Building Resilience and Psychological Defence - An analytical framework for countering hybrid
threats and foreign influence and interference

The need to develop resilience and psychological defence in the face of different forms of hybrid threats and malign foreign influence and interference is greater than ever.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 represents a watershed moment for European security. The overall security situation has become more volatile with uncertain future prospects both in Europe and globally. New threats, such as offensive cyber operations, influence campaigns and other types of related operations from state actors as well as non-state actors, further add to the complex security landscape.

In this light, it has become increasingly obvious that a country’s resilience and
psychological defence capabilities must cover a broad spectrum of conflicts, including severe crises and war. This paper takes these complex and multifaceted types of threats as a point of departure in its attempt to outline an analytical framework for countering hybrid threats and foreign influence and interference. The ambition is then to operationalise this framework into a practical guide that can be used for identifying and analysing hybrid threats and foreign influence against democracies and their national
interests.