fpri.org/

enotes/200901.noonan.waritisamericanmilitary.html>.

3

 Julian E. Barnes and Peter Spiegel, “A Battle over 

‘The Next War,’” The Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2008.

4

 Michèle A. Flournoy and Shawn Brimley, “The 

Defense Inheritance: Challenges and Choices for the Next 

Pentagon Team,” Washington Quarterly (Summer 2008).

5

 Andrew J. Bacevich, “The Petraeus Doctrine,” The 

Atlantic Monthly (October 2008).

6

 John A. Nagl, “Let’s Win the Wars We’re In,” Joint 

Force Quarterly 52 (1st Quarter 2009), 20–26; Gian P. 

Gentile, “Let’s Build an Army to Win All Wars,” Joint Force 

Quarterly 52 (1st Quarter 2009), 27–33.

7

 Shawn Brimley and Vikram Singh, “Averting the 

System Reboot,” Armed Forces Journal (December 2007).

8

 Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of 

American Exceptionalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 

2008), 13.

9

 Barak Salmoni, “The Fallacy of ‘Irregular’ Warfare,” 

RUSI Journal (August 2007), 18.

10 Robert H. Scales, The Past and Present as 

Prologue: A View of Future Warfare Through the Lens of 

Contemporary Conflicts (Washington, DC: Center for a New 

American Security, forthcoming).

11 David Betz, “Redesigning Land Forces for Wars 

Amongst the People,” Contemporary Security Policy 28, no. 

2 (August 2007), 223. 

12 Charles A. Dunlap, “We Still Need the Big Guns,” The 

New York Times, January 9, 2008.

13 James N. Mattis, Joint Operating Environment

(Norfolk, VA: U.S. Joint Forces Command, December 2008), 

23.

14 Gentile, 27.

15 Ibid., 28.

16 Colin S. Gray, Irregular Enemies and the Essence 

of Strategy: Can the American Way of War Adapt? (Carlisle, 

PA: Strategic Studies Institute, March 2006).

17 Mike Mazarr, “The Folly of Asymmetric Warfare,” 

Washington Quarterly (Summer 2008), 33–53.

18 Colin S. Gray, Another Bloody Century: Future 

Warfare (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005), 383.

19 John D. Waghlestein, “What’s Wrong in Iraq? Or 

Ruminations of a Pachyderm,” Military Review (JanuaryFebruary 2006), 116.

20 Colin S. Gray, After Iraq: The Search for a 

Sustainable National Security Strategy (Carlisle, PA: U.S. 

Army War College, January 2009).

21 U.S. Army Field Manual 3–0, Operations 

(Washington, DC: Headquarters Department of the Army, 

February 2008), 3–1.

22 James T. Conway, Marine Corps Vision and 

Strategy 2025 (Quantico, VA: June 2008), 6.

23 Dakota L. Wood, The U.S. Marine Corps: Fleet 

Marine Forces for the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Center 

for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2008), 58–76.

24 C.E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and 

Practice (1896; Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2003). 

Callwell claimed that “the conditions of small wars are so 

diversified, the enemy’s mode of fighting so peculiar . . . that 

irregular warfare must generally be carried out on a method 

totally different” from conventional wars.

25 Thomas P.M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: 

War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century (New York: 

Putnam, 2004).

26 Max Boot, “The Corps Should Look to its Small Wars 

Past,” Armed Forces Journal (March 2006).

27 Andrew R. Hoehn et al., A New Division of Labor: 

Meeting America’s Security Challenges Beyond Iraq (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND, 2007).

28 Ibid., 75.

29 Andrew F. Krepinevich, An Army at the Crossroads 

(Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary 

Assessments, 2008).

30 Ibid., 65.

31 Ibid. However, the need for armor, artillery, and 

other combat capabilities to promote this midconflict transformation would have to be acquired and stored.

32 Thomas Huber, ed., Compound Wars: The Fatal 

Knot (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College, 1996); T.X. Hammes, Insurgency: 

Modern Warfare Evolves Into a Fourth Generation, 

Strategic Forum No. 214 (Washington, DC: National Defense 

University Press, January 2005).

33 Michael Evans, “From Kadesh to Kandahar: Military 

Theory and the Future of War,” Naval War College Review 

(Summer 2003), 136.

34 The author thanks Michael Noonan, managing 

director of national security programs at the Foreign Policy 

Research Institute, for this phrase.

35 Ralph Peters, “Lessons from Lebanon: The New 

Model Terrorist Army,” Armed Forces Journal International

(October 2006), 39.

36 Gates, 30.

37 Douglas A. MacGregor and G.I. Wilson, “Maneuver 

Forces: The Army and Marine Corps after Iraq,” in America’s 

Defense Meltdown, ed. Winslow Wheeler (Washington, DC: 

Center for Defense Information, 2008), 81.

38 John Kiszely, “Learning about Counter-Insurgency,” 

RUSI Journal (December 2006), 19.

39 Gates, 39–40.

40 Michael G. Vickers, “What the QDR Should Say,” 

Armed Forces Journal (February 2006).

41 See the fictional scenario pertaining to this concept 

in Andrew F. Krepinevich, 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military 

Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century (New York: 

Bantam, 2009).

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