German intelligence chief Bruno Kahl said this week that Russia’s extensive use of “hybrid” warfare measures “increases the risk that NATO will eventually consider invoking its Article 5 mutual defence clause”, under which an attack against one NATO member is considered an attack against them all.Hybrid warfare is the use of both conventional and unconventional means to create instability in countries without making it seem like an all-out war.
These kinds of tactics can include election interference, assassination plots and attacks on critical infrastructure, such as undersea cables, but they can be extremely difficult to prove.
So could these sorts of incidents really trigger retaliation against Russia by NATO countries?
What sort of hybrid warfare incidents have occurred recently?
Kahl’s comments on Wednesday came just days after two cables in the Baltic Sea were cut on November 17 and 18.
The Chinese-flagged bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 – which had departed from the Ust-Luga port in Russia and was reported by some media, including The Wall Street Journal, and research units, including the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), as having a Russian captain – appeared to pass over the cables about the same time each was severed.
The Swedish police said the Chinese ship was “of interest”, and the Danish navy immediately began shadowing it through the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden.
Swedish authorities are investigating the damage, which they say may have been caused by an anchor being dragged along the floor of the sea.
Is Russ …
