Ever since the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula there has been an intense scientific debate about how the Russian way of war should be defined and explained. Some argue that the way Russia is acting is something new and maybe could be defined for example as hybrid warfare. Others are not so convinced and argue that it is something old that the Russians have been doing before. After the annexation, a new concept emerged called full-spectrum conflict whose purpose was to define the Russian way of war in Ukraine.
The purpose of the thesis is to investigate Russia’s actions during the Georgian conflict 2008, to see if it is possible to trace the use of full-spectrum conflict there. This is to create a clearer picture of whether the Russian way of war is of innovative nature or if the actions in Ukraine were already used during the previous conflict. The method used in this investigation is a qualitative text analysis to either reject or support the theory.
The results of the survey show that the Russian way of conducting warfare is presumably evolution of prior ways to conduct warfare and is nothing new. However, more research must be conducted to enhance this statement since a single survey cannot capture everything and needs to be strengthened for the result to be more representative.