Chapter 1: Hybrid Threat Roles and Relationships in Training
- This page is a section of TC 7-100.4 Hybrid Threat Force Structure Organization Guide.
A Hybrid Threat Force Structure is a training tool that should allow the U.S. Army to train against a challenging and plausible sparring partner that represents the range of possible opponents the Army could face in actual conflict. It enables training of all arms of the Army and prepares the Army for potential combat operations.
Contents
Hybrid Threat for the Complex Operational Environment
A Hybrid Threat is the diverse and dynamic combination of regular forces, irregular forces, and / or criminal elements all unified to achieve mutually benefitting effects. Hybrid Threats are innovative, adaptive, globally connected, networked, and embedded in the clutter of local populations. They can possess a wide range of old, adapted and advanced technologies―including the possibility of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). They can operate conventionally and unconventionally, employing adaptive and asymmetric combinations of traditional, irregular, and criminal tactics and using traditional military capabilities in old and new ways.
Hybrid threats seek to saturate the entire operational environment (OE) with effects that support their course of action and force their opponents to react along multiple lines of operation. A simple military attack may not present enough complexity to stretch resources, degrade intellectual capacity, and restrict freedom of maneuver. Instead, Hybrid Threats can simultaneously create economic instability, foster lack of trust in existing governance, attack information networks, provide a captivating message consistent with their goals, cause man-made humanitarian crises, and physically endanger opponents. Synchronized and synergistic hybrid threat actions can take place in the information, social, political, infrastructure, economic and military domains.
Opponents of Hybrid Threats will have difficulty isolating specific challenges. They will be forced to conduct economy of force measures on one or more of several lines of operation. Meanwhile, Hybrid Threats will continue to shift effort and emphasis to make all choices seem poor ones. Hybrid threats are networks of people, capabilities, and devices that merge, split, and coalesce in action across all of the operational variables of the OE. Each separate actor and action of a hybrid threat can be defeated if isolated and the proper countermeasure is applied. By creating severe impacts across the total OE, a hybrid threat prevents its opponents from segregating the conflict into easily assailable parts. Often military action will be the least important of a hybrid threat’s activities, only coming after exploitation of all the other aspects of the OE has paralyzed its opponent.
Hybrid threats can include criminals and criminal groups used in conjunction with both regular and irregular forces. A picture of this future was provided by the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict, in which Russia employed the many criminal elements operating in South Ossetia to conduct the cleansing of ethnic Georgians from that region. Additionally, criminal organizations have the potential to provide much needed funding to operations and facilitate the purchase of equipment. Adversaries will be enabled by WMD and technologies that allow them to be disruptive on a regional and area basis.
Swift tactical success is not essential to victory. The dimension of time favors those fighting the United States. An enemy need not win any engagement or battles; the enemy simply must not lose the war. Wearing down the popular support for U.S. operations by simply causing a political and military stalemate can be all that is required to claim victory or to change U.S. behavior or policy.
The most challenging attribute of our adversaries will be their ability to adapt and transition. Their speed, agility, versatility, and changeability are the keys to success in a fight against a larger, more powerful opponent.
Training U.S. forces for the operational environment (OE) requires a different kind of threat from that of the past. The Hybrid Threat must be less predictable and not based on the armed forces of a particular country or non-state actor. In today’s world, the U.S. Army must be prepared to go into any operational environment (OE) and perform its full range of missions. It must be ready to do so in the face of a wide variety of possible threats and at the same time be prepared to deal with third-party actors that may have other interests. Not all threats are purely military in nature. Therefore, the U.S. Army now defines an OPFOR as “a plausible, flexible military and/or paramilitary force representing a composite of varying capabilities of actual worldwide forces, used in lieu of a specific threat force, for training and developing U.S. forces” (AR 350-2).
In some training environments, a regular force or an irregular force alone may be the Threat. In other cases, regular forces may have irregular forces acting in loose affiliation with them, or acting separately from them within the same training environment. These relationships depend on the scenario, which is driven by training requirements.
Various agencies and experts have different lists of real-world threats the United States might have to face. If the U.S. Army were to pick any one of these threats as the Threat against which to train, that threat would almost certainly not be the one that all Army forces would actually fight. What is needed is a composite that is representative of the full range and variety of possible threats and OEs. It must have a bit of everything—it could be virtually anybody, anywhere. Therefore, this manual is linked to directories of organizations that provide a representative composite of real-world military and paramilitary organizations. With this composite as a baseline, trainers have the flexibility to task-organize and adjust the capabilities of an OPFOR to fit the most demanding U.S. Army training requirements and provide a framework for training that creates the leaders, soldiers, and unit skills necessary for success on the next battlefield—wherever that might be.
