Hybrid warfare and the threat of a Starlink shutdown in Ukraine

Having ignored warnings for years, Europe is suddenly stunned by a historic shift in alliances, essentially due to strategies for gaining power over opinions. While hybrid warfare may be based on ancient concepts or directly inspired by Machiavelli, the development of the Internet has triggered a major mutation: instead of simply receiving information, the grassroots can now transmit it. And so, to invite itself into hybrid warfare, for example to dissuade Elon Musk from shutting down Starlink in Ukraine.

Blindness to information operations

If Europe is stunned by a U.S. U-turn that seemed unthinkable, it's because it wasn't thought of, even though the possibility of the U.S. abandoning Europe and the need for an autonomous European defense were described more than half a dozen years ago. And long before that, emerging informational threats and the emergence of ultra-warfare doctrines, such as that of Qiao and Wang, were ignored.

Information warfare and the silent transformation of balances

In both the United States and Africa, Russian information operations have targeted populations, stirring up divergences and racial hatred. This has favored Donald Trump's rise to power, France's rejection in sub-Saharan Africa, the destabilization of Sahelian states, the ousting of Barkhane and its replacement by Russian forces. Diplomats on the ground were unaware of these operations, and it wasn't until the attempt to forge a mass grave in Gossi that Pascal Ianni finally obtained permission to broadcast aerial images demonstrating Russian manipulation, and that Russia's informational war in Africa received the media coverage it deserved.

From the point of view of shifting strategic balances, it is above all the 54 votes of African countries at the UN that interest Russia. And the coups d'état that led to the Sahelian juntas have a dissuasive effect on the votes of other African governments at the UN, since their countries are also threatened with destabilization: on social networks, the African trolls to whom Russian operations have been subcontracted are using the names of specific ethnic groups to catalyze pro-Russian and anti-French movements in certain West African countries.

A grassroots ancestor of L2I

In the early 2000s, long before the Internet Research Agency came into being, the evolution of Internet use and law led to major confrontations between cyberactivism, lobbies, the government and parliamentary groups, prompting leaders in the cyberactivist sphere to conceive and implement LIA, roughly equivalent to today's L2I, as a legal alternative to LIO. Quantitatively, LIA made it possible, for example, to reach five- or six-figure mobilization levels, campaigns totaling tens of millions of e-mails, or google bombings topping the search results within 24 hours.

However, there is a difference between LIA and L2I, since L2I is a doctrine of defense against disinformation carried out by foreign state or para-state actors, whereas LIA, which grew out of citizens' movements, was designed to counter lobbies or politicians, which did not fall within the scope of hybrid warfare.

Boycotting American products

Faced with the actions of the Trump administration, several boycott movements have recently been initiated against American products. In addition, a discussion has recently been initiated on the appropriateness of cyber-activist targeting of US power, with some in favor of targeting Donald Trump, and others, Elon Musk.

One consideration is that targeting Elon Musk would be more effective, since it's easy to boycott his companies, particularly Tesla, which is already losing ground. From a strategic point of view, these initiatives are similar to those that European countries should take to re-establish their sovereignty, particularly in the field of armaments, software and components.

Boycotting and preventing Starlink from being shut down in Ukraine

By contrast, since access to Starlink is vital for Ukrainians, a global boycott of the company would be catastrophic. Moreover, having stopped supplying intelligence to Ukrainian forces, the Trump administration could also block access to Starlink in Ukraine. The solution being considered to prevent such a blockage is to issue Elon Musk with an ultimatum: if he were to block Starlink, then a global boycott aimed at ending his company's existence would be initiated.

The credibility of such a threat hinges on the number of signatures on an ultimatum, which would have to number in the millions, which is feasible given the global rejection of the Trump administration's actions in general, and Elon Musk's behavior and positions in particular.

For the time being, Elon Musk seems to be backtracking on this threat, but there is still the problem of how much confidence can be placed in this promise in a context where the Trump administration has demonstrated its ability to abandon its allies. That said, his U-turn may suggest that he is aware of the risk that a blocking decision would pose to his company, which reinforces the relevance of the boycott operations envisaged and, consequently, the likelihood of grassroots irruption in hybrid warfare. And this makes it possible to foresee an uprising of the power of opinions against the power over opinions described by EH Carr on the eve of the Second World War.