They are not hybrid wars

For some time now, in the European Union (EU) and around the world, serious incidents and attacks on cybersecurity and transport spaces have been reported. Cyberattacks have existed for decades and are becoming increasingly serious due to the great dependence—of economies and societies, including in defense and security—on cyber tools. For this reason, almost all countries and security organizations include cybersecurity challenges in their threat response strategies (specific bodies have even been created, as NATO did years ago). The record of documented attacks is extensive: now, even in commercial food supply chains, altering the instructions of goods freezers so that their temperature exceeds 40 °C and destroys everything stored inside.

Regarding incidents in the transport sector, especially the air sector, they are very diverse: bomb threats, usually false, which force the application of very strict protocols on commercial aircraft –the thirty cases in Europe this week are an example–; tampering with cyber control supports to generate chaos, and attacks or threats of disruption to airspace using drones, such as those in our region a few months ago.

These attacks come from private actors, who often seek lucrative benefits, but also from state actors and even mixed actors (private actors hired by states). The stated or proven motives range from trade wars between companies to fraud and, obviously, attempts to disrupt daily life in certain states by other states. In these cases, the aim is to generate a sense of insecurity, influence the political agenda, or improve the negotiating position regarding certain disputes between the aggressor and the victim. In any case, these types of cybersecurity incidents and in transport spaces pose great difficulties in attributing responsibilities that are contrasted and with conclusive evidence.

Some institutions, statesmen, and media outlets often refer to these incidents and attacks as examples of hybrid warfare. The expression is absolutely erroneous and counterproductive.

The term originated in the North American defense community and has constantly expanded its meaning. It alludes to multiple phenomena and possibilities that occur in the gray, intermediate zone between situations of peace and armed conflict. And that which means too many things, means nothing concrete.

It was used to refer to the entry of tens of thousands of people into Ceuta with the complicity of Morocco, a country with which we are not at war. It is also used to refer to Putin's attempts to disrupt the European order within the framework of the nearly four years of war between Ukraine and Russia, without the EU being at war with the Russians, despite its support for Kyiv. And it has been suggested that perhaps the hand of the Kremlin is hidden behind the bomb threats or the disruptive use of drones at airports.

In none of these cases can one speak of hybrid warfare. An adjective cannot totally modify the meaning of a noun, it simply restricts it, delimits its semantic field. Without war, the recourse to threats or non-military tools in disputes between states is not an armed conflict. For this reason, in official statements, the EU and NATO only speak of hybrid threats, security challenges for actors that are neither in fully peaceful relations nor in situations of war, but rather have to manage disputes in this gray zone, where it is common to use above all non-armed, heterogeneous and often synchronized tools to try to modify the adversary's conduct.

Using incorrect expressions in the field of security is not a terminological error or a rhetorical license, but a way of not facing real problems, of avoiding the issue. Security has been multidimensional for decades and affects all spheres of the lives of people and the political communities in which they are organized. And in them, cybersecurity and transport are fundamental elements, as shown by the fact that 80% of world trade takes place across the seas.

Therefore, the episodes we are discussing are and will be common and demand, whoever the culprits may be, reducing vulnerabilities. Words do not solve problems, but they can aggravate them.

I will end with the advice of Josep Pla: “To adjective nouns, to place the corresponding adjective behind a noun, cannot be done haphazardly, by guessing, frivolously [...]. The adjective must be, in the first place, intelligible and clear and then, if possible, precise”.

We are facing non-military threats and challenges of a heterogeneous nature that affect and will affect daily life.