Staff Reporter
The local and foreign experts at a virtual seminar on Friday put forward multiple suggestions to counter threats of hybrid warfare in an effective manner.
The National University of Science and Technology’s (NUST) Institute of Policy Studies (NIPS) organized the webinar to discuss the anatomy and characteristics of contemporary hybrid warfare, said a news release.
On the occasion, Russian geopolitical expert Dr Leonid Savin characterized hybrid warfare as a combination of conventional and unconventional military and non-military means, aimed at overthrowing rival political regimes and destabilizing adversaries’ social orders.
He stated that many countries, including Russia and Pakistan, had been targets of hybrid warfare attacks and campaigns in recent years.
Dr Savin underscored the need for trans-national cooperation for coordinating an effective response against this global threat.
Executive Editor at Indus News Ejaz Haider opined that indirect warfare typified by hybrid warfare needed to be contextualized as a concerted strategy for simultaneous and synchronized exploitation of multiple domestic and local fault lines to reduce the system’s capacity for survival.
He was of the view that a developing country like Pakistan could counter such non-linear conflict only by promoting and prioritizing a patient, participatory, horizontal, growth-led and consensus-based negotiation of political differences.
Former Caretaker Defence Minister Lt Gen (Retd) Naeem Khalid Lodhi underlined the need for distinguishing between hybrid warfare and different generations of this warfare.
He called for active civil-military cooperation and public-private collaboration in Pakistan for not only studying but also countering hybrid warfare threats.
