Nordic Lessons for Romania’s Information Defense: Adapting Psychological and Societal Resilience Models for Hybrid Warfare

On December 6, 2024, Romania’s Constitutional Court took what analysts have called an unprecedented step, annulling a presidential election due to documented Russian interference for the first time in an EU member state’s history. Declassified intelligence had revealed what many suspected: over 34 Russian hybrid attacks, 85,000 cyberattacks on electoral infrastructure, and a coordinated social media operation involving 25,000 TikTok accounts had propelled a previously marginal far-right candidate from single-digit polling to a first-round victory. The algorithmic invasion had nearly succeeded in destabilizing a NATO member state’s democratic process without firing a shot. Although Romania held new elections in May 2025, the crisis exposed critical vulnerabilities that remain unaddressed.

Today, as Russian information operations intensify across Europe, Bucharest faces an urgent question: How can a democracy defend itself against adversaries who weaponize algorithms, exploit societal divisions, and operate in the gray zone between war and peace? Other countries have faced similar threats. This article examines models from two such countries, Sweden and Finland that can offer insights on how to address these threats. Specifically, Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency and Finland’s comprehensive media literacy approach offer Romania a tested blueprint for building information resilience.

Romania’s Vulnerability Exposed

Romania ranks third-to-last among EU countries on the Media Literacy Index, making its population particularly susceptible to misinformation. Studies show that Romanians have internalized global conspiracist narratives and that false information often prevails over arguments from scientists or authorities. The media landscape compounds these vulnerabilities. Media funding lacks transparency, with public funds routinely channeled to outlets based on political allegiance rather than merit. Meanwhile, movements bridging nationalism, populism, and conspiracy mentality have gained significant political representation.

Russia has adapted its tactics to exploit these weaknesses. Unlike in Baltic states, where Russian-speaking minorities provide direct communication channels, Romania lacks significant Russian minority populations, Russian-language media, or cultural affinity with Moscow. Historical hostility toward Russia runs deep. Yet Russian disinformation proved efficient by taking over autonomous narratives, camouflaging itself through proxies, and mobilizing old communist era ties. Rather than direct messaging, Moscow works through domestic intermediaries who amplify Kremlin-aligned narratives without visible Russian fingerprints.

The 2024 election demonstrated this approach’s effectiveness. Nearly 800 TikTok accounts created in 2016 remained dormant until weeks before voting, when they suddenly activated as the backbone of a coordinated campaign. A Global Witness investigation found TikTok’s algorithm fed new users with no stated political preferences three times more far-right content than other material during the electoral period. Influencers were recruited through a South African-based firm offering €1,000 per video as part of the broader Russian interference operation that relied on foreign intermediaries to obscure its origins. The constitutional court’s intervention came too late to prevent the initial manipulation as intelligence remainedclassified until after first-round voting, denying citizens information needed to make informed decisions.

The Swedish Model: Institutional Defense

Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency (Myndigheten för psykologiskt försvar, or MPF) offers Romania a proven institutional template. Established in January 2022, weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine validated every concern about Kremlin information operations, the agency revived a concept dating to the Cold War but with crucial modern adaptations.

The Cold War era organization that prepared Sweden for psychological warfare was designed in anticipation of actual warfare and had no operational mandate in peacetime. What Swedish analysts learned following Russia’s 2014 Crimea annexation was that psychological threats begin long before conventional conflict. Discovering organized disinformation campaigns targeting their country, the government responded by establishing a dedicated agency with approximately 60 employees under the Ministry of Defence.

The MPF’s mandate focuses exclusively on foreign threats, never domestic political speech. This distinction is essential for democratic legitimacy. The agency’s core task is to build psychological defense by ensuring the population, organizations, civil society, and private sector remain resilient when dealing with foreign influence.

Sweden’s operational methodology offers particularly valuable lessons. The agency maintains parallel tracking of foreign actor activities and domestic vulnerabilities, monitoring where they intersect. Domestic individuals spreading misinformation are treated as vulnerabilities to be mitigated through positive dialogue and correct information, not threats to be suppressed. Most remarkably, the agency’s response protocol begins with restraint. According to agency officials, the first response to an influence operation is often to do nothing, based on their assessment that most disinformation fades naturally if not amplified, though this approach remains debated among disinformation researchers. Only when a narrative gains traction or exploits a significant vulnerability does the agency escalate its response.

The MPF proved its effectiveness during the 2022 LVU Campaign, when foreign outlets spread disinformation claiming Swedish social services were kidnapping children from immigrant communities. Social tensions soared and demonstrations verged on violence. Rather than attempting suppression, the newly established agency went public with analysis of the threat, vulnerabilities being exploited, and negative consequences. Media outlets began investigating, and many demonstration organizers distanced themselves from the campaign. Transparency became defense.

