One could probably identify a long list of instances where Caesar resorted to such tactics (except, perhaps, cyber warfare). It might include subterfuge, deception, undermining alliances, special forces activity, psychological operations, political subversion, as well as cyber, economic, and information warfare.īut, asked my friend, isn’t all this chatter in the defence world just a fad, and nothing new at all? “For example, my recollection of reading Caesar’s Gallic War at school is that, while Julius Caesar was all for set-piece battles, he also engaged in this stuff too, didn’t he?”
Many defence analysts view Russia as being partial to this sort of approach, particularly at present with Ukraine. He was thinking about the ideas of ‘hybrid war’ or ‘grey-zone war’ – new buzz-words which signify the idea of countries conducting warfare somehow ‘under the threshold of full combat’.
A friend in the world of defence think-tanks contacted me the other day to ask for a Classical perspective on his work.
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