Asymmetric warfare: how to respond to hybrid threats

What is a ‘hybrid’ threat?

Jérôme Clech. In addi­tion to states that prac­tice hybrid war­fare (such as Rus­sia or China), com­bin­ing con­ven­tion­al modes of action and inform­a­tion manip­u­la­tion (fake news, deep fakes, etc.), the hybrids; crim­in­als, traf­fick­ers, gang­sters and ter­ror­ists, use the same tech­no­lo­gic­al means that enable glob­al­isa­tion. They make up its dark side, which is why they rep­res­ent such a chal­lenge for states and even large companies.

IT has not put an end to the asym­metry of hard power between developed states and non-state act­ors, but it does serve an equal­iser in all areas of soft power closely linked to the inform­a­tion­al sphere (cul­ture, influ­ence, media, social net­works, pro­pa­ganda, etc.). As inform­a­tion moves at the speed of light for every­one. By invest­ing in the “infosphere”, non-state act­ors have restored the sym­met­ric­al aspect of con­front­a­tion, but in a mainly non-kin­et­ic register: the impact of an attack is much great­er than the num­ber of deaths, as West­ern soci­et­ies have a very low accept­ance of risk.

How can we respond to this threat?

Hybrid threats require a hybrid strategy. Our nation­al defence and secur­ity strategy, con­sid­er­ing the absence of a “crit­ic­al mass” in our sys­tem, aims to lower the trig­ger point for large-scale mil­it­ary inter­ven­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the event of hybrid attacks. But there is a gap in the con­tinuum of stra­tegic func­tions that neither nuc­le­ar “deterrence” nor the “pro­tec­tion” of ter­rit­or­ies and pop­u­la­tions can fill. A form of “aug­men­ted pre­ven­tion” would be required: the cur­rent “pre­ven­tion” would be exten­ded to in-depth action aimed at intim­id­a­tion and early dis­rup­tion through a com­bin­a­tion of remote kin­et­ic strikes and cyber offens­ives, not only in the phys­ic­al lay­er of cyber­space, but also in the logic­al and socio-cog­nit­ive lay­ers of cyberspace.

In con­crete terms, aug­men­ted pre­ven­tion would focus on nerve points, such as drone strikes aim­ing to neut­ral­ising ter­ror­ist lead­ers, for example. Both mil­it­ary and largely dehu­man­ised and – more or less – stealthy or sched­uled, these remote strikes are also the source of eth­ic­al con­cerns. Europe is fol­low­ing suit, since one of the pro­jects of the Per­man­ent Struc­tured Cooper­a­tion (PESCO, estab­lished in 2017) is none oth­er than the MALE (Medi­um Alti­tude Long Endur­ance) Eurodrone, which could even­tu­ally be armed and whose devel­op­ment is partly fin­anced by the pre­curs­or of the European Defence Fund (EDF). 

On the cyber side, cyber offens­ives con­sti­tute a hybrid mode of action at a dis­tance: with a mater­i­al aim when it is a ques­tion of hit­ting the phys­ic­al lay­er of cyber­space; imma­ter­i­al when it is a ques­tion of exploit­ing or reach­ing the infosphere. A Com­puter Net­work Attack (CNA), which is hybrid in nature in that it involves inter­n­al­ising hack­ing skills with­in the defence estab­lish­ment, is a cyber offens­ive mode act­ing on the logic­al lay­er. Hybrid and cyber threats are one of the areas of NATO-EU cooper­a­tion, and PESCO has nearly ten pro­jects in this area.

Aug­men­ted pre­ven­tion could also have an impact through hybrid bor­der sur­veil­lance. Drones are a great asset in terms of obser­va­tion and are used in the civil­ian sec­tor for bor­der sur­veil­lance in the United States. The aim is not only to hinder illeg­al immig­ra­tion, which is known to feed into every level of the illeg­al eco­nomy, but also traf­fick­ing of all kinds (arms, drugs, coun­ter­feit goods, etc.), which hybrid­ises the threats and provides a breed­ing ground for inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism. Since 2020, the use of drones has strengthened the Fron­tex sys­tem at the bor­ders of the European Uni­on (EU). Integ­rat­ing the sys­tem into the range of sensors oper­ated by the intel­li­gence com­munity (includ­ing the DGSE and Tracfin) would undoubtedly increase its effectiveness.

