From Peace To War

Over the past decade, the UK has faced a wave of state-linked hostile activities within its borders and against its interests, an experience shared by liberal democracies in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region. In the face of this rising threat, many Western governments and international organisations, such as the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), have begun to develop specific policies to respond to the threat of state-linked hostile activity. The underlying policy challenge has been described in various ways, including “hostile activity by states” and “threats from state actors”, with the UK government choosing the term “state threats”. However, while sounding similar, these definitions have differences in scope and meaning that can affect how researchers might assess the character, scope and impact of the current threat.

This synthesis paper thus explores the commonalities and differences in the policy definitions Western states use to conceptualise the underlying threat from state actors, drawing on the Serious Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE) research programme Research Paper Old Wine, New Bottles? The Challenge of State Threats. The research identifies several basic similarities across existing definitions, which highlight clandestine, covert and coercive state activities as core elements of the threat. However, it also identifies variations in scope and meaning around the levels of hostile intent needed to justify seeing a state action as a threat. It further addresses the extent to which states might be held responsible for the acts of non-state actors, such as terrorist networks and organised crime groups (OCGs), with which they might have relationships.

To clarify these issues, the research sets out a new “working model” for state threats that combines the most common elements of existing definitions and seeks to draw pragmatic boundaries where uncertainties exist. According to the research, state threats are politically and intentionally motivated hostile acts that are underhand and largely, but not exclusively, covert by nature. They fall short of the internationally defined nature of war, and are initiated or encouraged by state actors and executed by state or non-state actors.

The research makes clear that state threats must include an intent to cause harm; and that neutral or even positive actions (such as an investment creating an economic interdependency), which might later be “weaponised” for nefarious purposes, should be seen as potential vulnerabilities, rather than state threats in themselves. Moreover, the research argues that the harmful acts of non-state actors should only be seen as state threats where there is evidence of interaction between a non-state actor and a state, combined with an alignment in hostile behaviours – whether in method, target choice or timing. While non-state actors are potential tools of a state, they are not the state itself.

Background

According to UK officials, state-linked hostile activity in the UK has risen dramatically over the past decade. In March 2023, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Matt Jukes, stated that his force’s casework on foreign interference and espionage had increased fourfold since March 2018, with the attempted poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. This challenge has been described in various ways in Western countries, with the UK choosing the term “state threats”.

In response to the growing policy importance of state threats and a limited body of research on the issue, the Serious Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence research programme worked with the Royal United Services Institute to set up the inter-disciplinary State Threats Taskforce (STT) in 2023. The STT convened two workshops comprising former practitioners and experts from Europe and Five Eyes countries, which sought to scope the threat landscape faced by the UK and its allies, and current and potential policy responses.

While helping to sketch the outlines of the challenge, however, the workshops also revealed uncertainty – even among those deeply immersed in relevant fields – about the nature, character and scope of state threats. Therefore, new research has been undertaken to address key questions about the challenge of state threats. The research draws on research literature, publicly available official documents, and credible media reports published in English over the previous decade, supplemented by 50 semi-structured interviews with academic experts, researchers, journalists, current and former government officials, and practitioners the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and North America. The primary question it addresses – and the focus of this paper – is how best to define the term state threats.

Key findings

Current academic research does not provide a definition of state threats

The research notes that, unsurprisingly, given the relative novelty of the term state threats, academic literature on the concept is currently limited. Nonetheless, a substantial body of literature exists on related subject areas pertinent to the field. The two most significant are “hybrid” and “grey zone” activities. These terms are often paired with various nouns such as war, warfare, conflict or threats to create a variety of compound terms such as “hybrid warfare” or “grey zone conflict”.

The concept of hybrid warfare, as conceived by modern military thinkers, first emerged in 1999 in Unrestricted Warfare, a book by two colonels in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. The authors argued that China must use “all means, including armed force or non-armed force, military and non-military, and lethal and non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one’s interest”. Separately, in the following decade, US Marine colonel and scholar Frank Hoffman used the term “hybrid war” in a 2007 article, identifying it as the use of blended military tactics exemplified by state and non-state actors such as Islamist group Hezbollah. The term hybrid war was also used in Russian military discussions (in Russian as gibridnaya voina), framed as a type of political warfare at which the US was adept and Russia needed to master, mixing military methods with economic action, information campaigns and political subversion. Despite the differences in the use of the word hybrid in various countries, however, at its core its meaning lies in the “addition and combination” of a variety of methods and tools “bringing into play the maximum range of categories of conflict and combining them in novel ways”, as noted by Australian soldier-scholar David Kilcullen. Hybridity is thus closely allied to, if not identical with, the idea of “weaponisation”, which Russia expert Mark Galeotti defines as “the notion of items and concepts not usually connected with conflict” being used as forms of attack.

