Hybrid Warfare
Fighting Complex Opponents from the Ancient World to the Present

Nine historical examples of hybrid warfare clarify the various aspects of conflicts and examine how great powers have dealt with them in the past.

Williamson Murray (Edited by), Peter R. Mansoor (Edited by)

9781107643338, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 July 2012

334 pages, 9 maps
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.45 kg

'Hybrid Warfare will prove rewarding reading for anyone interested in the problem of 'irregular' warfare, providing much food for thought about what is likely to be the most common form of war in our century.' The NYMAS Review

Hybrid warfare has been an integral part of the historical landscape since the ancient world, but only recently have analysts - incorrectly - categorised these conflicts as unique. Great powers throughout history have confronted opponents who used a combination of regular and irregular forces to negate the advantage of the great powers' superior conventional military strength. As this study shows, hybrid wars are labour-intensive and long-term affairs; they are difficult struggles that defy the domestic logic of opinion polls and election cycles. Hybrid wars are also the most likely conflicts of the twenty-first century, as competitors use hybrid forces to wear down America's military capabilities in extended campaigns of exhaustion. Nine historical examples of hybrid warfare, from ancient Rome to the modern world, provide readers with context by clarifying the various aspects of conflicts and examining how great powers have dealt with them in the past.

Introduction: 1. Hybrid warfare in history Peter R. Mansoor
2. Conquering Germania: a province too far James Lacey
3. Keeping the Irish down and the Spanish out: English strategies of submission in Ireland, 1594–1603 Wayne E. Lee
4. The American revolution: hybrid war in America's past Williamson Murray
5. That accursed Spanish war: the Peninsular War, 1807–14 Richard Hart Sinnreich
6. The union's counter-guerrilla war, 1861–5 Daniel E. Sutherland
7. Fighting 'this nation of liars to the very end': the German army in the Franco–Prussian War, 1870–1 Marcus Jones
8. Small wars and great games: the British empire and hybrid warfare, 1700–1970 John Ferris
9. An unexpected encounter with hybrid warfare: the Japanese experience in north China, 1937–45 Noboru Yamaguchi
10. Hybrid war in Vietnam Karl Lowe
Conclusion: 11. What the past suggests Williamson Murray.

Subject Areas: Military history: post WW2 conflicts [HBWS], Military history [HBW], General & world history [HBG], History [HB]