Role in Training
As a training tool, the Threat must be a challenging, uncooperative sparring partner, capable of stressing any or all warfighting functions and mission-essential tasks of the U.S. force. However, it must also be tailored to meet specific training requirements.
Note. Although the HTFS is primarily a training tool, it may be used for other purposes. For example, some combat development activities that do not require simulation of a specific real- world potential adversary may use a HTFS to portray the “threat” or “enemy.”
As a baseline for developing a HTFS for a specific training environment, this manual describes a threat that is representative of the forces of contemporary state and non-state actors. This composite of the characteristics of real-world regular and irregular forces provides a framework for the realistic and relevant portrayal of capabilities that U.S. forces might face in the OE. This manual is applicable to the entire U.S. Army training community, including the Hybrid Threat at all of the combat training centers, the TRADOC schools, and units in the field.
The 7-100 series, as a whole, covers not only the military and paramilitary forces of a Threat, but also other, non-state paramilitary organizations and nonmilitary actors that might be present in a region of the world. The Unites States, as an extraregional power becoming involved in such a region, might have to deal with any or all of these types of military, paramilitary, and nonmilitary elements. It might encounter these elements individually or, more likely, in combination with other such elements. Whether these elements operate in concert or independently, they are an important part of the OE.
Trainers need to consider the total OE—not just the military or threat dimension—in designing training environments. All the other critical variables can affect the overall OE and the military, paramilitary, and nonmilitary entities that are part of it.
The baseline HTFS organizations linked to this manual do not constitute an order of battle (OB). Rather, they provide a framework from which trainers can develop a specific OB appropriate for their particular training requirements. Within this framework, scenario writers and exercise designers have considerable flexibility in determining what the Threat actually has at a given point in time or a given place on the battlefield—in a particular scenario. In some cases, an organization taken straight from the threat force structure may meet the requirements for a particular U.S. Army training environment. In most cases, however, it will be necessary to task-organize the HTFS in order to portray the right mix of units and equipment for stressing the mission essential task list (METL) of U.S. units in particular training environments.
Thus, the baseline organizations presented in the organizational directories linked to this manual are intended to be tailored and task-organized in a manner that is appropriate for the training objectives. Depending on the training requirement, the Hybrid Threat may be a large, medium, or small force. Its technology may be state-of-the-art, relatively modern, obsolescent, obsolete, or an uneven combination of these categories. Its ability to sustain operations may be limited or robust.
During the road to war leading up to events in a training scenario, the Threat may play the role of a potential enemy or “belligerent” that is on the verge of becoming a combatant. However, the actual training event usually deals with a state of hostilities. Thus, once hostilities begin in the training event, the Threat acts as the “enemy” of the U.S. force in the training environment.
Tie-in With Other Manuals in the 7-100 Series
This organization guide is meant to be used in conjunction with other products in the 7-100 series. Together, these products outline a Threat that can cover the entire spectrum of regular and irregular capabilities against which the Army must train to ensure success in the types of OEs it can expect to encounter in the clearly foreseeable future.
OPFOR Strategy, Operations, and Tactics
This organization guide ties in with the national-level organizations described in detail in TC 7-100, Hybrid Threat. Organizations from the threat force structure (found in the online directories linked to this manual) should be task-organized in accordance with Hybrid Threat doctrine in FM 7-100.1, Opposing Force Operations, and TC 7-100.2, Opposing Force Tactics.
Irregular Organizations and Nonmilitary Actors
This organization guide ties in with TC 7-100.3, Irregular Opposing Forces. See that document for more detail on the nature and activities of such actors.
Worldwide Equipment Guide
The WEG contains equipment data, tier tables, and substitution matrices for the various categories of equipment found in threat organizations. Training planners can employ the tier tables and substitution matrices in the WEG to find appropriate substitutes for baseline equipment shown in the organizational directories. Within each functional category of equipment, there are four tiers representing different levels of capability, with Tier 1 representing the highest level of capability and modernity. The WEG also contain technical data on the capabilities of systems identified as “Principal Items of Equipment” in the organizational directories and/or listed in the tier tables.