Russian hybrid warfare and intra-societal divergences

Hybrid warfare and climate risk, two of the three major threats for the decades to come, are part of a strategic framework whose complexity needs to be apprehended. While Russian informational interference exploiting intra-societal divergences will only increase, proposed legislation aimed at invalidating a court decision that led to the halting of the A69 construction site will increase these divergences, and fuel Russian operations.

A complex strategic framework

On November 6, the election of Donald Trump reminded us of the importance of two major threats for the coming decades: climate change, and the informational component of hybrid warfare. As expected, a few weeks later, the Trump administration attacked climate science and the energy transition, and shut down the federal office in charge of countering foreign disinformation and interference. The intricate relationship between risk (here: climate), conflict (hybrid warfare) and development (energy transition) weaves a complex strategic framework.

Russian exploitation of intra-societal divergences

While Russian Information Operations are notorious for their use of crude disinformation, they basically feed on existing divergences, and exacerbate them in order to divide, weaken and destabilize: power over foreign public opinion is a major component of the power of Russian neo-imperialism. And while it is widely accepted that countering these operations requires investment in fact-checking, it is less widely perceived that reducing intra-societal divergences is a major imperative.

Divergences between neo-artificialists and post-artificialists: the A69 case

The case of the French freeway project between Castres and Toulouse illustrates the extent of the divergences between supporters of a neo-artificialist project recycling a development model based on road transport and largely predating the Paris agreements, and a post-artificialist opposition, fighting against artificialization and global warming. And these divergences can only get worse with the rise of climate denialism, or the obstinacy to defend a project that is incompatible with environmental and climate protection.

The Defense Committees' dilemma

The Toulouse Administrative Court has just invalidated the authorizations for the A69 construction site, prompting members of parliament to table bills in the French Assembly and Senate to overturn the court's decision. These parliamentarians include a member of the National Defense Committee in the French National Assembly, and a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the French Senate. However, such a law can only exacerbate divergences and generate radicalization: the defense committees will therefore be faced with two of their members who will most probably try to persuade them that there is no risk of Russian Information Operations exploiting the divergences between neo-artificialists and post-artificialists.

Putting sunk costs into perspective

As 300 million euros have already been spent on the project, the French government is faced with the problem of sunk costs, which is encouraging it to persist with the neo-artificialist impasse. But this loss is nothing compared to the threat of Russian destabilization, the consequences of which would be of strategic significance. Moreover, the current situation is the result of influence operations based on a discourse incompatible with facts or direct observation, which leads to the irony that Russian manipulation operations can exploit the divergences resulting from these influence operations. A mise en abyme would take this principle of exploitation a step further, but it's not clear that it's appropriate to discuss it publicly.

In any case, a first mistake was to persist in neglecting Russian information operations in Africa, which led to the end of the French military presence on the continent, and a second would be to believe that economic operators, such as fuel distributors or cable operators, will not be targeted there. Today, a third mistake would be to think that these Russian operations will not exploit, among other things, the divergences linked to the A69 crisis and the rise of climate denialism to divide French society, undermine its rearmament efforts and thus weaken Europe.

Finally, it may be useful to realize that the exploitation of French mobilizations and divergences by Russia or Iran had already begun in 2003, long before Evgeniy Prigozhin's St. Petersburg troll activity was detected. But few, if any, had noticed.