Small threats, big leverage: extending Biddle’s modern system to North Korea’s hybrid warfare

This article challenges the prevailing emphasis on technological superiority within contemporary deterrence frameworks, contending instead that adaptive force employment remains decisive in modern conflict. It develops a hybrid analytical model that systematically extends Stephen Biddle’s “modern system” of force employment to grey-zone conflict and synthesises it with Sun Tzu’s principles of deception and psychological targeting. Drawing on original case studies of North Korea’s UAV incursions, coordinated cyberattacks, and the 2024 “filth balloon” campaign, the study demonstrates how low-cost, low-tech operations can achieve strategic effect by exploiting doctrinal blind spots and societal vulnerabilities in high-capability adversaries. These cases reveal how hybrid tactics bypass conventional defence systems, undermine public morale, and disrupt political cohesion – often without kinetic escalation. The findings question the adequacy of traditional deterrence-by-punishment approaches in grey-zone conflict and advocate a shift towards deterrence-by-resilience, emphasising doctrinal adaptability and societal robustness. The analysis contributes to a growing body of scholarship on asymmetric coercion and the evolving character of warfare in the twenty-first century.