Concerns about hybrid threats are everywhere, as I discussed last week. But what do these terms actually mean? This week’s newsletter unpicks the flaws in how we approach the concept of hybrid threats and the implications for the policies that flow from them.
Here’s what you can expect this week:
- The meaning of hybrid threats
- The many problems with an ambiguous term
- A tool for lobbying, not analysis
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The meaning of hybrid threats
Hybrid threats, hybrid warfare, grey zone operations…These concepts have entered popular political discourse, especially as far as the threat Russia poses to the West is concerned. But what do they actually mean — and do they mean the same thing?
A good starting point for answering these questions is with how NATO understands the concept. NATO, after all, is the bedrock of Western security and the leading multilateral actor tasked with responding to the Russian threat. The organisation’s website describes the concept as follows:
Hybrid threats combine military and non-military as well as covert and overt means, including disinformation, cyber attacks, economic pressure, deployment of irregular armed groups and use of regular forces. Hybrid methods are used to blur the lines between war and peace, and attempt to sow doubt in the minds of target populations. They aim to destabilise and undermine societies.
Other approaches emphasise some of the characteristics that hybrid threats should display. Balcaen, Du Bois and Buts (2021:1), for example, argue that hybrid threats involve “the synchronized use of a broad spectrum of instruments that are well designed to stay below the thresholds of detection, attribution and retaliation”. Drawing on Monaghan (2019), they draw a clear distinction between hybrid threats and hybrid warfare: the former involve ambiguous means and methods, target social vulnerabilities, and seek to undermine and degrade the liberal world order and balance of power; the latter is a way of combatting conventional superiority and reinforcing traditional methods of combat. Crucially, hybrid threats are antagonistic but seek to avoid escalation to full-blown warfare, hybrid warfare applies when escalation has already taken place.
The many problems with an ambiguous term
The problems with this concept are numerous — leading to widespread debate and criticisms.The attempt to maintain a distinction between hybrid threats, hybrid warfare, and other concepts is noble but doomed to failure: Terms acquire a life of their own once they enter popular discourse and distinctions becomes impossible to maintain. NATO, for example, moves seamlessly between hybrid threats, hybrid warfare, hybrid activities, and hybrid methods, effectively treating them as synonymous. The only way to maintain the distinction is to not participate in the wider conversation.
Beyond this, there are a whole host of problems. First, look again at that NATO definition and see how many words are superfluous — they don’t help you distinguish between things that qualify as hybrid threats and things that don’t. If there is no third category to go alongside military and non-military, or overt and covert, then they literally cover all activities. Other words embedded in the definition are wooly at best: what exactly constitutes “economic pressure”? What does it really mean to “destabilise and undermine society”? A good definition allows you to clearly determine what is in scope and what is out of it. This one fails to do that.
Second, definitions such as those cited above also often talk about the combination of methods, but it’s not clear how many methods have to be combined to qualify, or whether certain elements always need to be present. The supposed synchronous nature is also left undefined: What is the timeframe beyond which multiple activities by the same actor no longer qualify as part of the same sequence of events? As with the first point, it is difficult to look at any series of events or behaviours and determine if they qualify for inclusion or not.
Third, these activities do not necessarily have a lot in common. Disinformation, economic pressure, and the employment of irregular armed groups will likely involve different actors, methods, and targets. To a large degree, the definitions are reverse engineered from a list of behaviours and practices that are undesirable. While it is important to recognise complexity — it is the combination of activities that creates a greater impact — bundling them together may not produce a deeper understanding of any of them.
Fourth, the definitions require knowledge not only of the act, but of the intentions behind it. As is also true when it comes to terrorism, intent is almost impossible to prove, so most studies will end up inferring the intent from the outcome or potential impact. Even on its own flawed terms, the definition will be violated as often as it is observed because the intent will not be properly considered.
Fifth, the definition is obviously partisan: By determining a core goal as being undermining the Western liberal order, hybrid activities are something that only the nefarious foreign power can engage in; Western liberal democracies cannot (efforts to undermine democracy from within are a whole different discussion). Obviously, no one expects an organisation like NATO to be non-partisan — it is concerned with the threats posed by others to itself and its member states. Yet politicisation should occur at the level of policy, not intelligence and analysis, and this partisan definition makes that distinction harder to maintain.
A tool for lobbying, not analysis
Just last week, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen criticised the use of the term hybrid warfare: “Putin is testing our resolve. I don’t like the term hybrid. It’s warfare. So why do we call it hybrid if it’s something else?” The term didn’t enter NATO strategy documents until after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, so he can’t really be criticised for its proliferation. But he is not the first person linked to NATO to recognise the limitations of the term.
A paper by Caliskan and Liégeois (2020) interviewed NATO officials and revealed a host of criticisms. Many argued that there was nothing new about hybrid warfare; at best, it gave a name to something that has always existed in various forms. Most saw the term as too vague to be useful — it loses its analytical value because it encompasses everything. Others pointed out that the term has no practical or operational value: If it didn’t exist, then absolutely nothing would change in NATO’s planning or policy. Instead, interviewees saw the main value of the term lying with its ability to prompt debate or attract the attention of politicians or members. In other words, even NATO officials see the concept of hybrid threats primarily as a communication tool or marketing gimmick.
A term that serves policy interests more than it provides analytic clarity is one that researchers should treat with caution. This is not a call to avoid it: I will continue to use it because that is how you reach the audiences that are interested in the topic. But, as Caliskan and Liégeois note, the term is not without consequences. It leads NATO to forget the difference between war and peace — NATO’s own definition contributes to the very goal it identifies as problematic. And it leads NATO to build its assessments on shaky foundations: military operations are downgraded to hybrid ones, while subversive activities are elevated to military ones. Fuzzy thinking often leads to fuzzy policy. Or, as Caliskan and Liégeois put it, “Concepts shape our defence understanding and thus our armed forces, doctrines and the ways in which military forces fight”. For that reason, we need to be conscious of the term’s limitations and the way that they might influence our observations and analysis.
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