Warfare is not just kinetic with direct and lethal force. Warfare can also be subtle. A 2017 report, “Understanding Hybrid Warfare”, was published by the Multinational Capability Development Campaign, a consortium including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and the European Union.
Five years later, the MCDC revisited many of the same themes in a report titled “Multi-Domain Multinational Understanding”, which described the same phenomenon with new terminology. The plain-English term “hybrid warfare” has given way to expressions such as “multi-domain competition” and “multi-domain operations.” Enemies are described as pursuing advantage below the threshold of armed conflict, operating simultaneously across multiple domains, exploiting vulnerabilities within democratic societies, and generating cumulative effects through coordinated activity over time.
The report was intended to help governments recognize and respond to modern threats that no longer rely solely on conventional military force. Instead, it described hybrid warfare as: “the synchronized use of multiple instruments of power tailored to specific vulnerabilities across the full spectrum of societal functions to achieve synergistic effects.”
The report identified political, military, economic, social, informational, and infrastructure vulnerabilities as potential targets. It explained that hybrid entities often operate through multiple fronts simultaneously, exploit ambiguity, remain below traditional detection thresholds, and create cumulative effects that become visible only after significant changes have already occurred.
Yet, what happens when an entity employs many of the same methods but describes itself not as a state, movement, or military organization, but as a religion? The question becomes particularly relevant when examining Islam’s own primary sources.
Western governments generally classify Islam as a religion, a designation that confers considerable privileges. Yet the educational materials used in many Islamic schools describe Islam differently. Students are taught that Islam is a “deen” — not a religion. Unlike the Western concept of religion, a deen encompasses political authority, military affairs, law, governance, economics, family life, commerce, social relations, morality, and worship. The deen governs both public and private life. Sharia is the practical implementation of deen in law and society.
Islam is a Nation without Borders
The MCDC framework evaluates entities according to what they do, not what they call themselves. If an entity advances simultaneously through political, economic, educational, social, legal, demographic, informational, political, and religious channels, the framework does not exempt it from analysis merely because it adopts a particular label.
The missing element in most Western analysis is the entity itself. Russia is recognized as an entity. Iran is recognized as an entity. Yet when examining Islam, Western governments often focus on individual organizations, mosques, charities, schools, advocacy groups, businesses, migrants, or terrorist groups as though they were unrelated phenomena. Islamic doctrine does not view them that way.
The organizing unit of Islam is the ummah — a transnational community bound by a common law, a common source of authority, a common body of doctrine, a common calendar, a common system of taxation, common religious obligations, and a common obligation of loyalty among believers. The ummah functions as a nation without borders. Its institutions may be local, but its identity, authority structure, and objectives are global.
Through zakat, the obligatory tax levied on Muslims under Islamic law, resources are collected and redistributed according to categories established in Sharia. Classical authorities such as Reliance of the Traveller, major tafsirs (commentaries), and translations such as Hilali-Khan identify categories that include support for jihad and the winning over of potential allies. Islamic school texts likewise teach children that zakat funds both the propagation of Islam and jihad. In modern terms, these functions correspond closely to influence operations and military operations. The ummah therefore possesses not only a common source of authority and law, but also a permanent mechanism for financing activities that advance its objectives.
Some components advance through education, some through law, some through economics, some through politics, some through demographic growth, and some through violence. Islamic doctrine recognizes all of them as serving the interests of the same ummah.
Viewed objectively, the expansion of Islam presents characteristics that closely resemble the model described by MCDC. The difference is that the Islamic system predates the model by more than a millennium.
Consider the fronts identified in the report and compare them with well-known Islamic obligations and institutions.
Political
Islamic doctrine contains an extensive body of law governing political authority, legislation, courts, taxation, criminal penalties, warfare, and relations with non-Muslims. Throughout history, Muslim rulers have implemented these principles through Sharia-based legal systems. In contemporary non-Islamic states, Islamic organizations routinely seek accommodation, recognition, exemptions, and influence within existing political structures.
Economic
The MCDC report identifies economic pressure as a major instrument of hybrid activity. Islam likewise advances through economic mechanisms. Halal certification systems, zakat networks, Islamic finance institutions, charitable foundations, waqf endowments, and community funding structures create a parallel economic ecosystem capable of operating across national boundaries and regulated in whole or in part by Sharia. These institutions are often reinforced through lobbying efforts, foreign funding, and transnational networks of support.
