Hybrid Everything, Operational Nothing: Conceptual Drift, Perpetual Crisis, and the Failure to Prepare for Proxy Terrorism

Abstract

This article examines the strategic implications of conceptual inflation in the evolving discourse of hybrid warfare, with particular focus on its consequences for critical infrastructure protection. Drawing a parallel with the post-9/11 securitisation of terrorism, it argues that the increasingly elastic use of the term “hybrid threat” has created a condition of perpetual preparedness that paradoxically undermines operational readiness. As diverse threat phenomena, from cyber intrusions and disinformation to sabotage and proxy violence, are collapsed under a single hybrid rubric, crisis planning becomes generalised and detached from actor-specific threat logic. Through a comparative analysis of Norway and Taiwan, two advanced but geopolitically exposed democracies, the article demonstrates how national security systems, though resilient, remain conceptually unprepared for deniable, adaptive threats posed by state-backed terrorist proxies. Both countries possess sophisticated infrastructure protection frameworks; yet both continue to treat disruption as accidental or technical, rather than as strategically curated. Drawing on contemporary scholarship, fieldwork, and recent incidents, the article makes the case for a reconceptualisation of infrastructure as a strategic domain vulnerable to intelligent exploitation. It calls for a shift from resilience-based preparedness to anticipatory governance, underpinned by attacker modelling, red-teaming, and clearer typological distinctions. In doing so, it contributes to the growing debate on how to move beyond the rhetoric of hybrid warfare and towards a more operationally grounded framework for future security governance.