The Middle East is once again hoping for peace. Israel and Hamas have reached a peace deal after the recent conflict of over two years. This latest chapter of the conflict rapidly escalated, getting Israel, Hamas, Iran, and even extra-regional players involved. The media is updating us on what is new almost hourly and all major players are hoping for the best.
In the meantime, what has happened to the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, which were the main warring parties in the region about a decade ago? Searching for an answer to this question focused my attention on a discreet battlefield and neglected aspect of contemporary conflicts. The battlefield in particular is Africa and the neglected aspect is the remarkable resilience of modern Violent Non-State Actors (VNSAs) or Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs).
I do not suggest these NSAGs are only active in one particular region. Africa has only been taken into consideration as a case study. While we are being overloaded with news on ‘mainstream’ conflicts such as Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas, it is frightening to see how the world has been engulfed in various VNSA ideologies and activities.
The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s Reports in July and August to the Security Council highlight how the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant or Da’esh and al-Qaeda along with like-minded groups such as al-Shabaab have been able to increase control in Sahel (a North Central African region) and peripheral regions of Africa. Reports say that 51% of the 2024 terror-related deaths in the world have occurred in the Sahel region alone.
Is there anything for us to be worried about? I would say yes, due to two reasons. First, we are not an exception along with the whole world to the wrath of modern NSAGs. The UN Report S/2025/482 in July states that there is a growing concern in South Asia related to terrorism. The warning given to tourists in Arugam Bay in 2024 is an example. Luckily, for us it was a warning, but for many terror victims across the globe, these threats manifested in bloodshed.
The second reason is the tactics of NSAGs, which have diversified from military to non-military domains, tampering with society as a whole. When they were dislocated from the Middle East and Afghanistan, the world thought that IS and al-Qaeda had vanished for good. Yet, it seems that they have re-emerged in Africa and elsewhere, proving that the total annihilation of NSAGs is next to impossible.
Scholars opine that they exist by design, and if so, that design will relocate and re-programme them but may not allow to get rid of them. Ironically, except for a very few, most of the violent conflicts that states face today are against NSAGs which are using multi-domain methods to fight. This re-emphasises the importance of civilian society analysing NSAGs.
I have explained this before in an article I wrote for The Daily Morning on 30 May titled ‘Are we ready for the weaponisation of competition?’ I brought out a fundamental feature of contemporary conflicts: the continuum of competition. Different competitors in the current operational environment ‘fight’ with each other and we term these interactions as wars, conflicts, or competition.
Although there are distinct dictionary meanings for these terms, they essentially mean the same in the broader context. Basically, wars are part of conflicts and conflicts are parts of the larger realm of competition. In this perpetual competition, both state and non-state actors use their Diplomatic, Informational, Military, and Economic (DIME) means of power projection to influence competitors in all possible areas, such as information, communication, media, connectivity, military deployments, investments, loans, grants, diplomacy, laws, finance, supply chains, raw material supply, trade, commerce, tariffs, and many more. Their influence may manifest in various forms including traditional warfare, deterrence, irregular warfare, and competition.
Modern actors will use these interactions infusion and thereby the way they would compete will always be a conundrum. The ensuing persistent competition has underlined many features of contemporary conflicts. Based on this broad understanding, let us focus on a few specific aspects that define contemporary warfare and conflicts, which are cleverly being used by NSAGs.
Grey-zone warfare
Frank Hoffman opines that grey-zone warfare comprises “multi-dimensional activities aimed to alter adversary behaviour while remaining below the threshold of conventional military employment”.
Grey-zone tactics are designed as covert operations that use the instruments of power ambiguously to gain strategic objectives without crossing the threshold of war. Thereby, grey-zone warfare can be viewed as the use of DIME to influence an adversary’s interests without triggering a direct military confrontation. On most occasions, the target may not clearly comprehend that acts of grey-zone warfare are orchestrated against it.
Commonly used tools in the grey zone are proxy warfare, cyber warfare, and information operations. The NSAGs that exert control over large regions and populations, emboldened by their resources and trade relations with some state actors, presuming their overambitious quasi statehood, tend to launch such operations.
Considering the use of information operations, diplomacy, and economy, it is apparent that grey zone warfare is conducted mostly by non-military operatives in non-military domains. As former Pakistani General Zubair Mahmood Hayat has observed: “Grey-zone conflict is a tailored mix of subversion, terrorism, irregular-economic-information warfare, social engineering and disruption, conventional application, and, finally, criminal behaviour.” This idea categorically sheds light on obvious civilian domains exploited in the grey zone and amply reflects the activities of NSAGs.
Asymmetric warfare
David Buffaloe conceptualised asymmetric warfare as “population-centric non-traditional warfare waged between a militarily superior power and inferior power”. Historically and in general, asymmetric warfare has been used by the weak party of an armed conflict to compensate for its inferiority.
