Reflecting on One Year of War: The Role of Non-Military Levers​

By Clara Le Gargasson, James Black

In December 2021, with Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders, President Biden ruled out sending U.S. forces to defend Ukraine. A year after the invasion, direct military engagement between NATO and Russia remains out-of-bounds. Despite this, the West finds itself in indirect conflict with Russia, backing Ukraine with weapons, intelligence, training, and an unprecedented package of sanctions against Moscow.

The pressing question is: what kind of conflict? To understand this, and how its dynamics may evolve, it is important to understand concepts such as “sub-threshold” and “gray zone” competition; to be able to identify the main military and non-military levers in use; and to explore how these are being employed by the West and Russia one year on.

The Role of Non-Military Levers

When “little green men” entered the east and south of Ukraine in 2014, Russia harnessed ambiguity to illegally seize de facto control of Crimea and areas of Luhansk and Donetsk while denying aggression. This subversion of Ukrainian sovereignty, international law, and the notion of facts or truth sparked a wave of interest in such “hybrid” tactics by Western analysts.

This spawned numerous related concepts, such as “gray zone” conflict or competition, “measures short of war,” “sub-threshold operations,” or “liminal warfare.” Their common feature is the focus on combining military and non-military levers, with actions being a mix of overt, ambiguous, or covert, and aiming to stretch, test, or transgress established thresholds. This enables hostile actors to undermine their rivals without triggering a full-blown military response.

Ukraine has not been the only target; the U.K. experienced an apparent Russian chemical weapons attack in 2018, and there have been widespread allegations of Russian interference in Western elections, as well as cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns across NATO.

Nor are these tactics something only Russia and other authoritarian actors, such as China, can employ. Today, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the West is actively contributing to Kyiv’s cause through a mix of military and non-military levers. Ukraine’s international partners thereby hope to limit and disrupt Russia’s wartime capabilities while strengthening Ukraine’s chances of ultimate victory.

Non-military levers can broadly be classified into four categories: the economy, politics, the information environment, and the confluence of the cyber, electromagnetic and space domains. These efforts do not get the daily media coverage that troop movements and airstrikes do; it is thus important to take stock of the often innovative, cross-domain ways in which the war is being waged by both sides through non-military means.

Economic Levers

Trade sanctions, energy and food security threats, and price volatility have all become daily reminders of the ongoing war to Russia and the wider world. To limit the Kremlin’s war chest, Western countries have imposed significant economic sanctions.

Perhaps most notably, this includes bans on fuel imports. In the near-term, this has imposed significant costs across the West, but especially in European nations most dependent on access to cheap Russian energy supplies. They are now having to foot the bill of transitioning quickly to renewables, nuclear, or liquified natural gas.

Non-aligned third parties, like India, have been quick to buy up Russian oil and gas at discounted prices, and Russian revenues have benefitted in the short-term from a surge in energy prices. In the longer-term, however, reduced European reliance on Russian supplies means Moscow will be less able to use energy blackmail to undermine NATO and EU cohesion.

Another direct and growing impact on the war effort is the West’s ongoing attempts to cut Russia off from global supply chains for technology, materials and dual-use items. There have also been concerted efforts to find new suppliers for goods previously provided by Russia to bypass the coercive aspect of these trade relationships. This weakens Russia’s economy and its leverage over Western countries, while also making it more reliant on China, Iran, and a web of illicit networks to backfill supplies of electronics and other parts.

Russia has also waged economic warfare on Ukraine, the West, and the wider world. This is evident in its refusal of price caps on oil and gas, sending prices spiraling, and by its limiting of grain and fertilizer exports, which created a worldwide food security crisis endangering many non-Western countries’ food supplies. Moscow is also suspected of influencing OPEC to cut the group’s oil outputs, contributing to higher prices and supply difficulties that have disproportionately affected Europe. This has resulted in a cost-of-living crisis, which businesses and consumers are feeling keenly. With both sides carrying a heavy economic cost, it looks to be a test of whose population can withstand the most financial pain for the sake of strategic goals.

Political Levers

Global politics is another focus, with Russia and the West using their political platforms to denounce each other’s actions in various diplomatic forums, form groups of like-minded countries, and attempt to draw still-neutral states to their cause. The West’s united pro-Ukraine front has provided Kyiv with a strong political platform and international legitimacy and helped dispel Russian disinformation. Ukraine has also largely taken control of the war narrative through formidable strategic communication campaigns showcasing Ukrainian bravery, and through Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s widely-praised public appearances and impassioned speeches.

