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The need to develop resilience and psychological defence in the face of different forms of hybrid threats and malign foreign influence and interference is greater than ever. In this light, it has become increasingly obvious that a country’s resilience and psychological defence capabilities must cover a broad spectrum of conflicts, including severe crises and war. This paper takes these complex and multifaceted types of threats as a point of departure in its attempt to outline an analytical framework for countering hybrid threats and foreign influence and interference. The ambition is then to operationalise this framework into a practical guide that can be used for identifying and analysing hybrid threats and foreign influence against democracies and their national interests. 

To be able to build resilience and psychological defence, a shared analytical framework is needed, which provides a broader and more inclusive nation-state perspective than existing frameworks. The framework outlined in this paper is intended to be a starting point for analysis, usable for government and non-government actors alike. It aims to serve as a platform for addressing different dimensions of hybrid threats and malign foreign influence and interference. It also provides tools for comparing and analysing the dimensions within and across cases. The formation of responses to foreign interference should be seen as a process consisting of three distinct phases: 1) assessing situational awareness; 2) addressing defence and countermeasures; and 3) evaluating the state’s system for countering foreign interference. 

This framework serves as the basis for the development of a practical analytical guidebook that is built to be modular, where one can pick and choose depending on own needs and questions asked. It is also developed to be suitable for both more structured analysis as well as less structured qualitative analysis. The guidebook is simplified into an analytical template that can be used as a readily available checklist for users.