Hybrid Warfare: Guile Born Out of Weakness
Speaker: Curtis Fox (Author of Hybrid Warfare: The Russian Approach to Strategic Competition & Conventional Military Conflict)
Date: 11 January 2024
Speaker Session Summary
Russia’s historical strategy to protect its sovereign borders and security environment has been to act aggressively with its military, attempting to constantly expand its borders. This aggressive expansion has been a historical security strategy for Russia, partially because its land borders have few natural barriers. According to Mr. Fox, Soviet Russia eventually achieved defensible geographic borders after securing the Soviet bloc in Eastern Asia and deploying mass troops and equipment to East Germany following WWII. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a diminishment of Russia’s security environment. Under the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia regained enough domestic stability and security to exert its influence globally, once again adopting the historical strategy of expanding security and influence through military means.
Since Russia’s reemergence as a global influencer, it has employed hybrid warfare to minimize the risk of international backlash and intervention by more economically powerful states such as the US, NATO, and the European Union. Mr. Fox noted that, with a GDP smaller than Texas, Russia must avoid mistakes as financial and resource recovery would be challenging. He listed several conflicts where Russia used hybrid warfare to achieve its goals, including the Russo-Georgian War (2008), Crimean Annexation (2014), and the Syrian Civil War (2015), among others. Russian failures in its full-scale war with Ukraine serve as clear examples of why Russia resorted to hybrid warfare in the past. Mr. Fox pointed out that poor intelligence, scaling, and failures to pass military reform have contributed to Russia’s setbacks in Ukraine. He presented a breakdown of Russia’s military structure, Putin’s inner circle, and the country’s significant losses in the war, including hundreds of colonels and thousands of junior officers—a loss that Russia cannot afford—representing a significant blow in the conflict.
Speaker Session Recording
Briefing Materials
Biography: Curtis Fox attended the MBA program at Georgetown McDonough School of Business, and over the course of his degree program worked, as an emerging markets and private equity analyst for Rock Creek Group and ByteCubed respectively. Curtis also advised Brazilian energy conglomerate CPFL Energia on implementing a technical and regulatory transition to a blockchain-based system for trading electricity futures.
After completing his degree program at Georgetown, Curtis reentered public service as a systems engineer and technical analyst at IWTSD. Curtis also served as the desk officer for Singapore. He was soon brought on as a Deputy Program Manager for the Advanced Analytics subgroup and then promoted to Program Manager in 2022.
Curtis is a Green Beret and served as a demolitions and combat engineering expert on an SFOD-A. He additionally served as a Special Forces Liaison to USEMBASSY Nouakchott in Mauritania, advising the Deputy Chief of Mission, Regional Security Officer, and Defense Attaché on SOF operations in country. He separated from the Army in 2016 to attend the MBA program at Georgetown.
Curtis was born in Austin, Texas, but grew up in Richmond, Virginia. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech. Following his bachelor’s program Curtis chose to enlist in the US Army. Following attendance of the Special Forces Qualification Course and US Army Airborne School, Curtis won his Green Beret and was assigned to 10th Special Forces Group.
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