Valdai Club

The fashionable term “hybrid war” has various meaning for today’s policy experts. We propose considering the notorious notion of “hybrid war” to be a kind of prelude, a preparatory stage before the hot phase of the next global conflict.

This global conflict would, it’s presumed, be the last one, since it is likely to let loose the tactical and/or strategic nuclear potential of countries which are known members of the so-called “nuclear club”, as well as countries which have nuclear weapons but are hiding the fact.

We should consider separately the danger of nuclear weapons being used by non-state actors, including those hoping to establish religious “quasi-states”; terrorist organisations like ISIS.

Cautious attitudes towards war are receding throughout the world; the peculiar “vaccination” which was conditionally given to humanity as a result of the Second World War is wearing off.

The destroyers of the post-WWII world order, as well as post-WWII borders and institutions have contributed most actively to the weakening of this fear. Moreover, the break-up of the USSR and the unification of Germany marked the beginning of these processes.

Today, each of the actors acts on the basis of their own interests, believing that they may, so to speak, not have proper time to formalise their competitiveness in the face of their partners or opponents. Thus, the process of competition between countries has acquired painful features, resembling an “arms race 2.0”, “cold war 2.0”, etc.

The post-Soviet world, a monocentric system based on the unconditional domination of NATO member countries, hasn’t lent balance in a long time. The USA wasn’t able to cope with the role of “global policeman”, declaring, through the mouths of presidents, that it was prioritising its national interests and that it was an “exceptional” nation.

Another sign of the global decline in the value of human life (an anti-humanistic approach that demonstrates the benefits of covertly or explicitly destroying one part of the human race in the name of the interests of another) has occurred with the help of the media and in film in a virtual, information space: it only remains for this vision of the world to play out in real life.

And the total human potential for proponents of such a selective approach to the development of the human race have coalesced as the “golden billion”; the billion or so people in the industrial world who consume the lion's share of the world’s resources.

At this stage, the information component of the growing global conflict (the so-called “information war”) actively solves only one problem: who will fight and on which side?

The struggle for resources and the redistribution of values, including works of art, precious metals, etc., which takes various forms (either unfair competition in the form of sanctions, regional armed conflicts or their imitations) automatically creates a platform for military operations, let’s say, “the last battlefield.”

In this case, the ideologists of the Third World War are trying to solve the problem of maintaining the global market in one form or another, as this is a kind of “prize to the winner” – the market shall be under its full control.

To complete preparations for the global armed conflict, that is, the “hot phase”, the emergence of a “military nation” (“warrior nation”) is also necessary, which will take responsibility and, in fact, begin the global expansion.

Incidentally, this role was played by the French nation in the 19^th century during the Napoleonic wars, by the German nation in the 20^th century during Hitler’s attempts to occupy Europe. In the 21^st century such a role could be played by the Americans or, for example, by a quasi-state group, a pseudo-religious group like ISIS.

At the moment, two ideologies are clearly visible, providing the tools for gaining world domination. First, the conditional “American dream”, regularly expressed in the speeches of the US presidents before Congress and, second, attempts to create a “world caliphate” by Islamic groups. Moreover, these two ideologies are unnaturally connected and even imitate confrontation between each other.

Another ideological form – the Chinese one – so far provides for a peaceful alternative: a financial and economic model of global dominance. However, even at this stage, the accelerated development of the Chinese military potential to ensure the security of the processes in which Chinese companies are involved, can be quickly turned into a copy of the “American model,” openly aggressive towards other countries that seem to “run afoul” of global plans for implementation.

The breakdown or weakening of international regulators like the UN institutions and the international security treaty system has already created serious precedents in the form of power grabs and attempts to seize the resources of several countries (Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela) and will lead to new attempts (Iran, Russia).