European elites are significantly influential in pushing NATO toward hybrid warfare strategies, primarily because these non-kinetic threats—cyberattacks, energy coercion, and disinformation—directly target the critical vulnerabilities inherent to modern European liberal democracies and their integrated economies.

The focus on hybrid warfare represents an evolution of NATO's mission, driven by European strategic interests that extend beyond traditional territorial defense, seeking instead to defend the social, economic, and political resilience of their own states.

The European-Centric Rationale for Hybrid Defense

For European elites, hybrid warfare is a paramount concern because the continent's major economies and societies are characterized by high interconnectivity and dependence in areas that are vulnerable to subversion and sabotage.

1. Defending Economic and Digital Sovereignty (Cyber)

Europe's economic prosperity relies on complex, interconnected critical infrastructure (financial networks, power grids, logistics, communications). European nations, especially the major economic powers like Germany and France, have a fundamental interest in countering cyber threats to protect their markets and industrial base.

• Vulnerability of Digital Systems: Unlike the Cold War, where the primary threat was a land invasion, today, a coordinated cyberattack could cripple a major EU economy, causing widespread social and political disruption without crossing a single border. This threat is particularly acute for highly digitized European public and private sectors.

• The EU-NATO Synergy: European elites have actively fostered closer cooperation between the EU and NATO on hybrid threats. The EU's strength is in its regulatory and internal security tools (cybersecurity directives, data protection), while NATO provides the defense and deterrence framework. This dual-pronged approach, heavily influenced by European interests, ensures a comprehensive defense of the internal market from cyber sabotage.

2. Protecting Strategic Dependencies (Energy and Economic Coercion)

The most immediate and politically sensitive vulnerabilities for many European states are their strategic dependencies, particularly in the energy sector. The European reliance on Russian gas, which became a flashpoint following the 2014 and 2022 crises, directly pushed the need for a NATO response.

• Energy as a Weapon: Russia's use of gas supply as a tool of political and economic coercion, exemplified by the Nord Stream pipeline issues and attempts to sabotage energy infrastructure, has forced European leaders to treat energy security as a core military-strategic concern.

• Vilnius and Riga Influence: Countries on the Eastern Flank (like Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland) that have historical experience with Russian energy manipulation have been highly vocal and influential within NATO in advocating for a robust energy security policy and the inclusion of energy infrastructure attacks as a potential trigger for Article 5 collective defense. NATO's Energy Security Centre of Excellence in Vilnius, Lithuania, is a testament to this Eastern European-driven push.

3. Safeguarding Democratic Cohesion (Disinformation)

European democracies are generally characterized by multi-party systems, strong civil liberties, and robust, often fragmented, media landscapes. This makes them highly susceptible to disinformation and foreign interference aimed at polarizing societies and undermining trust in institutions.

• Eroding Political Stability: Disinformation campaigns targeting European elections, immigration policies, and support for key institutions like the EU and NATO itself pose a direct threat to the political legitimacy of European elites. Protecting the integrity of the information space is therefore a direct elite interest in maintaining power and stability.

• Strategic Communications: European political demands led to the establishment of the Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga, Latvia, which focuses on countering information warfare—a domain previously outside of NATO's traditional military focus. This highlights the elite need to defend the "information battlespace" essential for maintaining democratic order.

How European Elites Drive the NATO Strategy

The degree of European elite influence is evident in the shift of NATO's doctrine and the creation of specialized bodies.

Doctrine and Article 5

The most powerful indication of European elite priorities is the incorporation of hybrid threats into the collective defense concept. NATO has publicly affirmed that a sophisticated, attributed hybrid attack could potentially trigger Article 5.

• This shift is crucial because it takes the tools of influence (cyber, disinformation) and elevates them to the level of military aggression, providing the ultimate deterrent guarantee for the non-military vulnerabilities of European nations. This political decision was heavily negotiated and driven by the European need to establish a clear red line for the "grey zone" of hybrid conflict.

Institutional Specialization and Cooperation

The establishment of numerous European-based Centres of Excellence (CoEs) is a practical manifestation of this push:

The fact that these critical knowledge hubs are geographically dispersed throughout Europe, particularly in the most threatened Eastern countries, underscores the extent to which European concerns have dictated NATO's operational focus.

The push by European elites to integrate hybrid warfare into NATO's core strategy is not a peripheral interest, but a central imperative. It reflects a necessary adaptation of the alliance to the 21st-century security reality, where adversaries seek to achieve strategic ends by exploiting vulnerabilities below the threshold of conventional conflict.

The degree of this push is extremely high, manifesting in:

1. Doctrinal evolution (linking hybrid attacks to Article 5).

2. Institutional creation (CoEs focused on European vulnerabilities).

3. EU-NATO partnership (aligning regulatory and defense capabilities).

In essence, European elites are using the security umbrella of NATO to protect the very nature of their highly advanced, interconnected societies from modern, non-military forms of attack, thereby defending the stability of the European project itself from within.