The Finnish Model: Societal Resilience

While Sweden provides institutional architecture, Finland demonstrates how to build underlying population resistance to manipulation. Finland consistently ranks at the top of the Media Literacy Index with the highest potential to withstand the negative impact of fake news and misinformation. Contributing factors include quality of education, free media, and high trust among people.

Finland’s approach emphasizes building individual capacity rather than institutional response. Media literacy education begins in daycare and continues throughout life. Finnish students study propaganda campaigns, learn advertising techniques, examine how statistics mislead, and distinguish between disinformation and misinformation. Students create their own media, including websites, videos, and messages, developing both technical skills and critical understanding.

According to Finnish education officials, media literacy encompasses the set of skills needed to analyze, communicate with, collaborate in, and create media. This comprehensive definition treats media literacy as an essential life competency rather than a narrow defensive skill. People need to understand media critically, recognizing who creates it and why.

Finland’s whole-of-society approach involves schools, libraries, government departments, universities, NGOs, and civic organizations. Over 50 groups participated in a recent Safer Internet Day campaign. Media Literacy Week extends learning to adult populations who remain vulnerable to manipulation. Having many stakeholders involved matters because there is no single solution. It affects all people, requiring a varied approach to reach them.

The goal transcends mere fact-checking. Recognizing disinformation is important but represents only a small part of media education. Media literacy is like learning a language, requiring both technical skill to use media and the ability to understand it. Finland’s aim is a well-functioning, resilient democratic society.

Implementation for Romania

Romania’s adaptation of these models requires addressing three critical gaps exposed by the 2024 crisis.

First, institutional fragmentation must give way to coordination. Romania’s National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC) explicitly excludes disinformation from its mandate. The National Audiovisual Council (CNA) regulates broadcast media but cannot sanction online platforms. The telecom regulator ANCOM, Romania’s Digital Services Act coordinator, can report platforms but not sanction them. Disinformation operates in a regulatory vacuum. No single agency is empowered to act. A Romanian psychological defense agency modeled on Sweden’s MPF could serve as coordinator across existing institutions while ensuring the agency targets only foreign threats, which protects citizens’ freedom of expression.

Second, Romania must invest in long-term resilience through media literacy. The country’s third-to-last EU ranking reflects decades of underinvestment. Following Finland’s model, media literacy should be embedded across the education curriculum from early childhood, integrated into history, civics, and language arts rather than isolated as a standalone subject. Rural populations, where digital access and economic opportunity lag significantly behind urban areas, require targeted programs.

Third, civil society partnerships must replace securitized approaches. Romania possesses strong independent media outlets and fact-checking organizations. Sweden’s explicit mandate to support free, independent media when they need help addressing disinformation offers a model for productive collaboration rather than government control.

Conclusion

From Stockholm’s psychological defense headquarters to Helsinki’s classrooms, Nordic democracies have demonstrated that information warfare can be countered without sacrificing the freedoms it seeks to undermine. Sweden’s psychological defense efforts have protected multiple consecutive elections from foreign interference. Finland’s media-literate population consistently ranks among the most resistant to disinformation.

Romania’s 2024 crisis proved that NATO membership and EU integration alone cannot protect democratic processes. But it also demonstrated something valuable: the capacity to identify interference, acknowledge its influence, and respond, even if belatedly. The successful completion of the May 2025 elections showed institutional resilience, yet the underlying vulnerabilities that enabled the initial crisis remain largely unaddressed.

The threat is not static. Russia already deploys AI software called Meliorator, enabling a small team to manage nearly a thousand fake personas that post coordinated messaging at machine speed. China integrates AI into its Three Warfares doctrine through a concept called “intelligentization”, allowing the PLA to craft precise influence operations tailored to specific demographics and even individuals. Every month Romania delays building its defenses, the gap widens.

The stakes extend beyond Romanian sovereignty. Romania guards NATO’s eastern flank, hosts crucial missile defense infrastructure, and serves as a vital logistics corridor supporting regional security. Destabilizing Romania’s democratic institutions could neutralize these strategic assets more effectively than any military operation.

By adapting Swedish institutional architecture and Finnish societal resilience to its specific context, Romania can transform from hybrid warfare’s testing ground into a model of democratic defense. The alternative, maintaining fragmented institutions and vulnerable populations while adversaries accelerate their capabilities, risks making the country’s hard-won Euro-Atlantic integration meaningless precisely when alliance unity matters most.

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