Hybrid Wars : The Indirect Adaptive Approach To

Regime Change by Andrew Korybko

A Review by David Edwards

This insightful book examines the theoretical framework behind the

concept of 'Fourth Generation Warfare'. This centres around
the utilisation of 'net centric' means to avoid a large scale direct
deployment of troops in a 'regime change' intervention in a desired
target State.

Those familiar with the concept of Proxy Warfare, will recall how the
use of sophisticated remote weaponry such as drone technology,
the deployment of small scale special forces units, the use of Private
Security Military Contractors, augmented with the training and arming
of local militias specialising in guerrilla tactics
against targeted governments, has been a staple of covert warfare
for protecting U.S. regional interests for a number of years. This form
of Indirect Warfare has been proven to be largely effective in
advancing Atlanticist hegemony through the doctrine of 'Organised
Chaos', by applying Unconventional Warfare to devastating effect.

"What is integral to remember is that Unconventional Warfare is

indirect warfare. They are one and the same and cannot be
separated from one another. Although Unconventional Warfare does
at times incorporate conventional methods, it is primarily
unconventional to the core. It is non-linear, dynamic, and chaotic,
presenting an ever-changing mix of tactics that is designed to throw
the authorities off balance."

Hybrid Warfare represents a two stage application of this strategy,

transitioning from Colour Revolution into Unconventional War,
towards the goal of regime change in the targeted states. The
broader goal is one of preventing the rise of larger strategic threats
on the world stage, such as those presented by the Russian
Federation and its allies, China and Iran.

The inheritor to the British Empire, presented in the military power

house of the United States, has long sought to maintain its global
power-base, and the methods it uses in this effort have become
increasingly underhanded, as the author demonstrates through this
analysis of the concept of Hybrid Warfare.
"The connection between Colour Revolutions, Unconventional
Warfare, US regime change objectives, and non-state actors
provides yet more proof confirming the Hybrid War theory."

This clandestine technique, utilises the strategy of 'lead from behind',

to initially destabilise target states through the implementation
of 'colour revolutions'. These exploit pre-existing political and
sectarian divides within the target nation. In short, these divisions
are agitated through the use of NGOs and Intelligence Agency
networks, to establish core supporters of the cause, who are largely
witting, trained to maximise their effectiveness (usually outside of the
target nation), and who can spread the desired ideological opposition
to the incumbent government through a largely unwitting public. The
target public are unaware of the foreign agitation which is guiding
their momentum. This form of decentralised opposition largely
seems to become successful at the Colour Revolution stage, as long
as the unseen hand of foreign backing remains hidden.

"Unconventional Warfare does not just happen by itself; instead, it is

the continuation of an already existing conflict within society, and the
role of Unconventional Warfare is to assist the anti-government
movement operating within this conflict to overthrow the
authorities. Hybrid war theorises that the existing conflict in question
is an externally manufactured Colour Revolution, and that
Unconventional Warfare can be covertly initiated almost immediately
after the Colour Revolution begins as a force multiplier. The
Unconventional Warfare campaign builds in intensity until the
targeted government is overthrown. If the Colour Revolution fails,
however, then Unconventional Warfare openly morphs into its
insurgency stage and begins emphasising extreme lethality in its
methods. Unconventional Warfare basically grows out of a Colour
Revolution, which in itself is a strategically planted seed to justify the
growth of the 'democratic liberation struggle', as it is commonly and
misleadingly painted in the Western media."

If this phase fails to achieve the objective, the plan is continued

through the use of 'asymmetric warfare', through the covert support
of an armed insurgency. This works on a similar principle as the
method in which opposition groups are supported and encouraged
during the colour revolution stage. Prevalent examples as to the
effectiveness of this technique can be seen in the Ukraine and in
Syria. The interplay between Colour Revolutions and
Unconventional Warfare can utilise many of the previous state actors
and networks established during the first phase in the second, more
violent phase.

