DisinfoWatch’s director and founder, Marcus Kolga published an opinion for the CDA Institute on the need for NATO to formally recognize information and cognitive warfare as operational domains and for expenses related to defending these domains to count toward the 5% defence spending commitment:
- CDA NATO Summit, Opinion
- June 20, 2025
As authoritarian regimes expand their global campaigns of disinformation and repression, NATO must evolve. In an age when democracy can be destabilized not just by tanks or missiles but by tweets, deepfakes, and manipulated influencers, NATO must formally recognize the information and cognitive domain as a critical theatre of modern warfare.
For Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin—and regimes in Beijing, Tehran, and Minsk—information warfare is a key component of their strategies to consolidate their power, and divide western democratic societies. These regimes are investing billions to manipulate public discourse, fracture our societies, and silence dissent—not just at home, but inside NATO states themselves. Their goal is simple: to weaken democracy from within by eroding trust in our institutions and each other. And it’s working.
In 2024, a small faction of far-right Republican members of the U.S. Congress delayed critical aid to Ukraine, echoing anti-Ukrainian talking points broadcast daily by Russian state media. This marked a significant victory for the Kremlin’s information war against Ukraine and its Western allies. The consequences were not abstract—the delay directly contributed to the loss of Ukrainian lives, both on the battlefield and among civilians.
The frontlines of this conflict are no longer just physical. They run through our newsrooms, social media platforms, diaspora communities, and democratic institutions. Yet NATO’s current definition of defence spending hasn’t caught up to this reality. That must change.
In the battlefields of information warfare, journalists, human rights defenders, disinformation researchers, and exiled activists are integral to the defence of our democracies—and are as essential to our security as any soldier or cyber operator.