Social
Islam places great emphasis on preserving the ummah, regulating marriage, defining group boundaries, encouraging loyalty to fellow Muslims, and maintaining distinct communal identities. Islamic schools, mosques, youth programs, charities, social organizations, and community institutions reinforce these bonds generation after generation. These relationships and obligations are established and maintained through Sharia. The Quran repeatedly warns adherents against befriending or forming a true alliance with those outside the ummah except as a precaution (Koran 3:28).
Informational
The report repeatedly highlights information operations, influence, narrative control, and ambiguity. Islamic “dawa” serves this function precisely. Its purpose is persuasion, recruitment, image management, and expansion. Islamic organizations devote enormous resources to shaping public understanding of Islam while simultaneously discouraging scrutiny of primary sources. Discussion is redirected from doctrine toward personalities, credentials, intentions, and accusations of prejudice.
Educational
Although not separated as an independent category in the MCDC framework, education operates across several of its domains simultaneously. Islamic schools transmit doctrine, reinforce identity, establish behavioral norms, create loyalty structures, and define relationships with non-Muslims. The process begins in early childhood and often continues throughout life.
Beyond the classroom, educational institutions create networks of influence through credentials, professional recognition, academic partnerships, foreign funding, scholarships, and leadership development. Graduates acquire access to legal, political, educational, media, and governmental institutions while maintaining ties to transnational Islamic organizations and sources of authority. As these networks expand, they increasingly shape the institutions in which they operate, influencing hiring, policy, curriculum development, public discourse, and access to positions of authority.
Demographic
The report notes that hybrid entities exploit vulnerabilities and create long-term effects. Migration, settlement patterns, family formation, and community concentration all influence political representation, institutional influence, consumer markets, educational demand, and public policy. These changes occur gradually and often remain below public attention until their cumulative effects become significant. All are consistent with the preservation, growth, and strengthening of the ummah as prescribed by Sharia.
Legal
Perhaps most importantly, Islam advances through a comprehensive legal framework. The objective is not merely private belief. Islamic jurisprudence addresses virtually every aspect of human conduct. The MCDC report repeatedly warns that hybrid threats exploit vulnerabilities in legal, political, and institutional systems. Sharia constitutes precisely such a system of governance.
Islam is a self-perpetuating system. Its schools educate the next generation. Zakat finances its activities (Koran 9:60). Sharia defines its communal obligations, including dawah, jihad, and the enforcement of Islamic law. These obligations are not confined to Muslims themselves. Islamic doctrine presents Mohammed as a messenger sent to all mankind and Islam as a deen intended to prevail over all others (Koran 9:33, 48:28, 61:9). Its institutions reinforce one another. Individual Muslims may participate to varying degrees, but the system advances through its own internal incentives and structures.
Cumulative Effects
The MCDC report makes an important observation. Hybrid activity often emerges from the synchronization of many independent actions that collectively generate effects greater than any individual component. The same principle applies to the ummah. No single mosque, school, charity, business, scholar, activist, or family changes society by itself. Yet together they create cumulative effects that are political, economic, social, educational, demographic, informational, and legal. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Western governments have spent years developing frameworks to identify hybrid warfare conducted by states, militias, and political movements. They analyze synchronized activity across political, economic, social, informational, and legal domains. They map vulnerabilities. They monitor influence operations. They study cumulative effects.
Yet when it comes to Islam, Western authorities charged with protecting society from hybrid threats become reluctant to apply the analysis.
The issue should not be what Islam is called. Especially when non-Islamic states lack both the vocabulary and worldview to correctly define it. The issue is whether modern societies are willing to evaluate Islamic doctrine, institutions, and methods using the same analytical standards they routinely apply to every other entity pursuing long-term political and social objectives.
Islam is recognized as the only legitimate governing system in Islamic states precisely because it is consistent with Sharia. Non-Islamic constitutional states must apply the same principle in reverse. Any entity whose doctrines are incompatible with constitutional government, equal citizenship, and the rule of law should be recognized for what it is: a competing legal and political order. This does not interfere with freedom of belief. The recommendation is straightforward. Apply an objective qualifying test. Where an entity fails that test, its incompatibility with constitutional government must be brought into the open, recognized, and reflected in public policy. It should not receive the legal privileges and protections reserved for entities that are compatible with constitutional government.
History repeatedly demonstrates that civilizations rarely collapse all at once. Their institutions are weakened gradually, one concession at a time, one exception at a time, one accommodation at a time, until the original framework no longer exists. Preserving constitutional government is not an academic exercise. It requires the courage to act, regardless of the label.