"Unconventional warfare groups can also cull their members from the
networks that have already been established by the Colour
Revolution movement. Those distraught with the progress of the
Colour Revolution may be tempted or convinced to join the militants
bearing arms against the government, which illustrates how a direct
continuum may emerge between the individuals active in the Colour
Revolution and those fighting in the Unconventional War. Such a
transition between Colour Revolutions and Unconventional Warfare
is one of the main themes of Hybrid War."

The process is an effective means to destroy the infrastructure of the

target State, and the intention is for a domino effect to occur within
neighbouring States, all with the goal of increasing U.S. hegemony,
by spreading 'Western democracy' like a virus within the desired
region. The United States now seems to favour this manner of
waging war, which it has been perfecting over a number of
years. The air of plausible deniability which it brings on the home
front, and the fractional cost, when compared to a direct deployment
of a large ground troop force, makes it the 'weapon of choice' for the
Deep State strategic planners, and their global geopolitical plans of
domination. The methods effectiveness in terms of 'perception
management', both at home, and in the target State, means that the
U.S' attempts at regime change remain largely hidden within the
public mind, who largely perceive the events set in motion as having
grown organically, and independently of external agitation.

"The goal is to get as large a number of people as possible to enter

into the Colour Revolution movement's social network and spread the
idea in the same manner as a virus spreads its infection across a
biological or technological system. ...

... The goal is to create a hive mind of countless individuals who are
dedicated to the anti-government crusade and become 'all of one
mind'. The hive can then be manipulated into tactical swarming
attacks that are the manifestation of weaponized Chaos Theory and
are extremely difficult for the authorities to prepare for and repel. ...

... This patterned approach has been seen in every Colour

Revolution and during the theatre-wide Colour Revolution known as
the 'Arab Spring'. Furthermore, the age of Colour Revolutions is far
from over, as two of the most prominent practitioners have been
promoted to some of the most important positions in the US
government. John Tefft, the mastermind of Euromaidan, is now the
US ambassador to Russia, and Frank Archibald, a former CIA
'weapons man' in Bosnia and the engineer of the first-ever successful
Colour Revolution in Serbia in 2000, was in charge of the CIA's
National Clandestine Service from late 2013-early 2015. All of this
combines to prove that the world has only just begun to experience
the Hybrid War revolution in military strategy."

The global application of this strategy within the last decade, seems
to focus on the weakening and isolation of the Eurasian Heartland of
the 'World Island', as referred to in the geopolitical theory of Halford
Mackinder, laid out in his essay "The Geographical Pivot Of
History" of 1904. Nicholas Spykman, offered an addendum to
Macinkder's theory by renaming in 1944 Mackinder's observations
about the 'Inner Crescent' surrounding the Heartland, by renaming it
the 'Rimland'. Spykman saw this region as being of greater
geostrategic importance, due to its industrial and manpower
potential, with the bold proclamation "Who controls the Rimland rules
Eurasia; who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world."

The Eurasian Landmass, The 'World Island'

Saul Cohen expanded on the Rimland theory to develop the idea

of 'Shatterbelts', so-called because of the strategic location of a large
number of conflicting states caught between the interests of
the 'Great Powers' of the 'Great Game'. He saw these as being Sub-
Saharan Africa, The Middle East, and Southeast Asia. He theorised
that these areas were more prone to conflict than any other place in
the world, as a result of the powder keg of their diverse
characteristics.
Zbigniew Bresinski took the theory further by proposing in his book
promoting U.S. geostrategic interests, "The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives ", that for the
U.S. to preserve its unipolar influence across the Eurasian continent
it had to exploit the area he refers to as the 'Eurasian Balkans'. He
outlined these as the same areas as the shatterbelt, but included the
new post-cold war nation states in the Caucasus, and parts of South
Eastern Asia which directly border with the Russian Federation.

