Garry Kasparov is the chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative, which publishes The Next Move.
If Russia attacks Europe, and Europe doesn’t call it war, is it actually a war? As the Kremlin continues to probe the West’s defenses, it’s clear that European leaders would prefer you call it “hybrid war,” hoping that the focus stays on the “hybrid” half of the equation and not on the “war.”
Last month, Russia carried out a drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany. One UAV was discovered before its payload could be detonated; a second collided with a cargo plane.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte took to X to declare that the alliance “stands in full solidarity with Germany after the Russian hybrid attack in Leipzig.”
“Hybrid attack”? Isn’t it just an “attack”? Would it still have been “hybrid” if a plane had crashed or people had been killed?
Now, hybrid war is a real category of warfare. It refers to an entire arsenal of non-kinetic actions a country can take to undermine its enemies.
Russia has tried just about every hybrid warfare tactic you can think of: Cyberattacks. Troll farms and propaganda. Propping up far-right political parties to disrupt democracy in France and Germany. Interfering in American elections.
As a KGB officer, Vladimir Putin is expert in this method, which is more subterfuge than brute force.
The problem is that Russia long ago moved beyond this domain to begin carrying out open attacks on the West. Now, when European leaders say “hybrid war,” they aren’t talking about a specific mode of fighting. They are deploying “hybrid war” as a euphemism, a polite alternative to admitting that Russia is at war with them.
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Europe fears that admitting that we are in a war with Russia will mean escalation—another slippery term.
But Russia has already escalated, from invading Georgia to bombing Syria (and, indirectly, triggering a refugee crisis in Europe with transformative political consequences). Russia escalated from invading Crimea and eastern Ukraine to finally invading the entire country. The Kremlin has gone from attacks in European cyberspace two decades ago to kinetic attacks involving UAVs and explosives.
At each rung along the escalation ladder, serious people called Russia’s aggression “hybrid war.” The war in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014, in which thousands were killed, was called a “hybrid war”!
Russia’s strategic goal is for NATO to return to its 1997 borders, before the inclusion of the former Warsaw Pact countries, leaving Central and Eastern Europe exposed to Kremlin domination. Putin said so nearly 20 years ago at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, and he reaffirmed that ambition on the eve of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The objective has remained the same, whether advanced through clandestine operations or force of arms.
When (really, if) Russia invades one of the Baltic countries, will Europe still call that “hybrid warfare? Europe will have to make that call on its own. The president of the United States is a Russian asset (or simply behaves like one, a distinction without a difference at this point) and the US may be locked in midterm-related political turmoil.
Here is what the Europeans need to remember in such a scenario: Putin is operating from a position of weakness. He will gamble on a big play in the Baltics in order to project strength at home, not because he is guaranteed to win but because he expects Europe to stand down. He made a similar bet four years ago in Ukraine, but the old KGB hand failed to predict how resilient the Ukrainians would be. Will the wealthy nations of Europe show the same determination in the face of Russian aggression, or this time, will Putin be proven right?
European leaders can start to show a little backbone by calling a spade a spade, and a war a war. Hybrid war is still war, and a drone attack on a German airport is an act of war without qualifiers. Today’s European democracies should be grateful that Ukrainians are already bravely resisting Moscow’s imperial aspirations, making huge sacrifices along the way. If not for Ukraine, other European countries would have to fight on the frontlines themselves. For now, Europe needs to show it can stand up for itself without American largesse, admit that Russia is at war with the Free West—and ensure that Ukraine can win that war by furnishing Kyiv with all available financial and military resources.
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Are the deaths hybrid deaths? Are the lost limbs hybrid amputation? Does putin have a hybrid brain? Are the jet engine drones hybrid drones?
Agreed, nothing hybrid in what Russia is doing today, in the same way the Skripals and Litvinenko were not hybrid attacks — but calling them hybrid showed Russia can get away with it, at least in the UK.
Out of curiosity, why the Baltics are next on the chopping board? Appreciate they’ve been on high alert for years now, with risks intensifying this year, but the article sounds more certain than just “risks”.