Hybrid warfare (HW) scholarship acknowledges the phenomenon's contextual and temporal specificity, yet its dominant conceptual framing has generated a literature largely centred on identifying and categorising hybrid activities. This focus has left the contextual vulnerabilities that enable hybrid threats (HTs) and shape an adversary's selection of tools and methods underexplored. Addressing this gap, the paper offers a comprehensive analysis of Russia's engagement in the Western Balkans (WB), guided by three core questions: to whom, where and why is the HT directed in this particular environment? It finds that how local societies perceive an external actor's engagement (domestic response) is integral to public understanding of what constitutes an HT and affects whether and how an adversary engages in HW. In the WB, affinity with Russia is a key factor shaping the domestic response to Russia's interference in domestic processes, enabling Russia to pursue a sophisticated and impactful range of activities with regional effects, which has turned it into an HW frontline. From a policy practice perspective, a comprehensive contextual analysis that uncovers what makes certain HW practices effective provides a necessary foundation for developing an appropriate set of countermeasures to alter domestic responses within an HW deterrence approach focused on societal resilience.
Policy implications
- Systemic application of a contextual perspective by scholars and practitioners. The conceptualisation of hybrid threats (HTs) and their deterrence draws on the principles and values of a democratic society but overlooks the domestic response to interference by a hostile actor. Considering the domestic response can improve the understanding of a hostile actor's motivation to engage in hybrid warfare, the scope of its actions and the tools and methods employed. This can inform more effective approaches to building societal resilience as part of a deterrence strategy.
- Combined capacities and expertise of external actors to implement more responsive and adaptive strategies. Approaches to hybrid-warfare deterrence are based on a proactive role for the national government, grounded in self-reliance and self-organisation. They depend on the government's commitment and political will. When these are lacking, as this study shows in the case of the Western Balkans, responding to HTs requires long-term, coordinated engagement by the European Union and NATO to help reduce vulnerabilities, which should go beyond simply building technical capacities and capabilities in specific policy areas.
- The vital importance of fostering a resilient civic space. External support to enhance civic engagement in societies vulnerable to HTs—arising from a mix of identity politics, democratic shortcomings and economic challenges—is essential and, in today's international security landscape, of paramount importance for building societal resilience; however, it should be revitalised and restructured. Emphasising interventions that support locally led initiatives aligned with community needs and designed to involve stakeholders at national, regional and international levels should be central to the approach adopted by the European Union and NATO.
Photo by İrem Dur