Valery Gerasimov

The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
by David E. Sanger
Published 18 Jun 2018

Rarely in human history has a new weapon been adapted with such speed, customized to fit so many different tasks, and exploited by so many nations to reshape their influence on global events without turning to outright war. Among the fastest adapters has been Putin’s Russia, which deserves credit as a master of the art form, though it is not the only practitioner. Moscow has shown the world how hybrid war works. The strategy is hardly a state secret: Valery Gerasimov, a Russian general, described the strategy in public, and then helped implement it in Ukraine, the country that has become a test-bed for techniques Russia later used against the United States and its allies. The Gerasimov doctrine combines old and new: Stalinist propaganda, magnified by the power of Twitter and Facebook, and backed up by brute force.

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“President Trump has used just about every lever you can use, short of starving the people of North Korea to death, to change their behavior.” CHAPTER VII PUTIN’S PETRI DISH In the twenty-first century we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace. Wars are no longer declared and, having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template. —Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, on Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy, 2013 In the last days of June 2017, Dmytro Shymkiv was 4,600 miles from Ukraine, dropping off his kids for summer camp in upstate New York. It was the family’s annual summer break from life in Kiev, a capital that still lives uncomfortably between the tug of old Soviet culture and the lure of new Europe.

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They became the Möbius strip of twenty-first-century conflict, one continuous band, with surfaces that seem to blend seamlessly into each other. Putin showed the world how effective this strategy, what the Pentagon terms “hybrid warfare,” can be. The strategy was hardly a state secret. In fact, Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of the Russian Federation armed forces, described it in a much-quoted 2014 article in a Russian defense journal (the wonderfully named The Military-Industrial Courier) articulating what is now widely known as the Gerasimov doctrine. Gerisamov described what any historian of Russian war fighting knows well: a battlefield war that merges conventional attacks, terror, economic coercion, propaganda, and, most recently, cyber.

Messing With the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News
by Clint Watts
Published 28 May 2018

They also required less resistance to cement themselves among targeted Western populations and to generate grassroots support. Active measures could and would work; the timing just wasn’t right—until the advent of the internet. * * * Almost a year before Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the chief of the general staff of the Russian Federation, General Valery Gerasimov, authored an article laying out his vision of future warfare based on his interpretation of recent Arab Spring protests across North Africa and the Middle East. Gerasimov noted: The very rules of war have changed. The role of non-military means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness. . . .

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(December 2009) 1–24. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol53no4/pdf/U-%20Boghardt-AIDS-Made%20in%20the%20USA-17Dec.pdf. 4. Robert Coalson, “Top Russian General Lays Bare Putin’s Plan for Ukraine,” The Huffington Post (November 2, 2014). https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-coalson/valery-gerasimov-putin-ukraine_b_574 8480.html. 5. “Russia to create ‘cyber-troops’–Ministry of Defense,” RT (August 20, 2013). https://www.rt.com/news/russia-cyber-troops-defence-753. 6. Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, and Scott Shane, “The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.,” The New York Times (December 13, 2016). https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html. 7.

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers
by Andy Greenberg
Published 5 Nov 2019

In 2013, the Russian-language journal Voenno-Promyshlennyi Kur’er, or Military-Industrial Courier, had published a two-thousand-word article with an absurdly dry title: “The Value of Science in Prediction.” It was based on a speech given by the chief of the General Staff of the Russian military, General Valery Gerasimov. The article was little noticed in the West, but Mark Galeotti published a translation in his blog a year later. “In the 21st century we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace,” the article began. “Wars are no longer declared and, having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template.”

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In the spring: “MH17—Russian GRU Commander ‘Orion’ Identified as Oleg Kannikov,” Bellingcat, May 25, 2018, www.bellingcat.com; and “Third Suspect in Skripal Poisoning Identified as Denis Sergeev, High Ranking GRU Officer,” Bellingcat, Feb. 24, 2019, bellingcat.com. It was based on a speech: Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying Out Combat Operations,” Military-Industrial Courier, Feb. 27, 2013, translated and reprinted in Military Review, Jan./Feb. 2016, usacac.army.mil/. The article was little noticed: Mark Galeotti, “The ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ and Russian Non-linear War,” In Moscow’s Shadow, Feb. 27, 2013, inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com, archived at bit.ly/2G2NsEK.

Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War
by Paul Scharre
Published 23 Apr 2018

Russian companies’ boasting of autonomous features has none of the hesitation or hedging that is often seen from American or British defense firms. Senior Russian military commanders have stated they intend to move toward fully robotic weapons. In a 2013 article on the future of warfare, Russian military chief of staff General Valery Gerasimov wrote: Another factor influencing the essence of modern means of armed conflict is the use of modern automated complexes of military equipment and research in the area of artificial intelligence. While today we have flying drones, tomorrow’s battlefields will be filled with walking, crawling, jumping, and flying robots.

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,” 5G Network Softwarization, May 21, 2015, http://ieee-sdn.blogspot.com/2015/05/cognitization-is-upon-us.html. 6 “fully roboticized . . . military operations”: Robert Coalson, “Top Russian General Lays Bare Putin’s Plan for Ukraine,” Huffington Post, September 2, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-coalson/valery-gerasimov-putin-ukraine_b_5748480.html. 6 Department of Defense officials state: Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research Melissa Flagg, as quoted in Stew Magnuson, “Autonomous, Lethal Robot Concepts Must Be ‘On the Table,’ DoD Official Says,” March 3, 2016, http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?

Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America
by Christopher Wylie
Published 8 Oct 2019

Later, it emerged that Facebook, in a panic about its PR crisis, had hired the secret communications firm Definers Public Affairs, which subsequently leaked out fake narratives filled with anti-Semitic tropes about its critics being part of a George Soros–funded conspiracy. Rumors were seeded on the Internet and, as I discovered personally, its targets took it as a cue to take matters into their own hands. * * * — IN FEBRUARY 2013, a Russian military general named Valery Gerasimov wrote an article challenging the prevailing notions of warfare. Gerasimov, who was Russia’s chief of the general staff (roughly equivalent to chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff), penned his thoughts in the Military-Industrial Kurier under the title “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight”—a set of ideas that some would later dub the Gerasimov Doctrine.

Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason
by William Davies
Published 26 Feb 2019

Part of the appeal of war, at least as an idea, is that—unlike the civil society designed by the likes of Hobbes—it represents a form of politics where feelings really matter. PART TWO The Rise of Feeling 5 KNOWLEDGE FOR WAR Secrecy, sentiment, and real-time intelligence In an influential article published in 2013, the Russian general Valery Gerasimov argued that “in the twenty-first century we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace. Wars are no longer declared.” The example of the 2011 Arab Spring suggested to Gerasimov that “nonmilitary” means of war could be far more threatening to state powers in the future than traditional military ones.

Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-Connected World
by Bruce Schneier
Published 3 Sep 2018

Broad (4 Mar 2017), “Trump inherits a secret cyberwar against North Korean missiles,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/asia/north-korea-missile-program-sabotage.html. 71In 2012, a senior Russian general: Mark Galeotti (6 Jul 2014), “The ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ and Russian non-linear war,” In Moscow’s Shadows, https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/the-gerasimov-doctrine-and-russian-non-linear-war. Henry Foy (15 Sep 2017), “Valery Gerasimov, the general with a doctrine for Russia,” Financial Times, https://www.ft.com/content/7e14a438-989b-11e7-a652-cde3f882dd7b. 71There are cyberattacks that will be: David E. Sanger and Elisabeth Bumiller (31 May 2011), “Pentagon to consider cyberattacks acts of war,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/us/politics/01cyber.html. 71a state that political scientist Lucas Kello calls “unpeace”: Lucas Kello (2017), The Virtual Weapon and International Order, Yale University Press, https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300220230/virtual-weapon-and-international-order. 71The US responded to the North Korean attack: Carol Morello and Greg Miller (2 Jan 2015), “U.S. imposes sanctions on N.

