Towards a typology of non-state actors in 'hybrid warfare': proxy, auxiliary, surrogate and affiliated forces. Issue 6 (15th December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rauta, Vladimir
• Is Part Of: Cambridge review of international affairs. Volume 33:Issue 6(2020)
• Page Start: 868
• Page End: 887
• Publication Date: 2020-12-15
• Subjects: International law -- Periodicals; International relations -- Periodicals; 909.8205
• DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2019.1656600
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0955-7571

Abstract

Abstract: This article presents a typology of armed non-state actors in hybrid warfare: proxy, auxiliary, surrogate and affiliated forces. By focusing on the kinetic domain of hybrid warfare, the article offers a corrective to a debate that has so far ignored variation in roles and functions of non-state actors and their relationships with states and their regular forces. As a denominator, 'hybrid' identifies a combination of battlespaces, types of operations—military or non-kinetic—and a blurring of actors with the scope of achieving strategic objectives by creating exploitable ambiguity. However, there has been a disproportionate focus on what hybrid war supposedly combines across battlespaces and domains (socio-political, economic, informational), at the expense of who and how. Using the Ukrainian crisis as a theory-building exercise, the article suggests a four-category schema that identifies non-state actor functions as a tool to better represent the complex franchise of violence that is found nested next to non-military operations in hybrid activity. In so doing, the article speaks to a call for better conceptualization the role of non-state violent actors in civil war, in general, and in hybrid warfare, in particular.