Abstract

This session focuses on a five-stage framework for hybrid threat deterrence, which includes: the Preparation Stage, focused on communicating redlines to opponents and building detection capacity; the Detection & Attribution Stage, which emphasizes developing detection capabilities and intelligence sharing with partners; the Decision-Making Stage, involving identification of responses through cost-benefit analysis; the Execution Stage, which entails implementing countermeasures such as strategic communications, government-wide synchronization, and securing domestic and international support; and the Evaluation Stage, which assesses the effectiveness of countermeasures against hybrid threats.

Additionally, the session presents a framework of five Cross-Domain Strategies against Hybrid Threats: (1) cooperation, (2) persuasion, (3) protection, (4) coercion, and (5) control, mapped across six domains of response: diplomacy, information, cyber, economy, military, and legal.

The session also explores lessons learned from Russia’s hybrid war and the subsequent invasion of Ukraine, focusing on the changing nature of hybrid threats and their interaction with military operations in international politics, the global economy, and domestic affairs.

About the Speaker

Dr. Tim Sweijs is the Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a Senior Research Fellow at the War Studies Research Centre of the Netherlands Defence Academy. His work is multidisciplinary in nature and straddles political science, strategic studies and war studies.

He is a board member at the European Initiative for Security Studies where he chairs the War, Coercion and Statecraft Working Group. He is also a Research Affiliate at the Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute for Technology. Tim has advised international organisations, governments and defence departments across the globe. He has provided expert testimony to the United Nations Security Council, the European Parliament, the Dutch Parliament, as well as to NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly. He teaches an advanced graduate and executive staff command course on the future of war.

Dr. Tim Sweijs holds degrees in War Studies (PhD, MA), International Relations (Msc), and Philosophy (BA) from King’s College, London and the University of Amsterdam.