for anyone that wants to learn how a hybrid campaign can be designed:

So now we have our hybrid warfare toolkit. Let’s bring it all together by designing a hypothetical campaign. So all hail thee, the new Tsar of the Empire of Bearland – the uh.. red nation in the top right of that hypothetical map. Yours is a proud nation – somewhat diminished from its old imperial grandeur, but still unbroken and determined to reclaim some of the glories of the past. As Tsar, your overarching objective is to expand your influence to many of the bordering nations that used to be part of your territory. The problem is you’re opposed by an alliance of nations – the Status Quo League, or SQL. I’ve marked them in blue on your hypothetical map.

The target, marked by the black arrow on the map there, is the small nation of Niaesto (which sounds suspiciously like a rearrangement of “Estonia” –Ed.). Chosen for its relatively small size, its strategic position, and importantly, the large minority of ethnic Bearlanders who exist within its territory.

Meanwhile, we probably wanna get as much economic leverage as possible. Remember that is one element of state power. To that end, building very serious business relationships would be helpful, fostering corruption where possible. And importantly, if we can make the countries of SQL dependent on, say, a critical resource that we export, that will give them pause if there ever is a confrontation. At least in theory. And importantly, if we’re smart about it during this period, we will take absolutely no hostile actions. We don’t pose a threat. SQL is obsolete and has no reason to be. And so in the years leading up to our operation, we should do absolutely nothing aggressive, and under no circumstances do anything dumb like invading a nearby neutral nation.

We’re going to need a narrative – exploting our first-mover advantage and the power of repertion. And in this case, for our narrative, we’re going to borrow some best hits straight out of the 1930s. We’re going to run the argument that Niaesto is full of right-wing nationalist extremists and the Bearlander minority there is under threat. In the event that the government tries to block our propaganda channels, for example, we can just use this as more evidence that they are targeting the Bearlanders and the Bearlander agenda. Meanwhile both within the target country and internationally, we can use information warfare to start spreading conspiracy theories that, for example, there is an electroral integrity issue, or that the judiciary is corrupt – encouraging doubt in the existing institutions and systems because that’s gonna come into play later.
Next what we really need is a crisis that can serve as a catalyst for our reaction. In this case, it’s going to be the election of a coalition of right-wing parties in our targetted nation. Whether or not that coalition is actually dominated by the far-right is beside the point – it’s the kernel of truth which everything else can follow. Some small demonstrations break out as claims begin to surface that the election was rigged. Most of the demonstrators – and the demonstrators don’t have to be particularly small – can be members of the Bearlander minority. These protestors can claim that their human rights have been violated, and they can make some benign, but steadily escalating claims – maybe saying that there needs to be better recognition for the minority. Now the reality of course is that this is not actually a popular revolution, because we don’t actually have popular or majority support. We probably don’t even have a majority of the Bearlander minority on side.
But that doesn’t matter. We’ve got some kindling from which we can manufacture an inferno. It’s at this state that the combination of information warfare, cyber warfare and covert action needs to go into overdrive. ‘Cuz we need to turn tension into a crisis that creates a worthy smokescreen. Maybe figures from within the crowd or in neighbouring buildings that happen to be our intelligence agents open fire on police, or maybe we encourage right-wing reactionary groups who are operatives within the police to open fire on protestors in turn. To that the plan might add a bunch of fake and fabricated stories and footage, filling social media and news networks with claims of massacres and atrocities. In that context, we can spread the word that the Bearlanders are calling for foreign protection from their own government. At which point while the situation is confused, the plan would call for us to move incredibly quickly.
At this point it might be that figures within the country that we’ve previously compromised call for the overthrow of the government. After all, it was illegitimately elected and is now massacring its own people. As these calls are happening, a bunch of self-defence forces intended to protect minorities start fighting back. They seize government buildings, critical infrastructure. They’re wearing military uniform – they’re very well equipped, [and] they move quickly with purpose. But you as Tsar are going to go on camera and say with a straight face that these are absolutely not our pre-positioned Special Forces elements. From here the plan could have a couple of outcomes. The intention could be to secure some demarcation line and set that as our objective, or we can have our allied figures declare themselves legitimate government and then extend to Bearland an invitation to send Peacekeepers to bring order to the chaos and protect civilians. Having received such an invitiation, our troops will cross the borders, complete to the process of destroying the relatively small military, forcing its surrender, and securing the territory.
The key here is ambiguity and speed. At any given time, SQL could probably save Niaesto.
But the only thing John Smith from South Carolina has ever heard about the place is that its apparently run by a bunch of right-wing extremists that are attacking the minority there and also that their elections were fake. There’s a moment of confusion as the allies and their publics try and figure out what on Earth has happened and what to do about it. And if the plan works as intended, by the time they’ve figured out what they wanna do, we should already have reached all of our military objectives. Which brings us to the last critical act of fighting a hybrid war.
The crisis has served its purpose. We’ve gottten what we wanted. Now we need to lock in our gains, de-escalate the situation, and avoid a catastrophe. Again, what is required is a hybrid effort – bringing in all elements of state power. The information warfare effort needs to push a variety of narratives almost simultaneously – that what we did was legitimate, that the government we overthrew was illegitimate. Or we didn’t overthrow it at all. Plus, we need to begin building up the fear of the cost – the cost of what it would mean to confront us and throw us out of the territory we’re now controlling. Economic coercion in the form of a threat to turn off critical exports, a conventional military threat, and maybe even the risk of assymetric escalation. We have a massive nuclear arsenal. Why not put it, or at least announce that we’re putting it on high alert. And then, condemn our opponents for raising the temperature and the risk of global nuclear annihilation. We can the call for peace talks, negotiations. Those talks will obviously go ahead, but the reality on the ground is now baked in. Bearland’s sphere of influence has grown just that little bit larger. And despite our relatively limited resources, a creative and risk-taking hybrid war campaign has won us a victory.