News Archive - Page 6 of 16 - Hybrid CoE - The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats

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June 16, 2021

Non-state actors as state proxies: A new Hybrid Coe Research Report looks at the situation in China

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long traditions of using political influence and interference methods, which would be described as hybrid threat activities today. The use of non-state actors (NSAs) is a key element in such activities.

In Hybrid Coe Research Report 1, Dr Jukka Aukia from the University of Turku applies the hybrid threat paradigm to study Chinese non-state actors.

According to the report, longstanding developments in China’s political system and thinking dictate strong public-private collaboration. This approach is known as the “united front” (tongyi zhanxian). Equating “love for the Party” with “love for the country”, the united front builds ethnic-based nationalism, which is produced top-down by party elites and bottom-up by active patriotic citizens.

“As a result of the united front approach, a large repertoire of NSAs as state proxies create opportunities and capabilities for the Party,” writes Aukia.

According to the report, the political control of the Party has advanced in all non-state, non-party organizations under the leadership of Xi Jinping. The CCP has effectively developed capacities to direct the non-state sector to support regime preservation, which is the Party’s highest priority. The united front enables the Party to use the same influence tools both domestically and internationally.

In analyzing the use of non-state actors abroad, the report looks at united front-related actors, state-controlled enterprises, state-organized NGOs, as well as media- and academia-related actors and their activities. According to Aukia, “while not all Chinese entities are state proxies, as Chinese social and business organizations continue to internationalize, the blurring of state and non-state sectors extends beyond China’s borders.”

In developing countermeasures, the report emphasizes the importance of analyzing two frameworks in particular: the domestic experiences of the CCP, and the vulnerabilities of democratic societies.

Read the whole report on our website here.

By examining China’s expanding use of united front tactics inside democratic societies, as well as the ideological, cultural and political elements underlying this trend, this Research Report marks a significant step forward in Hybrid CoE’s capabilities to analyze China and its practices. The report offers timely, thorough, and practicable knowledge for the Centre’s Participating States and institutions as they enhance their resilience and deterrence against hybrid threat activities. The report is part of Hybrid CoE’s ongoing workstrand on non-state actors.

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June 11, 2021

Drones in hybrid warfare: New study provides lessons from current battlefields

Revolutionary change in military affairs is an integral part of the history of conflict and war. Today, technology is driving this revolution with unprecedented speed. Even now, drone warfare capabilities provide game-changing potential on real-world battlefields, as they integrate sensor technology with precision strike effectors and communications. They also have close links to hybrid warfare.

It can be expected that a trend towards AI-based autonomous systems and swarming will further exponentiate these revolutionary developments. Their military and warfare-related implications can hardly be overestimated.

This motivated Hybrid CoE and its Community of Interest on Strategy and Defence (COI S&D) to address this topic within its workstrand on Hybrid Warfare: Future and Technologies. As a first step, situational awareness regarding the current use of drones in the context of hybrid warfare needs to be built.

To this end, the latest Hybrid CoE Working Paper, written by Frank Christian Sprengel, identifies and analyzes lessons regarding the use of drones on five current battlefields: Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Nagorno-Karabakh. The paper serves as the starting point for a series of studies on the topic.

You can read the paper here.

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June 1, 2021

Technology matters for hybrid

Dr Johann Schmid, Hybrid CoE’s Director COI Strategy & Defence, contributed to TechNet Europe 2021 (1–2 June, Lisbon, Portugal) with a keynote speech on Hybrid Threats/Warfare: Key Characteristics, Strategic Challenges, New Developments and Implications.

“New technologies, with their disruptive potential, have a catalytic effect on hybrid means, methods, tactics and strategies,” according to Schmid. “It is worrying that they provide offensive options in particular. At the same time, new technological developments may offer options to better identify, understand, defend against and counter hybrid attacks.”

“In order to prevent, defend against and – if necessary – counter and outmanoeuvre hybrid opponents, it is important for political, civilian and military leaders and decision-makers, as well as for industry and academia, to develop a common and comprehensive understanding of the implications of new technologies in a hybrid threats/warfare context,” Dr Schmid said.

The event was organized by AFCEA Europe under the patronage of the Defence Minister of Portugal with the motto: “Challenging Times for National Security – Technologies for Better Cyber Defence and Battlefield Resilience”. The event brought together leading experts from EU and NATO member nations, particularly from the military and industry.

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June 9, 2021

Josef Schroefl on Geospatial Information to Tackle Hybrid Threats

Josef Schroefl, Deputy Director of COI Strategy and Defence at Hybrid CoE, contributed to Geospatial World Magazine on the importance of intelligence capabilities, and geospatial information as a part of them in countering hybrid threats. He points out that by recognizing the possibility of a hybrid attack by a hostile actor, intelligence not only offers a potentially decisive defence capability, but there is also a chance that the opposing side will refrain from the attack if it fears that the threat has already been discovered.

Read the whole article here.

June 2, 2021

The third Hybrid CoE expert-pool meeting on cyber

Building on the findings of the previous cyber expert-pool meetings, as well as on the findings of two Cyber-Power in Hybrid Conflict and Warfare (CPH) Symposiums, Hybrid CoE’s Community of Interest on Strategy and Defence together with the Research and Analysis team organized a virtual roundtable on the hybrid threat implications of activities in cyberspace, paying particular attention to the capabilities of the armed forces in the future.

Eighteen experts from 14 Participating States, the EU and NATO discussed questions related to command-and-control systems in cyberspace, cyberattack deterrence, building defensive capabilities to counter cyberattacks in the context of hybrid operations, and small states’ possibilities to gain significant wins over big nations and their armed forces with cyber capabilities. The objective of the roundtable was to feed in ideas for the Annual Cyber Symposium that is planned to be held in November 2021.

