Hybrid threats blur the line between peace and war, exploiting vulnerabilities in societies. While resilience is often presented as a panacea, it requires deeper scrutiny to balance growing security needs with the preservation of democratic values.
In today’s security landscape, hybrid threats have become a persistent and evolving challenge for nations worldwide. The emerging security debate includes the concept of a so-called grey zone, blurring the line between war and peace. The characteristics of hybrid threats in this grey zone, along with advanced communication techniques, imply that no country can afford to ignore them any longer. The widespread use of social media has enabled foreign actors to reach a country’s population directly, adding weight to modern info wars, fake news, and trolling that foster polarization and distrust within societies and against the political leadership. Disinformation campaigns can substantially undermine both political leadership and societies’ willingness to defend the country and uphold core democratic values. Hybrid threats are thus not always directed against the state and the public administration; they may target civil society and private actors involved in health care, food and energy production, or any other essential service.
Not Only States, But Societies Are Becoming Targets
In this new geopolitical reality, sophisticated hybrid threats and the fear of hybrid warfare have shifted the focus back toward national and international security. It is often repeated that rogue states and malicious actors can direct hybrid threats against countries of their choosing, often without revealing their identities. Such tactics may involve cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, economic coercion, energy pressure, gunboat or other coercive diplomacy, and other forms of disruption and physical sabotage. All this is designed to exploit vulnerabilities, disrupt political stability, and weaken national cohesion without triggering a full-scale war. Hybrid threats are not always directed against the state and the public administration. Although similar tactics and strategies have been used throughout history, societies are far more vulnerable to disruptions and influence campaigns today than just a few years ago.
The reliance on digital systems presents significant challenges to sovereignty in today’s highly interconnected world.
This is mainly because of the current reliance on the internet and advanced technological systems for daily operations. Cyber-attacks targeting sensitive IT systems or infrastructure can paralyze a society for extensive periods. As such, many “vital systems” in modern societies, often owned and managed by private entities, have become significant weak spots that require protection but stand outside the state's control. This raises the question of whether gains in efficiency have come at the cost of increased societal vulnerability. Even farms depend on digital services for daily operations and cannot function without them. Most machinery, even a tractor, can be controlled and switched off remotely. The reliance on digital systems presents significant challenges to sovereignty in today’s highly interconnected world.
These issues pose serious security challenges for democratic states to manage while maintaining open societies and adhering to international laws and norms. Countries need to find balanced ways to address grey zone and hybrid threats without undermining democratic processes or international institutions. This challenge has hitherto gone unnoticed in the ongoing political debates, mainly because of the apparent threat from the East and the broader geopolitical context.
Caution Demands Reflecting on One's Own Behavior
This raises the question: how can democratic states defend themselves against threats and crises without disrupting the democratic and international institutions that they wish to safeguard? The current hype around advancing and building resilience is not unproblematic, as resilience itself is a political concept that requires deeper scrutiny.
There is therefore a need to step back and properly evaluate the current situation. Many international organizations, such as the European Union, NATO, and the various centers of excellence established in recent years, frequently highlight that countries such as Russia, China, and Iran are engaging in hybrid warfare activities. This is obviously true, but there is a risk of falling back into Cold War rhetoric if we are unwilling to simultaneously scrutinize Western states' behavior. The pressure that the US has put on Denmark regarding Greenland, or the gunboat diplomacy against Venezuela, are two recent examples that should similarly fall under the rubric of hybrid threats. Democratic states need to ensure they abide by international law and norms even if other states don’t. In this respect, international institutions such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice are crucial. Acts of aggression by some states are not grounds for Western states to abandon established norms and engage in power politics.
The pressure that the US has put on Denmark regarding Greenland, or the gunboat diplomacy against Venezuela, are two recent examples that should similarly fall under the rubric of hybrid threats.
