Abstract

The article deals with the concept of hybrid warfare, which has emerged as one of the most widely used (but also most elusive) notion in the strategic literature on the transformations of war and strategy. The article outlines the origins of this notion, reviews the different significances it has assumed since its appearance and also highlights the major geopolitical events that have contributed most to its introduction and evolution. More specifically, the article shows that the concept has developed along a two-fold path, in effect being referred to different phenomena of hybridization, which have purportedly marked the strategic realm in post-Cold War era. As will be seen, the term «hybrid war» was coined in the wake of 2006 Lebanon War, with the aim to signal the advent of a novel kind of armed conflicts characterized by an unprecedented amalgam of regular and irregular components. Afterwards, against the backdrop of the «color revolutions» and, therafter, of the Russian annexation of Crimea and its intervention in Donbass, the notion has been employed both in Russia and in Western countries mainly to refer to an array of fundamentally non military (and mostly subversive) strategies, all of which tend to blur the distinction between peace and war.