A two-day training workshop titled ‘Hybrid warfare: challenges and way forward’ concluded here at Aiwan-e-Iqbal on Friday, with the message for building capacity through knowledge and research to meet the challenges of hybrid warfare, being faced by the Pakistani society.
The workshop was arranged by the Press Information Centre (PIC), while former special assistant to prime minister and founding director of Peace and Development Unit of Pakistan, Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms, Hussain Nadeem, renowned scholar, researcher and subject expert at Beaconhouse National University Zeshan Zaigham, senior journalists Mansoor Ali Khan, Dilawar Chaudhry, Salman Ghani, Irshad Arif and Sajjad Mir spoke at the event.
The speakers were of the view that the undeclared ‘hybrid warfare’ was being fought by almost all nations, but our society is being triggered again and again due to its emotional attachments, and people blindly following the unverified posts, fake news and trends on the social media tools.
“As the nature of politics and conflict evolves with emerging technology, a new buzzword has entered the lexicon of planners and strategists worldwide.
Hybrid warfare, also labeled as fifth generation warfare by some, is a concept born out of the blurring of lines between war and peace in a landscape, dominated by sophisticated information and communication tools and techniques,” they added.
Experts said that in hybrid scenarios, war is no longer declared. It is, instead, a seemingly perpetual and ever evolving process that can involve economic manipulation, diplomatic pressure, media propaganda, proxies and insurgencies, cyber attacks, and the managing of a nation’s civilian populace through all kinds of media.
The term ‘hybrid warfare’ has been introduced to refer to the way war is conducted in the 21st century. In this theory, unconventional methods of fighting are used, such as propaganda, deception, sabotage, and other non-military methods.
