ZAGREB, March 16, 2018 – An international security forum opened in Zagreb on Friday, focusing on ways of identifying and dealing with cyber and energy security challenges and different forms of hybrid warfare, with the aim of defining ways of organising and protecting critical infrastructure. The two-day forum was organised by the Institute for Hybrid Conflict Research and the association “Sv. Juraj”.
Institute head Gordan Akrap said that critical infrastructure were all facilities, systems and processes on which state efficiency depended and without which individual segments of the state could not function.
The law on critical infrastructure defines, based on various criteria, 11 sectors containing critical infrastructure in situations such as disasters, security threats, a large number of casualties, business or financial damage, and exerting influence on public perception of the ability of companies, institutions or state to deal with security challenges.
Those criteria should be used to define critical infrastructure and that is a serious process and requires professional and scientific discussion, Akrap said, noting that this could be the basis for building an efficient and safe future of the Croatian state.
There is hybrid activity and influence in Croatia, and our country has been exposed because as a member of the EU and NATO it has been positioning itself within the security system and has defined its national interests, said Akrap.
He cited as examples Agrokor, the planned LNG terminal on Krk island, statements by the Russian and US ambassadors in that context, as well as Croatia-Serbia debates about Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac in the context of a recent exhibition on the World War II Jasenovac concentration camp at the United Nations, which, Akrap said, “is a clear example of an attempted influence operation.” Poorly planned influence operations always return as a boomerang, mostly to those who launch them, said Akrap.
Akrap said that he could not rule out possible media hybrid warfare in Croatia, adding that in combating such hybrid warfare it is necessary to focus on the consistency, credibility and completeness of information presented in public. There are media outlets that spread misinformation either knowingly or unknowingly, Akrap believes.
Croatia is located in an area where various geostrategic interests intersect, and the former Cold War or special war today is known as hybrid activity or conflict, Akrap added.
Security-Intelligence Agency (SOA) head Daniel Markić said that certain challenges existed that are encountered by all EU and NATO countries and confirmed that hybrid activity existed in Croatia. We are concerned about the issue of terrorism, all types of extremism that appear in our neighbourhood and in the EU, and about all phenomena that cause concern for our citizens, such as organised crime and corruption, said Markić.
