Aliodor MANOLEA, PhD*
Abstract. The military balance in the Black Sea area is changing. Russia poses an existential threat to Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. Russian revisionism is manifesting today in Crimea, South Ossetia, Donbass, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, and Syria. These are areas of great interest to Russia. In recent years, Russia has proven itself capable of using a number of hybrid war tools – including propaganda and misinformation, cyber-attacks, trade – to disrupt and destabilize states on its periphery and the West. Moscow wants to restore its spheres of influence in the Black Sea area. At the same time, in its actions, Moscow is careful not to cross the border of the activation of the collective defense clause in the North Atlantic Treaty. There is no common vision of the EU and NATO on security in the Black Sea and the future of the region. The essence of hybrid warfare is the aggression of non-state military formations against the state, without the official involvement of the armed forces of the government by the method of armed invasion. The main gain in the modern war is not the resources, the territory or the power, but the changes in the mentality of the defeated nation. In this way, the winner imposes his civilizing culture. The winner forms the new reality of the world. From the perspective of the operational environment in the hybrid war, the sphere of collisions with the appearance of the fifth battlefield has significantly expanded – the combat operations are carried out on land, sea, air, space and cyber space. Some authors even mention another sixth battlefield – the mental one. Manipulating public awareness is critical to conducting hybrid operations. The entire national, cultural and informational space will be used to change the national identity.
Keywords: Hybrid war, Black Sea, transpersonal warfare, Distal Psycho-information Influence, mind control
* PhD – Psihologie, Universitatea din Bucureşti, PhD – Ştiinţe Militare, Universitatea Naţională de Apărare „Carol I”, Doctor of Science – Open International University for Complementary Medicines, Colombo, Sri Lanka