For two days, the Staff School (École d’état-major) dedicated a series of conferences to the challenges that hybrid threats pose to the Armed Forces—an issue that now goes beyond the military sphere alone.
How can we face threats that no longer take the form of conventional conflicts? This was the question addressed by the Army’s Staff School during a series of conferences held on Monday and Tuesday at Havoria, in Anosy. Held under the theme “The Armed Forces facing hybrid threats,” these meetings aimed to analyze the shifts in the strategic environment and their implications for Madagascar.
Hybrid threats refer to forms of hostility combining military and non-military means, mobilized in a coordinated manner to weaken a state or society without resorting to open warfare. Economy, technology, information, cybersecurity, and control of strategic resources now constitute various levers of influence and confrontation.
Among the speakers was General Richard Rakotonirina, former Minister of National Defense and former acting Minister of Foreign Affairs. According to him, “Today’s threats are no longer just military: they are diffuse, economic, and informational.”
Expanded Security
The general officer advocated for a broadened conception of national security. “Security is no longer the sole affair of the military. It is a shared responsibility. Facing global disorder, a state’s primary strength is its lucidity,” he declared.
His interventions focused on three themes: the evolution of the global geopolitical context, geoeconomic fragmentations and their security consequences, as well as new forms of conflict.
“You cannot master the storm, but you can learn to navigate within it,” he summarized, describing an international environment that has become “volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.” To him, global economic fractures are now security issues in their own right.
In this perspective, energy, strategic resources, and technologies are becoming new spaces of confrontation. “Covetousness is a hybrid threat,” warned General Rakotonirina, referring particularly to the natural resources possessed by Madagascar.
According to him, a state’s vulnerability is no longer measured solely by its borders. “Today, we are as vulnerable through our dependencies as we are through our borders. Understanding security means linking the economy, geopolitics, and defense,” he explained.
For Madagascar, understanding these new forms of threats is a matter of sovereignty. Located at the crossroads of the Indian Ocean, the Great Island finds itself at the intersection of geopolitical dynamics that go beyond its own but directly influence its future.
“The challenge is not to choose a side, but to build strategic autonomy. It is about transforming our geographical position into an asset rather than an exposure,” concluded General Rakotonirina. Garry Fabrice Ranaivoson
Captured & Published at: 2026-06-19 01:30:03 (Madagascar Local Time EAT)
Original Source: https://www.lexpress.mg/2026/06/souverainete-larmee-apprend-decoder-les.html