The fundamental crisis of European security did not begin with tanks or terrorists. It began with perception. After the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the Western world decided that the era of strategic conflicts was a thing of the past. This idea was best expressed by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama in “The End of History”: liberal democracy had triumphed, history had ended. But, as the 21^st  century has shown, history has only changed its form.

After 2001, Europe has already faced waves of violence — terrorist attacks in London, Paris, and Brussels. However, unlike direct aggression, cyber threats and hybrid forms of influence were perceived not as existential challenges, but as technical incidents. That was a strategic mistake.

Cyberattacks are no longer ancillary elements of military action. Since 2015, more than 450 incidents classified as attacks on critical infrastructure have been recorded in the European Union alone. Among the largest:

• The 2015 attack on the Bundestag, supported by the APT28 group, which is linked to the GRU. Data loss and leakage amounted to 16 terabytes of information.
• The attack on the Irish healthcare system in 2021, which paralyzed hospitals for 10 days. According to Ireland’s National Cyber Center, the damage amounted to approximately EUR 600 million.
• The  2023  coordinated attack on the energy networks of Poland and the Czech Republic, which resulted in a 48-hour power outage in five major cities.

The EU belatedly recognized that cyberspace had become an arena for systemic warfare. As early as 2022, the EU’s Strategic Security Compass officially recognized cyber defense as a priority on par with military defense. However, according to the European Court of Auditors, by 2025, only 8 of the 27 EU countries had ensured the basic compatibility of their cyber structures with the pan-European NIS2 standard.

European intelligence practices are increasingly recording not just attacks on servers, but complex scenarios involving elements of psychological operations (PSYOPS), disinformation, and imitation of media discourse. A NATO report from March 2025 emphasizes that today’s hybrid threat is not just “malicious code”,  but a “multi-level process of undermining trust in institutions through digital mimicry”.

One example is the interference in the 2024 elections in Slovakia: hackers spread disinformation via messengers and fake accounts on TikTok and Telegram. The result was a sharp drop in voter turnout and the delegitimization of the election results. The European External Action Service (EEAS) stated in its January 2025 report: “Destructive narratives created by artificial intelligence are becoming a major threat to young audiences in the EU”.

One of the most important paradoxes is the crisis of trust within the EU itself. According to Eurobarometer (April 2025), only 38 % of EU citizens are confident in Brussels’ ability to protect them from digital threats. Trust is particularly low in Hungary (19 %), Slovakia (22 %), and France (29 %).

It is in this context that some countries see Azerbaijan as a potential neutral hub for digital transit and communications. In April 2025, the idea of creating an Eastern cyber channel was discussed in Geneva — a secure channel for data exchange between Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and Europe, bypassing unstable routes through Russia. Analysts from the Digital Sovereignty Initiative emphasize that “positioning Baku as a digital hub is consistent with the logic of diversifying trust”.

Europe is entering an era where armies will be powerless if algorithms are not protected. Classic models of collective security are losing their reliability. Even NATO and the EU are not ready to respond quickly to attacks that occur in nanoseconds and are already targeting consciousness rather than territory.

As for Azerbaijan, unlike many European states, it recognizes the importance of digital sovereignty as an element of national security. Strategic planning in Baku already includes elements of information environment protection, anti-disinformation analytics, and scenario modeling of attacks.

On the other hand, Europe is still looking for enemies in real time, when they are already operating in the code of the 21^st  century… History has not ended. It has changed its language again — and those who do not have time to learn it will be left without a voice and without protection.

The digital space has become the theater of a new type of war. Battles are fought not for territory, but for cognitive dominance, for control over the consciousness of the masses and the infrastructure of decision-making. Undermining trust in elections, delegitimizing institutions, mass manipulation — these are no longer predictions, but reality. Digital aggression is an attack on sovereignty in its postmodern form. It is an attempt to turn society into an algorithmic target, influenced by fake news, fake accounts, and distorted trends. This is not only a threat to security, but also a threat to identity.

As for the fundamental landscape of international security, it is changing before our very eyes. Hybrid attacks have long crossed the line separating legitimate foreign policy instruments from covert undermining of statehood. They do not cross the threshold of open warfare — and that is precisely what makes them dangerous. Their strategy is designed for stealth, and their effectiveness depends on the indecisiveness of their victims.

