Society as the Battlefield: Reframing Women, Peace and Security in an Era of Hybrid Threats
by Dr. Lauren Van Metre | President & CEO, Women In International Security (WIIS)
The global security environment is undergoing rapid and dangerous transformation. Militarization is accelerating. Hybrid warfare is reshaping conflict. Authoritarianism is rising. At the same time, the institutions that have guided the international order for eighty years are straining under the weight of these new realities. The world is in a liminal moment—an in-between space where the old order is breaking down and the contours of the new one remain uncertain.
The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda itself was born in a similar moment of upheaval. As the Cold War ended, dissolving norms and institutions gave rise to civil wars, ethnic violence, and violent extremism. WPS emerged from women’s cross-border solidarity—women who refused to be silent and demanded representation. They insisted that their experience – and their leadership – shape the future of peace and security.
That same audacity today to adapt WPS to a new constellation of threats. While we celebrate the achievements of WPS, we must prepare for a profoundly different future – a threat environment defined not only by armed conflict, but by hybrid warfare, democratic erosion, and authoritarian resurgence.
Two Strategic Certainties
For all the uncertainty of this moment, two realities are unmistakably clear: militarization is accelerating, and authoritarianism is rising. Hybrid warfare sits at the center of both. And, in a world engaged increasingly in hybrid warfare, WPS must operate not only as a peacebuilding framework, but as a strategic security doctrine.
Authoritarian powers now use disinformation, cyber operations, election interference, economic coercion, and social manipulation not merely to confuse democracies, but to break them from within. These strategies spread fear, divide societies, distort public trust, justify executive overreach, and undermine electoral integrity. Central to this approach is the manipulation of gender itself—weaponizing misogyny, restricting women’s rights, and suppressing women’s political participation as a means for eroding democracy itself. Gender is a powerful lever for authoritarian consolidation.
Western security institutions increasingly recognize that if societies are the battlefield, then citizens are the frontline of defense. NATO and other security bodies now emphasize societal resilience as a form of strategic deterrence. Yet resilience is still frequently framed as requiring only a “gender lens” or perspective. That framing is no longer sufficient. If gender is a terrain of modern, hybrid warfare, then WPS must be a strategic countermeasure, not a simple add-on.
If adapted to hybrid warfare, the WPS pillars become a framework for societal resilience and a strategy of deterrence and prevention:
- Prevention requires interrupting the disinformation-to-mobilization pipelines that fuel gender-based violence, political intimidation, and the suppression of women’s leadership.
- Participation demands that women lead within security institutions as societies militarize—ensuring that necessary defense efforts do not erode democratic norms from within.
- Protection must now include digital, political, and physical protection networks for women political leaders, journalists, activists, and movements targeted by authoritarian actors.
- Relief and Recovery must prepare women to lead the restoration of social cohesion and democratic order when societies recoil from authoritarian capture as we have seen in November’s U.S. electoral outcomes in Virginia and New Jersey.
In an era when hybrid threats aim to fracture society itself, WPS is not a complement to security strategy—it is a security strategy. It reinforces civic fabric, strengthens democratic resilience,, and provides deterrence rooted not only in military capability, but in societal resilience.
WPS as a Political Strategy for Democratic Renewal
Recalibrating the security dimension of WPS (the “S”) is necessary—but insufficient. We must develop a political strategy and reframe WPS as a political movement—not merely a normative framework.
According to Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), roughly 70 percent of the world’s population now lives under authoritarian or oligarchic rule. The WPS agenda—with its core demands for participation, accountability, and inclusion—is fundamentally a democratization movement. In much of the world today, and increasingly within multilateral institutions themselves, WPS functions not as a consensus framework, but as an opposition movement.
That reality has strategic implications. Successful democratic opposition movements share several core traits—and WPS must increasingly adopt them.
First, successful movements build coalitions of coalitions. WPS cannot stand alone. It must link arms with labor, youth, faith communities, and environmental movements whose aspirations overlap with its own. That also means standing in strong solidarity with movements that have popular momentum, if they advance WPS goals. Leaders within the WPS ecosystem must be equipped not only with policy expertise, but with the political skills needed to build, sustain, and activate broad-based alliances.
Second, successful movements control the narrative. Fear is the fuel of authoritarianism. Hope is its antidote—and one of the most powerful political tools available. The WPS agenda must move away from narratives of “backlash” and “erosion” and instead tell a compelling story of what is possible: the clarity and the vision of the WPS agenda.
Third, successful movements shift the arena of contestation. When governments close institutional doors, movements carry their struggle to the public. When formal processes stall, pressure is built from outside them. WPS must increasingly draw strength from civic mobilization, grassroots leadership, and public-facing advocacy, not only from technocratic processes within multilateral institutions.
By building broad coalitions, shaping narratives grounded in democratic possibility, and shifting political struggle into arenas where public voice is strongest, WPS becomes not only a policy framework but an engine of democratic renewal. This is how movements win. And this is how WPS must now move: not as a siloed agenda tucked inside institutions, but as a bold, collective political force capable of reshaping them.
The Strategic Imperative Ahead
If fully activated—strategically, politically, and collectively—the Women, Peace and Security agenda offers not only protection for women, but a pathway toward more resilient, inclusive, and democratic societies. In a world where the frontline increasingly runs through information systems, civic trust, political participation, and social cohesion, WPS is not simply about women’s inclusion in security. It is about the future of security itself.
The above remarks were delivered by Dr. Van Metre as part of WIIS’ 1325@25 Conference, “The Future of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Advancing Innovation, Resilience, and Collective Action,” on November 12th, 2025.
About the Author
Dr. Lauren Van Metre is the President & CEO of WIIS, bringing over two decades of experience as a leading expert in peace and security. Her distinguished career includes key roles at the U.S. Department of Defense, the State Department, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the National Democratic Institute, where she contributed to major conflict resolution and prevention initiatives. Her leadership has provided an invaluable contribution to policy and programming in some of the world’s most fragile and conflict-affected regions. Read her full bio here.