African nations have become a testing ground for hybrid warfare tactics in recent years, a development that experts say requires nations to improve their cyber defenses, strengthen community bonds and make populations more resilient to attacks.
“The stakes are high,” Armand Badenhorst, a former member of the South African Police Service, wrote recently for defenceWeb. False information “can incite violence, erode trust in institutions, and even derail military operations.”
Spreading false information is part of a hybrid warfare strategy that combines conventional military tactics with cyberattacks and other non-kinetic methods designed to sow distrust and discord among a nation’s populace. Ultimately, the goal of hybrid warfare is to exploit the vulnerabilities of democratic societies by undermining the principles that maintain them.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s blend of fragile democracies, sometimes antagonistic ethnic groups and delicate economies has made it a place for malevolent actors to try out hybrid warfare tactics before introducing them elsewhere, according to analysts Giovanni Faleg and Nad’a Kovalčíková with the European Union Institute for Security Studies.
Russia, for example, has tested its own hybrid warfare tactics in multiple African countries, including Algeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, South Africa and Sudan.
“Hybrid actors tend to target and exploit situations where fragility, conflict and violence are expanding,” Faleg and Kovalčíková wrote recently.
The answer to hybrid warfare attacks is multifaceted, but it focuses on building a society that is immune to such manipulations, experts say. That immunity can take the form of legislation designed to combat false information, cross-cultural communication that bridges social and ethnic divides, and education to help people recognize the kind of manipulation inherent in hybrid warfare.
No country can fight its way out of hybrid warfare, according to analyst Tinatin Khidasheli.
“Conventional military strategies and doctrines are often ill-suited to address these threats’ multifaceted and diffuse nature, necessitating new approaches and greater collaboration across sectors,” Khidasheli wrote recently for the Georgia-based Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom South Caucasus.
Badenhorts also suggests building a nation’s resiliency against hybrid warfare by:
- Strengthening cyber defense units within African militaries and security services to monitor, detect and counter hostile information operations.
- Promoting regional cooperation to share intelligence on hybrid threats and coordinate responses.
- Partnering with technology platforms to swiftly remove harmful content while safeguarding freedom of speech.
- Empowering communities to question suspicious narratives and verify information.
At the heart of a resilience strategy, experts say, African nations must overcome the challenges created by rapidly expanding internet access.
“Technology and connectivity have significantly amplified the scope and impact of hybrid threats,” Khidasheli wrote. “The ability to disseminate [false information] widely, conduct sophisticated cyber-attacks, exploit global interdependencies, and coordinate operations in real time are key factors that make hybrid threats particularly challenging in the modern era.”