The Levelling: What’s Next After Globalization
by Michael O’sullivan
Published 28 May 2019

Abi-Habib, “How China Got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port,” New York Times, June 25, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-lanka-port.html. 20. Van Creveld, More on War; Grayling, War. 21. See General Gerasimov’s essay: G. Valery, “The Value of Science in Foresight,” Military Industrial Courier, February 26, 2013, https://www.vpk-news.ru/articles/14632; also H. Foy, “Valery Gerasimov, the General with a Doctrine for Russia,” Financial Times, September 15, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/7e14a438-989b-11e7-a652-cde3f882dd7b. 22. The US Army Futures Command in Austin, Texas, is one of the areas of thought leadership in new aspects of warfare such as urban-based war. 23.

The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power
by Jacob Helberg
Published 11 Oct 2021

They’d simply gotten there first.”131 Gerasimov Meets Civil-Military Fusion In early 2013, with the embers of the Arab Spring still smoldering, an article appeared in a Russian military publication called the Military-Industrial Courier. Under the bland headline “The Value of Science in Prediction,” Russian general Valery Gerasimov argued that nonmilitary means could be used to destabilize seemingly stable societies.132 Indeed, he asserted that the United States had been doing exactly that in Eastern Europe through pro-democracy organizations and the Internet. “In the twenty-first century we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace,” Gerasimov wrote.

Near and Distant Neighbors: A New History of Soviet Intelligence
by Jonathan Haslam
Published 21 Sep 2015

All of a sudden the GRU has found a new role in what might be described as “implausibly deniable” aktivka, operations not unlike those conducted against Poland by the Fourth in the 1920s: sufficient to keep the wound bleeding but insufficient, thus far, to warrant massive retaliation.8 These forms of covert operations were heralded by the new chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, in January 2013. The business-speak within the army today is “outsourcing,” which has been coined as a new Russian word. Now it has acquired a new meaning altogether. Moscow “outsources” its war fighting. Considered “an intellectual,” in the words of the editor of Natsional’naya oborona, Gerasimov assured those assembled at the Academy of Military Sciences that force continued to play an important role in resolving disputes between countries and that “hot points” existed close to Russian frontiers.

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales From the Pentagon
by Rosa Brooks
Published 8 Aug 2016

ISIS has been quick to exploit U.S. overreliance on high-tech precision weapons as well, and our related refusal to consider “boots on the ground.” Near-peer states such as China and Russia have also taken notice. The Russians have already begun to reshape their strategic assumptions around these changes. In a 2013 article in a Russian military journal, for instance, Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s deputy defense minister and chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, wrote of the need for his country’s military to adapt to this new world: “In the 21st century we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace. Wars are no longer declared and, having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template.”

The Future of War
by Lawrence Freedman
Published 9 Oct 2017

In 2006 its tactics showed up those of Israel, which judged the demands of the war poorly, relying too much on air power without a strong ground presence. But the war was also costly for the militia, with a lot of fighters killed, and the Israeli campaign battered its urban sanctuaries.7 Interest in the approach was revived as it was apparently followed by Russia in its campaign against Ukraine that began in 2014. In early 2013 Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s general staff, had described how this might work. He noted how in Middle East conflicts there had been a progressive erosion of the distinctions between war and peace and between uniformed personnel and covert operatives. Wars were ‘not declared but simply begin,’ so that ‘a completely well-off and stable country’ could be transformed into ‘an arena of the most intense armed conflict in a matter of months or even days.’

Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media
by Peter Warren Singer and Emerson T. Brooking
Published 15 Mar 2018

After the color revolutions roiled Eastern Europe and the Arab Spring swept the Middle East, a similar wave of enthusiasm in late 2011 inspired tens of thousands of young Russians to take to the streets, mounting the most serious protests of Putin’s reign. Perceiving the combined forces of liberalization and internet-enabled activism as an engineered attack by the West, the Russian government resolved to fight back. The aim of Russia’s new strategy, and its military essence, was best articulated by Valery Gerasimov, the country’s top-ranking general at the time. He channeled Clausewitz, declaring in a speech reprinted in the Russian military’s newspaper that “the role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown. In many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness.”