Hybrid Threats: The Shape of Wars to Come

Abstract

Within the last few years, the idiom 'hybrid threats' has become a popular buzzword to describe the complex amalgam of conventional military power combined with irregular tactics, criminal structures and/or asymmetric activities to generate a strategic advantage over traditional armed forces. However, the international debate remains largely limited to new ways of insurgency and counterinsurgency, and is not close to addressing the scale and complexity of the future threat appropriately. The debate tends to focus mostly on operational areas like Lebanon or Afghanistan and too often neglects the domestic domain and the disruptive character that hybrid attacks have on highly complex Western societies. The aim of this article is to broaden the debate on hybrid threats as well as to articulate the parameters of hybrid threats facing Western states - now and in the future.