A related area of research focuses on “grey zone” conflict. Although hybrid warfare shares conceptual common ground in its preference for unconventionality, grey zone activities emphasise the use of ambiguous methods to achieve political ends, damaging a target without detection or attribution and thus making a robust response less likely. In this, grey zone activities are close to the older concept of “covert action”, defined by US intelligence expert Loch Johnson as “clandestine intervention in the affairs of other nations”. The grey zone concept also dovetails well with newer ideas developed in the realm of cyber studies, such as “intelligence conflicts”, defined by cyber experts Robert Chesney and Max Smeets as “statecraft pursued by the means and methods traditionally associated with intelligence agencies”; or “persistent engagement”, defined by cyber expert Michael Fischerkeller and associates as an ongoing struggle “calibrated to remain below the threshold that would elicit an armed response, seeking instead to produce cumulative gains over time”. Throughout all these definitions, there is a shared focus on the use of less easily detectable and attributable methods to achieve political ends with limited consequences.

These various terms provide value to researchers studying state threats. They highlight different styles of hostile activity that states may employ, whether combining methods, exploiting unexpected avenues, or playing with thresholds and norms. Moreover, despite a primary focus on these activities in the context of military affairs or near-war scenarios, they also have relevance to what Western states would see as conventional peacetime activities of intelligence agencies and their partners.

However, critically, none of these academic definitions provide a comprehensive underpinning for what states are discussing when they refer to state threats or similar concepts. Firstly, while the academic literature addresses the use of hybrid methods and grey zone activities by state actors, it also references examples of non-state actors employing similar approaches. These methods are not exclusive to states. Secondly, and more importantly, by defining threats based on types of activity, these terms exclude the possibility of states employing methods that are neither hybrid, innovative, unexpected nor ambiguous. It is logically conceivable that a state could use a singular, familiar and only lightly covert form of hostile action that instinctively feels like a state threat – such as a one-off assassination of a foreign political figure – without it easily fitting into the category of a hybrid or grey zone threat.

The UK’s has held an actor-agnostic and behaviour-focused view of state threats

In the UK, the term state threats emerged around 2017-18 and was used to name a new Joint State Threats Assessment Team, created in June 2017 and based at the UK Security Service (MI5)’s Thames House headquarters. For a period, ministers and officials also used other terms alongside state threats to refer to the challenges posed by states’ hostile actions, including “hostile state activity”, “hostile activity by states” and “state-based threats”. However, by 2021, state threats had become the UK’s preferred descriptor. The Home Office set out its definition of state threats in its Consultation on Legislation to Counter State Threats (Hostile State Activity), issued in May 2021, which introduced measures later included in the National Security Act 2023. According to the consultation, state threats comprise:

Overt or covert action orchestrated by foreign governments which falls short of general armed conflict … but nevertheless seeks to undermine or threaten the safety and interests of the UK, including: the integrity of its democracy, its public safety, its military advantage and its reputation or economic prosperity.

The consultation also defines five key state threat categories, which cover the classic and well-known behaviours of state intelligence and security agencies, while largely not using traditional terms such as sabotage or subversion. They comprise:

1. Threats to people, through harassment or physical violence.

2. Threats to things, such as the nation’s critical national infrastructure or overseas supply chains.

3. Espionage against both the public and private sectors, including academic, scientific, technological and commercial intelligence.

4. Interference in political, electoral, economic or social processes or decision-making.

5. Threats to geostrategic interests in the reshaping of international norms, and misuse of rules, norms and agreements to coerce other states.

The key underlying theme of the UK state threats definition is that it primarily focuses on hostile activities rather than the identities of the state actors behind them. According to the Home Office, this decision was made because the UK government did not want to imply that state actors using hostile acts were inherently or permanently hostile towards the UK. However, despite this, several leading UK intelligence leaders have been specific in pinpointing the main culprits as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

Western states use a variety of similar but not identical policy definitions to the UK

The research shows that international organisations and Western governments use various terms to describe hostile activities by states. NATO and the EU have used the term “hybrid threats” for some time. The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE), a joint initiative of the two organisations, defines such threats as actions “conducted by state or non-state actors, whose goal is to undermine or harm a target by combining overt and covert military and non-military means”. In contrast, recently created policy formulations, such as the UK’s, have focused specifically on state-linked behaviours and have not limited their scope to hybrid activities alone. Below are three more recent examples from the Netherlands, Canada and Australia, showing the similarities and parallels between definitions.

