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ABSTRACT
How can European democratic states respond to Russian information warfare? This article aims to enable and spur systematic research of how democracies can respond to the spread of distorted information as part of information warfare. The article proposes four ideal-type models representing different strategies that democratic governments can employ; blocking, confronting, naturalising and ignoring. Each strategy is illustrated by ways of empirical examples of strategies applied by European states in view of what is regarded as an unwelcome Russian strategic narrative that is spread as part of information warfare. We problematise each strategy and explore reasons for why states choose one strategy over another. We then explore how different strategies might contribute to destabilise or stabilise the security environment and how they resonate with democratic values. Finally, we contribute to theorising on strategic narratives by highlighting that the choice of strategy will influence states in their formation of strategic narratives. We thus further theorising on strategic narratives by highlighting the link between strategies and narratives, thus identifying one central dynamic in how narratives are formed.
Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank Eva-Karin Olsson and the participants in the seminar in political science with a specialisation in security policy at the Swedish National Defence College for constructive comments on draft versions of this article. We also want to thank Rickard Blomstrand and Aron Vrieler for their most valuable assistance with the empirical sections of the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Maria Hellman is Ph.D. and Lecturer of Political Science at the Swedish Defence University. Her research interests include political communication and global media studies. She has published her work in journals such as Media, War and Conflict and International Journal of Cultural Studies.
Charlotte Wagnsson is Professor of Political Science at the Swedish Defence University. Her research interests include European security, political communication in the security sphere, the notion of responsibility in global security affairs and security governance. She has published her work at Routledge and Manchester University Press and in journals such as New Media and Society, Cooperation and Conflict and Journal of European Public Policy.