Cyberspace has penetrated every facet of society's life and the nation's security. It entangled the whole world together, providing exceptional opportunities and threats. One of these threats is a new kind of warfare known as Hybrid warfare; Its nature is to deploy all unconventional means to achieve objectives given by its user. Additionally, means used in cyberspace and capabilities it offers have a complementary effect on Hybrid warfare strategies creating a positive feedback loop. Targets of this new type of warfare are usually Western democracies or nations affiliated with them. The western open approach to cyberspace proved to be readily exploitable by malicious actors. These actors are nations such as Russia or China. However, private entities or individuals have, too, proved to be capable of employing Hybrid tactics. These tactics employed are cyberattacks, data gathering and exploitation, and disinformation. There is a case period for each of them: Cyberattacks during 2007 Estonia, Data gathering and exploitation, the Chinese model and its dissemination, and disinformation throughout the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Each case will attempt to examine the effects of Cyberspace on Hybrid warfare; Which proved to be a complementary effect, cyberspace amplifying Hybrid warfare and providing it...

The following thesis presents an empirical investigation of hybrid war in eastern Ukraine, drawing on the insights from Actor- Network Theory and New Type Wars theory. Taking a different route in studying a complex phenomenon of hybrid war, this study focuses on the social-material networks which constitute the hybrid war. This thesis aims to identify the actors and analyse their interactions at different stages of war. Actor-Network Theory will be used in this research to ask the questions, what role do the non-human actors play in hybrid warfare in eastern Ukraine, and how do they affect the dynamics of war. Highlighting the significance of non-human actors, this thesis aims to contribute to the existing literature on hybrid warfare in eastern Ukraine and thus shed light on the peculiarities of this phenomenon.

This dissertation examines the construction of the contemporary Russian geopolitics through the usage of the foundational myth, better known as the Third Rome myth and the center of true Christianity. This is achieved through the analysis of four famous speeches by President Vladimir Putin. These speeches cover the two regions of Ukraine and Georgia, the former being to an internal audience and the latter to a foreign audience. Accompanied with examining the foundational myth, this dissertation also deliberates on how it is being utilized by Putin. In his reconstruction of a new Russia, one that synthesizes the old ideas of greatness alongside the new set of geopolitics. The aims to fulfill are: Firstly, to broaden our understanding of the present and future Russian geopolitics. Secondly, through usage of the myth to develop our understanding of the new environment surrounding hybrid warfare. And especially politics, in form of soft power, that play a significant role where insight can help prevent future conflicts. The method of analysis is of qualitative nature. Speech act by Austin and Searle is employed in order to gain an overview and enable the construction of semiotic squares, that in turn facilitate the actantial models by Greimas.

This thesis investigates global fight against terrorism in North West Pakistan and Afghanistan from a 21st century perspective in 2018. It focuses on local attitudes towards the War on Terror and their interplay with geo-strategic, regional, international and Pakistan’s domestic landscapes. In doing so, it questions the efficacy of existing academic and policy approaches towards achieving sustainable peace in North West Pakistan in particular and South Asia in general. It also evaluates the impact of regional rivalries especially in between Pakistan and India on the achievement of US foreign policy interests. Part-1 reviews existing literature on terrorism especially in post 9/11 setting. It examines the international discord of agreeing on a single definition of terrorism and its ramifications. It sequentially focuses on character of security in North West Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan since colonial times. It also identifies various traditional, religious and societal angles of Pashtun tribes; which always inspired them to fight against external powers. Part-2 combines academic investigations with empirical evidence. The results are correlated with current discussions on modern terrorism, geopolitical pulls and regional rivalries to create a holistic picture. It identifies local attitudes and regional rivalries as major impediments towards achievement of sustainable peace. Research findings indicated that predominant Western academic debates on the conflict were foreign policy inspired with little local and veteran input. By adapting a pragmatic approach the terrorism challenge can be addressed and the region can contribute towards the continuation of ‘Rules Based Order’ within the current phase of Great Power Rivalry.

新戰爭趨勢下的空海軍事作戰硏究: 以美中軍事競爭爲例 / By announcing ‘pivot to Asia’ policy in 2011, the 2nd Obama Administration is moving U.S. strategic center of gravity to East Asia-western Pacific area. Inter alia, U.S. is intensively deploying its conventional military forces on this area in order to check China emerging regional military power by its sustained economic growth, and ‘Air-Sea Battle’ concept is mentioned as a background of the military disposition. This battle concept is now interpreted as a thing to counter-act Chinese expansionists’ maritime strategy has been constructed since 1980’s for regional extension of influence in military. Received much attention from military academia, the Air-Sea Battle concept is recognized as a regular operation doctrine derived from superiority in military technology has dominated war fighting styles of the U.S. military forces for a long time as well as the military has put stress on it by itself and conservative military professionalism. However, war was just a repeated event tackling enemy’s weak points through unthinkable war patterns in terms of its mean and way, and especially the war patterns served a golden opportunity for the weak encountering the strong enemy. Meanwhile, the military cannot adapt to changes seasonably signed its own death warrant and recent asymmetric warfare between regular forces and irregular ones in Middle East shows that point suitably. In the respect, this thesis will identify critical but neglected threats on the Air-Sea Battle and will search for its limitations while expecting China’s spectrum of war at the comprehensive and multi-modal level.

