Dr Robert W H Seely
Dr Robert Seely writes academically and journalistically on forms of non-conventional warfare, Russian warfare, hybrid and asymmetric warfare.
Dr Seely has a PhD in International Security Studies, King's College London. His work examined contemporary Russian conflict and the unification of traditional and non-conventional warfare into what Seely argued is a new way of war.
His book on contemporary Russian warfare will be published in February 2025 by Biteback Publishing.
Seely was a foreign correspondent in the former Soviet Union from 1990 to 1994 for The Times and afterwards as a special correspondent for the Washington Post.
He was a Member of Parliament in Great Britain and led the all-Party groups on both Russia and Ukraine.
Address: United Kingdom
Dr Seely has a PhD in International Security Studies, King's College London. His work examined contemporary Russian conflict and the unification of traditional and non-conventional warfare into what Seely argued is a new way of war.
His book on contemporary Russian warfare will be published in February 2025 by Biteback Publishing.
Seely was a foreign correspondent in the former Soviet Union from 1990 to 1994 for The Times and afterwards as a special correspondent for the Washington Post.
He was a Member of Parliament in Great Britain and led the all-Party groups on both Russia and Ukraine.
Address: United Kingdom
less
InterestsView All (9)
Uploads
This Occasional Paper is designed to be an aid for researchers, academics, journalists, campaigners, and all those interested in the structure of political subversion, which at times is also called ‘hybrid warfare’. It has often been difficult to find hard evidence of Russian political manipulation, due to the covert nature of elements of this form of conflict. This paper presents leaked evidence, in a wealth of detail, to show a tactical snapshot of subversion, from the costs of demonstrations, to messaging lines, to the tactics of violent destabilisation.
First, Russian strategy is holistic, and so our response must be too.
Second, the UK can't just sit and stare at the burgeoning Russian threat.
Third, an imploding US presidency could turn a series of crises into abject disaster - and Trump is under severe pressure over his links to the Kremlin.
Finally, we need to develop ideas and policies to respond to these threats – yet we are fumbling for answers.
For a Russian language version of this article, please see: https://nv.ua/opinion/sili/britanii-pora-osoznat-uhrozu-rossii--2443240.html
Here is the abstract:
In this article, Robert Seely offers a comprehensive assessment of what has become known as Russian 'hybrid' warfare. First, he asks whether 'hybrid' is the most appropriate term to use when studying contemporary Russian warfare. Second, he introduces a method of categorisation to help make sense of the considerable diversity of Russian tools of war. Finally, he suggests that contemporary Russian warfare is more than just war, and amounts to a reinvention of strategic art, where the tools of state power are integrated into a single whole.
This is a manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the RUSI Journal, 3 April 2017. The Version of Record is available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2017.1301634
But how fair is this? And do we really know what the Russians are up to?
... The composition of Russia’s hybrid war tools change with the political terrain. Perhaps the best example of that is in the Baltic Sea area, the most complex, interesting and possibly dangerous area of confrontation, with the possible exception now of Syria. Here the different variants of Russian hybrid war overlap as Russia applies different tools, and different rules, to its relations with different states.
This Occasional Paper is designed to be an aid for researchers, academics, journalists, campaigners, and all those interested in the structure of political subversion, which at times is also called ‘hybrid warfare’. It has often been difficult to find hard evidence of Russian political manipulation, due to the covert nature of elements of this form of conflict. This paper presents leaked evidence, in a wealth of detail, to show a tactical snapshot of subversion, from the costs of demonstrations, to messaging lines, to the tactics of violent destabilisation.
First, Russian strategy is holistic, and so our response must be too.
Second, the UK can't just sit and stare at the burgeoning Russian threat.
Third, an imploding US presidency could turn a series of crises into abject disaster - and Trump is under severe pressure over his links to the Kremlin.
Finally, we need to develop ideas and policies to respond to these threats – yet we are fumbling for answers.
For a Russian language version of this article, please see: https://nv.ua/opinion/sili/britanii-pora-osoznat-uhrozu-rossii--2443240.html
Here is the abstract:
In this article, Robert Seely offers a comprehensive assessment of what has become known as Russian 'hybrid' warfare. First, he asks whether 'hybrid' is the most appropriate term to use when studying contemporary Russian warfare. Second, he introduces a method of categorisation to help make sense of the considerable diversity of Russian tools of war. Finally, he suggests that contemporary Russian warfare is more than just war, and amounts to a reinvention of strategic art, where the tools of state power are integrated into a single whole.
This is a manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the RUSI Journal, 3 April 2017. The Version of Record is available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2017.1301634
But how fair is this? And do we really know what the Russians are up to?
... The composition of Russia’s hybrid war tools change with the political terrain. Perhaps the best example of that is in the Baltic Sea area, the most complex, interesting and possibly dangerous area of confrontation, with the possible exception now of Syria. Here the different variants of Russian hybrid war overlap as Russia applies different tools, and different rules, to its relations with different states.