Old Wine, New Bottles? The Challenge of State Threats

January 2025

Research Paper

Matthew Redhead, RUSI

SOC ACE project: Understanding State Threats


PUBLICATION SUMMARY

Over the last decade, western countries have faced a rising tide of hostile activities perpetrated by state actors and their partners, many of which sit in the ‘grey’ or ‘liminal’ zone between peace and war, using hybrid or unusual methods as vectors of attack. This body of activities has become known by a variety of terms, such as ‘state threats’, ‘hostile state activity’ and ‘hostile activity by states’. Despite the growing importance of state threats as a specific policy challenge, current research on the topic is limited.

This research paper has sought to address this evidence gap by, clarifying the meaning and coherence of the term ‘state threats’, considering why it is emerging as an issue now and the scope and nature, as well as assessing state threats’ effectiveness as a tool of state policy,. It considers the potential development in the state threats landscape in the short to medium term.

The research notes that besides the apparent explosion in the volume and range of hostile activities, there is much that is “new” about them, from the combination of traditional intelligence tradecraft with new technologies, attempts to innovate, a willingness to take greater risks, and a growing willingness to contract out violent and/or dangerous clandestine and covert activities to both licit and illicit non-state actors – especially organised crime groups. It is also clear that many hostile activities take advantage of new vulnerabilities in society that have never existed before, such as the ubiquity of social media and societal reliance on technology.

Overall, the research shows how state threats have become more important as tools of policy due to “geopolitical climate change”. Perceived changes in global power balances and receding agreement on international norms of behaviour are permitting and encouraging more states – non-aligned and Western, as well as authoritarian opponents of the West – to use hostile acts that mostly fall short of war to achieve their political ends. Although current evidence suggests that the results of these kinds of activities are mixed at best, their relative cheapness and apparent lack of political risk are likely to make them an attractive form of coercive statecraft in the medium term. While this might be bearable for highly resilient states in the short term, this is unlikely to be the case for less stable societies, and if sustained over the long term, could even have more severe effects on open societies that have robust protections in place.


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