The Foreign Service Journal, April 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2019 31 pher Carl Von Clausewitz wrote: “War is nothing but a continu- ation of politics by other means.” He also said: “The aggressor is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.” In other words, hybrid threats are not only a continu- ation of politics by other means; they also create opportunities to weaken or even topple a government without firing a shot. As we’ve seen recently in Crimea and the South China Sea, a hybrid approach lowers the political price for aggression, making regime change and territorial annexation possible “on the cheap.” One example of a hybrid threat is a disinformation campaign. Creating false news reports or spreading inaccurate information can be relatively easy; it allows for deniability and can produce effective results for the aggressor. Such campaigns can sowmis- trust and confusion between segments of the population, as well as between the people and their government, targeting a society’s deepest historical wounds tomake thembleed once again. Or an adversary may leverage organized crime elements or ownership of private entities (such as ports). Using these levers, an adversary can disrupt a critical port facility via benign sabotage: workers go on strike, blocking entrance to port berths and shore facilities. Such tactics could slow or disrupt NATO’s ability to deploy and provide logistics support to allied forces in time of crisis. Governments and public and private institutions with weak governance tend to be more susceptible to hybrid threats. Corrup- tion, low levels of public trust, weak public and private account- ability, ineffective law enforcement, poor border and port security, weak security protocols for critical infrastructure and a lack of cooperation between ministries, institutions and the private sec- tor leave them vulnerable to these acts of aggression. Not just public, but private entities may be targeted, as well. The majority of the world’s supply chain components, commu- nication providers, financial systems and media outlets operate in the private sector. They are often the first targets of a hybrid campaign, and even when they are not the main target, their vul- nerabilities can quickly threaten global economic security. For example, a cyberattack on the government of Ukraine in 2017 inadvertently affected Danish global shipping giant Maersk. As a result, Maersk’s global operations came to a halt as the company temporarily lost the ability to govern its fleet, and numerous other industries were also affected as the global supply chain was disrupted. In many Western countries, 80 to 90 percent of all critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector. Given NATO’s heavy reliance on the private sector to provide logistics and communications capabilities during a crisis, these vulner- abilities can have far-reaching effects. The First Steps In the wake of Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2014, NATO developed and adopted a Hybrid Warfare Strategy in December 2015. In early 2016, the European Union adopted its Joint Frame- work for Addressing Hybrid Threats. Both documents call for At NATO headquarters in January 2015, NATO and French flags fly at half-mast in honor of the victims of the terrorist attack at the office of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. NATO