Modern democratic societies based on the rule of law have become vulnerable to a new type of threat: those who abide by the rules always lose to those who act outside them. This is the central dilemma of hybrid warfare: it attacks not so much armies or infrastructure as the principles on which free societies are built. The enemy deliberately avoids direct confrontation, preferring to destroy trust, undermine stability, and divide civil harmony. The response, if possible at all, requires not only technology and political will, but also a new strategic consciousness.

Nation states are organized by sector—police, intelligence, IT security, justice—each responsible for its own area. But the hybrid threat knows no boundaries of competence. It operates in a “gray zone,” precisely in the space where the line between internal and external security, between criminal offense and act of aggression, between disinformation and information weapons disappears.

Western European countries are forced for the first time to build a new security architecture, where horizontal coordination takes on priority importance. In Germany, this process is just beginning — cyber resilience mechanisms are being created at the strategic level, and federal agencies are learning to work as a single entity. The emphasis is on transparency, data exchange, clear definition of areas of responsibility and, most importantly, institutional awareness: each structure must know what is expected of it and under what scenario it will take action.

But even this is only part of the task. Proponents of hybrid attacks have long adapted to the bureaucratic weaknesses of democracies. They act quickly, while democracies move slowly. They attack instantly, while democracies defend themselves through committees and coordination. The asymmetrical nature of the conflict makes fighting hybrid aggression the most difficult challenge of our time.

In 2025, the concept of war finally went beyond the boundaries of classical geopolitics. Tanks and missiles are still in the arsenal of states, but the decisive factor is what is not visible in the news feeds — manipulation of perception, control of the narrative, destruction of identity through codes, hashtags, and visual stimuli. This is not just cyberwarfare. It is systemic, multi-level informational and psychological aggression aimed at undermining society’s ability to think rationally, exercise collective will, and resist.

Since 2020, Azerbaijan has been the focus of transnational disinformation networks. After winning the 44-day war and regaining control over Karabakh, the country has been the target of large-scale psychological operations… by a number of foreign NGOs, media outlets, and political foundations. Between January and May 2025 alone, Azerbaijan’s State Special Communications and Information Security Service (GSSCA) recorded more than 4,700 attempted information attacks, including:

• dissemination of fake maps that distort borders;
• creation of pseudo-journalistic investigations about “repression” and “ethnic cleansing”;
• fabrication of alleged leaks of information about military operations or internal conflicts;
• attacks on the digital infrastructure of state institutions and strategic enterprises.

A report by the Center for Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center) dated June 3, 2025, emphasizes: “Information attacks against Azerbaijan are coordinated with the aim of undermining the legitimacy of the state, delegitimizing its international agenda, and creating an image of an ‘aggressor’ on the external contour.” At the same time, the sources of these campaigns are often disguised as “neutral” European platforms.

The main goal of hybrid influence is to destroy the cognitive architecture of society. While classical warfare destroys bridges and roads, digital warfare destroys trust, unity, and critical thinking. The UNESCO report for 2025 points out: “70 % of young people in developing countries get their news exclusively from social media. Over 60 % do not check the source of the information. And 40 % are unable to distinguish fake news from reliable news.”

For countries with high digital penetration — and in Azerbaijan, internet coverage is almost 90 % of the population — this means vulnerability not only in the field of information security, but also in the field of national resilience. The response to hybrid attacks cannot be purely repressive or purely technical. It must be multi-level, horizontal, and preventive. Azerbaijan is already taking steps in this direction:

• In 2024, a National Strategic Communications Plan was approved, which includes monitoring disinformation, teaching media literacy in schools and universities, and supporting independent fact-checking.
• The Ministry of Digital Development and Transport has established a Digital Resilience Center, which performs systemic analysis of sources of fake news and trends in manipulative narratives.
• A number of initiatives have been launched jointly with the private sector, including the mobilization of IT companies, television channels, and influencers to create educational content that raises the level of critical perception.

But most importantly, a new cultural matrix of resilience is being formed, where responsibility for information hygiene rests not only with the state, but also with civil society, public organizations, scientific institutions, and business. The international aspect: from technological dependence – to strategic sovereignty.

The key threat is the monopoly of digital infrastructure. The majority of content flows in Azerbaijan, as in most countries in the region, are through platforms registered in jurisdictions with different legal and political principles. This makes diplomatic work to create alternatives critical:

• participation in the Turkic Digital Union projects, which envisage the formation of an independent platform ecosystem;
• cooperation with the OIC, ASEAN, and the OECD on information security;
• initiatives within the UN Disinformation Resilience Center, where Azerbaijan has been a member of the expert group on countering digital threats since 2025.