What is the Gerasimov Doctrine?

General Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov is the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and now running the war in Ukraine. Back in February of 2013, General Gerasimov gave a speech...

The Gerasimov Doctrine is really a doctrine of the “Hybrid Threat.” Even the man who coined the term “Gerasimov Doctrine” is unhappy with the name.

This Hybrid Threat doctrine recognizes that “…wars are no longer declared, and having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template” (Gerasimov, 2013).

As the Arab Spring had shown, a nation can sink into chaos with just the right combination of internal strife and and external push.

There are also more non-military means of undermining society with the advent of social media and identity politics. When you affiliate yourself with a tribal identity, everybody else automatically changes into an “other” and it becomes much easier to develop a pretext for for hate. This can be exploited.