Leaders’ response to hybrid threats: a real-time case study

This report draws attention on the urgency to improve cooperation between the public and the private sectors in order to increase readiness and resilience to hybrid challenges. It includes several recommendations based on the findings from Friends of Europe’s tabletop simulation exercise ‘Hybrid warfare readiness’ where senior officials and experts from NATO, the EU, national authorities, the media and business were gathered to test their collective responsiveness to a range of credible hybrid threat scenarios.

Whereas NATO and the EU have already held exercises to deal with hybrid threat scenarios, the missing link has always been the private sector. Their involvement should not be neglected, as they own and operate a large percentage of the critical infrastructures being attacked. The novelty of Friends of Europe’s tabletop simulation exercise was to bring private sector representatives together with national government NATO and the EU experts.

Based on the discussions and findings of this innovative simulation exercise, the report identifies six recommendation themes to improve  cooperation between the public and private sectors in order to deter, detect and defend societies from hybrid attacks.