(NewsUSA) - Modern conflict goes beyond troops and physical weapons. Warfare tactics now include cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, election interference, and economic coercion.

Dr. Teija Tiilikainen, director of the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE), outlined hybrid security threats in an interview on NatSec Tech, a podcast produced by the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) covering emerging technology and national security.

Hybrid CoE defines hybrid threats as "a mixture of different tools used against democracies, against the democratic principle, against democratic practices in our societies to undermine trust in government," Tiilikainen said — tools used by authoritarian regimes to shore up their own power. What sets them apart: "The whole logic of these threats is to surprise us unprepared." The toolkit spans cyber and information operations, election interference, instrumentalized migration, and attacks on critical infrastructure from energy grids to data cables.

Artificial intelligence has raised the stakes. AI "is a huge tool to affect the so-called cognitive sphere, our understanding of reality," Tiilikainen said. When threat actors deploy it ahead of elections or on social media, "we don't know with whom we are communicating." Increasingly, "we don't necessarily recognize the real actors from AI produced actors." AI may eventually help defenders, she noted, but for now attackers hold the advantage.

Tiilikainen singled out the information space. In the Russian war against Ukraine, "How do we see the war, who is the victim, who is the responsible actor? This tends to vary not only in Europe, but also outside Europe, very much due to efficient and successful Russian disinformation campaigns." Information is "a very dangerous tool in the hands of hybrid threat actors," she said, amplifying every other tool they use.

Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are the principal state actors, she said, often working through proxies: criminals, hackers, extremists, and unwitting citizens. Attribution is "very, very difficult," and "this is one of the assets that the threat actors are using."

Countering them "all starts with our broad societal resilience," Tiilikainen said. More proactive measures include international sanctions and publicly calling out responsible states. "China, for instance, is still quite keen on maintaining its reputation as a responsible international actor," she said.

Education matters too. Tiilikainen pointed to the Nordic and Baltic states, where an informed public helps small countries defend themselves, and to Ukraine and Taiwan, which have used transparency to expose and correct disinformation. The private sector must also engage, since much critical infrastructure is privately owned.

Hybrid threats are dangerous because they are hard to see, and they test vulnerabilities with larger conflict in mind. "We have the old saying that this is about preparing the battlefield," she said. "From that point of view the threat to democracies can be very existential."

Progress has been made — "I see resilience being strengthened" — but more is needed to prepare for "the malign use of modern technologies." Failure to do so, she warned, would "weaken the credibility of the democratic principles."

Visit scsp.ai to learn more.