“In terms of doctrinal thinking, new generation warfare presents a shopping list from high-end conventional capability to information warfare and subversion. It is a messy concept combining long-running strains in Russian military thought together with defense trends observed in the West. New generation warfare betrays a reimagining of the phases of war in recognition of the fact that conflict outcomes are increasingly decided in peacetime and that military forces can be used under various guises without public acknowledgment of hostilities.
New generation warfare’s most salient points are on the employment of non-military instruments of national power in confrontation, asymmetric and indirect methods, and the de facto search for competitive advantages against much stronger adversaries. It moves the needle more toward the population as the center of gravity and away from direct force-on-force contests centered upon large military forces and firepower. Moscow seeks to win conflicts on the cheap without overly committing in expensive forms of warfare.”
Source: The Moscow School of Hard Knocks: Key Pillars of Russian Strategy
