{"id":2633,"date":"2026-07-03T19:05:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T23:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/?p=2633"},"modified":"2026-07-03T19:08:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T23:08:30","slug":"canada-and-allies-cannot-win-the-information-war-if-their-populations-do-not-trust-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/2026\/canada-and-allies-cannot-win-the-information-war-if-their-populations-do-not-trust-nato\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada and Allies Cannot Win the Information War if Their Populations Do Not Trust NATO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Canada and Allies Cannot Win the Information War if Their Populations Do Not Trust NATO\n <\/h1>\n \n \n \n\n

Juris Pupcenoks, PhD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marist University, USA<\/p>\n\n\n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Executive Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine is also a struggle about public interpretation. NATO members have responded to Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion through sanctions, military aid, deterrence, and diplomatic efforts. These actions depend on the public understanding that Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim of an illegal invasion, and support for Ukraine is important for European and transatlantic security. Russia\u2019s counter-narrative seeks to weaken this consensus view by claiming that Ukraine, NATO, the US, or the West provoked the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on a 2025 survey of all 32 NATO member states<\/a>, with a Canada-focused analysis, as initially outlined at Carleton University\u2019s 2026 Eastern European and Transatlantic Network conference<\/a>, this brief argues that trust in NATO is central to how citizens interpret responsibility for the war. Canadian public opinion remains strongly aligned with the core NATO narrative: most Canadians blame Russia, while only a small minority blame the West. Yet this minority is not randomly distributed. Canadians who do not trust NATO are significantly more likely to accept the narrative that the West provoked the war, while Canadians who trust NATO are much more likely to blame Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The implication is straightforward: countering disinformation is not only about correcting false claims after they spread. It is also about sustaining public trust in the institutions whose messages compete with adversaries’ propaganda and misinformation. For Canada and its NATO Allies, trust in NATO should therefore be treated as a security resource \u2014 one that requires proactive prebunking, clearer explanations of NATO\u2019s relevance to Canadian security, and a wider network of trusted messengers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction: The Narrative Dimension of the War in Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NATO countries responded to Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 through military, economic, and diplomatic means and pressure. However, this support also sparked an ongoing discussion about how and why this war erupted. The core NATO narrative is straightforward: Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim of an unlawful and unprovoked invasion, and allied support for Ukraine is necessary for European and transatlantic security. The main Kremlin counter-narrative tells a different story: Ukraine, NATO, the United States, or \u201cthe West\u201d provoked the war, leaving Russia no choice but to invade in order to protect its so-called historical sphere of influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ongoing contest matters because it can affect whether citizens support sanctions, weapons deliveries, refugee assistance, defense spending, and long-term deterrence measures taken by their countries and NATO. If the public believes that Russia caused the war, continued support for Ukraine and NATO cohesion becomes easier to sustain. If the public believes that NATO or the West provoked the war, allied policy aimed at countering Russia can appear reckless, hypocritical, or needlessly escalatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the discussion about Russian information operations focuses on the supply side. It aims to address threats posed by, for example, Russian propaganda, falsehoods, and electoral and other interference, across different channels and platforms. These are important. Canada\u2019s Rapid Response Mechanism<\/a>, a foreign disinformation detection institution, defines foreign information manipulation and interference as \u201cintentional and coordinated efforts by state or non-state actors to alter information in pursuit of political, security, or other strategic objectives.\u201d But supply alone does not explain why people in Canada and other countries believe one competing strategic narrative over another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brief, therefore, focuses on the demand side of strategic narrative reception. Why are some citizens more receptive to the Kremlin\u2019s West-blame narrative while others accept the NATO narrative that Russia caused the war? Findings from our project<\/a> suggest that people tend to rely on trust in the messenger as a shortcut to plausibility. When they trust NATO, they also tend to trust its messaging. When they distrust NATO, those same explanations are easier to dismiss as propaganda, spin, or elite messaging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategic Narratives and the Credibility of the Narrator<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategic narratives are stories that countries tell to \u201cwin the story\u201d as they frame issues, advance their goals, and convince others of the righteousness of their actions in global affairs. Strategic narratives identify heroes and villains, assign blame, explain crises, and justify policy choices. In the context of Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine, narratives about the origins of the war are especially important because they can and do shape policy debates. If Russia is understood as the aggressor, then sanctions, deterrence, and military assistance to Ukraine follow logically. If NATO is understood as the provocateur, then those same policies can be framed as a dangerous escalation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Narratives succeed not only because of repetition or exposure. They also depend on the narrator’s perceived credibility. Citizens do not evaluate every claim from scratch; they use their trust in the messenger as a cognitive shortcut that, especially when multiple competing narratives are present, is more likely to lead them to accept or reject the story in question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why fact-checking and rebuttals of malign information, while necessary, are not sufficient. The consensus recommendations in The Debunking Handbook 2020<\/a> emphasize that corrections are most effective when they are clear, credible, and accompanied by an alternative explanation. However, both this handbook and our research suggest that to increase the likelihood that the audience accepts