▲ Table 1: Non-UK terminology on state threats-type activity

Among these terms and definitions, the NATO/EU language concerning hybrid threats stands out as an outlier, deeply rooted in early military discussions from when Western countries were still confronting the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East, alongside Russia’s annexation of Crimea. By emphasising hybridity as a type of attack employed by various actors, it fails to address state activity specifically and should, therefore, be set aside in favour of more recent terminology that does.

While none of the state-centric contemporary definitions exactly matches the UK’s definition, each implicitly shares similar perspectives on the character and scope of the threats being identified. These include their severity (falling below the internationally defined nature of war); source (originating with states, even if carried out by non-state actors); character (covert, deceptive, corrupt, illegal, coercive or surreptitiously threatening); and intent (to damage other states’ interests).

However, despite “family resemblances”, there are also notable differences. While the consensus is to focus on behaviours that are likely to be conducted secretly or duplicitously, the UK also includes overt hostile acts, greatly expanding the definition’s scope. A further difference is in the level of hostile intent required for an act to qualify as a state threat or equivalent. In the definitions of Canada and the UK, a hostile act is intended to harm the interests of another state; intent is apparent. In the case of the Netherlands, however, the definition also encompasses undermining actions that could harm another state’s interests. Although political intent is implied, it is not explicitly required. On such grounds, a vast range of antisocial state behaviours – environmental pollution and failing to meet treaty obligations, for example – could be interpreted as state threats.

The definitions also demonstrate other ambiguities about levels of state intent. For example, the definitions assume that a state act is either hostile or not. However, some state behaviours might have several intentions behind them, both positive and potentially negative. For example, the provision of aid, investment or technology transfers could be intended to help while also providing the donor with a level of leverage over the recipient. They might be used for good or ill. Even if such help starts with purely positive motives, it has the potential for abuse in the future: political intentions can change over time. However, to designate such interstate interactions as hostile acts because they might become so would require that wide swathes of normal diplomacy be seen as potentially hostile acts.

A final area of difficulty is the role of non-state actors, which is explicit in several definitions and implied in others. While an OCG or terrorist network might occasionally act on behalf of or partner with a state, such groups are also likely to pursue their own agenda, which, while damaging to other states, is not directed, encouraged or required by their state partner. To include all non-state actors’ activities would, therefore, magnify the scale of state-linked hostile activity, while excluding them would almost certainly understate the scope of the problem.

A pragmatic process of reconciliation is needed to provide a working definition of state threats

Leaving aside the outlier concept of hybrid threats, the research notes various approaches that might be used to reconcile the differences between more contemporary policy terms and tackle any ambiguities. The most obvious is the wholesale adoption of one country’s definition or another’s; however, deciding which one to use risks becoming an involved process requiring justificatory criteria or a quick but arbitrary decision with an uncertain rationale. Neither method is very helpful. Another approach is to define state threats either very narrowly or very broadly, alternatively excluding or including all problematic categories. However, both approaches have significant weaknesses; the former risks ignoring many relevant hostile behaviours and actors, and the latter risks bringing a vast and undifferentiated spectrum of state and non-state activities into scope. Consequently, some pragmatism is required in developing a working definition of what we mean by state threats that does not dilute the essential qualities in existing policy definitions while also providing a workable scope for investigation.

Overt or covert

The centre of gravity in Western government thinking is that state threats largely consist of covert and clandestine activities, although the UK also explicitly includes overt acts. Economy, simplicity and the weight of policy opinion suggest that excluding overt acts might be appropriate; however, doing so could potentially omit episodic and blatant acts of semi-covert or overt hostility that only seem to differ from covert hostile acts by a matter of degree, and which, moreover, often occur as one ingredient alongside covert activities.

The question then arises which types of overt statecraft should be included or excluded. The acceptability of various overt activities under international law or custom is open to broad interpretation, even when states concur on the letter of the law or the usual pattern of practice. Furthermore, some policy tools that Western states regard as entirely legitimate are dismissed by others, including those that are not necessarily Western adversaries. For instance, India sees Western use of autonomous economic and financial sanctions outside the UN framework as inappropriate. Including overt acts that any state might deem unacceptable or illegitimate, without any qualification, would thus create a definition that is so broad as to become meaningless and would also encompass Western statecraft.

