EU2.0 Needs an Information Strategy

Europe is learning to defend itself in the information war. The next step is connecting military influence, democratic resilience and communication with societies beyond its borders.

 

For years, Europe has treated information warfare primarily as something done to us. Russia interferes in European information environments.
China has developed sophisticated influence capabilities.
Extremist organizations have used digital media to recruit and mobilize.
Artificial intelligence is making manipulation cheaper and faster, while foreign actors can exploit existing political divisions rather than having to create them.

Europe's response has therefore understandably concentrated on defense: identifying disinformation, exposing foreign interference, regulating platforms, improving cyber resilience and protecting democratic processes. The European External Action Service (EEAS), for example, has developed Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) into a distinct field of activity and now regularly documents attempts to manipulate European and neighboring information environments.[1]

But something is changing.

A recent study by the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) describes how France has gradually moved beyond this predominantly defensive conception. Experiences with Islamic State propaganda, information confrontation in the Sahel and Russia's hybrid warfare have helped persuade French defense planners that information is not simply a communications problem surrounding military operations. It is itself part of the strategic environment in which conflicts are conducted and political outcomes shaped.[2]

France has consequently begun constructing doctrine and capabilities for information warfare and influence. That may appear to be a specifically French military development. In reality, it points toward a much larger European question.

Europe Is Discovering Information Power

Military power has always involved more than weapons. Countries seek to influence what opponents expect, what populations believe possible, what allies consider credible and what choices political leaders think are available. Digital communication has enormously expanded this arena.

The important development in France is therefore not that Europe is finally learning how to conduct propaganda. Quite the opposite. The French approach described by Ifri explicitly confronts the problem facing democracies: authoritarian adversaries may manipulate, fabricate and deceive in ways democratic states should not imitate. France now accepts an offensive dimension in the information domain while explicitly maintaining its refusal of lying. Ifri argues that preserving law and truth is not simply a handicap but a defining boundary for democratic information warfare.[2]

Europe therefore needs to become better not at manufacturing reality, but at explaining, persuading and making credible alternatives visible. Doing that requires capabilities which Europe has traditionally kept in separate boxes: military information operations; protection of European societies against foreign manipulation; and strategic communication with societies outside Europe. A stronger Europe will increasingly need all three.

Competing in the Information Environment

The military lesson is becoming difficult to ignore. France's experience in the Sahel demonstrated that military capability alone does not guarantee political success.
Ifri concludes that information campaigns helped delegitimize Operation Barkhane, while Russia's hybrid confrontation has demonstrated that the cognitive environment can remain contested long before conventional hostilities begin.[2]

Russia has taken that principle considerably further. The EU already treats information manipulation as part of Russia's broader hybrid confrontation. In 2026 the Council imposed further sanctions on individuals involved in Russian FIMI activities, while the EEAS continued documenting systematic Russian efforts to manipulate political perceptions and weaken support for Ukraine.[1][3]

Information therefore cannot remain an afterthought to European defense. If Europe is serious about developing a stronger European pillar within NATO — and ultimately the greater strategic capability we might call EU2.0 — information capability belongs alongside military readiness, intelligence, cyber defense and industrial capacity.

But that is only the first layer.

Protecting Europe's Democratic Space

Information competition also takes place inside European societies, and here the issue becomes considerably more delicate. Foreign powers do not necessarily need to invent European divisions. Migration, inequality, national identity, distrust of institutions, dissatisfaction with government and arguments over European integration already exist. External actors can exploit these divisions by amplifying particular narratives, supporting sympathetic networks, injecting misleading information or simply increasing the visibility and intensity of conflicts already dividing Europeans.

This is the Threat from Within.[4] But the phrase requires an important qualification. The threat is not disagreement. People opposing immigration policy, European integration, defense expenditure or sanctions against Russia do not become agents of foreign influence simply because Moscow happens to favor similar positions. A democracy that starts treating dissent as a security problem damages precisely what it claims to defend.