This thesis examines the meaning and construction of the debated concept of hybrid war/warfare in the existing scholarly literature. The identified research problem stems from the lack of reflection on the conceptual reasoning and thought that underpins the nature of war, which relates to the fact that a historical linguistic perspective is neglected in most studies on war. Through this study, conceptual history theory has demonstrated its utility in War Studies by illustrating the benefit of applying a historically focused lens on debated and contested concepts. Thus, demonstrating how both a synchronic and diachronic perspective is necessary to examine how the meaning and construction of a concept change over time.  The analysis aims to answer the question of how the meaning of the hybrid war concept has developed in the existing body of literature between 2008-2021. Based on the analysis, it was observed that the greatest shift in terms of the meaning and use of the concept occurred after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. The previously optimistic anticipation of hybrid war in future was replaced with a more critical understanding of the concept itself, and the prospect of its future. All in all, the result of this thesis, beside the observed shift in the meaning and construction of the hybrid war concept, is that conceptual history theory can contribute to the understanding of contested and debated concepts related to the nature of war.

This diploma thesis examines the topic of news coverage of the Ukrainian crisis in the Ukrainian and Russian media in the period between February 2015 and March 2016. The topic of analysis was based on personal interest for the subject. To realize the goals, this work is divided into several parts. The first part of the diploma thesis focuses on the description of the main media theories, including the theory of framing; then the concepts of hybrid war and propaganda, which are necessary for understanding the issue, are described. Then the anatomy of the Ukrainian conflict is explained, specifically the war in Donbas, roots of which go back to 2014. The thesis also includes a description of previous academic studies about the coverage of the Ukrainian crisis in foreign media. The second part of this thesis deals with the analysis of media content about the events in eastern Ukraine, which were disseminated by the Russian state agency TASS and the Ukrainian agency Ukrinform. The next part of this thesis is a description of creating a process of own research, setting research goals and characteristics of the tools, which were used to achieve them. The last part of the thesis describes the results of the implemented content analysis. This work may serve for better understanding the role of the media...

The thesis is focused on currently widely discussed topic of the Russian hybrid warfare. It examines how the discourse surrounding this topic in the Czech Republic unfolded and how certain actors, primarily the think-tank European Values, have securitized the issue of the Russian hybrid warfare. The thesis is grounded in the securitization theory developed by the Copenhagen School. The international context is also discussed, since the discourses about the Russian hybrid warfare against the West are interconnected and the interest in this subject have risen after the annexation of Crimea and especially after the Russian interference into the U.S. presidential election in 2016. The case study of the documents related to the Russian hybrid warfare published by the think-tank European Values is central to this project. Institutional mistrust is a crucial underlying cause driving the success of disinformation campaigns and creates an opportunity for the hybrid efforts. However, this thesis attempts to explain, how securitization of the Russian hybrid warfare can be unhelpful or even detrimental to the goal of facilitating a greater trust in institutions.

This diploma thesis will basically work with the concept of security, namely, the European secu- rity in recent years. Although Ukraine is not a NATO member, and Russia is NATO's distant neighbour, in this thesis I will prove that we should connect the events on Ukrainian border with European security. From the very onset of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, NATO was firm in its support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. The Allies immediately condemned the illegal "legitimate annexation" of the Crimea to Russia in March 2014 and they have repeatedly stated that they would never recognize it as well. They also condemned deliberate destabilization in eastern Ukraine which was provoked by Russia with the use of its military intervention and militants' support. The crisis in Ukraine has proved to be a real turning point in Euro-Atlantic security since some senior Western politicians began to speak about changes in the guideline of European defense policy. Ukrainian crisis created new security situation in Europe and still requires attention, in- volvement and response from NATO. This crisis sharpened strategic misunderstanding between Russia and the West. It shows very clearly that Moscow and the West understand European security in...

This diploma thesis delves into the possibility of the Western democratic state waging hybrid warfare. The hybrid warfare has been throughout its existence almost exclusively attributed to undemocratic regimes, which often utilize it in an aggressive fashion. In order to challenge this notion, this thesis seeks to reinterpret the conduct of the USA during the opening stages of the Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan 2001, through the lenses of hybrid warfare. Since hybrid warfare is very wide, often poorly defined term, the author chose to conceptualize a well- known description of Russian hybrid warfare, created by András Rácz in 2015, through which the studied case is then reinterpreted. The possibility of the Western democratic state waging hybrid warfare is, as far as existing research goes, completely unexplored, this thesis is hence delving into a completely new research area. This thesis also ponders on how this realization of Western ability to wage hybrid war can influence our outlook on the phenomenon itself. With this thesis, the author seeks to offer a new, factual outlook on hybrid warfare, unhindered by biases and emotional undertone which sadly mires many contributions to the academic debate on the topic. This new perspective on hybrid warfare, in authors personal opinion, can...