When mysterious drones began appearing on oil rigs and wind farms off the coast of Norway about three years ago, officials weren’t sure where they came from.
But “we knew what they were doing,” said Stale Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, in a recent interview. “Part of it was espionage, where they are tracking a lot of things. Partly, I think, it was about positioning oneself in the event of war or deep crisis.”
The drones were suspected to have been launched from Russian-controlled ships in the North Sea, Ulriksen said, including some ships that were near underwater energy pipelines. Norway could not do much to stop them, he added, as they were flying over international waters.
In recent weeks, reports of drone swarms on the US East Coast have brought fears of hybrid warfare to widespread attention. Only 100 of the 5,000 drone sightings prompted further examination, US officials said, and so far none are believed to be foreign surveillance drones. But it’s a different story for drones spotted in late November and early December over military bases in England and Germany where American forces are stationed.
Military analysts concluded that those drones may have been on a state-sponsored surveillance mission, according to a U.S. official familiar with the incidents, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation. British and German defense officials declined to discuss details of the sightings.
Experts said the drones’ presence was indicative of a so-called hybrid or “gray zone” attack against the West, in which a range of tactics – military, cyber, economic and even psychological – are used to covertly attack or destabilize a enemy.
As Russia, Iran and other hostile states become increasingly brazen in their hybrid attacks against Western countries – such as hacking of sensitive computer systems and alleged assassination plots – defense officials are facing a thorny challenge. How can such acts be deterred without triggering a larger and potentially deadly conflict? And how can we assign blame to the attacker when attacks are aimed at escaping culpability?
‘It’s not random; It’s part of military operations.”
Hybrid attacks are nothing new, but they have intensified in recent years.
One of the most visible and potentially deadly incidents occurred in July, when a series of packages exploded in Europe. Postmarked from Lithuania, the packages contained electric massage machines with a highly flammable magnesium-based substance inside. Two exploded at DHL loading facilities in Britain and Germany, and the third at a Polish courier.
Western officials and Polish investigators said they believed the packages were a test conducted by Russia’s military intelligence agency to plant explosives on cargo planes bound for the United States and Canada.
“We are telling our allies that this is not random; it’s part of military operations,” Kestutis Budrys, Lithuania’s foreign minister, said of the explosions. “We need to neutralize it and stop it at the source, and the source is Russian military intelligence.” Russia denies being behind acts of sabotage.
Other examples of hybrid tactics include cyberattacks against Albania in recent years, which a Microsoft investigation concluded were sponsored by Iran, and Russia’s failed attempt to influence presidential elections using disinformation in Moldova in October and November, according to Moldovan and European officials. European countries are also investigating whether ships intentionally cut underwater cables in recent months in an attempted attack.
While China, Iran and North Korea have shown a growing appetite for hybrid attacks, officials said Russia in particular has used them as covert sabotage against NATO allies following NATO’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. of the Kremlin in 2022.
“Russia has escalated its action across the board and, as a result, is reaching levels of increasing concern,” James Appathurai, NATO’s deputy assistant secretary general who oversees the hybrid warfare strategy, said in an interview. “They are willing to accept greater risks for us, for the safety of our citizens’ lives.”
Britain, Germany, the United States and Baltic and Nordic countries close to Russia’s border are among the Western countries most affected by hybrid threats, partly because of their major support for Ukraine, officials said. Last year, according to Western officials, American and NATO intelligence agencies uncovered a Russian plot to kill the CEO of a German arms giant, Rheinmetall, which built millions of dollars’ worth of weapons and ammunition for the Ukraine.
The drones spotted in Britain in November – three days after President Biden said Ukraine might launch US-made missiles at Russia – were larger and more weatherproof than a hobbyist would expect, and were mostly spotted after dark. That’s partly why military analysts concluded that a hostile state was responsible, the U.S. official said.
Then, in early December, just as drone sightings in Britain were beginning to decline, drones appeared over Ramstein air base in Germany, one of the largest American military positions in Europe. Some have also reportedly been spotted near facilities owned by Rheinmetall.
Investigators are examining whether the flights in both countries were “outside Kremlin rules,” the US official said.
Russia has repeatedly denied launching hybrid attacks against NATO, in many cases ridiculing the allegations, although NATO officials say Moscow has set up a special directorate tasked with carrying them out.
Russian officials also say they are the ones being targeted. “What’s happening in Ukraine is some call it hybrid warfare,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said in an interview with Tucker Carlson in early December. “I would also call it hybrid warfare.”
How to fight a shadow war.
NATO has begun creating a new strategy to deal with hybrid attacks to replace a 2015 policy it believes is now obsolete. The new approach, Appathurai said, will provide a baseline picture of recent hybrid attacks to help the alliance measure whether risk levels are increasing.
“It 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 against people specifically accused of engaging in pro-Russian hybrid threats. It also recently tasked four senior commissioners with countering hybrid threats.
Officials and experts agree that a broad range of measures are needed to deter and protect against hybrid attacks, including increased “naming and shaming” of adversaries and the imposition of legal sanctions; improve intelligence and technical systems to monitor threats; and military exercises and other displays of force to demonstrate that even covert aggression will not go unpunished.
But this will require unity among NATO members, especially when attacks cross international borders. And because hybrid warfare is by its nature designed to evade clear attribution of responsibility, officials have been hesitant to launch powerful responses without indisputable evidence of the adversary’s identity.
That has emboldened Russia and China to overstep their bounds, according to officials, diplomats and experts.
“Until NATO and European member states agree on how to respond more decisively to the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare, Europe will remain vulnerable,” Charlie Edwards, a former British intelligence and security strategist, wrote in November . “Failure to act will mean the Kremlin will retain the strategic advantage.”