"The idea is not necessarily to foster separatism within Russia itself

... but instead to embrace the general idea of peripheral chaos and
maximise it for strategic purposes. The logic goes that if Russia's
Eurasian periphery can remain in a constant state of destabilisation
or chaotic flux (or at the very least be stably filled with anti-Russian
governments, which in and of itself would be extremely destabilising),
Russia would be thrown off balance and not be able to hinder
America's hegemonic plans. The closer that this destabilising chaos
can be penetrate into the Russian core, the better.

America's challenge today lies in the fact that as the world grows
more multipolar and Russia restores its ability to reassert its
neighbourly interests (and China and Iran acquire theirs), the US
must now tread indirectly with its destabilising methods. The 'Shock
and Awe’ campaign of 2003 or the 2011 NATO war in Libya are
nearly impossible to repeat in Kazakhstan and Ukraine, for example,
owing to the changed international circumstances and enormous
collateral (physical, financial, political) costs that they would
entail. What can happen, however, are campaigns of indirect
geopolitical sabotage under the guise of 'pro-democracy' movements
or externally supported civil conflicts. In fact, combining both of them
into a 'one-two punch' is the perfect 'knockout' attack for dealing with
Eurasian heavyweights, in this case, Russia.

The novelty of this approach lies in the fact that it succeeds simply by
reaping chaos and creating centripetal forces that threaten to tear a
targeted society apart."

The overall strategy is not one of all out victory over the target state,
instead the application of Colour Revolutions and Unconventional
warfare is to weaken the state infrastructure continually and maintain
a socially divisive situation of chaos, until an opportunity for a more
direct intervention emerges.
"The Unconventional War does not succeed in the traditional military
way (i.e. the destruction of the enemy's units); it succeeds by
disrupting the enemy and keeping them continually off balance until
the prime opportunity for a decisive strike presents itself."

With the application of the Heartland and Rimland theories, the

United States seeks to weaken the states next to the intended and
ultimate target, so that no allies can come to aid the target. When the
technique is ultimately employed indirectly against the target, this
also weakens the main targets borders, as the chaos eventually is
calculated to cross over them.

By this logic it is quite plain to see that Ukraine was destabilised to

weaken and undermine Russia, and that Syria was targeted and
weakened to undermine Iran. It is also interesting to notice, that at
the time of publishing this review (a quarter of the way into 2016),
that both Russia and Iran have acted against Washington's interests
in Syria to politically better the situation, where Russia has intervened
directly with a campaign of air strikes against the insurgency to
embolden the peace talks process. In Ukraine, Russia resisted being
drawn into direct warfare, and has instead tried to focus on a
diplomatic and humanitarian solution to the crisis, despite Western
media propaganda to the contrary, although the Russian government
has admitted to the deployment of special forces units to assist the
rebels in the eastern region of the Ukraine.

The author asserts that currently the United States is the only nation
employing the Hybrid War technique geopolitically, as similar
attempts by Russia, China and Iran could not work as effectively on
the North American continent. This is mostly due to its geographical
isolationism, and a higher level of 'development' status in comparison
to the Eurasian landmass, and its multitude of emerging economies
and 'developing nations'.

There is a large degree of forward planning involved in the initiation

of phase one of Hybrid Warfare, the Colour Revolution. As with any
operations engaging perception management as an overall strategy,
every element and stage must be meticulously calculated in order to
maximise success and give the overall impression of organic and
independent inception.

"As is seen, advance psychological and sociological research helps

Unconventional Warfare campaigns craft the appropriate plans and
succeed, just as it does in Colour Revolutions, and the intangible art
of perception management plays an integral part in this. The
success of Unconventional Warfare is determined by seven key
variables: leadership; ideology; objectives; environment and
geography (including social); external support; phasing and timing;
and organisation and operational patterns. All of these factors can
be modified except for the environment and geography. It is
important that everything is in order before the commencement of the
Unconventional War, ...