However, several potential dividing lines might be drawn. Some overt hostile activities are explicitly banned; wars of aggression, for example. Others are explicitly permitted under international law in response to other states’ hostile and illegal actions, such as enforcing freedom of navigation in international waterways if a blockade is attempted, for instance. Moreover, other actions, such as the imposition of autonomous sanctions, are not illegal and are direct reflections of measures that the international community itself uses through the UN Security Council. While some states might question the rights of states to apply them without UN endorsement, they do not question the idea of sanctions as a tool of policy in themselves. These kinds of measures do at least bear the imprimatur of some international acceptance.

In between these poles, however, lies a zone of activities that are neither explicitly endorsed nor prohibited by international law and practice; peacetime espionage, for example. Sifting the acceptable from the unacceptable within this zone is a difficult matter, given the diversity of states’ legal, moral and cultural norms. What “feels” right for one country might not in another. However, some potential rules of thumb might establish whether a state’s overt behaviours could be deemed less acceptable as peacetime conduct, especially when used in conjunction with covert hostile acts. These are behaviours that, in effect, go against the intended spirit of the rules, if not their precise letter, and comprise:

• extreme behaviours that push acceptable forms of statecraft to the very edge of international practice, such as the use of physical threats in diplomacy; and

• subversive behaviours that distort, infringe or manipulate rules and norms with antisocial behaviours, such as seeking to redraw international boundaries without consent, or using international tools and institutions in dishonest or misleading ways.

If there is a rough heuristic for drawing lines between acceptable and unacceptable behaviours, it is probably through the pragmatic application of these criteria, imprecise though they may be.

The importance of intent

On matters of intent common sense suggests that a desire to harm is an essential component of a hostile act. Sins of omission or neglect can be damaging and dangerous, but they are rarely viewed as threats. A doctor whose mistake results in a patient’s death may be accused of negligence or possibly manslaughter, but likely not murder. Additionally, the development of an interstate dependency that may later be exploited cannot be considered a hostile act without substantive evidence to suggest that it is intended as such from the outset.

Using the need to demonstrate intent to harm as a guide, it is therefore justifiable to exclude purely negligent state behaviours and the formation of international dependencies from the scope of state threats in most cases. However, their potential for weaponisation remains a latent issue states must be aware of. Both categories of behaviour have the potential to be misused at some point and could therefore be regarded as pathways by which hostile actions might emerge in the future.

The importance of responsibility

Following the same logic, the acts of non-state actors with links to states cannot be included or excluded as a whole. Intermediate criteria need to be applied to assess the quality of evidence of operational engagement between state and non-state actors, and the likely alignment of their intentions. Where non-state actors undertake hostile activities that are aligned with a group’s own agenda and not with that of the linked state actor, go against the wishes of that state actor, and generate little dividend for or cause harm to that state actor’s interests, such activities should not be treated as hostile state actions, regardless of existing operational links between the actors involved. To see a non-state actor’s activity as a form of hostile state threat, credible evidence needs to show not only a relationship or operational entanglement between the actors, but also reasonable grounds to believe that the non-state actor’s actions are undertaken because of that relationship, and with the involvement, encouragement or approval of the state actor. If these provisos are not in place, states become hostages to the actions of any actor that deems itself to be an instrument of that state’s interests, regardless of the views or actions of the state itself.

Certainly, finding convincing evidence to meet these criteria is much easier to propose than to achieve, and it may create uncertainties about how to categorise the behaviour of certain non-state actors. However, it is safer to base policy on credible evidence – even if it is open to different interpretations – rather than on external assumptions regarding the political allegiances of states and non-state actors.

The working model

Using these heuristics and judgements, the research establishes a new definition of state threats that synthesises the most prevalent elements of existing definitions and delineates pragmatic boundaries in areas of uncertainty. It seeks to flesh out the existing understanding of the term state threats based on the four core criteria initially identified:

1. Severity of the threat: It is a hostile act that fall short of the internationally defined nature of war, and/or distort and subvert peacetime international rules and norms.

2. The source of the threat: It is initiated or encouraged by a state actor and executed by a state or non-state actor for a state actor’s purposes.

3. The character of the threat: It is underhand and undermining (covert, deceptive, corrupt, illegal, coercive or threatening) or abuses accepted rules and norms.

