The pronouncements from Paris echo with a certain urgency, a call to arms for the protection of critical infrastructure against what President Macron describes as intensifying Russian ‘hybrid attacks.’ We hear of cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns, and the shadowy disruption of essential services – a potent cocktail designed, presumably, to destabilize European nations from within. There is no denying the seriousness of such threats, nor the imperative for any sovereign state to safeguard its people and its foundational systems. Yet, for those of us who spend our days listening to the whispers and roars from the Global South, the alarm bells ringing in European capitals strike a discordant note, revealing a stark and persistent asymmetry in global attention and concern.
While Europe focuses on its own vulnerabilities, an insidious, deeply entrenched form of ‘hybrid warfare’ has been a daily reality for countless communities across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia for decades, if not centuries. This isn't the headline-grabbing cyber-intrusion or the sophisticated disinformation campaign. No, this is the slow, grinding extraction of resources that hollows out economies and ecosystems, leaving behind a trail of debt and desolation. It’s the subtle, yet devastating, influence of global financial institutions dictating austerity measures that cripple public services and disproportionately harm the most vulnerable. It’s the geopolitical games played out on foreign soil, exacerbating internal conflicts and displacing millions, all while the primary beneficiaries remain safely distant.
When President Macron speaks of protecting the defence industry and critical infrastructure, one must ask: whose defence, and whose critical infrastructure? For too long, the critical infrastructure of many Global South nations – their agricultural lands, their water sources, their nascent industries, their very social fabric – has been under constant assault, not always by overt military action, but by policies and practices that serve external interests. Consider the debt traps that shackle developing nations, forcing them to sell off national assets or exploit natural resources at unsustainable rates, merely to service loans. Is this not a form of economic hybrid warfare, slowly eroding sovereignty and self-determination?
The concern for Europe’s energy security, for instance, often translates into new pipelines or extraction projects in distant lands, frequently with scant regard for local environmental impacts or indigenous rights. The very materials powering Europe’s ‘critical infrastructure’ – cobalt, lithium, rare earth minerals – are often mined under conditions that would be unthinkable on European soil, fueled by supply chains that are opaque and exploitative. This, too, is a form of hybrid attack, one that undermines the health, stability, and future potential of entire regions, enriching a few while impoverishing many.
Let’s not forget the information war. While Europe frets over Russian disinformation, the Global South is often awash in narratives crafted to justify exploitation, to paint local resistance as terrorism, or to obscure the true costs of global supply chains. The same media outlets that amplify European anxieties can be curiously silent on the systemic injustices faced daily by people in the Global South, contributing to a global information asymmetry that further marginalizes their voices and experiences.
My hope is not to diminish the legitimate concerns of European nations. Any threat to peace and stability is worthy of attention. But true security, lasting security, cannot be built on a foundation of selective empathy. It demands a holistic view, one that recognizes that the interconnectedness of our world means that the suffering and instability in one region inevitably ripple outwards. When we speak of protecting critical infrastructure, let us extend that care and urgency to the critical human infrastructure of communities struggling against climate change, economic exploitation, and persistent inequality.
Perhaps Europe’s awakening to the nuances of 'hybrid warfare' can be a moment of reflection, a chance to understand that the subtle, systemic pressures they now fear have long been visited upon others. If the world is truly to confront complex, multifaceted threats, then the conversation must expand beyond national borders and immediate self-interest. It must encompass the voices of those who have been living with various forms of ‘hybrid attacks’ for generations, whose resilience in the face of relentless external pressures offers not just a warning, but perhaps, also a path towards a more just and truly secure global future.
Only by understanding and addressing these deeper, often invisible wounds can we hope to build a world where all nations, not just the powerful ones, can truly protect their people and their future. This requires a moral imagination that extends beyond the immediate perceived threat, to the enduring realities of those so often left out of the communiqué.