Tallinn, Estonia: The some 200 participants in this year’s Annual Baltic Conference on Defence (ABCD) hosted by the Estonian ministry of defence and the International Centre for Defence and Security wrestled with the provocative question: ‘Who’s afraid of hybrid warfare?’ Participants arrived from both sides of the Atlantic and included among the many dignitaries ministers of defence, serving ambassadors and the last chairman of NATO’s military committee. Indeed, as will be argued, hybrid was not universally regarded as a useful adjective. The provenance of the term hybrid warfare was by no means clear. But, after September 11 and the US’s and allied interventions into Afghanistan and then Iraq waging the misnamed war on terror, and later Russia’s annexation of Crimea and occupation of part of eastern Ukraine, it appeared that perhaps traditional definitions of war no longer fit today’s environment. The emergence of al Qaeda and then Islamic State (IS), combining a malignant ideology with gratuitous use of terror and violence, did not require conventional military forces to achieve their ends. And, despite a medieval ideology, these vile groups displayed a brilliant ability to master the most modern technologies on the internet and social media as weapons in their despicable arsenal. In Moscow’s foray into Ukraine, propaganda, exploiting Russian-speaking minority Ukrainians, cyber warfare and military troops disguised as irregular forces became tools in an expanding toolbox to accomplish its aims. This larger toolbox was called hybrid warfare in an attempt to distinguish it from past forms of war. As most participants agreed, war did not need a descriptive adjective because hybrid operations were as old as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Marcus Aurelius’ Emperor’s Handbook and Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince. The key issue was not describing the nature of war, hybrid or not. The looming challenge was more formidable. Needed were effective solutions for countering, containing and overcoming the deployment of Russian military capability to Syria, and the rise of IS, al Qaeda and other perverted radical Muslim actors. They have forced the massive dislocation of many millions of people in the Maghreb and Middle East. In this conference, I recommended implementing a “brains based approach” to strategic thinking as the best means for dealing with the security dangers and threats facing NATO and the west. This column has made this case before. One of the west’s most glaring deficits is the lack of fuller understanding and knowledge on the nature and cause of these threats and dangers from which to craft policy actions. In particular, participants noted the absence of Russian experts since the Soviet Union imploded a quarter of a century ago. Another failure is the preference to view the world in 20th and not 21st century terms. And last is the conclusion that defence can only be ‘repaired’ by greater spending, an argument I firmly believe is both unnecessary and politically impossible barring a future catastrophic event. To deal with a lack of knowledge and understanding, a 21st century version of Britain’s famous World War II code-breaking operation housed at Bletchley Park and known by that name must be established. Today’s Bletchley Park would complement intelligence agencies by relying on open source material available on social media, the internet and Google Earth to derive the needed levels of knowledge and understanding of threats and adversaries to the point of even identifying potential jihadi recruits. The framework for the 21st century must be based on the realities that the Cold War’s Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) has been replaced by Mutually Assured Disruption (MADIS) and the interconnectivity and interrelationships of security events around the world. The huge exodus of displaced persons into Europe is one example of how disruption is impacting security. And any end to violence in Syria must involve Russia and Iran whose interests elsewhere often clash with the US and the west. For NATO, a new strategic concept and military strategy are needed for the 21st century. To counter Russian intimidation, the Baltic, Black Sea and easternmost member states need to adapt ‘hedgehog’ or ‘porcupine’ strategies with emphasis on Stinger-like surface to air and Javelin anti-tank missiles, sea mines and other area denial systems along with enhancing cyber and anti-propaganda capacities to neutralise Moscow’s ambitions. And a counter radical Islamic propaganda strategy must be put in place now. None of this requires spending more money. For the US’s part, relief from odious technology transfer restrictions is the other part of the equation. Arguments for using next year’s NATO’s heads of government summit in Warsaw, Poland to revise its strategy must start now. That requires US leadership. And as this column occasionally asks: “Who will listen and who will lead?” The writer is chairman of the Killowen Group that advises leaders of government and business and senior advisor at Washington DC’s Atlantic Council. His latest book, due out this fall, is A Handful of Bullets: How the Murder of an Archduke a Century Ago Still Menaces Peace Today