FLASH
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NATO's warning signals a shift in how Europe must confront Russian cyberattacks, sabotage and pressure on critical infrastructure, as Moscow turns the conflict below the border into a strategic weapon...
It was an interview with the head of NATO's Military Committee, Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, published in The Financial Times, that signaled a fundamental shift in European security. In short, the Italian-born admiral argues that the Alliance can no longer limit itself to responding to cyber and hybrid attacks, but must also consider more effective options. These could include preemptive action in sectors where an attack would be capable of paralyzing entire states, effectively redefining the boundaries of defense.
This is not a change of tone, but a change of logic. What was once seen as a war below the threshold of conflict has become Moscow's operational strategy.
The interview, given in late October, came at a time when Russia was intensifying cable cutting in the Baltics, drone attacks on critical infrastructure, disruptions at airports across Europe, cyberattacks, and the deployment of what it calls a "ghost fleet" in international waters. These are not isolated incidents, but part of a low-cost, high-yield strategy that targets Europe's very "metabolism": its energy, data, and infrastructure.
Cavo Dragone emphasizes that this pressure is not only related to Ukraine, but to the systemic vulnerability of Europe itself.
-Three strategic orders
All of this is happening as the United States, Ukraine, and Russia enter a crucial phase of their negotiations. In that sense, the interview serves, perhaps unintentionally, as a signal to Moscow that Europe's weakness is not negotiable; to Kiev that Western support continues; and to Washington that critical infrastructure is the real arena of competition.
The focus is on the clash between three strategic orders. The American order, increasingly focused on reaching agreements, tends to treat security as something negotiable, managed through trade-offs and compromises. The European order, normative and defensive, continues to believe that stability stems from rules, predictability, and international law. The Russian order, revisionist and asymmetric, sees competition as a space of friction, where hybrid warfare, sabotage, and psychological pressure are common tools. The incompatibility between these orders imposes difficult choices.
Classic deterrence, based on red lines and the assumption of shared rationality, no longer works.
-Prevention, law and governance
First , deterrence must be rethought. In hybrid warfare, retaliation comes only after the damage has already been done. Russia strikes precisely where the Western response is legally ambiguous, politically costly, and militarily dangerous. Cavo Dragone points out the gap between the European ethical and legal horizon and Russian ruthlessness, arguing that deterrence must become structural: constant surveillance of cables, networks, and critical nodes, so that any act of sabotage has an immediate and visible cost.
Second , legality must be transformed into an instrument of force. Europe operates within legal and democratic boundaries that Moscow does not recognize. This is both a strength and a weakness. For this reason, Europe must update maritime law, the responsibilities of flagged ships, the attribution of actions below the threshold of conflict, and red lines on critical infrastructure, so that the law serves as a legitimate basis for action and not as a unilateral deterrent.
Third , the political governance of security must be rebuilt. Hybrid warfare is not about conquering territory, but about undermining public trust, disrupting energy and services, and upsetting institutional continuity. It is a conflict that tears societies apart from within. The response must be integrated: a policy center that brings together intelligence, cyber, defense, homeland security, and private actors, transforming vulnerabilities into organized resistance.
Invisible war has become the standard form of global competition. Europe must decide whether to tolerate it or govern it. Around this framework, a growing strategic entropy is spreading throughout the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific space. France is exploring new forms of influence. Germany is preparing defense plans for a conventional attack, while behind the scenes the debate on nuclear deterrence is intensifying.
-An identity issue
Across Europe and Asia, doubts about the American security umbrella are growing, and the temptation to regard nuclear weapons as an independent guarantee is resurfacing, fueling uncertainty and instability in the international system.
The difficulty is not only technical, but also identity-based. Europe is built on law and transparency; Russia on the erosion of both. NATO must defend its principles without allowing them to become weaknesses, finding a way to reconcile an American ally that negotiates according to the logic of transaction with a Russian adversary that operates through destabilization.
For this reason, the invisible war is not the prelude to war. It is war itself: a conflict that takes place not along borders, but along the infrastructure that keeps the continent functioning. Europe's strategic survival will depend on its ability to present itself at the negotiating table as an actor that defends not only territory, but also systems, continuity, sustainability and rights, as well as on the ability to build a credible barrier, capable of operating in the "gray zone" without being overwhelmed./ Adapted by "Pamphlet" from "LaStampa"
Edhe Hitleri beri Traktat Paqe me Stalinin por e sulmoi befasisht. Mos besoni asgje nga tallagjeret politikane e midiatike.
O la Stampa! Ky prononcim i Cavo Dragone u sqarua nga vetë gjenerali që ishte keqkuptim