In the current hostile geopolitical context, the connection between hybrid threats and the possibility of future war amplifies an ever-present fear of escalation. Understanding and countering hybrid threats is thus essential to ensuring long-term security and stability. It is often suggested that states and international organizations must ‘build’ or ‘strengthen’ their resilience to address these challenges. Proponents of this view continue to present resilience as a panacea for current security problems. At best, resilience can then be understood as the effort to establish a multi-level governance system that includes all key actors, from the government to the individual. Ideally, such a system would bring together all government and societal stakeholders to strengthen critical infrastructure, improve cybersecurity, promote media literacy and psychological resilience, and foster public trust in democratic institutions.
The Discourse on Resilience Shifts Responsibility to the Individual
Although the idea of making nations, communities, and citizens more resilient appears to have natural appeal, critical scholars have raised serious concerns about the notion of resilience. Despite its excellent reputation in the political discourse, the concept of resilience remains ambiguous, diluting responsibility across various actors and levels, and introduces a governance model that relies on voluntary contributions while shifting responsibility to the individual. It has been argued that resilience constitutes a form of informal governance – a specific way of governing and controlling populations in democratic societies. Social and political control of society is exercised through preparedness, awareness, and reflexive monitoring of our situation and our ability to respond to all kinds of threats. Resilience becomes a systemic and programmatic approach to society and security.
Still, it often lacks clarity regarding who holds primary responsibility, with the tendency being to place the onus and effort on the individual. In several Nordic countries, public authorities have issued nationwide pamphlets, such as "In Case of Crisis or War," in Sweden, providing information on how to cope without the assistance of public authorities. Recommendations range from stockpiling water and food supplies for an entire week to advice on how to behave in the absence of essential services. We may notice that the current discourse of societal resilience pushes for the activation and responsibilization of individuals, reflecting a neoliberal logic for coping with societal problems. Thus, rather than seeking collective solutions, responsibility is increasingly placed on individuals, alongside social expectations to be a “good and self-reliant citizen” rather than a burden on the system.
While war readiness in earlier times was an exceptional aspect of human life and citizenship, the concept of resilience now unifies societal and national security, merging civil and war preparedness into a constant element of everyday life.
The overall defense agenda today includes elements of societal security, resilience, and neoliberal governance, which appear to shift the traditional state–citizen relationship towards citizen–citizen interactions while ignoring the critical distinctions between war and peace as well as crisis and security. Moreover, while war readiness in earlier times was an exceptional aspect of human life and citizenship, the concept of resilience now unifies societal and national security, merging civil and war preparedness into a constant element of everyday life. Living in fear and in a state of readiness is also an excellent breeding ground for further securitization and militarization of society. This is not to suggest that we should be naïve about the potential threats around us, but rather that we should be attentive to the logic of security: security concerns often enable exceptional solutions, but invoking them too frequently risks undermining public debate and democratic institutions.
Whereas resilience aligns well with decentralization, local community responses, and outsourced societal functions, we may discover new applications and governance modes when resilience is applied to national and international security. We now live in an era of poly-crisis, with multiple crises occurring simultaneously. However, the current focus on national and international security may well crowd out other concerns, focusing on the exception and a dangerous future rather than the ongoing ‘creeping’ crises, such as climate change, the costs of living and eroding public finances. The idea of building societal resilience to cope with hybrid warfare may give rise to two interrelated problems. On the one hand, political priorities are focused on wartime preparations and malign actors, rather than everyday life grievances and civil crisis management. On the other hand, the ‘militarization’ of society and war readiness allows constant monitoring and improvement of the nation, civil society, and individuals in the name of national security.
Weighing the Costs and Pay-Offs of Resilience for Democracy
Ultimately, the demand for ‘more resilience’, presented as a practical, solution-oriented, and apolitical concept in the name of national security, appears limitless. Resilience, however, is a political notion that warrants closer scrutiny. Whenever resilience appears in policy and political debates, it requires further unpacking and clarity about its organization: who is responsible for its provision, what level of security is sought, by which means is it pursued, at what cost and over which time horizon? Only through critical scrutiny and public debate we will be able to discuss the costs and trade-offs between increased resilience and the open democratic societies we wish to protect.
