When mysterious drones started appearing over oil rigs and wind farms off the coast of Norway about three years ago, officials weren’t sure where they were coming from.
“We knew what they were doing,” Stale Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said in a recent interview. “Some of it was espionage, where they chart a lot of things. I think some of it was to take a stand in case of war or deep crisis.
Mr. Ulriksen said the drones were suspected of being launched from Russian-controlled vessels in the North Sea, including some near underwater energy pipelines. Norway couldn’t do much to stop them considering they were flying over international waters.
In recent weeks, reports of the gathering of drones on the East Coast of the United States have brought the fear of hybrid warfare into widespread focus. Only Of the 5,000 drones there, 100 required further inspectionU.S. officials said, and so far, none are believed to be foreign surveillance drones. But that’s a different story for drones It was discovered on military bases in late November and early December England and Germany, where American forces are stationed.
Military analysts concluded that the drones may have been on a state-sponsored surveillance mission, according to a US official familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the open investigation. British and German defense officials declined to discuss details of the sightings.
Experts say the presence of drones is indicative of a so-called hybrid or “gray zone” attack against the West, in which a range of military, cyber, economic and even psychological tactics are used to attack the enemy by stealth or destabilize it.
As Russia, Iran and other hostile nations become increasingly brazen in their hybrid attacks against Western countries (such as hacking into sensitive computer systems and alleged assassination plots), defense officials face a tough challenge. How can such actions be prevented without sparking a wider and potentially deadly conflict? How can the aggressor be charged when the blows are designed to avoid guilt?
‘This is no accident; it is part of military operations.’
Hybrid attacks are not new, but have increased in recent years.
One of the most notable and potentially fatal incidents occurred in July, when a series of events took place packets exploded in Europe. Postage stamp from Lithuania, inside the packages were electric massagers with a highly flammable magnesium-based substance. Two exploded at DHL freight facilities in England and Germany, and the third at a Polish courier company.
Western officials and Polish investigators said they believed the packages were tests by a Russian military intelligence agency to plant explosives on cargo planes bound for the United States and Canada.
“We tell our allies that this is no accident; This is part of military operations”, – Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budris. he said from explosions. “We have to neutralize it and stop it at the source, and the source is Russian military intelligence.”
Other examples of hybrid tactics include cyberattacks It is Albania Microsoft’s research has been funded by Iran for the past few years and Russia’s failed attempt tending to the presidency elections using disinformation in Moldova According to Moldovan and European officials, in October and November. European countries are also investigating whether a number of ships were intentional to cut underwater cables in an attempted attack in recent months.
While China, Iran and North Korea have shown a growing appetite for hybrid attacks, officials said Russia, in particular, has deployed them as an attack. covert sabotage Against NATO allies after the Kremlin’s large-scale intervention in Ukraine in 2022.
“Russia has stepped it up at all levels, and as a result, it’s reaching worrisome levels,” James Appathurai, NATO’s assistant secretary general who oversees hybrid warfare strategy, said in an interview. “They are willing to take more risks for us, for the safety of our citizens’ lives.”
Officials said that Britain, Germany, the United States, the Baltic and Scandinavian countries near the border with Russia are among the Western countries that have become the most targets of hybrid threats, partly because of their great support for Ukraine. Last year, according to Western officials, American and NATO intelligence agencies uncovered the Russian plan kill the chief executive German arms giant Rheinmetall, which produces millions of dollars worth of weapons and ammunition for Ukraine.
The drones spotted in Britain in November – three days after President Biden said Ukraine could launch US-made deep-strike missiles at Russia – were larger and more weather-resistant than a hobbyist would expect, and were seen mostly after nightfall. A US official said that this is partly why military analysts concluded that a hostile state was responsible.
In early December, as drone sightings began to decline in Britain, drones appeared over Ramstein Air Base in Germany, one of the largest American military outposts in Europe. It is reported that some of them were observed near the facilities belonging to Rheinmetall.
A US official said investigators were looking into whether the flights in both countries were “out of the Kremlin”.
Russia has repeatedly denied conducting hybrid attacks against NATO, often mocking the accusations, although NATO officials say Moscow has created a special directorate aimed at carrying them out.
Russian officials say that they are the target. “What is happening in Ukraine is what some people call a hybrid war,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said. said in an interview with Tucker Carlson in early December. “I would also call it hybrid warfare.”
How to fight the shadow war.
NATO launched a new strategy to counter hybrid attacks in 2015 to replace its outdated policy. According to Mr. Appathurai, the new approach will provide a baseline of recent hybrid attacks to help the alliance gauge whether risk levels are increasing.
“This will be important for allies to determine how serious the incident is and what their response might be,” he said.
The European Union is also stepping up its efforts, imposing sanctions in mid-December for the first time specifically against people accused of engaging in pro-Russian hybrid threats. He also recently appointed four high-level commissioners to fight hybrid threats.
Officials and experts agree on a wide range of measures to prevent and protect against hybrid attacks, including more “naming and shaming” of adversaries and legal penalties; improvement of intelligence and technical systems for monitoring threats; and military exercises and other displays of force to demonstrate that even covert aggression will not go unpunished.
But this requires unity among NATO members, especially when attacks cross international borders. And because hybrid warfare is by its very nature designed to avoid the obvious attribution of responsibility, officials are reluctant to make strong responses without indisputable evidence of an adversary’s identity.
This has emboldened Russia and China to push the limits, according to officials, diplomats and experts.
Charlie Edwards, a former British intelligence and security strategist, said, “Europe will remain vulnerable until NATO and European member states disagree on how to respond tougher to the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare.” wrote in November. “Inaction means that the Kremlin maintains its strategic advantage.”