... the movement towards multipolarity has placed certain restrictions

on the US' ability to directly intervene in Eurasia at will, thereby
increasing the attractiveness and necessity of indirect methods. One
needs only to recall the theory introduced at this time to see the
pattern: 'the closer that US destabilisation operations get towards
their targeted cores (Russia, Iran, China), the lower the probability of
direct warfare and the higher the chances that indirect means (Colour
Revolutions and Unconventional Warfare) will be
applied.' Accordingly, when one considers the chaotic nature
encoded in the DNA of Colour Revolutions and Unconventional
Wars, they thus become the most perfect indirect tools for
constructing the Eurasian Balkans. No other strategies can lead to
the same degree of constructive/creative/managed chaos as these
two can. ...

... Colour Revolutions and Unconventional Wars share the same

strategies and are different sides of the same regime change coin."

The 'Arab Spring', which swept over the Middle East in 2011, had to
maintain its evolution as a 'grassroots' movement to preserve a
degree of legitimacy. However, it has become readily apparent that
this social media led 'uprising' was a largely engineered operation,
designed to weaken the Middle East and allow it to be balkanised
and descend into further chaos. A point of interest is that violent
crackdowns on protestors in US allied states such as Bahrain did not
descend into indirect warfare, as did the unfortunate and ongoing
conflict in Syria. In fact the pro-US regime in Bahrain seems as
strong as ever, this example alone should give an indication as to
the 'hidden hand' guiding the regional regime change agenda.

"The eventual goal is to encircle and neutralise the Eurasian Great

Powers with a noose of pro-American governments and Black
Holes. Both Colour Revolutions and Unconventional Wars
accomplish this through the use of proxy actors. Colour Revolutions
exploit political and social proxies in order to disrupt the social fabric
of the targeted state, whereas Unconventional Wars use military
proxies to physically sever the connection between all elements of
society. The transition from Colour Revolution to Unconventional
War is also a transition from intangible war to tangible war. Both
stages use widespread virtual and physical networks (Lead From
Behind) and rely heavily on psy-ops and perception management
techniques."

So what are the tactical methods of a Colour Revolution? The author

goes into great detail to outline the methodology at work in this initial
phase of regime change. The first is the 'Five Rings' theory, a
concept developed by US Air Force Colonel John Warden. This
thesis is that there are 'five primary centres of gravity that hold an
opposing force together'.

Warden's 'Five Rings Theory'

The idea is to disrupt the core ring of leadership, this will affect the
interconnected outer parts of the system. So the objective in a
Colour Revolution, is direct penetration of the core of this five ring
system, as attacks on the outer ring of 'fielded military' in a
conventional manner, say with large scale troop deployment, will only
affect that outer circle. The aim at this initial stage is one of
infiltration, as opposed to Unconventional War, where the fighting
units seek to attack the middle three rings of these systems for
maximum disruption, effectiveness and convenience. Armed militias,
do of course, attack the outer ring of fielded military, but these are
more scattershot engagements, as direct engagement with the
military can be risky for a guerrilla force, cutting the military's access
to infrastructure, system essentials and its leadership can be a much
more effective way of neutralising and demoralising the troops.

Colour Revolutions act on the principle of mobilising individuals in

swarms against the core leadership, and as with Unconventional
Warfare, if orchestrated right, it can be extremely difficult to predict
where they will strike next, due to the decentralisation of online tools
such as social media platforms. The objective is to dominate
the 'moral high ground' in narrative terms, in order to gain the support
of the fourth ring of the population. Social media presence of the
Colour Revolution in turn feeds the media narrative, which in turn
affects the population and 'sells' the Colour Revolution to external
audiences, and spreads support there also.

A 1989 article by William Lind, entitled "The Changing Face Of War :

Into The Fouth Generation" emphasises the importance of media
presence and controlling the narrative of this kind of decentralised
and fluid warfare:

"Psychological operations may become the dominant operational and

strategic weapon in the form of media/information intervention ... A
major target will be the enemy population's support of its government
and the war. Television news may become a more powerful
operational weapon than armoured divisions."

