Preparing for Hybrid Threats to Security

Edited by Odd Jarl Borch, Tormod Heier

About this ebook

Preparing for Hybrid Threats to Security examines campaigns that combine cyber, information, economic, political, and military pressures. Edited by Odd Jarl Borch and Tormod Heier, the volume considers aggressors, targeted societies, and affected communities. Security researchers, students, and crisis-management professionals can study European cases and approaches to collaborative preparedness.

Inside this title

Cyberattacks, disinformation, economic coercion, and political subversion together

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Format: Digital ebook
ISBN: 9781032617916
Last updated: 2026-11-03

What this book covers.

The volume places hybrid threats within European security and international crisis-management research. Cyberattacks, disinformation, economic coercion, and political subversion illustrate how different tools may be combined within a campaign. Its three perspectives examine those initiating such activity, the societies targeted, and communities experiencing its consequences.

Case studies connect these patterns with questions about democratic institutions, social polarization, fragmented information environments, and public trust. Preparedness is considered across government, private organizations, and civil society, with attention to coordination and societal resilience. The book also discusses response mechanisms involving communication, law, economic measures, and cyber defense. It suits academic study and professional reflection on how distributed responsibilities shape responses to hybrid security pressures.

Study guide included

Inside Preparing for Hybrid Threats to Security.

Hybrid campaigns blur war and peace by stacking cyber intrusion, disinformation, economic pressure, political subversion and military signalling. Borch and Heier gather European research that asks not only who mounts such campaigns but how targeted societies and ordinary communities absorb the shock, and what coordinated preparedness could look like.

The edited volume sits between security studies and crisis-management research. Its organizing move is a three-way lens: the actor designing a campaign, the state and institutions being pressed, and the communities where consequences are felt. European cases anchor the abstraction in particular elections, information environments and infrastructure. Democratic trust, social polarization and fragmented media recur because hybrid pressure often aims at the seams of a society rather than its army. Preparedness is treated as distributed work across government, firms and civil society, so coordination and resilience matter as much as any single response tool. Readers are invited to weigh communication, legal, economic and cyber-defence measures against one another rather than treat them as a checklist.

What makes a threat hybrid

The volume begins by defining the object of study: campaigns that deliberately combine several instruments at once. Cyber operations, information manipulation, economic coercion, political subversion and military pressure are not separate problems but parts of one design. The definition matters because it changes what counts as a response and who is expected to deliver it.

Several instruments are used in combination
The boundary between war and peace grows unclear
Definition shapes the response that follows

Topic 1

Aggressor, targeted society, affected community

Three vantage points structure the analysis. One looks at the actor orchestrating a campaign; another at the state and institutions under pressure; a third at the communities where the effects land. Keeping them distinct prevents preparedness from being written only from the perspective of central government and makes visible who bears the cost.

The aggressor perspective explains campaign design
Targeted societies face institutional pressure
Communities experience consequences directly

Topics 2–4

European cases and crisis-management frameworks

Case material from Europe connects general reasoning to specific settings and to the crisis-management literature. The cases show how hybrid activity plays out in particular information environments and political contexts. Frameworks for crisis response are then brought to bear, so each example can be read against shared concepts rather than as an isolated anecdote.

European cases provide concrete settings
Crisis-management frameworks supply shared concepts
Examples are read comparatively rather than in isolation

Topic 5

Trust, polarization and fragmented information

A recurring theme is that hybrid pressure works through the social fabric. Polarization, fragmented media and declining institutional trust are treated both as vulnerabilities and as effects of attack. The discussion shows why a response that ignores public confidence may fail even when technical defences hold.

Polarization can be exploited and deepened
Fragmented media complicate shared understanding
Public trust is a security resource

Topic 6

Cross-sector coordination and resilience

Preparedness is distributed across government, private organizations and civil society, which raises the problem of coordination. The volume examines how responsibilities are divided and where they break down. Societal resilience is presented not as a slogan but as a capacity that depends on institutions, communication and prior relationships.

Responsibility is spread across sectors
Coordination gaps weaken preparedness
Resilience depends on institutions and relationships

Topic 7

Response mechanisms

Communication, legal instruments, economic measures and cyber defence each offer a route of response, and each has limits. The book compares them without pretending that any one is sufficient. The reader is encouraged to think about sequencing and combination rather than reaching for a single favourite tool.

Multiple response channels are available
Each channel carries its own limits
Sequencing matters as much as selection

Topic 8

Topic map

Defining Hybrid ThreatsTopic 1
The Aggressor PerspectiveTopic 2
Targeted Societies and InstitutionsTopic 3
Communities and ConsequencesTopic 4
European Cases and Crisis FrameworksTopic 5
Trust, Polarization and InformationTopic 6
Cross-Sector Coordination and ResilienceTopic 7
Response MechanismsTopic 8

Key takeaways

Hybrid threats are defined by combination, so single-tool responses are usually incomplete.
Preparedness is distributed; coordination between sectors is part of the capability itself.
Social trust and information quality are security assets, not soft extras.

Security researchers, graduate students, crisis-management professionals and policy analysts studying European responses to combined cyber, informational, economic and political pressure.

Topics covered

hybrid threats to security
European hybrid warfare
cyber and information operations
disinformation and societal resilience
crisis management frameworks
cross-sector preparedness
political subversion
economic coercion

Questions about this ebook.

Edition, audience, and study-guide details at a glance.

What is Preparing for Hybrid Threats to Security about?

Who is Preparing for Hybrid Threats to Security for?

Security researchers, graduate students, crisis-management professionals and policy analysts studying European responses to combined cyber, informational, economic and political pressure.

Does this page include a study guide?

Yes. This page includes an original study guide with six thematic sections, key takeaways, and a topic map for structured reading.