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.
They are key disruptors of our adversaries’ information warfare supply chains—exposing foreign interference, influencers and proxies, holding power to account, and forming the first line of defence in our democracies. But they are increasingly under attack. Transnational repression—harassment, intimidation, surveillance, and violence carried out by authoritarian states against critics abroad—is on the rise, including in Canada. Experts, officials, activists, and journalists—including those exiled from Russia, Belarus, China, and Iran—are being targeted within NATO countries in deliberate efforts to intimidate, silence, and discredit them. These attacks represent direct violations of our sovereignty and must be treated as national security threats.
NATO members already invest in civil society organizations and independent media that hold authoritarian regimes accountable. The Canadian government’s support, along with the work of Canada’s Journalists for Human Rights supporting vulnerable journalist communities focused on authoritarian states, are leading examples. But these efforts are too often classified as just development aid or public diplomacy. That misclassification undervalues their strategic role. We need to stop treating the defence and support of democracy as charity. It is deterrence. It is defence. And it should count toward NATO’s defence spending commitment.
NATO’s existing definitions of defence expenditures allows for spending “to meet the needs of the Alliance” and includes the military component of “mixed civilian-military activities.” That is a crucial opening. In 2017, NATO approved a recalibration of Canada’s defence accounting to include veterans’ pensions and the coast guard. That same logic must now be applied to funding for disinformation response, cognitive resilience, and protection for exiled media and activists. Why? Because authoritarian disinformation campaigns are designed to fracture NATO from the inside. Their targets include public trust, alliance morale, and democratic coherence itself. The Kremlin’s information war does not just aim to sway opinion—it aims to sabotage decision-making and paralyze political will.
And they are not subtle. Highly classified strategic documents and meeting minutes from within the Russian Presidential Administration, revealed in U.S. court filings, detail how Kremlin-linked firms are directed to monitor Western media, deploy deepfakes, manufacture discord, and manipulate foreign—including Canadian—influencers to amplify and advance Kremlin narratives. One such alleged operation—Tenet Media—reportedly recruited Canadian far-right bloggers to launder Russian propaganda while posing as independent analysts. Other Canadian academics and commentators have willingly appeared on RT, helping to launder Kremlin narratives and lending Western credibility to the regime’s disinformation supply chain.
NATO doesn’t need to start from scratch. Allies on the frontlines—Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Poland—are already leading the way. Ukraine’s civil-military fusion has helped it withstand and counter Russia’s assault, both on the battlefield and in the information space. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have invested in cognitive security, digital defence, and have crated democracy sanctuaries for journalists and activists forced into exile. For them, and others like Sweden and Finland, defence of democracy and the sovereignty of their information space is integrated into their national defence. It’s time the rest of NATO followed suit.
That means funding independent journalism and media literacy as strategic deterrence; training and protecting exiled and dissident journalists from authoritarian states; coordinating civil-military partnerships to defend against information warfare; and integrating transnational repression into national and collective security strategies – as proposed by the G7 in June 2025. Most importantly, it means adapting NATO’s accounting frameworks to reflect these priorities.
Canada is already punching above its weight in the information domain. Initiatives like the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism and support for exiled journalists demonstrate what a whole-of-society approach looks like. But those contributions must be formally recognized as part of our defence architecture. Doing so would reward innovation, encourage further investment, and send a powerful message: that NATO understands the evolving threat landscape—and that we are committed to defending not just territory, but truth.
To make this shift real, NATO must update its defence expenditure guidelines to include funding for independent journalism, civil society, and counter-disinformation efforts in authoritarian states. Member states should be encouraged to invest in programs that train and protect exiled journalists, and to develop NATO-wide responses to transnational repression as a form of foreign interference and cognitive sovereignty violation. Expanding The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence to include research and expanded support for exiled civil society groups and media would strengthen the Alliance’s response capacity. So too would encouraging new civil-military partnerships with media, tech, and cybersecurity organizations to protect the sovereignty of our information ecosystems.
The Kremlin and other authoritarian adversaries have long recognized that information is a weapon as potent as any missile or tank. That is why they relentlessly engage in information warfare, target journalists and activists with transnational repression, and engage in influence operations well beyond their own borders. NATO must recognize that defending cognitive sovereignty and the integrity of our information space is as vital as protecting our physical borders. As adversarial grey-zone warfare intensifies, our response must be equally robust—designed to disrupt, prevent, and deter these threats. Democratic resilience cannot be treated as a soft add-on to hard security. NATO and its member states must adapt their policies to reflect this new reality.
Marcus Kolga is CDA Institute Fellow, international award winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, digital communications strategist, and a leading Canadian expert on Russian and Central and Eastern European issues.