It is also important that the illusion within the Colour Revolution is

maintained, for the benefit of its participants, that the movement is
one of organically gathered individuals uniting to overthrow tyranny.

"The second target of the Colour Revolution is the individual, and 'the
movement' attempts to poach as many of them as possible prior to
the onset of the destabilisation. ...

... Liberal Democracy, in its current post-modern manifestation, is

expansionist and aggressive. It is not content with alternative
ideological and value systems and must steamroll over them in
pursuit of global dominance. ...

... The ideology of the individual over the collective (the social aspect
of Liberal-Democracy) empowers each and every protestor to feel
that they are making a unique and significant impact in bringing
about this change."
If the outer core of military or police come to the aid of the inner
leadership core, and succeed in shutting down the Colour
Revolution, the stage is quickly set for Unconventional War. But let
us return to the Colour Revolution, in particular its leadership
structure, which works a similar principle to the ring structure it seeks
to penetrate and disrupt. As described previously, the movement
has a 'core' of witting participants, usually trained in activist and
subversion techniques, a ring of unwitting 'converts' to the cause,
who actively recruit from the population to gain the numbers needed
to mobilise the Colour Revolution. The public are ideologically
converted through the penetration of their own individual, ideological
'Five Rings', usually with family at the core, work forming the next,
neighbourhood third, religion, then lastly, country. If this system and
its vulnerabilities can be exploited by the movement, then an
individual is usually swayed to join the cause, and the ensuing Colour
Revolution.

Another concept outlined by the author is that governments, military

and the police work within a concept known as the OODA loop. This
was originally created by John Boyd to assist fighter pilots deployed
in the field in making decisions, but has wide applications, not solely
isolated to military strategy and planning. The idea is to make a
decision after first Observing the situation, Orienting oneself,
Deciding, then Acting. If this loop is disrupted by the protestors, this
disorients the target State's apparatus, and hampers their ability for
rational action. These mistakes can be exploited, and again, can
also spark the Unconventional Warfare stage of an intervention,
which also seeks to disrupt the OODA loop.

"Colour Revolutions disorient the police and military because their

manifestations are purposely designed to appear unpredictable, and
Unconventional Warfare by its very nature is endowed with this
quality. On the other hand, when Colour Revolutions try to appeal to
future participants, they cater their message in as simple a way as
possible in order to maximise the target's OODA loop."

The author also outlines that Hybrid War works through the
application of Chaos Theory, particularly in terms of its nonlinear
dynamics, and its decentralisation, which both serve to give the
impression of disorder, and as a result make the Hybrid Warfare
technique difficult for the target state to manage
coherently. Highlighting the work of military strategist Steven Mann,
who in 1992 wrote "Chaos Theory and Strategic Thought", the author
includes the following, to explain the weaponised application of
Chaos Theory, to effect maximum disruption in the two central pillars
of Hybrid Warfare.

"Although it may seem disorderly, he argues, it is possible to

sporadically see some semblance of patterned order among the
chaos, especially in 'weakly chaotic systems'.

He theorises that chaos is dependent on a few initial variables, and

that 'once we arrive at an accurate description of our environment,
we are in a position to create strategies which advance our
interests.' These variables are the following:

-initial shape of the system

-underlying structure of the system

-cohesion among the actors

-conflict energy of the individual actors ...

... the initial shape of the social situation in the targeted country is just
as important for the Colour Revolution as the initial shape of the
physical, military, and infrastructure situation is for Unconventional
Warfare. The same goes for the other two variables.

Where things get extra interesting is when it comes to the last one,
the conflict energy of the individual actors. Mann writes that 'to
change the conflict energy of peoples - to lessen it or direct it in ways
favourable to our national security goals - we need to change the
software. As hackers have shown, the most aggressive way to alter
software is with a 'virus', and what is ideology but another name for a
human software virus? ...

