Who will win a ’hybrid war’ between the US and Iran?

US President Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate Qasem Soleimani has kicked off a new kind of war, unique to the 21st Century, one where the battlefields are everywhere and nowhere, all at the same time. It’s something military planners have come to call “hybrid war”. 

Some of the casualties may come as deaths and injuries, while still others will be psychological, financial or political, delivered over the internet in the form of cyber attacks and database hacking. 

A hallmark of a hybrid war is a lack of clarity over whether or not it has started, or is going on at all. You can imagine it like a social media newsfeed scroll. It’s always there, even if you are not looking at it at the moment. And once you start scrolling, it is hard to stop. It exists always, in the past, present, and future. 

“It encompasses everything more violent than ‘formal negotiations between state diplomats’ and less violent than ‘uniformed militaries fighting each other,’ but also a bunch of weird stuff, like industrial espionage and influence campaigns,” Kelsey D. Atheron, a defence technology journalist and commentator, told TRT World. 

If that sounds confusing, that is because its confusion is the main ammunition in hybrid war, where the information humans produce and consume becomes both weapon and battleground. That is true right now for Iran and the United States. In fact, it is the main ‘’theatre of operations’’ as defence ministers might say. 

“Hybrid warfare is an attempt to acknowledge the holistic nature of actions taken by states in conflict, but instead of treating it as timeless and in the gray area of less-than-total-war, it rebrands it as a new phenomena uniquely aided by modern technology,” Atherton explained.

Although it takes on elements of the latest information technology, hybrid war is not new. Some experts hold up the Russian annexation of Crimea and its on-going proxy battle in Ukraine against the US-backed government in Kiev as an example of this kind of warfare, where tactics that have existed since the birth of human conflict include the intimidation and the deliberate deception of the enemy. But all these take on new life online, and essentially draft millions of people into participating, whether knowing it or not, a conflict they didn’t choose. 

Although nebulous, the term is on the tips of tongues at NATO headquarters. The alliance has a page on its website explaining how it will be countering such threats.

“Hybrid threats combine military and non-military as well as covert and overt means, including disinformation, cyber attacks, economic pressure, deployment of irregular armed groups and use of regular forces. Hybrid methods are used to blur the lines between war and peace, and attempt to sow doubt in the minds of target populations,” NATO states. 

“The speed, scale and intensity of hybrid threats have increased in recent years. Being prepared to prevent, counter and respond to hybrid attacks, whether by state or non-state actors, is a top priority for NATO.”

So who has the advantage, Iran or the United States? For decades, and still today, experts and pundits from all over the world refer to the US as having “the most powerful military in human history”, but when engaging in a hybrid war with Iran, that military might doesn’t guarantee victory. 

The main American disadvantage is a lack of clarity of purpose in attacking Soleimani, or a way to de-escalate the conflict with an opponent that has every reason to disbelieve President Donald Trump when he says the US is not interested in conducting “regime change” against Iran. 

Trump’s White House has given them no reason to believe he desires any sort of peaceful co-existence or normalisation of relations, especially when the benchmarks for Iran to meet are subject to change without notice. Trump could lose the presidency in 2020, but Iranian leadership will still be there, in Iran, where they live. By contrast, forcing the US, a hostile foreign power, out of Iraq is a singular, and potentially achievable, Iranian goal. 

Aspects of hybrid warfare we see today have been part of the relationship between the US and the Islamic Republic since its creation in 1979. The hostage crisis itself is a prime example of a hybrid war tactic, using a non-lethal level of violence to intimidate and outrage an enemy. 

Soleimani’s assassination is an example of lethal violence that escalates a hybrid conflict. Tuesday morning’s Iranian missile attack, which reportedly killed no one, on Iraqi air bases is another example of violence that doesn’t reach the level of full on war, but demonstrates Iran’s ability to strike. 

On Wednesday morning, at a press conference surrounded by his top military aides, Trump came close to declaring victory over Iran in the latest crisis. 

“Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world,” Trump said. 

But with the lack of clarity over the goals of a hybrid war also comes the impossibility of telling whether it is over, or who really “won”. Indeed, a good example of this ambiguity came with the reaction from some pundits to the unfolding crisis. 

“The United States has killed the head of Iran's military in the Cabinet and the response has been, you know, virtually nothing,” Ian Bremmer, Director of the Eurasia Group, a consultancy, told CNN on Wednesday.

“There's a real opportunity for diplomacy if Trump wants it and is capable of taking it. But for now, let's be clear, this is a much more powerful United States showing the Iranians that you are not going to come after the US directly.”

Bremmer was, however, perhaps most correct by declaring the crisis a “win for US president”. At least for the next few hours, Trump seems to have avoided the political disaster of a major military escalation and the deaths of Americans that could follow. 

But is it a win for anybody else? For Iraqis, the crisis has imperiled their lives already, and could well do so again. And the notion that the United States has shown itself as “much more powerful” is not something that can be reflected by territory lost or gained on a battlefield. Whether the US has won or lost depends on the mood of one man, Trump, who even under the squishy definitions of hybrid war, has sole discretion to launch the US nuclear arsenal. 

The world can only hope Trump still thinks he’s winning tomorrow.