The key destabilising feature of today’s information environment is no longer simply that democracies are targeted by adversaries’ misinformation and disinformation. Increasingly, the danger is coming from uninhibited partners in the allied ecosystem itself.
The latest example is Trump-aligned accounts spreading disinformation about France and pressuring Greenland to join the United States, supposedly to protect it from Russian or Chinese adventurism. US President Donald Trump, for example, misstated the facts by only mentioning British support for the US in Afghanistan, instead of NATO as a whole.
When major powers amplify misinformation attacking the Western alliance or its members, it directly undermines trust in partners, weakens cohesion and confuses decision-making, especially for middle powers. France’s response offers an approach Australia may be able to support.
For a long time, it has been accepted that Russian-linked media outlets engage in hostile information operations, such as attacking France’s first lady or pushing narratives that Paris is attempting neo-colonial coups. It’s a more recent phenomena for US accounts to echo Russian narratives that depict French policy as unwise or pro-migration, or label European countries as militarily dependent free-riders on US security guarantees. The cumulative effect of these claims is not simply reputational damage, but the reinforcement of a broader concern that Europe is in terminal decline and strategically irrelevant.
France began to combat disinformation and foreign interference by establishing the French Service for Vigilance and Protection against Foreign Digital Interference, also known as VIGINUM, which sits under the General Secretariat for Defence and National Security. This five-year-old agency counters information manipulation through daily monitoring and publication of regular reports, not only for its domestic ecosystem, but also for its partners.
Additionally, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs last year announced its commitment to address the ‘information war’ by briefing and training its diplomats to better engage in narrative battles. It produced a government-linked account on X, known as French Response, which combined humour, irony and factual correction rather than issuing long denunciations. This approach echoes the country’s intellectual tradition, including Cyrano and Germaine Tillion, that treats ridicule and humour as a rhetorical weapon and political tool.
Although the account does not speak in the formal language of the ministry, it works well to reach beyond the usual audience while operating within an official communications ecosystem.
Moreover, French prosecutors also made efforts to address online influence when they raided X offices in Paris to investigate alleged political interference. The country doubled down on the European Union’s €120 million (about A$201 million) fine on the platform last year to send a signal to tech billionaires who allow their digital services to be used by malicious actors.
Narratives emanating from the US matter far beyond Paris. For middle powers, including Australia, that traditionally considered Washington as a trusted partner, this presents a strategic dilemma.
Canberra’s security rests on a networked order in which the European and Indo-Pacific theatres are increasingly connected. Australia’s participation in coalitions supporting Ukraine and its shared interest in deterring coercion rest on the assumption that Europe remains a credible security actor. So when disinformation erodes alliance trust, it complicates strategic planning far beyond Europe’s borders. Furthermore, it sends dangerous signals to enemies regarding the alliance’s fragility.
In a landscape where disinformation breaks down trust between partners, allies need to monitor and analyse developments, coordinate responses, and focus communications and messaging on what matters most.
Monitoring and analysis should track not only adversarial narratives but also distortion emerging from friendly political ecosystems. This is analytically uncomfortable but strategically necessary, as hybrid threats can also use proxy ecosystems.
The next step is to invest in a coordinated rebuttal that is factual and proportionate. France’s experience suggests that innovative corrections, delivered with tact and humour, can hinder the spread of narratives. While France has already started, other NATO members and like-minded partners that also benefit from its rebuttals should also make a stand to defend allies’ cohesiveness publicly. Germany did this through an Instagram post by the foreign minister.
Third, allied strategic communications need to reconnect with what matters most to the partnership. For NATO, that’s burden-sharing narratives. The US’s National Defense Strategy, released in January, explicitly emphasised shared responsibility and allied capability development. If that principle is taken seriously, public messaging could focus on burden-sharing efforts that are accurate and strategically productive. Allies should reinforce the fact that deterrence is most effective where European, US and Indo-Pacific capabilities are mutually reinforcing, not interchangeable.
Finally, middle powers such as Australia can support efforts to build up information resilience by sharing their experience of what works. Canberra’s efforts in countering foreign interference in the Pacific may offer lessons-learned for Paris, which faced similar threats from Azerbaijan in New Caledonia.
Instead of debating within themselves whether they should depend or not depend on the US, middle powers should use their collective diplomatic voice to reinforce allied strength, perhaps one joke at a time.