Europe therefore faces a difficult balancing act: becoming considerably better at identifying manipulation, covert financing and organized foreign interference while continuing to protect political pluralism and open argument. Significantly, the French doctrine described by Ifri recognizes essentially this boundary: military capabilities may act toward an adversary, while protection of domestic civilian society should not become an attempt to influence that society.[2]

A European information strategy must therefore protect the democratic information environment without trying to control it. That distinction should become one of its governing principles.

Defense Is Only Half a Strategy

There remains another asymmetry. Russia communicates actively into Europe. Europe does much less to communicate strategically into Russia.

Europe sanctions. Europe condemns. Europe supports Ukraine. Europe strengthens NATO. European leaders explain these policies primarily to Europeans and other governments. But what political future does Europe communicate to Russian citizens?

That question was central to Europe Needs a Strategy of Confidence Toward Russia’s Citizens.[5] Its proposition was deliberately different from either appeasement or regime change. Europe can make clear that its problem is not Russia's existence, Russian culture or the Russian people's legitimate desire for security and dignity. Its problem is an imperial conception of security under which neighboring countries are denied the freedom to determine their own futures.

That leaves open another possibility. A Russia secure within its internationally recognized borders, no longer seeking domination over neighboring states, could progressively rebuild a peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship with Europe.

That proposition matters strategically because deterrence by itself describes only what Europe wants Russia not to do.
It says remarkably little about what Europe wants eventually to happen.

Deterrence Needs a Political Destination

Consider the strategic choice presented to Russians today. Continued confrontation means Ukrainian resistance, stronger European defense, NATO reinforcement, sanctions, economic separation and continuing insecurity. Europe has become increasingly credible about that side of the equation.

The alternative remains much less visible.

What would actually happen if a future Russia abandoned territorial aggression? Europe could make that possibility more concrete without promising concessions today. Changed behavior could progressively create possibilities for sanctions relief, restored travel, scientific and educational exchange, cultural reopening, economic cooperation and eventually a different European security relationship.

The important word is conditional. Europe would not be offering rewards for aggression, nor would it determine Russia's political system. Russians themselves determine Russia's political future. Europe would simply make one proposition credible: Russia's choices affect Europe's choices.

That directly challenges the narrative that permanent confrontation is unavoidable because the West will remain Russia's enemy whatever Russia does. Europe's answer can instead be that another relationship is possible, but that it depends on another relationship between Russia and its neighbors as well.

This is strategically important. Deterrence raises the costs of aggression. Conditional cooperation increases the potential benefits of changed behavior. Communication makes that alternative knowable. None works as effectively without the others.

From Information Warfare to Societal Communication

This is where the emerging French doctrine and the European Russia question meet—but they should not be confused.

Military information warfare and communication with Russian society are not the same activity, nor should they become one. Military organizations need capabilities appropriate to conflict and adversarial information environments. European societies need protection against covert foreign interference. Independent journalists, researchers, cultural institutions, universities and Russian-language voices need the freedom and means to communicate across borders.

Governments can provide infrastructure, access and strategic clarity without determining what independent communicators are required to say. That distinction allows Europe to build influence capability without constructing a European propaganda ministry.

Much of the required ecosystem already exists.
Europe has broadcasters, independent media, universities, research institutions, cultural networks, Russian-language journalists, technology companies, diplomatic services and civil-society organizations. The missing element may therefore be less the creation of an enormous new apparatus than strategic coherence, sustained access, sufficient scale and political continuity.

Europe Already Has Something to Communicate

There is another reason Europe should not imitate authoritarian information warfare: Europe possesses its own story.

The WE ARE EUROPE series identified values that Europeans have gradually built into their societies: personal freedom, democratic voice, equality before law, protection against arbitrary power, solidarity, tolerance of difference, peaceful compromise and rejection of political deception.[6] Those values are not merely something to protect inside Europe. They are also part of Europe's attractiveness outside it.

This changes the purpose of European strategic communication.
Europe does not need to manufacture an artificial story about itself. It needs to make its actual society — its disagreements as well as its achievements, its failures as well as its aspirations — together with its intentions and possible relationships with others, visible and accessible in information environments where competing powers increasingly restrict or manipulate that visibility.

