Gender-Responsive Approaches to Countering State Threats: A Policy Brief

State or hybrid threats are increasingly coming into focus at the frontier of modern conflict. They are effective, inexpensive and scalable tactics used by states against populations, taking advantage of existing and often legitimate normative divisions around gender and other identity factors in democratic societies. The UK and likeminded partners should consider the best ways to enhance early warning, threat analysis and response efficacy. To do so, policymakers and practitioners must appreciate the ways in which gender and identity are being weaponised by hostile state actors (HSAs) as a vehicle for foreign influence. This is especially important as hybrid warfare is steadily converging with non-state actor influences, such as that of radicalisation and recruitment, to pose significant threats to national security and societal resilience.

Understanding the value that HSAs may perceive in adopting gendered approaches (whether strategic or tactical) remains speculative, because authoritarian and illiberal regimes – the primary actors involved – disclose little about their decision-making or rationales behind policy choices and clandestine activities. However, evidence shows that Russia, among others, clearly recognises the benefit of gender and identity in its National Security Strategy, with the Kremlin weaponising these factors against its own population to assert control internally and prop up its positioning internationally. This reflects how the use of identity-targeted hybrid warfare is often an extension of domestically honed methodologies, which are employed to undermine and destabilise democratic governance through disinformation, repression, mobilisation and cultural influence.

This policy brief explores why gender and identity are often missing from state threats analysis or siloed as a ‘values’ issue or human rights concern rather than strategic security factors. In doing so, it argues that intersectional gender-responsive approaches to countering state threats are more effective and impactful.

This policy brief has two main aims:

1. To explore why there has been a lack of gender mainstreaming in state threats work.
2. To highlight what mainstreaming gender with an intersectional approach contributes to countering state threats efforts.

Such issues span numerous regions, with varying levels of coverage and critical engagement. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) arguably lacks both, offering a salient but comparatively neglected case study for interrogating hostile state activity. Amid increasing geopolitical tensions, many SSA contexts are once again subject to systemic competition and external interference – especially resource-rich but poorly governed polities across the Sahel. Opportunities are rife for proxy conflicts to play out and state threat vectors to be used for foreign political, financial or other gains. Understanding the gendered and intersectional dynamics of these processes, and their implications for recipient societies, can help alleviate at least some of these evidentiary gaps.

Against this backdrop, the following analysis is part of a wider project that responds to three main research questions:

1. How do HSAs in SSA contexts co-opt and weaponise gender (norms, relationships and systems of social organisation and governance) as a specific tactic in their offensive aims?
2. How does gender impact effectiveness of threat vectors across SSA contexts?
3. How is the impact of state threat activities / vectors gendered?

The brief is composed of four sections. First, it examines the evidence base for gender and identity in state threats. Second, it examines why gender has historically been missing from state threats analysis. Third, it identifies the case for mainstreaming gender in state threats analysis and response. Fourth, it focuses on examples of how gender analysis helps illuminate state threat activities. The brief concludes by summarising the value of gender-responsive approaches to countering state threats.

Importantly, the content for this brief is more thematically focused than geographically bounded, sketching the conceptual and empirical basis for examining the gendered inflections, mechanics and implications of state threats. The analysis consequently frames and complements an upcoming research paper that situates these issues in sub-Saharan Africa specifically. It also pairs with ‘Integrating Gender into State Threat Analysis: A Practical Toolkit’, which offers guidance and tools for mainstreaming gender in state threats analysis and response. Research for this brief was conducted from June 2025 to March 2026 as part of the Gender-Responsive Approaches to Countering State Threats in Sub-Saharan Africa project.