The use of unorthodox tactics is the mainstay of this form of warfare. Insurgency, terrorism, and information operations are famous among asymmetric practitioners. Prominent instances include the Vietnam War in the past and post-war Afghanistan and Iraq where superior conventional capabilities were effectively disrupted by asymmetric groups fighting subversive campaigns.
We experienced this form of warfare effectively being used by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. In all cases – Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sri Lanka – it was to the advantage of the NSAGs.
Accordingly, it is clear that NSAGs heavily rely on asymmetric tactics to compensate for their inferiority when confronting conventional adversaries (usually state forces), who endure a strategic dilemma. Certain tactics, often inclined to illegal acts or at the extreme end, to terrorism, cannot be used by state forces.
One of the perfect quotes that explain this situation was by David Galula, who noted: “There is an asymmetry between the opposite camps of a revolutionary war. This phenomenon results from the… disproportion of strength, assets, and liabilities. The insurgent has a formidable asset – the ideological power of a cause. The counterinsurgent has a heavy liability – responsibility of maintaining order throughout the country.”
To succeed against NSAGs, state parties need to use asymmetric tactics in both military and non-military domains. US President John F. Kennedy’s (JFK) statement in 1962 at a United States Military Academy graduation is perhaps the first time a conventional Commander-in-Chief accepted the worth of state parties embracing what was new.
He said: “This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin. War by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins… seeking victory by exhausting the enemy. It requires a whole new kind of strategy, a different kind of force, and a new and different kind of military training.”
When we fast-forward from 1962 to today and take what he meant, out of the military graduation context, it is quite obvious that President JFK’s assertion is not only relevant to the military but to society as a whole.
Hybrid warfare
Warfare of the day, hybrid warfare perfectly blends with the concept of continuum of competition. A UK military publication in 2017 defines it as “the synchronised use of multiple instruments of power tailored to specific vulnerabilities across the full spectrum of societal functions to achieve synergistic effects”. A simpler definition suggests that it is the fusion between conventional and unconventional warfare.
Hoffman in 2007 states: “Hybrid wars can be conducted by both states and a variety of NSAs. Hybrid wars incorporate a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts of indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder.”
As I mentioned earlier, most NSAGs prefer to consider them as legitimate state actors and thereby attempt to fight using conventional tactics too. However, the asymmetry compels them to resort to unconventional methods, giving birth to hybrid tactics. In this form of warfare, distinguishing boundaries, friends or foe, or the legitimacy of means used is not easy. Thus, hybrid warfare is fully compatible with the theory of unrestricted warfare.
Unrestricted warfare
Two Chinese military scholars, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, state in their publication ‘Unrestricted Warfare’: “In warfare and non-military warfare, there is no territory which cannot be surpassed; there is no means which cannot be used in the war; and there is no territory and method which cannot be used in combination.”
The world today is characterised by many unique features that embolden unrestricted warfare. The current world is ‘borderless’ in many aspects, particularly in the realms of information and ideologies. It is highly interconnected as well as interdependent. Therefore, whether it is hybrid or unrestricted, grey zone, or asymmetric, in modern warfare a particular actor’s capability to use instruments of power to intimidate, deter, subdue, or coerce opponents has increased tremendously.
The challenge and the remedy
Taking the acts of NSAGs in Africa and elsewhere into consideration along with their notorious resilience and diversification of tactics, I feel we should be better informed, vigilant, and prepared. It is not a secret that the NSAGs are widely using social media for their propaganda, funding, and recruiting, which the world has not been able to restrict.
A major source of funding for them comes through trade (of natural resources which they control, contrabands such as weapons and drugs, human trafficking, etc.) and at certain points they collaborate with official networks. VNSA fund transfers often take place via virtual currency or legitimate banking networks of certain collaborating countries.
Homegrown violent extremism is one of the most dangerous products of these NSAGs. In most instances even they cannot control the lone wolves that they produce. Legitimate governments across the globe, pumping in millions of dollars, astute human resources, and the best of minds, have not been able to contain the inevitable resurgence of the NSAGs, making resilience their most dangerous feature.
I fervently believe this is due to their clever use of trends of modern warfare discussed above: grey-zone, asymmetric, hybrid, and unrestricted warfare. One may say all are synonymous. For me, they are different shades and insights of contemporary conflict dynamics, defined and conceptualised to suit diverse contexts.
Let us as a society, all stakeholders and even all individuals, be mindful of the importance of understanding the relevance of these concepts. In this borderless world which is driven by narratives and defined by chaos, the threat may not be very far. Therefore, we better be prepared for the inevitable.
(The writer is an officer with the Sri Lanka Armoured Corps)
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)