Corruption as the hybrid threat in a changing security environment

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse how the significance of corruption has evolved within today’s rapidly developing security environment, as corruption has increasingly transformed from a traditional type of crime into a hybrid weapon. An inherent feature of today’s world is the intense strategic competition where the weaponisation of numerous elements is occurring: energy, investment, information, migration flows, data, crime, disease, etc. The competitive environment presents a novel position for transnational organised crime groups, offering advantages to both organised criminals and authoritarian states. In its role as a non-democratic and totalitarian state, Russia controls and collaborates with Russian-based organised criminal groups. Corruption, therefore, serves as a means through which organised crime infiltrates various levels (national and local) of foreign states’ administration. The article seeks to assess the specific dangers posed by corrupt activities originating from Russia and directed at Western states. This paper also attempts to address why a low resistance to corruption could be a weakness for the West, where the capacity to resist is rather modest.