Hybrid Threats and the Quiet Test of Resilience

Published by Jean-Luc Meier - Analyses in Strategic Resilience · Thursday 04 Sep 2025
Tags: Hybrid, Threats, Cybersecurity, Disinformation, Strategic, Resilience, Quiet, Preparedness

The disruption of GPS signals over Eastern Europe this week was brief but telling. Hybrid threats rarely dominate headlines, yet they quietly test the resilience of states, institutions, companies – and societies. What makes them so insidious is not their visibility, but their invisibility: the way they erode confidence, unsettle continuity, and blur the boundaries between peace and conflict.

The Invisible Front

Hybrid threats operate below the threshold of open confrontation. A jammed signal, a sudden cyberattack, a carefully placed disinformation campaign: each on its own may seem manageable, even minor. But taken together, they create a landscape of uncertainty.

Unlike conventional threats, these tactics rarely announce themselves. They bypass tanks and treaties, moving instead through civilian infrastructure, financial flows, or information systems. Their purpose is not always destruction. More often, it is disruption, the slow corrosion of trust in systems, institutions, and leadership.

Why They Are Overlooked

Hybrid threats are often dismissed because they lack spectacle. There are no televised summits, no dramatic deployments. Attribution is difficult, responses are rarely decisive, and the effects accumulate in silence.

For many leaders, this invisibility creates the illusion of safety. Yet it is precisely this absence of drama that makes hybrid threats so effective. They demand constant vigilance but offer little political reward for preparedness.

Implications for Leadership

For governments, hybrid threats test the credibility of alliances and the reliability of security architectures. For companies, they expose vulnerabilities in supply chains, technology, and reputation. For international organizations, they raise questions of trust: who is capable of providing protection when the threat is never formally declared?

And for societies, hybrid threats target public confidence itself. Disinformation, digital disruption, and the manipulation of narratives do not merely confuse, they polarize. Polarization, in turn, constrains the room for leadership, forcing governments to react to divided constituencies rather than act strategically.

Resilience in this context is not built in moments of crisis alone. It is cultivated in quieter times, through redundancy, credible partnerships, and a culture of anticipation. Leaders who underestimate hybrid threats risk not only disruption, but the gradual erosion of confidence in their capacity to govern or to lead.

The SRC View

At SRC Strategic Relations Counselling, we see hybrid threats as the quiet test of resilience. They remind us that security is not a state, but a process, not a headline, but a discipline. Preparedness is rarely loud. It is deliberate, discreet, and enduring.

Influence is not always visible, but it is never accidental. The same is true of resilience. Those who prepare quietly, continuously, and credibly will be the ones who endure when the signals fail.