Disinformation, espionage, sabotage: the federal government and Germany's states are joining forces to pool their capabilities in defending against hybrid threats, and on Tuesday opened a joint centre in Berlin to do so. "Germany is not at war, but we are the daily target of hybrid warfare," said Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) at the launch of the Joint Centre for Countering Hybrid Threats (GAZ Hybrid). It has already begun its work.
The new centre is about pooling the capabilities of federal and state security forces, police, domestic intelligence services, and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), to "identify, analyse and repel" hybrid threats, the minister continued. The centre is not a new authority, but builds on an existing counterespionage workstream within the already established Joint Extremism and Terrorism Defence Centre. It is intended to serve as a shared platform for national security authorities.
Alongside GAZ Hybrid, there is already a National Cyber Defence Centre and a Joint Drone Defence Centre. Dobrindt is not concerned about friction or overlap, rather, a "successful, proven concept is being developed further," he said, pointing to the work of the terrorism defence centre. "The point here is to network authorities with one another in order to work more successfully."
Constitutional protection chief Sinan Selen warned of the danger posed by "hybrid aggressors." They are carrying out "real attacks on our society, on our liberal democracy and on the security of Germany," he said in Berlin.
Attackers use methods such as espionage, sabotage, cyberoperations and information manipulation, as well as combined actions, to influence politics and society. They also combine digital and physical attacks, deploying "their own operatives, low-level agents or criminal groups" to do so.
"Hybrid attacks are not a temporary threat," the constitutional protection chief warned. "They are the method of choice in international conflicts of our time, well short of classic armed conflict." It is therefore necessary to identify, assess and counter the threats.
According to the Interior Ministry, the new centre will operate through five working groups: Situational Awareness, Operational Information Exchange, Disinformation and Influence, Economy, and Analysis and Reporting. The individual groups collect and assess all relevant information, discuss countermeasures, evaluate attacks in the run-up to elections, and build links with businesses and industry associations.
The digital industry association Bitkom said the new situation centre had come "at exactly the right time." Better cooperation between security authorities was just as important as faster information exchange and a shared operational picture. "80 percent of German companies expect reliable information from government bodies in countering hybrid attacks, according to a Bitkom study, but only 22 percent currently feel sufficiently informed," it said.
"That is exactly the gap the new centre must close."
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