Germany at Hybrid War

In an article entitled Germany at Hybrid War: to Maintain Security, Protect Democracy! (Deutschland im hybriden Krieg: Sicherheit wahren, Demokratie schützen!), posted on the website of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Dr. Edmund Ratka discusses the threats which participation in the hybrid war against Russian carries for Germany.

Dr. Ratka understands hybrid warfare as a combination of regular and irregular, overt and covert forms of fighting. It involves espionage and sabotage, cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns, and aims to destabilize the enemy’s society and undermine its morale.

As a key member of the EU and NATO and an important supporter of Ukraine, Germany is particularly affected by Russia's hybrid war against the West. Besides, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has identified China and Iran as key actors whose intelligence activities in Germany pose a hybrid threat.

As a liberal and federal democracy, Germany is particularly vulnerable to such hybrid attacks. By their very nature, open societies offer entry points – both physical and cognitive. Transparency of public infrastructure can be exploited to plan attacks, while free press and freedom of expression place strict limits on combatting disinformation.

The dissemination of fake news poses no direct threat to the people. Cyber attacks on infrastructure are more dangerous. The division of powers among federal, state and municipal authorities complicates the situation here.

Civil protection (which encompasses all non-police and non-military tasks and measures for the protection of the population) falls into two tiers in Germany, with the federal states being responsible for disaster relief (protection from natural and technological hazards), and the federal government, for civil defense (protection from the effects of armed conflict).

Hybrid attacks are therefore often difficult to apprehend. A suspicious drone over a main train station, for example, falls under the jurisdiction of the Federal Police; a few meters further on, the state police are responsible; and across the state border, the police of the neighboring state take over.

The German system, based on subsidiarity (responsibility lies with municipalities and states), offers numerous vulnerabilities to hybrid impostors.

For example, in the local self-government framework, cities and municipalities are responsible for the security of their own IT systems – and thus face the far greater resources and professionalism of hostile hacker groups backed by powerful States. The same applies to critical infrastructure, from water to energy supply, which is often under municipal control.

This increases the need for coordination, which can have a detrimental effect in the dynamic setting of a hybrid war. In this situation, the remedy seems obvious: responsibility should be shifted to the central authorities – but this is contrary to the fundamental values of federal Germany.

Dr. Ratka sees a dilemma between centralization for the sake of security – and democratic distribution of powers and resources. On the one hand, he argues that a legal framework compliant with the rule of law must be guaranteed, as must democratic oversight. On the other hand, he finds it necessary to develop the relevant authorities in Germany into ‘full-fledged intelligence services’ with operational competencies and capabilities, which is indispensable for winning a hybrid war.

The security expert is thus unable to decide which is more important: ensuring the rule of law and democratic control – or greater latitude for the authorities directly involved in the hybrid war. This provides room for public debate; but – as usual – while the debate goes on, the hybrid threat will turn into direct damage to the economy and infrastructure. Then the hybrid war will become a casus belli for an outright war.

Original publication: https://www.kas.de/en/monitor/detail/-/content/germany-in-the-era-of-hybrid-warfare-maintaining-security-defending-democracy