Applicability of Hybrid Warfare in Pakistan: Challenges and Policy Options

Abstract

Abstract:

                 War is the combination of hatred, violence, and intensity, consisting of the elements of probability, chance, and political concerns of the warring parties. These elements are a result of people who interact, military forces who fight, and the governments that govern both. As time changes, a conflict arises, changing its nature. War changes its characteristics according to the changing situations and circumstances. The State of Pakistan is encountering traditional and non-traditional security challenges, and in the 21^st century, certain unfamiliar forms have been seen in war, including regular and irregular forces joined together to fight on the battleground, and this new form is called hybrid war. There is an urgent need for Pakistan to understand the essence of this new phenomenon, as it is one of those countries that is affected by it, and it would also help Pakistan to understand the destabilization that has happened to it in recent years. Pakistan also has those fault lines that are prone to exploitation for an offensive strategy. Pakistan’s socio-political, economic, and sectarian fault lines have the potential for opposing forces to use them in their favor to destabilize Pakistan. Hybrid warfare includes terrorism, piracy, cyber war, propaganda, transnational crimes, asymmetric low-scale conflicts, demographic changes in certain areas, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which are framed as hybrid threats. Pakistan needs to understand this fifth domain of war as a global threat to prepare for a possible response and deterrence within its social and political context.