The Gerasimov Doctrine Revisited: Myth, Meme, or Method?
By The Security Nexus
“Hybrid warfare” is dead—long live mobilization. That’s the growing consensus among analysts reexamining Russia’s military conduct in Ukraine. Since the 2014 seizure of Crimea, the so-called Gerasimov Doctrine has loomed large in Western military discourse, popularized as a playbook for 21st-century hybrid conflict. But in 2022 and beyond, Russia’s grinding campaign in Ukraine—marked by frontal assaults, trench warfare, and massed artillery—seems to abandon the finesse and ambiguity supposedly central to that doctrine.
So what gives? Was the Gerasimov Doctrine ever a real guide to Russian strategy?
From Article to Archetype
The term “Gerasimov Doctrine” traces back to a 2013 article by General Valery Gerasimov, then Chief of the Russian General Staff. The piece discussed how the boundaries between war and peace were increasingly blurred and emphasized the growing role of non-military tools in modern conflict—including information operations, psychological warfare, and economic pressure. Gerasimov cited the Arab Spring as an example of how rapid political collapse could be induced without a formal war.
Western observers, particularly after the Crimea annexation, read this as a manifesto—a blueprint for hybrid war. Yet Gerasimov never intended to outline a doctrine. His article was more an observation of Western methods, particularly U.S. military and diplomatic tactics in regime change operations, than a prescription for Russian action.
Myth-Making and Misreading
Critics have long argued the West misappropriated Gerasimov’s ideas. Charles Bartles, among others, points out that no Russian official has ever endorsed a “Gerasimov Doctrine” per se. Russian officers routinely refer to the term as a Western invention, and some Russian sources even label it a “myth” or Western hybrid warfare aimed at Russia.
The so-called doctrine’s core—relying on indirect, asymmetrical means—is not new either. It draws heavily from Soviet-era tactics, such as maskirovka (deception), and has evolved into what many analysts now call “New Generation Warfare” (NGW). NGW emphasizes cross-domain operations and psychological impact over territorial control.
From Crimea to Kherson: What Changed?
Russia’s 2014 success in Crimea was surgical. Unmarked soldiers—“little green men”—combined with digital disinformation, rapid political manipulation, and local proxy forces. Western strategists saw hybrid warfare in its purest form.
By contrast, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has been conventionally catastrophic. The Kremlin attempted a Blitzkrieg-style decapitation of Kyiv and failed. What followed was high-intensity, attritional warfare: sieges, trenches, and missile barrages. The fluid, deniable hybrid model has been replaced by brute force and mobilization—strategies reminiscent of the Soviet playbook.
This shift may be due to necessity rather than choice. Ukraine’s military, now deeply integrated with NATO-style tactics and weaponry, adapted quickly to hybrid threats. Conventional warfare, however, became the Kremlin’s only viable path once ambiguity and misdirection failed to yield strategic victories.
What Still Holds
Despite the shift to conventional warfare, several principles from Gerasimov’s 2013 commentary remain relevant:
• Cross-domain integration: Russia continues to synchronize its kinetic operations with disinformation, diplomacy, and economic leverage.
• Information dominance: IO remains central to Russian campaigns, targeting both domestic and foreign audiences.
• Strategic ambiguity: While less emphasized in Ukraine, Russia still exploits legal and normative grey zones globally—from Syria to cyber operations against NATO states.
Furthermore, as Adamsky notes, the doctrine is better seen as a dynamic framework than a rigid plan. Its “4:1” emphasis on non-military over military tools may be aspirational, but its essence lies in adaptive, cross-domain strategy .
Conclusion: Time to Retire the Meme?
The Gerasimov Doctrine has become more of a meme than a method—a conceptual crutch for understanding Russia’s behavior post-Crimea. While its original observations remain valuable, the utility of this model as a predictive or explanatory tool has diminished in light of Russia’s evolving—and increasingly ineffective—military conduct in Ukraine.
Rather than view hybrid warfare as a Russian innovation, it may be more accurate to see it as a reactive adaptation, now being overwhelmed by the realities of peer-state conflict and high-intensity war. As analysts look to future Russian behavior, the focus should shift toward “state mobilization,” as Andrew Monaghan suggests, and away from hybrid tropes that no longer accurately map to Russia’s battlefield conduct.
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Sources:
• Adamsky, Dmitry. Cross-Domain Coercion. 2015.
• Bartles, Charles K. “Getting Gerasimov Right.” Military Review, Jan-Feb 2016.
• Donkersloot, Rogier. “Russian Hybrid Warfare.” Militaire Spectator, 2017.
• Monaghan, Andrew. “The ‘War’ in Russia’s ‘Hybrid Warfare’.” Parameters 45, no. 4 (2015): 65–74.
• Peco, Miguel. “On ‘The War’ in Russia’s ‘Hybrid Warfare’.” Parameters 48, no. 1 (2018): 103–109.
• “Expanding Tolstoy and Shrinking Dostoyevsky.” Military Review, Sep-Oct 2017.
• “Applying Machiavellian Discourse to Russian Hybrid Warfare.” Eastern Europe Studies Centre.
• Gartner, Lars. “Hybridkrigföringen.” FOI, 2018.
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