Europe must invest in societal preparedness because greyzone attacks like freezer hacks and airline hoaxes will keep recurring
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/elisabeth-braw. "Freezer meltdowns and airline hoaxes are a taste of things to come. Hoping for the best is no longer an option | Elisabeth Braw | The Guardian." November 7, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
Europe is being hit by a growing wave of cyber-attacks, hoaxes and sabotage designed to disrupt daily life and spread fear. The author argues that governments and ordinary people need to prepare openly for bigger disruptions, as Sweden already does. She says that being visibly ready makes these attacks less effective and shows hostile countries they won't work.
Conclusion
European governments and citizens must actively prepare for severe, recurring disruptions from greyzone aggression (stockpiling, public instruction, resilience planning) rather than hoping for the best, and visible preparedness will also signal to hostile actors that disrupting European societies is futile.
Premises
- Recent events (supermarket freezers across Europe remotely heated by cyber-attacks, hoax bomb threats diverting airliners, attempted interference with French blood bank fridges) are part of a longer pattern of greyzone aggression including arson, drone incursions, GPS jamming, subsea cable damage, disinformation and cyber-attacks.
- Saboteurs and hackers aim both to cause disruption and to psychologically destabilise societies by spreading fear.
- Modern societies are digitally connected, globalised and reliant on complex supply chains, which creates new vulnerabilities (e.g. internet-connected freezers outside centralised protection, dependence on shipping lanes and subsea data cables) that even strong cyber defences cannot fully close.
- Preparedness campaigns are workable and not counterproductive: Sweden, Tokyo and San Francisco have long run them, and British public response to the Be Ready campaign (sharp rises in sales of radios, power banks and torches) shows officials' fears of panic or cynicism were overstated.
- Further and potentially more severe disruptions (power and water outages, food supply interruptions, internet loss) are plausible and likely to recur with alarming regularity.
- Demonstrating public readiness and resilience reduces the psychological impact of attacks and signals to Putin and other rogue actors that disruption is futile.
Assumptions
- The recent incidents are, at least in part, deliberate state-linked or state-tolerated hostile acts rather than isolated criminal or random events.
- Public preparedness (household stockpiling, information campaigns) meaningfully reduces the harm and the psychological effects of attacks.
- Adversaries are rational actors who will reduce attacks if they see they are ineffective at causing fear or disruption.
- A spike in retail sales of emergency items reflects real, lasting preparedness rather than a short-term reaction.
- Informing the public about risks causes engagement rather than harmful panic.
- Lessons from Sweden and earthquake-prone cities transfer to threats from hybrid warfare in other countries.