the debunking, the audience should hold a positive view of the messenger. When trust is low, the same corrections can be rejected as self-interested messaging. In practice, \u201ctruth\u201d often competes with \u201ctrusted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The policy implication is that institutional credibility is neither a soft nor a secondary issue. It is part of democratic resilience. NATO\u2019s 2022 Strategic Concept<\/a> explicitly identifies resilience as central to its ability to deter and defend. While NATO\u2019s deterrent posture depends on military capabilities, we should also keep in mind that the Alliance also depends on public support for the political choices that make deterrence credible. If hostile information operations can weaken trust in the institutions that explain and justify allied policy, they can complicate democratic decision-making even without changing facts on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence from the Survey: Canada as a High-Trust but Still Vulnerable Case <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The empirical evidence for this brief comes from the 2025 survey of NATO member states<\/a>. The survey asked respondents who they believe caused the war in Ukraine and measured trust in NATO, the EU, and domestic institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"FIg.<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Canada is a useful case because public alignment with the core NATO narrative is strong overall. In the Canadian sample, approximately 84% of respondents blame Russia for the war, while only about 8% blame the West. Around 60% of reports trust NATO. This suggests that Kremin\u2019s West-blame narrative has not received much traction in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the Canadian data also show why overconfidence would be a mistake. West-blame beliefs are not evenly distributed. They are concentrated among respondents who do not trust NATO. For Canadians who trust NATO, only about 4% blame the West. Among those who do not trust NATO, the figure rises to about 15%. Similarly, about 90% of Canadians who trust NATO blame Russia, compared to about 74% among those who do not trust NATO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"FIg.<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The full Canadian results reinforce this pattern. Controlling for socio-demographic factors, trust in NATO is strongly associated with blaming Russia for the war and strongly negatively associated with blaming the West. Other socio-demographic and attitudinal factors also matter, but the clearest and most policy-relevant pattern is the relationship between trust in NATO and blame attribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This does not mean that distrust in NATO automatically translates into pro-Kremlin beliefs. The relationship may run in both directions. Some citizens may distrust NATO and therefore reject NATO\u2019s account of the war. Others may become less trusting of NATO after consuming information critical of it. Both processes could occur simultaneously. For policy purposes, however, the direction is less important than the vulnerability itself. Where trust in NATO is lower, NATO\u2019s messages are less likely to be heard, and adversarial narratives are more likely to find receptive audiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why This Matters for Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Canada, the findings are directly relevant as it is an active player in Europe and, increasingly, the Arctic. Through Operation REASSURANCE<\/a>, Canada has played a leading role in NATO\u2019s presence in Latvia and on the Alliance\u2019s eastern flank. Canada\u2019s security interests extend to the Arctic, cyber defence, democratic resilience, and the protection of a rules-based order that is directly challenged by Russia\u2019s aggression against Ukraine. In the Arctic, however, security communication must also include Inuit and other Indigenous communities as central stakeholders, since their knowledge, rights, livelihoods, and local security concerns are directly affected by how Canada defines and communicates its northern defence priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, NATO can still feel abstract to many Canadians. It may appear distant, bureaucratic, European, or not sufficiently in Canada’s interests. When NATO is understood mainly as a Brussels-based security organization, it is easier for adversaries to portray it as \u201cout-of-touch\u201d with the average Canadian. When NATO is understood as Canadian soldiers in Latvia for the purposes of preventing a wider war, as Arctic deterrence, as cyber cooperation, and as a framework that helps prevent wider war, its relevance to Canada and Canadians is strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge is not simply to tell Canadians that NATO matters; it is to show how NATO strengthens Canadian security and Canada\u2019s international role. This is particularly important as allied governments ask the public to support higher defense spending, long-term military assistance to Ukraine, and sustained deterrence. These policies require political endurance, and political endurance depends on public trust. For example, Canada\u2019s broader efforts against foreign information manipulation and interference could connect more directly to strategic communication about NATO. Monitoring hostile narratives, exposing coordinated manipulation, and working with platforms remain necessary. However, Canada\u2019s counter-disinformation strategy should also focus on credibility-building to increase the likelihood that its messages will resonate better with the public. This means transparency, consistency, local relevance, and messengers who can reach audiences that may not respond to official statements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Canada\u2019s broader efforts against foreign information manipulation and interference<\/a> could connect more directly to strategic communication about NATO. Monitoring hostile narratives, exposing coordinated manipulation, and working with platforms remain necessary. However, Canada\u2019s counter-disinformation strategy should also focus on credibility-building to increase the likelihood that its messages will resonate better with the public. This means transparency, consistency, local relevance, and messengers who can reach audiences that may not respond to official statements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Rebuttals and Takedowns Are Not Enough<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democratic governments often respond to disinformation with three main tools: exposure, removal, and correction. They identify false claims, work to take them down if possible, and post factual rebuttals. These tools are important, but they tend to be reactive. By the time a false narrative has spread widely, corrections may reach only a fraction of the original audience. Also, in instances where people do not trust the institutions or organizations taking up the correcting, attempts to take down false narratives could reinforce distrust and suspicion. Studies on debunking<\/a> and strengthening<\/a> society\u2019s