4. The motivation of the threat: It intentionally or knowingly damages another state’s (or other states’) interests and assets for political purposes.

As readers will surmise, this definition is still a working model and edge cases will challenge it. Nevertheless, it is a useful framework for analysis and broadly aligns with the underlying sense of state threats expressed in various Western policies.

Implications

The research demonstrates that policymakers face challenges in defining and outlining the scope and nature of hostile state activities. Very little about these activities fits neatly within established conceptual policy boundaries. Although careful analysis can achieve a workable level of coherence, some ambiguity of meaning is unavoidable. The underlying tension the research reveals – between the need for comprehensiveness and the need for clarity – may be the fundamental problem Western governments face as they develop an appropriate set of policy responses to state threats. The research does not seek to resolve that tension by proposing detailed policy recommendations. However, its findings do have implications for the assumptions and perspectives policymakers will need as they formulate responses.

Observation 1: Recognise the redundancy of the peace/war dichotomy

Although terms such as hybrid threats and grey zone conflict do not fully capture the issue that Western governments face, they highlight important aspects of how major state actors are thinking and acting. Russia, China, Iran and others have indeed used hostile actions that blend unusual and novel techniques while navigating the legal and ethical boundaries that Western governments have established in international relations. As Kilcullen points out, Russia and China have aimed to test the West vertically, by pushing hostile actions to the brink of armed conflict, and horizontally, by expanding various forms of hostile actions into unexpected areas such as illegal migration. For Western governments and international organisations that prioritise clear legal boundaries and due process, state threats therefore present significant challenges in framing appropriate and timely responses.

This suggests that Western countries need to reconsider whether the clear peace/war dichotomy they follow still makes sense when their opponents are willing to ignore the boundary between them. It further suggests that Western countries need to adopt a more imaginative approach to identifying the sectors from which threats might emerge and in what combinations, as well as how they might respond. The research shows that there is an intermediate “zone” of unacceptable behaviours between peace and war that might be better seen as a distinct category – “conflict”, perhaps – and therefore, it behoves Western states to recognise this and recalibrate how they respond in ways that are commensurate to the level of action taken by their opponents.

Observation 2: Create clear but flexible definitions within which to frame policy responses

The research notes that no matter how fluid the policy problem governments face – and as noted, state threats are among the most fluid and amorphous – without a workable definition of the problem being targeted, responses will potentially fail. If the parameters of the challenge are set too wide, policy responses risk becoming diffuse and uncoordinated; if they are set too narrowly, important aspects of the problem will be neglected. The task is to address the essential aspects of the problem; in the probably apocryphal words attributed to Albert Einstein: “Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

Achieving this presents a challenge, and it is quite possible that the most parsimonious approach to defining the problem will still generate a vast array of issues to address. As the research indicates, this is probably the case with state threats, encompassing diverse areas such as espionage, sabotage, intimidation and subversion. Unlike a phenomenon such as terrorism, the one common theme behind these various threats is not the type of hostile act employed, but rather the core source of the threat: a state actor. State threats thus resemble a many-headed hydra, with numerous interlinked hostile acts emerging from singular sources – the states themselves.

How do Western governments manage this problem? Again, the research does not provide answers at this point, but it does offer areas for further consideration. Having a broad categorisation of state threats does not prevent governments from developing subcategories of interconnected aspects of the problem that might be dealt with in policy “clusters”, which make sense based on patterns of behaviour seen in available intelligence. For example, human espionage and malign influence campaigns can be closely connected, and many of the most violent activities in transnational repression and physical sabotage use similar methods and involve similar perpetrators. These clusters within the overall policy framework could themselves be prioritised; policy problems within each distinct cluster could then also be prioritised. How the prioritisation process would work in practice would need to be decided on, but one obvious technique of risk management would be to consider criteria such as the likelihood or regularity of specific threats, their potential impact, and the level of the state’s resilience or vulnerability to those threats.

Observation 3: Recognise the importance of access to and sharing of intelligence and expertise

The research further suggests that governments must have access to reliable intelligence, suitable tools and relevant human expertise to be able to identify and respond to state threats, particularly when attributing responsibility to the partners and proxies of state actors in ambiguous edge cases. The most fundamental – and, unfortunately, least effective – observation here is that departments and agencies require adequate resources and tools, and appropriate levels of expertise in relevant domains and geographies. To some extent, many Western governments are relatively well-positioned in this regard already due to the high competence and knowledge of their diplomatic personnel, and intelligence and security agencies. However, in many Western states, government departments and agencies are severely under-resourced in relevant linguistic and cultural expertise concerning perpetrator states and, in some cases, in technical expertise in areas such as cyber and disinformation. Without these, governments will find tackling diverse challenges such as state threats much harder.

