Introduction

Managing hybrid threats remains one of the greatest challenges for the transatlantic community. Hybrid threats have gained more traction and visibility in policy debates and news headlines—and among publics across Europe and the United States—in a world with COVID-19. The recent coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the transatlantic community’s vulnerabilities to a range of hybrid issues—from manipulation of global supply chains to biowarfare to disinformation. Yet, even as the transatlantic community has witnessed these challenges, limited progress has been achieved in effectively countering these threats. Euro-Atlantic nations and institutions, such as NATO and the European Union (EU), have certainly made important strides to respond to hybrid issues. Collective approaches, however, have been reactive, falling short of deterring adversaries from using hybrid actions. Recognizing the many constraints and challenging nature of hybrid activities, this paper argues that the transatlantic community can, and should, do more to enhance its counter-hybrid strategy.

While the term “hybrid” can be debated and defined in many ways, this paper refers to hybrid as an approach that blends conventional and unconventional, overt and covert, kinetic and non-kinetic, and military and nonmilitary means to undermine a target and achieve the perpetrator’s political and strategic goals.

Hybrid threats can stem from many actors, but this analysis focuses on hybrid threats primarily as a result of deliberate and persistent actions by state actors, notably Russia and China. Russian and Chinese hybrid activities involve a mix of diplomatic, economic, security, information, and technological actions designed to quietly undermine democratic

Medical supplies to be sent to Italy for the prevention of the novel coronavirus at a logistics center of the international airport in Hangzhou, China on March 10, 2020. Photo: China Daily via REUTERS