The aim is to char­ac­ter­ise and identi­fy the poten­tial threat posed by an indi­vidu­al accord­ing to their beha­vi­our­al profile. 

From bor­der con­trol to bor­der risk man­age­ment, the emer­gence of the concept of “smart bor­ders” cor­res­ponds to the imple­ment­a­tion of “intel­li­gent” sys­tems at air­ports, ini­tially based on bio­met­rics. The aim is to char­ac­ter­ise and identi­fy the poten­tial threat posed by an indi­vidu­al accord­ing to their beha­vi­our­al pro­file. For example, the PNR (Per­son­al Name Record) is a device for assess­ing the risk of a trav­el­ler being linked to a ter­ror­ist organ­isa­tion; it is designed to know “what the indi­vidu­al has done” before book­ing a flight and to pre­dict “what he or she is likely to do” at destination.

In order to see more clearly into the digit­al maze gen­er­ated by the “com­pu­ter­isa­tion of the body” (the shad­ow body, a cloud of data and inform­a­tion that goes bey­ond one par­tic­u­lar indi­vidu­al since some of this data only makes sense as part of a series), it could then be use­ful for the datamin­ing enabled by AI to cross-ref­er­ence the PNR with the files held by nation­al defence and secur­ity forces, and more par­tic­u­larly those held by agen­cies in the intel­li­gence com­munity. Sub­ject to net­work sov­er­eignty in place at a European level (as this is the rel­ev­ant scale), it is con­ceiv­able that all this data could even­tu­ally be hos­ted on a ded­ic­ated cloud.

But what would be the value of a secret cloud if only France was to input in cer­tain ele­ments of the intel­li­gence inform­a­tion col­lec­ted by its sensors (relat­ing to coun­terter­ror­ism or illi­cit flows, for example)? For the time being, we only have an Intel­li­gence Col­lege in Europe – not a European Col­lege of Intel­li­gence! Nam­ing it such might bring it to life, or per­haps not: noth­ing oper­a­tion­al, but the ambi­tion to build a “com­mon stra­tegic cul­ture” … This, as Jean Mon­net believed, is cer­tainly where any European pro­ject should start, but con­sid­er­able efforts need to be made, as Pres­id­ent Mac­ron acknow­ledged in his 2017 Sor­bonne speech with the European Inter­ven­tion Ini­ti­at­ive (EII).

Nat­ur­ally, the use of data and the search for such syn­er­gies raise eth­ic­al and leg­al ques­tions that bring us back to the secur­ity-free­dom dilemma.

Are we head­ing for wide­spread hybridisation?

The response to hybrids would in fact bene­fit from more hybrid­isa­tion. For while tech­no­lo­gies have a major and grow­ing role to play, the related capa­cit­ies (equip­ment and know-how) must not be reduced to tech­nic­al fet­ish­ism. We must be able to artic­u­late the explor­at­ory force of the machine with human intu­ition in order to, at least, strengthen their co-pro­duc­tion if not hybrid­ise them. Aug­men­ted pre­ven­tion would only be a stra­tegic shift. We need to do even more: a quantum leap in terms of the anti­cip­a­tion of threats. Anti­cip­at­ing hybrids so as not to have to respond to them is, in my opin­ion, the way to under­stand the logic of “win­ning the war before the war”, to quote the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. This would imply rethink­ing the meth­ods and tools of stra­tegic foresight, pay­ing renewed atten­tion to the early detec­tion of “weak sig­nals”, in order to nip future threats in the bud before they emerge. Per­ceiv­ing and char­ac­ter­ising the under­ly­ing struc­ture of emer­ging hybrid phe­nom­ena undoubtedly requires defin­ing and build­ing the ‘hon­est cyborg’ of the 21st cen­tury. But that’s anoth­er story!