Russia, despite fiery speeches at the UN Security Council, defiant declarations aimed at intimidating Ukraine’s backers, or disinformation campaigns targeting NATO countries like Turkey and Hungary, has made limited progress is rallying countries to its cause. Its attempts to shift perceptions of the war are constant, as it blames Ukraine for Russian strikes, accuses it of chemical weapons use, and “debunks” Ukrainian narratives through facsimile journalism. China has remained a key ally for Russia and provided it with non-military support, with growing concern in the West that this may turn into more direct provision of weapons and ammunition. Russia’s close political partnership and bilateral operations with Belarus also keeps the threat of a second front alive, pinning a portion of Ukraine’s forces in the north.

Information Levers

While politics is not a new arena for conflict, the emergence of new tools and techniques for engaging with global audiences has brought a new vocabulary to narrative competition.

Information warfare has found new shapes in post-invasion Ukraine. The Ukrainian government’s streamlining of open-source intelligence (OSINT) has led to mass sharing of information, which can not only debunk false narratives, but also identify targets, monitor troop positions, and assess military strikes’ impact. Civilians contribute to the analysis and sharing of this information to social media. Russia has struggled to acquire a comparable network of pro-Russian informants and is attempting to mitigate the scope of Ukraine’s information capacities by confiscating civilians’ phones in occupied territories.

Another prominent feature of information warfare has been the sharing or declassification of foreign military intelligence. Such actions, spearheaded by the U.K. and the U.S., give Ukraine access to confidential Russian military data. Timely declassification to share intelligence with the public – a highly unusual step for intelligence establishments – has similarly helped preemptively debunk Russian efforts to stage “false-flag attacks” to legitimize aggression in Ukraine. This affords greater transparency to the public, who can access live battlefield updates and digest daily analysis.

In this era of ubiquitous connectivity, the information environment has undergone a revolution: participation in elements of information warfare is now within everybody’s reach, raising questions about the status, role, risks, and obligations of all who participate.

Cyber, Electromagnetic and Space Levers

Information warfare relies not only on political narratives, but also on Information Communication Technologies to underpin the generation, flow, and exploitation of data. In this regard, the cyber, electromagnetic and space domains have all played a vital role.

Cyberwarfare remains a feature of the conflict, though to a lesser extent than what was assumed pre-invasion. Cyberattacks attributed to Russia have targeted Ukrainian critical national infrastructure, such as energy and healthcare, as well as affecting targets further afield, such as European satellite company Viasat. Such attacks have seemingly been less effective, however, than those Ukraine suffered in the 2010s. This has been attributed to improved Ukrainian cyber defenses, made stronger by the assistance of Western allies and private firms such as Microsoft, who have contributed to mitigating vulnerabilities and repelling attacks. As such, cyberwarfare has not turned into the decisive element some were predicting; the threat of further cyberattacks nevertheless looms large, with fears on both sides that high-end offensive cyber capabilities are being held in reserve for future conflict escalation.

Electronic warfare is another area where Russia continues to try and disrupt Ukrainian defenses. There have been widespread efforts to jam GPS signals and mobile telephony, as well as to use EW capabilities to take out the thousands of Ukrainian or Russian drones operating over the battlefield.

Space has similarly become an arena of contestation. By targeting satellites early in the invasion, Russia hoped to cut Ukrainian access to the Internet and GPS, to devastating effect for both the military and civilian populations. Actors from the West stepped up to help. Private firms such as Maxar have provided access to satellite imagery, aiding not only Ukrainian forces but also those NGOs, journalists and others collecting evidence of Russian war crimes. Similarly, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has supplied Ukrainian users with satellite communications, via Starlink, that he has vowed to keep safe from attempted Russian hacking – introducing a new commercial domain to the conflict.

Conclusion

The war Russia has waged since February 2022 is being contested on many fronts, with indirect Western participation through military aid to Ukraine and use of wider non-military levers representing the latest evolution of great power competition below the threshold of open conflict. Civilian participation is evolving fast, especially through OSINT or the actions of private firms. This is worth monitoring as the world takes stock one year on, and considers how the Ukraine War, and warfare more generally, may evolve in future.

Clara Le Gargasson is a Research Assistant in the Defense and Security Group at RAND Europe, the European arm of the non-profit RAND Corporation. Her research interests include cyber warfare, geopolitical narratives, OSINT, disinformation, and the Russian-speaking world.

James Black is Assistant Director of the Defense and Security Group at RAND Europe, as well as a non-resident NATO 2030 Fellow. He has written extensively on transatlantic defense and security and leads research on defense strategy for European governments, EU, and NATO.

The views expressed in this article do not represent those of RAND or its research sponsors, with the authors writing in their personal capacity.

The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.