The Missing Link: Civil-Military Cooperation and Hybrid Wars

Abstract

Despite obvious overlap, there is very limited scholarship that has explored the potential cross-fertilisation between the concepts of civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) and hybrid warfare. Both concepts share the idea of putting the civilian domain centre stage in military strategic thinking. In contrast to civil-military relations, which looks at the relation between the military and society, CIMIC looks at the civilian domain as part of the operational theatre of military forces. Essential in the development of CIMIC have been national and international norms, laws, and values, which have driven the increasing merger of the civilian and military domains and advanced population-centric approaches to intervention. This population-centric approach is shared by existing conceptualisations of hybrid warfare, where the operational focus also hinges on targeting the civilian domain as the strategic fulcrum.