What Role for Media in Security Crises?

The chapter examines the impact of media on public opinion and leadership decision-making during security crises. Leaders pay particular attention to media outlets during crises in an effort to collect as much information as possible from open sources. While intelligence from state services and allies plays a crucial role in reaching decisions, the impact of electronic and social media in shaping leadership perceptions is increasingly hard to ignore. The fact that governments have access to “accurate” intelligence should mitigate, in principle, the danger of misperception arising from erroneous media reports. Nevertheless, we have no way of limiting the potential “contamination” of leadership perceptions by inaccurate media information. Intelligence, after all, may be inconclusive, and intelligence assessments could themselves be affected by factors such as hostile images of the “other” engineered by the media. But the media’s independence is being gradually compromised, with the post-Cold War trend being particularly revealing. From the “CNN effect” of the 1990s to the “War on Terror” campaign in the 2000s and the Hybrid Warfare doctrines of the 2010, it becomes increasingly evident that governments aspire to “weaponise” information so as to achieve their military objectives. Maintaining, therefore, accurate perceptions in an environment where disinformation, fake news, and propaganda are pervasive is a demanding task. As a result, governments will have to exercise effective oversight across media outlets in the future in order to ensure that public opinion and leadership perceptions are unaffected by disinformation and propaganda campaigns. With more governments engaging into the “weaponisation” of media, however, it is up to media professionals and journalists to defend their field and ensure that global audiences have access to impartial coverage of security crises

THE RISE OF A STRATEGIC SPOILER: RUSSIA’S EUROPEAN SECURITY STRATEGY

Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 was the latest step in Moscow’s steadfast rejection of the post-Cold War security order in Europe. Nevertheless, analysts and scholars remain puzzled as to what exactly constitutes Russia’s long-term game plan vis-à-vis Europe. This chapter suggests that, far from following a concrete, well-planned blueprint at the operational and tactical levels, Russia’s grand strategic objectives enable Moscow to adopt a fluid, adaptive posture aiming at achieving two interconnected goals: to maintain, or even improve, the continental military balance of power through the deployment of strategic weapons and at the same time acquire the capabilities to disrupt NATO’s air and naval superiority in critical flashpoints, an aspiration that had been elusive even at the peak of the Cold War rivalry. The implications of Russia’s grand strategic doctrine are thus crucial for Europe’s security outlook; Moscow’s approach implies that Russian deterrence at the highest levels will be robust, while low-level, disruptive tactics in areas where Russia maintains an operational advantage could challenge the European security status quo. Contemporary developments, therefore, may enable Russia to undermine NATO’s supremacy in the Euro-Atlantic geopolitical space, altering the post-Cold War order