A new practitioners’ toolbox, Hybrid Threats, Cognitive Warfare, and Psychological Defence, has been published by the Hybrid Threats Research Group.
The toolbox consolidates key practitioner takeaways from five publications into a single, coherent framework for countering hybrid threats and cognitive warfare and for strengthening psychological defence and societal resilience. It links short-term threat–response cycles with long-term resilience-building and operationalises national-level psychological defence in a ready-to-use format.
The publication integrates three complementary analytical tools:
- The hybridity blizzard model, illustrating how an aggressor’s targeting of vulnerabilities interacts with defensive responses over time and situating intelligence at the interface between detection, countermeasures, and resilience-building.
- The intelligence analysis interaction (hourglass) model, capturing the coupled processes of analysis, aggregated and tailored communication, and reception and absorption among societal actors.
- The assess–address–evaluate (AAE) framework, a six-dimensional structure guiding analysis, action, and learning for psychological defence and resilience.
Together, these tools provide practitioners with a practical workflow for diagnosing hybrid activity, improving intelligence interactions, and strengthening resilience through a coordinated whole-of-society approach.
