At the dawn of the 21st century, the West declared the triumph
of its world order. Liberal democracy was not just an ideology; it
became a system with no alternative. But, as the events of the past
decade have shown, the stability of this order was illusory. The
world has entered a phase of invisible, asymmetric conflict, where
the old rules no longer apply. Security is no longer just a matter
of armies and borders—it’s dissolved into data streams, algorithms,
cyberattacks, and information manipulation. Europe, once confident
in its invulnerability, turned out to be the most vulnerable.
The Paradox of Calm: Security as a Backdrop, Not a Strategy
The fundamental crisis in European security didn’t begin with
tanks or terrorists. It started with perception. After the collapse
of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the Western world
believed that the era of strategic conflicts had ended. This
sentiment was best expressed by American political scientist
Francis Fukuyama in The End of History: liberal democracy
had won, history was over. But as the 21st century unfolded,
history didn’t end—it simply changed its face.
After 2001, Europe faced waves of violence—terrorist attacks in
London, Paris, Brussels. However, unlike direct aggression, cyber
threats and hybrid warfare were not perceived as existential
challenges but as technical incidents. This turned out to be a
strategic mistake.
Cyberattacks are no longer a mere side element to military
actions. Since 2015, the European Union alone has recorded over 450
incidents classified as attacks on critical infrastructure. Among
the largest:
The 2015 Bundestag attack, carried out by the APT28 group
linked to Russia’s GRU, which resulted in the loss and leak of 16
terabytes of data.
The 2021 attack on Ireland’s healthcare system, which paralyzed
hospitals for 10 days. According to Ireland’s National
Cybersecurity Centre, the damage was around €600 million.
In 2023, a coordinated attack on Poland and Czechia’s energy
networks caused blackouts lasting 48 hours in five major
The EU has belatedly recognized: cyberspace has become the arena
for a systemic war. As early as 2022, the EU’s Strategic Compass
officially prioritized cyber defense on par with military
protection. However, by 2025, according to the European Court of
Auditors, only eight of the 27 EU countries had ensured the basic
compatibility of their cyber structures with the European standard
European intelligence practices are increasingly noting not just
attacks on servers, but complex scenarios involving psychological
operations (PSYOPS), disinformation, and media discourse
manipulation. NATO’s March 2025 report emphasizes: today’s hybrid
threat is no longer just “malicious code” but “a multi-layered
process of undermining trust in institutions through digital
An example is the 2024 interference in Slovakia’s elections,
where hackers spread disinformation via messengers and fake TikTok
and Telegram accounts. The result was a sharp decline in voter
turnout and the delegitimization of the election results. The
European External Action Service (EEAS) reported in January 2025:
“Destructive AI-generated narratives are becoming the biggest
threat to the youth audience in the EU.”
One of the most significant paradoxes is the trust crisis within
the EU itself. According to Eurobarometer (April 2025), only 38% of
EU citizens believe Brussels can protect them from digital threats.
Trust is especially low in Hungary (19%), Slovakia (22%), and
France (29%).
In this context, Azerbaijan is seen by several countries as a
potential neutral hub for digital transit and communications. In
April 2025, Geneva hosted discussions on the creation of an Eastern
Cyber Channel—a secure data exchange route between Central Asia,
the South Caucasus, and Europe, bypassing unstable routes through
Russia. Analysts from the Digital Sovereignty Initiative highlight
that “positioning Baku as a digital hub aligns with the logic of
diversifying trust.”
Europe has entered an era where armies are powerless unless
supported by algorithms. Traditional collective security models are
outdated. Neither NATO nor the EU is prepared to respond quickly to
attacks that unfold in nanoseconds, targeting consciousness rather
than territory.
Unlike many European states, Azerbaijan has recognized the
importance of digital sovereignty as a core element of national
security. Strategic planning in Baku now includes elements for
protecting the information environment, anti-disinformation
analytics, and scenario modeling for potential attacks.
Meanwhile, Europe is still searching for enemies in the real
world, even as they have long been acting in code. While Europe
continues to seek solutions within 20th-century structures,
Azerbaijan is already building 21st-century solutions. Not on
paper—but in the architecture of servers and a well-structured
sovereignty policy.
History hasn’t ended. It has simply changed its language—and
those who fail to learn it will be left without a voice and without
protection.
The New Geopolitics: The Battle of Algorithms
The digital realm has become a theater of a new type of war. The
battles are no longer fought for territory, but for cognitive
dominance, for control over the masses’ consciousness and the
decision-making infrastructure. Undermining trust in elections,
delegitimizing institutions, mass manipulation—these are no longer
predictions, but practices.
Digital aggression is an attack on sovereignty in its postmodern
form. It’s an attempt to turn society into an algorithmic target,
bombarding it through fake news, fake accounts, and distorted
trends. This is not only a security threat; it is a threat to
We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the landscape of
international security. Hybrid attacks have long crossed the line
between legitimate foreign policy tools and the covert undermining
of statehood. They do not cross the threshold into open war—and
that is precisely what makes them so dangerous. Their strategy
relies on subtlety, and their effectiveness lies in the
indecisiveness of their victims.
Modern democratic societies, built on the rule of law, are
proving vulnerable to this new type of threat: those who follow the
rules are always outplayed by those who act outside of them. This
is the core dilemma of hybrid warfare: it doesn’t target armies or
infrastructure so much as it attacks the very principles on which
free societies are built. The enemy deliberately avoids direct
confrontation, opting instead to destroy trust, undermine
resilience, and fracture civic consensus. The response, if it’s
even possible, demands not only technology and political will, but
a new strategic mindset.
