From Cyber Attacks to Disinformation

Germany’s security is now at risk. Hybrid attacks – that include espionage, sabotage, cyber attacks, and disinformation – are growing in number with every passing year.

Against this backdrop, a large-scale reform of its whole security architecture is becoming obviously necessary, and the federal government has embarked upon it. Dr. Edmund Ratka, a European security expert at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin, discusses this in his policy paper.

The current reform treats security as an interconnected, society-wide task. As is specially noted, this should not compromise the democratic values that Europe continues defending so ardently.

‘We are not at war, but we are no longer at peace either,' German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated in September 2025, meaning a special state of threat that has come to be termed ‘hybrid war.’

This term is now generally understood as a combination of regular and irregular, overt and covert forms of combat. Besides the deployment of soldiers, it primarily involves espionage and sabotage, cyber attacks, and disinformation campaigns. In military terms, the battlefield is becoming horizontally boundless. The fighting is no longer confined to the battlefield; rather, the enemy's society is to be destabilized and its morale undermined.

A somewhat narrower understanding of the term has now become established, which refers exclusively to non-military fields of action and instruments that are used in combination. According to the European Union's definition, this means ‘harmful activities that are planned and carried out with malicious intent’ – to undermine a State or an institution. Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution defines hybrid threats as coordinated, illegitimate actions by State and State-directed actors to enforce their own interests to the detriment of another State, which remain outside the scope of a conventional military attack.

A federal and liberal Germany is particularly vulnerable to hybrid attacks. By their very nature, open societies offer entry points for them. Thus, transparency of public infrastructure can be exploited to plan attacks, while free press and freedom of expression place strict limits on combatting disinformation.

Germany’s security architecture is based on the division of responsibilities in a federal State, which often hinders responses to hybrid attacks.

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 author believes Germany should reorganize its security responsibilities. It is crucial to decide which level and which agency is best equipped to counter a particular threat – without creating redundant new institutions and duplicating structures.

A legal framework that complies with the rule of law must be guaranteed in the process, as must democratic oversight.

Heightened attention to security matters should not degrade into an authoritarian discourse that restricts human rights and political participation opportunities for the sake of protection.

Germany should learn to counter hybrid warfare without destroying its own democratic values: freedom, pluralism, and the rule of law.

These words, that seem quite easy to understand, conceal utter uncertainty regarding the practical implementation of this plan. No country on Earth has yet succeeded in strengthening its security agencies while retaining democratic liberties for its society. The pendulum always swings to one side. Will Germany manage to strike a balance between the interests? No one knows the answer for now.

Original publication: https://www.kas.de/de/monitor/detail/-/content/deutschland-im-hybriden-krieg-sicherheit-wahren-demokratie-schuetzen