The intelligence challenge starts with recognizing the range of hybrid threats and what is new about them: the targets are societies, not armies; several tools are used both simultaneously and strategically for maximum effect; and the cyber dimension, along with the social media (SM) and virtual realms offer new, inexpensive avenues of attack.1 This paper begins there, with the tools, then turns to the challenges of hybrid threats across the elements of intelligence – collection, analysis and relations between intelligence and policy. Then, it turns to the special challenges – but also the special opportunities – of the cyber and virtual realms. The following section focuses on opportunities and picks up the implications for the organizations performing the traditional INTs – HUMINT and SIGINT, especially – and for counterintelligence. It concludes with speculations about how the special challenges of hybrid threats might conduce to a much wider change in the traditional intelligence paradigm. Read More