Nation-states are organized by sectors—police, intelligence, IT
security, justice—each responsible for its own domain. But hybrid
threats know no boundaries. They operate in the “gray zone,” where
the distinction between internal and external security blurs, where
the line between criminal activity and acts of aggression vanishes,
and where disinformation becomes a weapon.
Western European countries are being forced to build a new
security architecture, one that prioritizes horizontal
coordination. 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
unified whole. The focus is on transparency, data sharing, clear
definitions of responsibilities, and, most importantly,
institutional awareness: every structure must know what is expected
of it and how it plays into the broader strategy.
But even this is only part of the challenge. The hybrid attacker
has long since adapted to the bureaucratic weaknesses of
democracies. It acts quickly, while democracies act slowly. It
attacks instantaneously, while they respond through committees and
negotiations. This asymmetric nature of the conflict makes the
fight against hybrid aggression one of the most complex challenges
of our time.
By 2025, the concept of war has definitively moved beyond the
confines of classical geopolitics. Tanks and missiles still have
their place in state arsenals, but the decisive factor now lies in
what can’t be seen in news feeds—the manipulation of perception,
control over the narrative, the destruction of identity through
codes, hashtags, and visual cues. This is no longer just cyber
warfare. It is a systemic, multi-layered
informational-psychological aggression, aimed at undermining a
society’s ability to think rationally, to act collectively, and to
Azerbaijan as the Object and Subject of Hybrid Pressure
Since 2020, Azerbaijan has found itself in a special zone of
attention for transnational disinformation networks. Following its
victory in the 44-day war and the restoration of control over
Karabakh, the country has become a target of large-scale
psychological operations, initiated both from Yerevan and supported
by external entities, including a number of European NGOs, media
outlets, and political foundations.
From January to May 2025 alone, Azerbaijan’s State Service for
Special Communication and Information Security (GSSCA) recorded
over 4,700 attempts of information attacks, including:
The spread of fake maps distorting borders;
The creation of pseudo-journalistic investigations about
“repression” and “ethnic cleansing”;
Fabricating supposed leaks about military operations or
internal conflicts;
Attacks on the digital infrastructure of government agencies
and strategic enterprises.
A report by the Center for Analysis of International Relations
(AIR Center) from June 3, 2025, highlights: “Information attacks
against Azerbaijan are coordinated with the aim of undermining the
legitimacy of the state, delegitimizing its international agenda,
and framing the country as the ‘aggressor’ on the global stage.”
The sources behind these campaigns are often disguised as “neutral”
European platforms.
The Main Goal of Hybrid Warfare: Disrupting the Cognitive
Architecture of Society
While classical warfare destroys bridges and roads, digital
warfare targets trust, unity, and critical thinking. The 2025
UNESCO report underscores this reality: “70% of youth in
developing countries get their news exclusively from social media.
Over 60% don’t verify sources. And 40% can’t distinguish between
fake news and reliable information.”
For nations with high digital penetration—like Azerbaijan, where
internet coverage reaches nearly 90% of the population—this
signifies vulnerability not just in cybersecurity, but in national
resilience as well.
The response to hybrid attacks cannot be purely repressive or
purely technical. It must be multi-layered, horizontal, and
preventive. Azerbaijan is already taking steps in this
In 2024, the National Strategy for Strategic Communications was
approved, which includes monitoring disinformation, teaching media
literacy in schools and universities, and supporting independent
fact-checking.
A Digital Resilience Center was created under the Ministry of
Digital Development and Transport, conducting systematic analysis
of the sources of fake news and manipulative narrative trends.
A series of initiatives have been launched in partnership with
the private sector, including mobilizing IT companies, TV channels,
and influencers to create educational content that enhances
critical thinking.
But the most important development is the creation of a new
cultural matrix of resilience, where the responsibility for
information hygiene is shared not only by the state but also by
civil society, NGOs, academic institutions, and businesses.
The International Aspect: From Technological Dependence to
Strategic Sovereignty
The key threat lies in the monopoly on digital infrastructure. A
large portion of Azerbaijan’s content flows, like most countries in
the region, pass through platforms registered in jurisdictions
where different legal and political principles apply. This makes
diplomatic efforts to create alternatives critically important:
Participation in projects like the Turkic Digital Union, which
aims to create an independent platform ecosystem;
Cooperation with the OIC, ASEAN, and OECD on information
security matters;
Initiatives under the UN’s Center for Resilience to
Disinformation, where Azerbaijan has been part of an expert group
focused on countering digital threats since 2025.
Hybrid warfare is not merely a new form of threat. It is a new
test of maturity for states and societies. The ability to
recognize, predict, and neutralize informational and psychological
attacks is no longer a special operation—it’s an everyday
Azerbaijan, facing immense external pressure—from fake reports
on “genocide” to fabricated investigations against state
institutions—not only defends itself but also builds a proactive
model of strategic resilience. This path is not about fighting
shadows, but about creating a new landscape of interpretations,
where truth is defended not by slogans, but by facts; not by
propaganda, but by critical thinking; not by censorship, but by
digital sovereignty.
We have entered an era where national defense begins with the
protection of its cognitive architecture. And here lies the
ultimate conflict of the 21st century.