The values ecosystem therefore becomes strategic infrastructure. Not because European values become propaganda, but because they give European communication something credible to communicate.

An Emerging EU2.0 Capability

The significance goes well beyond Russia. A more autonomous Europe increasingly requires several forms of capacity simultaneously.
It needs military capacity to defend itself and economic capacity to finance defense, prosperity, technological development and the welfare state.
It needs diplomatic capacity to formulate European positions rather than automatically inheriting those of Washington or merely responding to Moscow and Beijing.
It needs democratic resilience so outside powers cannot easily exploit internal divisions.
Increasingly, it also needs information capacity: the ability to understand information environments, defend its own, operate in adversarial ones and communicate convincingly with societies beyond Europe's borders.

These capabilities are beginning to appear. France's developing information doctrine is one indication. Europe's expanding efforts against foreign information manipulation are another. The growing recognition that Russia's hybrid confrontation extends into European societies provides a third.[1][2][3]

But the pieces remain fragmented. EU2.0 would bring them into a coherent strategic architecture while maintaining the boundaries appropriate to a democratic society. Military information operations should remain subject to democratic authority and law. Protection against foreign interference should not become policing of political disagreement. Independent media should remain independent. Strategic communication should remain anchored in demonstrable reality. And Europe should be capable not merely of describing what it opposes, but of communicating the futures it is prepared to support.

This also suggests a broader way of understanding EU2.0.
The WE ARE EUROPE series asked what Europe is and what Europeans want to preserve. [6]
EU2.0 increasingly asks a complementary question: What capabilities does Europe need in order to preserve it?

Power Also Means Persuasion

Europe's geopolitical awakening has understandably begun with defense. Russia's invasion of Ukraine made military weakness impossible to ignore. American uncertainty has forced Europeans to reconsider strategic dependence. Chinese industrial competition has exposed economic vulnerabilities. The information dimension is now becoming visible as another part of the same transformation.

The lesson should not be that Europe needs its own propaganda machine. It is almost the reverse. A democratic Europe needs the confidence to believe that truthful persuasion can itself be a form of strategic power.

That means protecting Europeans against manipulation without protecting them against disagreement. It means confronting hostile information operations without copying their methods. And it means speaking beyond governments to societies whose choices will ultimately shape Europe's security environment.

Europe cannot choose Russia's future. Nor can it choose America's, China's or anyone else's. But Europe can decide whether those societies encounter only Europe's sanctions, regulations, military preparations and diplomatic objections — or whether they can also understand what Europe stands for, what it seeks and what another relationship could make possible.

That is why information strategy belongs in EU2.0.

Deterrence tells others where Europe will not retreat. Communication tells them where another road could lead.

References

[1] European External Action Service (EEAS), 2025 Report on EEAS Activities to Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), 24 June 2026. 

[2] Laurent Bansept, Convaincre pour vaincre. La France et la structuration d'une doctrine de guerre informationnelle, Focus stratégique No. 135, Institut français des relations internationales (Ifri), 7 September 2026. 
https://www.ifri.org/fr/etudes/convaincre-pour-vaincre-la-france-et-la-structuration-dune-doctrine-de-guerre

[3] Council of the European Union, Russian hybrid threats: four individuals added to EU sanctions list for information manipulation activities, 16 March 2026; see also the Council's June 2026 sanctions concerning Russian FIMI and propaganda actors. 

[4] WE ARE EUROPE — Keeping Europe European: The Threat From Within, August 2026. 
https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/08/we-are-europe-keeping-europe-european_01764668262.html

[5] Europe Needs a Strategy of Confidence Toward Russia’s Citizens, June 2026.
https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/06/europe-needs-strategy-of-confidence.html

 [6] WE ARE EUROPE - Key Notes to the Series - The European Environment We Have Built Around Ourselves, European Values series, August 2026. 
https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/08/we-are-europe-key-notes-to-series.html