The report argues that power competition is increasingly unfolding below the threshold of open conflict, spreading across digital, informational and economic domains and exploiting the vulnerabilities created by global interdependence.
The big picture: a new geopolitical landscape. Italy’s intelligence community describes a world undergoing a structural redefinition of power balances.
- According to the report, global paradigms have fundamentally changed. Technological transformation is no longer simply an innovation driver but a strategic enabler shaping geopolitical, economic and social dynamics.
- Competition is increasingly measured through the control of:
- emerging technologies
- critical resources
- industrial standards and supply chains
- In this environment, technological ecosystems and digital infrastructures become key determinants of strategic advantage.
- The report identifies several strategic arenas — Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific — as central nodes of this competition. In these regions, rivalry increasingly unfolds through infrastructure development, technology supply chains and connectivity projects rather than through direct military confrontation.
- The ability to control networks, industrial capabilities and advanced technological value chains is thus emerging as a primary measure of geopolitical influence.
Migration as a potential hybrid pressure point. The report also highlights how technology is reshaping migration management, particularly through enhanced monitoring and analytical capabilities used to counter irregular flows.
- But the intelligence assessment points to a deeper concern.
- Irregular migration may increasingly acquire the characteristics of a structural hybrid threat, potentially used as a tool of pressure or coercion.
- In the Mediterranean, migration routes — especially the Central Mediterranean corridor through Libya and Tunisia, alongside western and eastern routes — represent strategic lines of exposure. These routes sit at the intersection of several dynamics:
- instability in countries of origin and transit
- internal political tensions within European societies
- the cohesion of the European Union itself
- Within this complex environment, migration can be instrumentalized indirectly, influencing domestic political debates, social cohesion and public perceptions of security.
The report also notes that technological monitoring tools, while strengthening operational responses, simultaneously highlight the informational dimension of migration, where narratives around flows can themselves become part of the pressure mechanism.
Hybrid threats at the center of strategic competition. Hybrid threats represent what the report describes as the operational synthesis of these dynamics.
- According to the intelligence assessment, Russia and China are the two state actors most actively employing hybrid tactics against Western countries.
- These strategies rely on the coordinated use of multiple instruments — technological, informational, economic and political — designed to operate below the threshold of armed conflict.
- Technology again plays a decisive enabling role. Digital tools complicate attribution, fragment responses and weaken traditional deterrence mechanisms.
- One of the most visible examples is the rise of systematic disinformation campaigns, which the report describes as a structural instrument capable of operating within the cognitive sphere.
- These campaigns aim to amplify existing vulnerabilities, targeting issues ranging from domestic political debates to geopolitical narratives and migration-related information.
- Hybrid threats therefore function through a cumulative, multidomain and sub-threshold approach, gradually seeking to alter decision-making environments and erode institutional trust within liberal democracies.
What we’re watching: The 2026 report ultimately presents a strategic framework in which technological competition, migration dynamics, hybrid warfare and information manipulation converge into a single operational environment.
- In this context, safeguarding national security increasingly requires the ability to anticipate interdependencies, manage complex systemic pressures and build capabilities able to respond across multiple domains simultaneously.