... Simply put, depending on the civilisational/cultural code and the

best way to penetrate the target citizenry's social Five Rings, Colour
Revolutions can adapt their message to create their own custom
'virus' for winning over converts."

The idea is that the chaos begun by the Colour Revolution, although
initiated by a foreign actor, spreads organically, and potentially
morphs into Unconventional War. As the process appears to fluidly
develop on its own, the organisational aspect behind the chaos is
difficult to unmask, and therefore the entire campaign appears to
have gained inception independently as the 'will of the people'. The
Colour Revolution's spread via social media, also works on this viral
principle, and spreads in a 'swarm' both in the virtual and real
landscapes.

"The end goal is to go 'viral'."

The safety in numbers, presented by swarming in this fashion in the

face of the authorities, presents a large safety net for the core
organisers of the Colour Revolution.

"the Core and Cohorts safely hide behind the Civilian sympathisers
and use them as unwitting human shields, placing the government in
a precarious position of whether or not to act against the organisers."

A mass of atomised individual units, working as a swarm in this

fashion, presents a larger target mass of bodies which is harder to
control, is more unpredictable, and adds to the perception of chaos
on the ground.

"the ultimate aim of the Colour Revolution and Unconventional

Warfare combination (Hybrid Wars) is systematic chaos."

A Colour Revolution campaign, in the planning stages, usually has its

backers and their operatives waiting for the polarising 'event' upon
which to frame its initial spark from. Quite often this is the
government of the target nation being called out to make a wrong
move. In a similar fashion the transition into the Unconventional
Warfare phase of Hybrid War, usually flares off a similar,
catalysing 'event' in the Colour Revolution stage.

At this stage, it is worth observing the chapter devoted to the

philosophy of the godfather of Public Relations, Sigmund Freud's
nephew, Edward Bernays; whose adeptness at the manufacturing of
consent was so expertly applied in Central America during the 1954
US backed coup in Guatemala.

The application of Bernays' techniques of 'engineering consent' have

proved to be a vital aspect in the manufacturing of Colour
Revolutions and the application of the Hybrid Warfare
strategy. Citing Bernays' two most prominent works on the
matter 'Propaganda' (1928) and 'The Engineering Of
Consent' (1947), the author outlines how the ideological spreading of
the seeds to initiate a Colour Revolution, utilises the marketing
and 'information outreach' techniques developed by Freud's nephew.
"Bernays believed that a small number of largely unseen individuals
influence and guide how the masses think, and that this is the only
way to keep a semblance of order in an otherwise chaotic society. ...

... This is the very basis of Colour Revolutions. General and specific
(in the context of the targeted civilisation/culture) group psychology is
studied in order to best exploit the methods for spreading anti-
government messages. ...

... Bernays also writes that due to advances in instantaneous

communication technologies (which have become even more
pronounced in the current day with social media platforms such as
Facebook and Twitter), "persons having the same ideas and interests
may be associated and regimented for common action even though
they live thouands of miles apart." Not only that, but he soon adds
that "This invisible, intertwining structure of groupings and
associations is the mechanism by which democracy has organised
its group mind and simplified its mass thinking."

One of the main techniques for inserting an external idea within

this 'hive mind' successfully is the indirect approach, with the
emphasis again on an individual accepting an influence under the
belief that the idea has arisen internally and independently of
external initiation.

This is of course, the main function of mass media and informational

technologies such as social media platforms, which spread this
deception en masse so effectively. A prime example in terms of
social media presence, is the large scale spread of simplified memes,
which in many cases are accepted as truth without further
investigation. Sadly the human mind is very easy to influence, as we
are the most psychologically studied inhabitant of this planet.

Marrying up the techniques of Bernays and weaponised Chaos

Theory, is the concept of neocortinical warfare, which aims to shape
the behaviour of an enemy organism without damaging it; i.e. the
subversive use of hybrid war to take over a state, aims to avoid an all
out military confrontation, in the hope that its infrastructure can
remain largely intact, and the insurgency has no occupying force to
turn their attention to after the regime has toppled.

