The New Politics of Hybrid War

Abstract

At base, what Russia hopes to achieve with its hybrid war on the West is the destruction or degradation of today’s EU Europe and the creation of a great-power Europe in which Russia would be a key player and US influence would be diminished. For Russia, it means first and foremost that Russia should be allowed a sphere of influence in Europe, undermining the sovereignty of its neighbors. For most Europeans, however, a great-power Europe is a 19 ^th century model that failed. The West has a number of options to counter Russia’s hybrid war on the West in addition to sanctions. Perhaps the most effective would be to disrupt Russia’s ability to launder money through Western countries, thus limiting its ability to finance its foreign interventions. The problem is that the West has yet to take many of these measures because Russian influence campaigns have disabled Western institutions from within.