Typology of Hybrid Threats and Its Application in the IRI’s Security Levels

No certain definition has so far been rendered of hybrid threat. However threre are threats which have turned away from destruction to effect and are simultaneously conducted in line with destabilization by means of synergy as well as military, political and socio-economic tools. In the meantime, National Security is the capability of a nation in intercepting multifaceted threats and sustaining her survival through leverage of all policies as a nation-state. Accordingly, this study delves into hybrid threats in three levels including national, regional and international. To that end, it exploits questionnaire and documents in such a way that it proceeds through description-analysis upon a quantitative approach and in an applied type. The population of the study comprises 83 persons and the data are gathered on desk and out of questionnaire. The current paper recognizes 30 hybrid threats in three levels and four dimensions as: 21 international threats, 11 national threats and 9 regional threats out of which 11 ones are simultaneously active in two levels, and the most exacerbated threat is represented in the international level. Typologically speaking, hybrid threats are categorized into four groups: 16 in military, 14 in political sphere, 10 in societal sphere and 5 in economy out of which 15 are at the same time of two functions, and the effective threats are as follows: strategic disparity, legitimacy against Iran, delegitimization of Iran, domestic destabilization, domestic defortification, impenetration, weakening the governing system, raising the popular claims, desecuritization, internal depletion, external pressure, security guarantee, weakening resistance axis, scattering power, cyber space, destruction of infrastructure, intelligence operation, sustainable monitoring, paralyzing sanction, consensus-building, coalition and isolation, securitization of Iranian issue, security and regional destabilization, the Greater Middle East, proxy war, depopulation, cognitive threats, smart soldier and Ballistic Missile Defense.