Scenarios 2027 / Scenarios
Rated at Standard Severe. Likelihood type: idiosyncratic (clustered). Source of scores: ginc-desk-v0.2.
Nothing in the campaign is an act of war on its own. A data cable to the islands is cut by a dragging anchor; the ship's owner is a company registered six weeks earlier. Drones close the capital's airport for four hours twice in a month. A warehouse fire destroys a defence subcontractor's inventory; the arsonists were recruited on a messaging app for the price of a used car. GPS fails across the eastern region for days at a time, and the farmers' autosteer, the ambulances' dispatch and the airport's approach procedures fail with it. Migrants are bused to the border by a neighbouring government and the images are amplified by accounts that did not exist a month earlier. Each incident is investigated, attributed with 'high confidence' weeks later and answered with a sanctions designation. The public argument is whether the government is doing enough or exaggerating; both sides are supplied with evidence. Allies consult under Article 4 and agree to a statement. The campaign's purpose is not any single effect; it is the demonstration that the state cannot protect ordinary life, and that the alliance will not act on what it cannot prove.
The dateline is illustrative, not a forecast. The narrative is hypothetical; the historical anchors below are real events.
A hostile state runs a sustained, deniable campaign below the threshold of war: sabotage of subsea cables and energy assets, drone incursions, GNSS jamming, arson and parcel incendiaries, assassination plots, cyber intrusions, instrumentalised migration and information operations, over 12 months. v0.2 added this as the publishable form of state aggression; conventional invasion stays out of the public Library. Eurasia Group's Top Risk 5 for 2026 ('Russia's second front') and the UK National Risk Register's state-threats theme describe the same pattern.
| Event | Date | What happened | Calibrates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baltic subsea cable damage | 17–18 November and 25 December 2024 | C-Lion1 and BCS East–West cables, then Estlink 2; the Eagle S detained by Finland | cable sabotage |
| Drone incursions into Poland | 9–10 September 2025 | Around 20 drones entered Polish airspace; some shot down; NATO Article 4 consultations | air incursions |
| Danish and Norwegian airport closures | September 2025 | Drone sightings closed Copenhagen and other airports | civil aviation disruption |
| DHL parcel incendiaries | July 2024 | Incendiary devices in air cargo in Leipzig and Birmingham | sabotage of logistics |
| Nord Stream sabotage | September 2022 | Pipelines destroyed in the Baltic | energy infrastructure |
| Belarus–Poland border | 2021 | Migrants flown in and pushed to the EU border | instrumentalised migration |
Shown at their preset values. Parameters are not adjustable in this release and nothing on this page is computed from them. Custom settings run (Phase B) but are labelled 'non-standard run' and excluded from comparisons.
| Parameter | Default | Range or options | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vectors active | 5 | 2–8 | — |
| Attribution clarity | ambiguous | options: clear | — |
| Kinetic threshold crossed | no | — | Yes at Extreme |
| Alliance response | consultation | options: collective measures / none | — |
| Campaign duration | 12 months | 6–36 | — |
| Domestic proxy recruitment | on | — | — |
High: capability band shifts expected under current plans. Medium: band shifts under 'none' policy response only. Low: strain without band shift. Loads are judgement-based until the Atlas connects. Domains link to the Atlas.
| Domain | Load | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| Hard | ||
| Defence and security | High | air defence against drones, counter-intelligence, maritime surveillance |
| Strategic infrastructure | High | cables, pipelines, grid, airports, GNSS dependence |
| Critical technology | Medium | GNSS alternatives, cyber defence |
| Soft | ||
| Government effectiveness | High | attribution, legal tools, crisis communication, inter-agency coordination |
| Human capital | Low | public anxiety; emergency services strain |
| Influence and cohesion | High | information integrity, social trust, alliance diplomacy |
| Economic | ||
| Macro-financial | Low | insurance and risk premia |
| Industry, trade and supply | Medium | logistics disruption |
| Energy and resources | Medium | energy asset sabotage |
| Region | Exposure | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| North America | Low | — |
| Europe | High | The active theatre |
| China | Low | Low as target |
| Indo-Pacific | Medium | Taiwan's cables; Philippine waters |
| South Asia | Medium | — |
| Gulf and Middle East | Medium | Proxy and drone warfare |
| Africa | Low | — |
| Latin America and Caribbean | Low | — |
| Russia and Eurasia | Medium | Ukraine's strikes; Moldova, Georgia, Armenia as targets |
| Indicator | Source | Threshold |
|---|---|---|
| Subsea cable fault counts | ICPC | — |
| GNSS interference maps | gpsjam.org, EASA | — |
| Drone incursion reports | — | — |
| Sabotage and arson prosecutions linked to foreign services | — | — |
| Article 4 consultations | — | — |
| Coordinated inauthentic behaviour takedowns | platform transparency reports | — |
| Border crossing anomalies | — | — |
From the GINC 250: trends rated Very high or Critical for this scenario. All S06 trend scores.
| Rating | Band or level | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Likelihood, two years | 4Likely | For a given nation in the exposed cluster (Europe, Baltic and Nordic states, Moldova, Taiwan); the global per-nation base rate is lower, and the Edition should show the cluster explicitly. |
| Likelihood, ten years | 5Highly likely | — |
| Systemic impact | 2Moderate | Diffuse. |
| National impact | 3Significant | Erosion rather than collapse, but persistent. |
| Confidence | medium | Attribution limits the evidence base. |
Source of scores: ginc-desk-v0.2. Confidence refers to the rating, not the scenario. Calibration sources are listed with the anchors above and on the methodology page.
Contested assumptions for the panel to resolve.
No signed commentary in this build.
0.2.0 · active0.2.0 · 2 October 2026 · Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores.GINC (2027). Scenario S06 Hybrid campaign by a hostile state, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/hybrid-campaignContent and data are published under CC BY 4.0.