The place of partnerships

These observations are not, however, merely intended to prompt greater investment in more resources; they also emphasise the need for Western governments to adopt a more flexible approach to gathering and accessing intelligence and expertise. The research indicates that much policy, intelligence and investigative work related to state threats remains siloed within governments. As always, in this situation, links, overlaps and common patterns of behaviour by malicious actors in seemingly different domains go unnoticed and unaddressed.

This problem can be partly mitigated through more flexible intelligence-sharing protocols among departments and agencies, and closer collaboration and joint efforts in areas where disparate threats share common origins, such as when non-state actors in organised crime operate on behalf of states. In such cases, intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies must work together closely. This necessity extends to establishing broader international partnerships, including bilateral and multilateral security collaborations, where allies and partners possess insights and access that individual states may lack. Furthermore, enhancing access to intelligence and expertise involves ensuring that governments use intelligence from the private sector effectively. This does not imply altering the law in a manner similar to China, which mandates that private enterprises support and facilitate state and party covert operations. Rather, it entails leveraging work already being performed by private actors in sectors with existing statutory responsibilities to gather and act on intelligence; for example, in the financial services sector, or fields where there is a practical need to comprehend high-risk environments, including logistics, energy, and metals and mining. Here, intelligence sharing and joint working can pay substantial dividends, as initiatives such as the UK’s Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce have already demonstrated.

Observation 4: Create a flexible but proportionate toolkit of policy responses

An obvious corollary of facing a fluid set of interconnected threats and being willing to reconsider international legal distinctions is the need for a flexible policy toolkit. If Western governments are to demonstrate greater agility, flexibility and creativity in addressing the zone of conflict in which state threats are occurring, they need more options than they currently allow themselves or have already considered.

As suggested in the research, much of the current Western response is based on a “resilience model”, which aims to soak up and remain unaffected by hostile acts, in effect waiting for the hostile acts to end. However, in taking this stance, Western governments assume that they will be able to withstand the effects of the long-term attrition involved, and that hostile actions will stop before they cause major or existential damage. They might be right in this, but it is an optimistic perspective that leaves much to chance. Governments also appear to assume that they have limited options available to affect the calculations of the attackers themselves. Although options to undertake disruptive and even offensive measures in areas such as cyber effects operations exist, options which might change attackers’ calculations, research suggests that their use remains relatively limited.

These observations should not be interpreted as a plea for Western governments to take an “anything goes” approach to responding to state threats. Legality, ethical principles, necessity and proportionality should remain foundational to Western responses, and governments might consider how to shape wider international standards of behaviour through existing diplomatic channels. Assertive diplomacy in multilateral and “minilateral” forums might kickstart discussions about international standards in non-military conflict, starting with the long-term dialogue around the use of cyberspace, then expanding to cover the role and scope of espionage, sabotage and subversion outside periods of traditionally defined war. Although these efforts are unlikely to gain immediate traction with the most aggressive “revisionist states” such as Russia or North Korea, they may offer a nucleus of consensus that could help to provide a barrier to the proliferation of hostile activities in the future.

Observation 5: Remain alert and be aware of dependencies and vulnerabilities in a rapidly changing world

Finally, the research indicates the need to be aware of potential changes in the scale, scope and nature of state threats. The emergence of new state actors, techniques and methods of attack must be monitored, along with changing contexts – economic, political and social – that could influence how hostile actions occur and what their potential impacts might be. One of the most important areas governments should focus on is the impact of technology, particularly advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and quantum computing, and how they might make acts of intimidation and sabotage – or worse – easier to undertake, more dangerous and potentially more deniable. Additionally, governments need to pay attention to the potential weaponisation of domestic issues of targeted states, and the exploitation of dependencies and vulnerabilities. Western governments must fully understand their levels of interconnectedness and interdependence not only with competitors and opponents, but also with significant non-aligned “middle powers”, as well as allies and partners. As noted above, while strategic dependence on other states may not be a state threat per se, it has the potential to become so if unexpected geopolitical realignments occur. As the current policy disagreements between the US and its allies indicate, this risk can never be wholly discounted.

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Matthew Redhead is the Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He was a UK government employee and senior financial crime professional.