This theory is based on the approach of Richard Szafranski's

approach, which centred around the use of 'information outreach
techniques' to diffusely affect the 'collective brain' of the enemys
leadership to convince them not to fight. In Colour Revolutions, this
theory is reversed and applied to the 'collective mind' of the
protestors, with the aim of influencing them to agitate and attempt to
overthrow the government and not to remain apathetic. The most
effective way to engage in this process, Szafranski proposed, is
to "study the target's values, culture and worldview, and then to
approach them via neuro-linguistic programming."

"neocortinical warfare uses language, images and information to

assault the mind ... and change the will. It is prosecuted against our
weaknesses or uses our strengths to weaken us in unexpected and
imaginative ways."

In undertaking a campaign of Hybrid War against a target state, the

author emphasises the high importance which is placed on pre-
planning, studying the terrain and the political landscape of the
target. This is where the vanguard of NGOs can be utilised
as 'fronts' for intelligence gathering, it has also been revealed that
missionaries and cults such as the Scientologists can be useful in
this activity, but I digress.

NGOs and intelligence agencies, are also vital in establishing

networks and logistical support as well as encouraging agitation.

"It is not possible to procure everything physically needed for a

successful Colour Revolution on the spot or
instantaneously. Therefore, networks of contacts and prior
arrangements have to be created in advance. This often overlooked
logistical aspect of Colour Revolutions betrays their claims of
'spontaneity'. ...

... A crowd of nondescript people without any visually unifying focus

is not as powerful as one that displays solidarity with the Movement
by their chosen appearance."

The exploitation of naïvety of youth, like most forms of social

revolution, is a highly important factor in initiating Hybrid
Warfare. The initial phase of Colour Revolution manipulates youthful
idealism, disaffection and the common 'society is to blame' youthful
mentality of externalising problems. There is also the trend like
ability of youth and youth culture to spread ideology through 'mass
appeal.' Another consideration is the psychological appeal of a
largely youth centric movement in terms of recruitment, and how to
frame the narrative of the Colour Revolution for media dissemination.

"Appealing to the younger generation is extremely important for

Colour Revolutions, as the presence of many young individuals
provides the Movement with a youthful, energising appearance
against a stagnant, decayed system (most government leaders will
not be of college age or thereabouts). This generational context is
very strong and effectiveness in highlighting the 'freshness' of the
Colour Revolution's ideas against the seemingly perceived (and
framed) outdated views of the ruling establishment. The younger
generation is not typically engaged in a life-or-death economic
struggle, whereby they are absolutely compelled to go to work during
the day. They have their families and other supporters that can
provide for them, thereby giving them the necessary free time to
constantly interact with and support the Movement and its physical
manifestations. ...

... Importantly, the younger generation does not even have to be from
the capital or the targeted region of the occupation and mass
protests events. Instead, they can (and commonly are) bused in
from all across the country to attend the protests."

Hybrid Warfare, whilst being the current 'weapon of choice' of US

interventionism, doesn't have a 100% success rate, as a recent US
backed Colour Revolution attempt failed spectacularly in Armenia
late last year to gain momentum, and failed as a result. However, the
latest escalation in tensions between Armenia and its neighbour
Azerbaijan, could be of regional benefit to United States hegemony.

The author gives predictions in the appendices as to where hybrid

war may be applied (from the books time of publishing in mid 2015),
and what target nations may be able to do to thwart these efforts.

His predictions seem most prescient in light of the regional

developments we have witnessed over the past few months, as well
as the current situation in Europe. As with most global situations,
public consumption of information comes via the contextually void
lens of media, be it alternative, or mainstream, and it is always worth
keeping in mind that as a result our view of war and conflict is usually
skewed by a degree of deceit.

"All warfare is based on deception."

-Sun Tzu, from 'The Art Of War' (circa 6th Century BCE)