On 26 February, SIPRI, with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, hosted a seminar on ‘Managing Maritime Hybrid Threats in the Indo-Pacific and Nordic-Baltic Regions’.
Amid dramatic changes in the geopolitical environment, middle powers, including the Nordic/Baltic states and Japan, continue to face a range of direct security challenges that necessitate greater regional as well as global cooperation. One such challenge relates to hybrid threats, which stay below the threshold of direct use of military force, but aim at eroding target countries’ sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence.
Hybrid threats in the maritime domain include deliberate sabotage against critical infrastructure such as undersea cables, cyberattacks, GPS spoofing and jamming, coercive actions against normal maritime navigation, and artificial island building.
Against this backdrop, the seminar aimed to deepen understanding of the threats in question, and the shared interests as well as opportunities for enhanced security cooperation between the Nordic/Baltic states and Japan. It included online panellists from Japan and brought together experts and diplomats from a range of countries to unpack the complexity of managing maritime hybrid threats.
Linked to the event, a SIPRI Conversation film on the topic is forthcoming.