Since the invention of the nuclear bomb, the way warfare has been conducted has changed drastically and has led to the invention of new strategies to engage in warfare, one of them being proxy wars...Show moreSince the invention of the nuclear bomb, the way warfare has been conducted has changed drastically and has led to the invention of new strategies to engage in warfare, one of them being proxy wars. This thesis clarifies the term proxy war as well as the benefits that come with its usage through the analysis of the news coverage of the Yemeni war from two “Western” news outlets, namely The Guardian and Der Spiegel. The study answers the research question; how Western news coverage makes invisible wars visible and to what extent they do so? To do so, it will look at all the articles issued by both news outlets between March 2019 and March 2022. It will first do a content analysis in which it will contrast the arguments presented in the literature review with the content of the articles and then conduct a discourse analysis with the objective of demonstrating possible intentions that lie behind the news outlets’ coverage of the war. Findings demonstrate that both news outlets succeed in presenting the war in Yemen as a proxy war although they do so in different ways. Moreover, they determine that The Guardian has an intention of influencing its readership’s opinion about the war through the denunciation of the UK’s involvement in Yemen and the description of the war as a humanitarian catastrophe. The conclusion of this thesis underlines the responsibility news outlets have when informing about war because of their ability to uncover hidden interests and power plays between states and non-state actors that other ways would be hidden.Show less
Russian actions in the Russo-Ukrainian War have been widely interpreted as a holistically coordinated, integrative approach to war – dubbed hybrid warfare. Hybrid warfare has, in recent decades,...Show moreRussian actions in the Russo-Ukrainian War have been widely interpreted as a holistically coordinated, integrative approach to war – dubbed hybrid warfare. Hybrid warfare has, in recent decades, been accepted as a strategic concept into the doctrinal documents of key Western military actors, including NATO and the EU. This paper argues that analysts misinterpret Russia’s operational, context-dependent opportunism in Ukraine as a holistic strategic method. So, in order to examine the extent to which Russian actions in Ukraine are actually strategic and whether the contemporary hybrid warfare concept improves or stifles that understanding, this paper examines the following: to what extent is Russian so-called hybrid warfare in Ukraine strategic? Three key events in the Russo-Ukrainian War are analysed using classical theory on strategy as a guiding framework, making use of a thematic case study analysis. It is shown that Russian actions in Ukraine are classically strategic to a highly limited extent because (1) battle is not always central and (2) Russian political coordination is either absent or opportunistic. Russian actions in Ukraine thus do not indicate a holistically integrated strategic method – which Western observers have eagerly dubbed hybrid warfare. Rather, the reality shows a method of operational opportunism enabled by a permissive political and battlespace-context. Hybrid warfare therefore does not merit adoption as a strategic concept, because it is not strategic. Using hybrid warfare as a strategic concept thus dilutes what we perceive to be strategic – and what we perceive to be warfare – proving the importance of testing new concepts against classical wisdom.Show less
