On February 19, Anna Rennéus Guthrie, Director of the Stockholm Free World Forum (Frivärld), participated in the seminar “How to Win a Hybrid War” in Tallinn, organized by the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS). The question posed was as simple as it was uncomfortable: how do you actually win a hybrid war, rather than just resisting it?
The discussion brought together perspectives from the Baltics, Poland, Sweden, and Japan. The session was moderated by ICDS Programme Director Marek Kohv. Other panelists included Latvian researcher Dr. Ieva Bērziņa from the National Defence Academy of Latvia; Polish analyst Dr. Aleksander Olech, Editor-in-Chief of Defence24; and Japanese Professor Shin Kawashima from the University of Tokyo.
The conversations centered around Russia, but also China. A central tension during the seminar was the structural disadvantage of democracy. Democracies are bound by the principles of the rule of law and peacetime legislation, whereas authoritarian states operate permanently in a state of struggle and conflict. The question hanging in the air was: how can democracies win without compromising their own principles?