resistance to misinformation<\/a> show that it helps to anticipate and address manipulation techniques before people encounter them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may be helpful to supplement existing debunking efforts with more prebunking, building societal resistance to misinformation, and strengthening trust in NATO and similar institutions. Experimental research by Roozenbeek and team<\/a> show that short interventions aimed at informing people about common manipulation tactics used by hostile actors can increase resilience to misinformation. For example, before a major NATO summit, Ukrainian aid package, or deployment decision, Canadian and allied communicators can anticipate predictable claims that NATO provoked the war, Ukraine is merely a proxy, or Canada is paying for Europe\u2019s war. Rather than waiting for these claims to circulate, Canadian and NATO communicators could explain in advance why they are misleading and how they fit into a broader Russian narrative strategy aimed at dividing and weakening Canada and NATO. This approach should be simple and delivered by trusted voices. It should avoid overly technical language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, NATO and Canadian institutions need to avoid communicating only during crises. Trust building takes time and patience. If the public learns about the role and benefits of NATO membership only when leaders are seeking support for a given initiative, they may view such communication with suspicion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Policy Recommendations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Treat trust as an early-warning indicator<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada already monitors foreign information manipulation and interference and conducts public opinion research on security issues. Canada and its Allies should monitor public trust in NATO and other key security institutions as part of democratic resilience planning. Public opinion polls should ask respondents whether they trust NATO, the Canadian government, and similar institutions. Declining trust should be treated as an early warning indicator that more outreach is needed to reduce susceptibility to adversarial information warfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Institutionalize prebunking before predictable narrative attacks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More attention should be paid to prebunking at moments when adversarial information warfare is likely to escalate (e.g., predictable narrative attacks). Among others, such events likely include NATO summits, defense spending announcements, Ukraine aid package announcements, troop deployments abroad, and elections in allied countries. Communicators should prepare short, accessible materials that explain both the facts and the manipulation techniques adversaries are likely to use. Such efforts should be coordinated by the Canadian government, NATO allies, and other communicators to increase narrative resilience before hostile narratives reach NATO audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Make NATO concrete in Canadian public communication<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conduct public information campaigns aimed at explaining the benefits of NATO membership and consistently connecting them to Canadian security interests. Such a campaign could use specific examples to emphasize NATO’s relevance by highlighting its leadership in Latvia, its role in Arctic security, its cyber defense capabilities, and its efforts to prevent a wider war in Europe, among others. Such communication should also be transparent about trade-offs, given legitimate questions about rising defense spending and the implications of Canada’s growing involvement in European deterrence initiatives. Credible communication should not avoid taking on difficult questions directly \u2014 in fact, addressing them should help with building trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Expand the trusted messenger network<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada already supports public outreach initiatives aimed at countering disinformation and promoting democratic resilience. Such work should be extended to matters surrounding NATO and its work. Since government and NATO officials may not always be the most trusted communicators, Canada should aim to work with a wide network of credible messengers, including veterans, reservists, military families, educators, local officials, Ukrainian and Eastern European diaspora communities, Indigenous and northern voices on Arctic security, and independent scholars. Using such goodwill ambassadors should help key messages reach individuals across different local and social contexts. This could be a way to reach audiences distrustful of political elites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion: Trust as Democratic Deterrence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The full-scale invasion in Ukraine highlighted that deterrence requires military capability, political will, and social resilience. Part of Russia\u2019s challenges to NATO is represented by its hostile information operations. Moscow does not want NATO to admire Russia \u2013 it only needs enough citizens to doubt NATO\u2019s reliability, blame the West for the invasion of Ukraine, oppose support, or lose confidence that allied institutions are telling the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Canadian evidence presented here offers both reassurance and warning \u2014 and policy recommendations outlined here aim to strengthen Canada\u2019s broader democratic resilience. Most Canadians blame Russia for the war, and the Kremlin\u2019s West-blame narrative remains a minority view. But that minority is meaningfully larger among those who do not trust NATO. Increasing trust in NATO, in turn, would require ongoing attention to informational campaigns aimed at raising public understanding of why and how the Alliance matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adjacent to Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a hybrid war of misinformation and interference has been waged by the Kremlin and other malign actors against Western nations. For the member states of NATO, public perception and trust in institutions are key to suppressing misinformation and also offer an indication of international security and health of NATO as a defensive bloc. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":2634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[146,87,207,145,37,100],"tags":[198,147,106,290,109,35,42,289,78],"class_list":["post-2633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-spending","category-disinformation","category-expert-opinion","category-nato","category-policy-brief","category-russia","tag-canada","tag-defence-spending","tag-european-security","tag-misinformation","tag-nato","tag-policy-brief","tag-russia","tag-trust","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2633"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2644,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions\/2644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/eetn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}