Russian Hybrid and Information Warfare

This book examines the evolution of Russian hybrid warfare in the post-Soviet era through a long-term, historically grounded, and systematically integrated perspective. Contemporary strategic studies literature often portrays hybrid warfare as an innovative approach to conflict. However, this volume demonstrates that Russia’s hybrid approach is neither new nor improvised, but the product of a strategic culture shaped across imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet history. The book combines doctrinal analysis, close reading of primary strategic texts, and a comparative study of the major conflicts fought by the Russian Federation since 1991. Drawing on the writings of Russian and Soviet military thinkers, party-state documents and open-source military sources, the research reconstructs how non-military and non-conventional instruments gradually shifted from ad hoc wartime expedients to components of an increasingly coordinated strategic repertoire. The various case studies adopt a cross-case comparative approach to trace continuities and ruptures. The analysis reveals hybrid warfare as a structural feature of Moscow’s strategic culture – an enduring method through which Russia seeks to offset conventional limitations, exploit systemic vulnerabilities in rival states, and shape the international environment below the threshold of open escalation. This book will be of interest to academics, researchers and advanced students in the fields of security and strategic studies, Russian/Eurasian studies, and international relations and political science more broadly. It will also be of value to think tank analysts and government and military security professionals.