Hybrid wars: when law becomes a weapon

In modern conflict, shooting is almost an afterthought; rather, it is standardised, codified, regulated. Law, far from being a barrier to war, is now an integral part of the arsenal of states. It is the last frontier of hybrid wars: conflicts that mix conventional weapons and digital tools, kinetic power and cyberattack, propaganda and technical standards. A new form of belligerence that is not declared, but fought every day, in infrastructure, in data, in the social sphere where law has become a weapon.

Cyberspace has lost its connotation as a neutral environment, assuming that of a new strategic domain. Like land, sea and air, it has become the operational space of the armed forces. With one crucial difference: digital warfare allows for low-cost attacks, difficult to attribute, and with potentially global effects. Hundreds of malware attacks prove that a code can produce damage equivalent to an explosion.

But the real paradigm shift is integration. Today, a cyber attack is no longer an isolated action: it is coordinated, integrated, prepared to support or anticipate traditional military actions. Digital systems do not replace missiles, they accompany them. Modern warfare is 'hybrid' precisely because it merges physical and information domains in a single theatre of operations.

In this new scenario, the law does not have the task of regulating the conflict, but of orienting it, directing it, conditioning it. And increasingly, it anticipates it. Rules such as Regulation (EU) 2023/1781 - European Chips Act, which aims at reducing the Union's dependence in the production of advanced semiconductors, or Regulation (EU) 2021/821, which regulates the export control of dual-use technologies (including cryptography, artificial intelligence, drones, biometric and surveillance systems), are not mere technical acts: they are real geopolitical instruments.

On the transatlantic front, the US has adopted two no less significant instruments of regulatory restraint. With the CHIPS and Science Act of August 2022, Washington allocated over USD 52 billion to stimulate domestic semiconductor manufacturing, including an 'escape clause' prohibiting recipient companies from investing in advanced facilities in China for at least ten years. At the same time, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a set of Export Control Rules in 2022 and 2023 prohibiting the export to China of high-performance semiconductors, lithographic production tools, EDA software, and supercomputers, even if they are manufactured abroad but with US technology. A move that involved key players in the semiconductor supply chain, such as Dutch ASML and Taiwanese TSMC, and NVIDIA itself, the leader in processors used for AI.