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June 1, 2021

When preparing civilians for hybrid threats, engagement is key – new publication calls for out-of-the-box thinking

A core question in hybrid threat preparedness is how a state or society can prepare its civilian population for disruptions that potential hybrid threats may cause. This is relevant, as hybrid threat actors aim at undermining public trust in democratic institutions and challenging the core values of societies to gain political influence.

According to a new Hybrid CoE Working Paper authored by Research Professor Cedric de Coning from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), adaptive engagement with the affected community is key: Emergency officials, relevant authorities, civil society and the private sector must all collaborate in an adaptive process to generate context-specific solutions suitable for the hybrid threats in question.

“Planning and preparedness thus shift away from a pre-planned step-by-step response strategy approach carried out by emergency officials, to a pre-planned process approach,” de Coning writes.

According to de Coning, in this kind of approach “the engagement process is pre-planned, but the content and outcome are context-specific and need to emerge from the process itself”. Calling for new, out-of-the-box thinking, de Coning lists concrete proposals and roles in the paper for those engaged in preparedness planning.

Read the complete Hybrid CoE Working Paper on our website.

The paper is part of the Resilient Civilians in Hybrid and Population-Centric Warfare project led by Professor Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv at the Arctic University of Norway, and is partly funded by the NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme.

Hybrid CoE is an independent international Centre enhancing Participating States’ capabilities to counter hybrid threats. It does so by sharing best practices, testing new ideas and approaches, and providing training and exercises. The Centre currently has 28 Participating States. Participation is open to all EU member states and NATO allies.

May 25, 2021

Exercises demonstrate how to deter hybrid threats

Hybrid CoE contributed to the ‘Comprehensive security together’ campaign with a video blog post on conducting exercises. The topic for the blog was chosen to promote this practical method of providing organizations with experience and know-how in countering hybrid threats.

Exercises train participants to improve response mechanisms to different incidents or crises as they apply to hybrid threats, and strengthen relationships between participating organizations and individuals. Exercises can also be used as a tool to test different hypotheses, tactics, and procedures such as a playbook or a contingency plan.

Hybrid CoE offers a unique, safe-to-fail environment for practitioners from the Centre’s Participating States, the EU and NATO to conduct exercises in countering hybrid threats together.

‘Comprehensive Security Together’ (Kokonaisturvallisuutta yhdessä in Finnish) is a campaign coordinated by the Finnish Security Committee. In the video blog posts, designated experts discuss themes related to the Committee’s focus areas for 2021: Crisis leadership, preparedness for multiple disruption scenarios, and international cooperation.

The Role of Exercises in Countering Hybrid Threats

Shiho Rybski, Director of Training and Exercises, Hybrid COE

Markus Kokko, Head of Communications, Hybrid CoE

May 12, 2021

Markus Kokko appointed Head of Communications

Markus Kokko, MSSc, MBA, has been appointed Head of Communications at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats from 17 May 2021.

His predecessor, Päivi Tampere, moved to the Prime Minister’s Office of Finland to lead the recently established Strategic Communications Team.

The Head of Communications, together with his team, is responsible for planning and running the internal and external communications at the Centre, the publication process, media relations, strategic communications, and crisis communications preparedness.

“We warmly welcome Markus to the international staff at the Centre. His diverse expertise in the field of communications and extensive international experience broadly support the development of the Centre’s communications,” says Hybrid CoE Director Teija Tiilikainen.

Markus Kokko worked as Counsellor for Press and Culture at the Embassy of Finland in Tokyo from 2015 to 2020. Prior to that, he worked as Director of Finnfacts, a not-for-profit international communications arm of the Finnish industrial and business sectors, and in various positions at the Economic Information Office, TAT. He has also gained international experience by studying and working in France, Spain, the United States, and Australia.

“Countering hybrid threats is a topical and expanding domain where the importance of international cooperation is undisputed,” says Kokko. “I’m very happy and motivated to join the Centre’s team of leading specialists, helping to safeguard our democratic societies and strengthen their comprehensive security.”

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

April 7, 2021

Hanna Smith contributed to a report on ‘NATO decision-making in the age of big data and artificial intelligence’

The Istituto Affari Internazionali has published a report on ‘NATO decision-making in the age of big data and artificial intelligence’, which includes a chapter by Hybrid CoE’s Director for Research and Analysis, Hanna Smith, on ‘Hybrid threats to allied decision-making’. The publication is the result of a virtual conference organized by NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT), the University of Bologna, and Istituto AffariInternazionali (IAI) of Rome, held on 17 November 2020. Hanna Smith’s chapter discusses the challenges to decision-making in Western countries posed by hybrid threats in relation to China and Russia. The report is available here.

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April 7, 2021

Cyber as a part of hybrid threats: a two-part paper by Dr Josef Schroefl

Hybrid CoE’s Deputy Director of COI S&D, Dr Josef Schroefl, has written an analysis of cyber as a part of hybrid threats, based on ‘The landscape of Hybrid Threats: A conceptual model’. The two-part paper was published in the Defence Horizon Journal on 26 March and 31 March 2021, respectively.

The first part demonstrates how the dependence on cyberspace, combined with malign actors’ ability to use it, can result in a hybrid effect that may become a security threat. In particular, the paper assesses the links between cyberspace’s characteristics and the emergence of a consequential hybrid threat that further complicates the evolving security environment. The complete paper can be accessed here.

The second part compares cyber and hybrid threats, concluding that the former are a part of the latter. In addition, it demonstrates that these threats are best tackled by establishing and implementing a whole-of-society/-government approach to enhancing national security. The paper attempts to clarify the hybrid/cyber threat discussion by reducing its constituent parts to simple, non-technical concepts and definitions. The complete paper is available here.