Russia is attacking European states and nobody wants to mention the war.
Russia is escalating attacks on Europeans:
“We have been observing aggressive actions by the Russian intelligence services for some time now,” said Thomas Haldenwang, who recently stepped down as president of Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency.
“Russia is using the entire toolbox, from influencing political discussions to cyber attacks on critical infrastructure to sabotage on a significant scale,” he said.
The Kremlin has long carried out so-called hybrid warfare against European countries, including disinformation campaigns, hacking, cyberattacks and election interference to destabilize European societies and, in the past few years, push them to decrease military support for Ukraine.
But the response is muted, as Lithuania's outgoing foreign minister explained:
“Why do we call it hybrid? Because basically when you call it hybrid you don’t need to do anything about it,” Landsbergis told a security conference in Riga last month. “If you call it terrorism, then it implies reaction.”
That's been my view of so-called "hybrid" war for a long time:
Over-analyzing Russia's deception causes the West to miss the point that "hybrid warfare" is very simple: Russia invades a country; Russia denies it has invaded a country; and the West goes along with Russian denials.
And terrorism counts as an invasion, too.
The European response should be to fight back--not increasing the intensity of analysis.
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NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
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NOTE: I made the image with Bing.
