Australia’s defence strategy risks overlooking the increasing influence of perception and cognition in conflict.
Adversaries are increasingly using digital information environments to shape how crises are interpreted and responded to. Australia must prepare for the effects on domestic audiences and strengthen national informational resilience through media literacy and coordinated government responses.
Traditional defence thinking has been built around persuasion (for example, through diplomacy and alliances) and coercion (the use of force). Now there’s a third major element: shaping what people notice and take to be real. Through information environments, algorithmic curation and emotional amplification, the objective is to shape the conditions under which political and strategic decisions are made.
This shift is visible in how crises now unfold. Russia-linked influence networks, Chinese state information campaigns and extremist online ecosystems associated with conspiracy movements increasingly use viral imagery, emotionally charged content and coordinated amplification to shape public interpretation of events. The objective is often not simply persuasion but the erosion of trust and the generation of confusion and uncertainty around major events. Advances in artificial intelligence are accelerating this trend by enabling the rapid generation and amplification of content at unprecedented scale and speed.
In this environment, strategic competition increasingly involves shaping perception and public interpretation alongside traditional military and diplomatic activity. Russian information operations surrounding the war in Ukraine and Chinese efforts to shape narratives around Taiwan and Covid-19 demonstrate how states increasingly seek to influence how crises are understood and responded to in real time.
Current Australian policy has begun to recognise elements of this shift. The 2026 National Defence Strategy and related planning documents reference the information domain, influence operations and broader questions of national resilience and preparedness against emerging forms of disruption. The Australian Defence Force already operates across cyber, information and strategic communication domains, and these capabilities will remain essential.
However, these efforts are still often treated as supporting functions rather than as a core organising principle of strategy. The risk is not that Australia is ignoring the cognitive domain but that it has yet to fully integrate it into its understanding of competition and conflict. This remains evident in a defence posture still primarily centred on long-term major-equipment acquisition and conventional capability development, while cognitive and informational operations are typically framed as enabling or adjunct capabilities rather than decisive strategic terrain.
This is part of a broader concern about whether Australia’s defence posture is keeping pace with the speed and adaptability of contemporary conflict. Defence analysts and senior security officials, including the director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, have warned that foreign interference and online influence operations increasingly seek to exploit social division and weaken Australia’s resilience during periods of heightened tension or crisis.
This creates three risks. First, it creates a strategic asymmetry with actors that prioritise information operations and online influence. Through disinformation campaigns, adversaries can shape public interpretation of crises, undermine trust in institutions and generate confusion or hesitation during moments of strategic decision-making, often without crossing traditional thresholds of conflict.
Second, Australia risks moving too slowly. Cognitive operations unfold in real time, exploiting speed, ambiguity and rapid adaptation, whereas Australian policy remains heavily focused on conventional capability decisions planned decades ahead. This approach is ill-suited to rapidly shifting informational and perceptual dynamics.
Third, it creates a domestic vulnerability. Modern conflict increasingly blurs the boundary between external and internal security. During a regional conflict, foreign information operations could exploit social divisions, intensify public confusion or panic and undermine confidence in institutions and official communication. This could complicate crisis decision-making and weaken public confidence in Australia’s response even before any direct military confrontation occurs. In a crisis, delayed or confused public responses can themselves become a strategic vulnerability.
Importantly, the government should treat the information environment as core infrastructure. Just as it considers energy and communications systems to be critical, it should extend similar strategic attention to the digital ecosystems that shape public perception and public understanding during crises. This responsibility cannot sit with Defence alone. It requires coordination across government, including education, communications and cyber-security agencies, alongside cooperation with technology companies and media organisations responsible for information integrity and public communication.
Australia should also invest in national perceptual resilience. One practical step would be developing coordinated public communication and media literacy initiatives designed for periods of geopolitical crisis, including clearer public guidance around manipulated media and coordinated disinformation campaigns. Similar to Finland’s nationally coordinated approach to media literacy and resilience against disinformation, these initiatives would remain civilian-led but supported through cooperation between government, educators, media organisations and technology platforms.
Further, cognitive considerations should be more fully integrated into defence planning. This involves anticipating how adversaries might shape perceptions of Australian actions during crises and how emerging technologies could accelerate confusion and public mistrust. In practice, this could include:
—Incorporating information warfare and mass-disinformation scenarios into military exercises;
—Monitoring coordinated influence campaigns during regional crises;
—Strengthening rapid public communication capabilities; and
—Establishing pre-planned communication and information-sharing arrangements between Defence, intelligence agencies, technology platforms and media organisations during regional crises.
Australia’s 2026 National Defence Strategy is an important step in adapting to a more contested world. But adaptation cannot stop at capability alone, because modern conflict increasingly involves shaping how crises are interpreted and responded to alongside traditional military operations. In future crises, Australia’s vulnerability may not stem from a lack of military capability, but from how quickly confusion, mistrust and informational disruption can shape public and political responses.
