Trust is not a single emotion; it is a form of social infrastructure operating across multiple levels. At the state–citizen level, trust reflects the expectation that public authorities will provide accurate information during crises, apply rules fairly rather than arbitrarily, and place the public interest above private interests. Institutional trust rests on the assumption that courts, healthcare systems, bureaucracies, and local governments will act in a reliable, transparent, fair, and honest manner. Interpersonal trust, meanwhile, refers to the extent to which people view one another as reasonably trustworthy actors not only in private relationships but also in public cooperation. The OECD’s framework suggests that trust in these areas is shaped by perceptions of reliability, responsiveness, openness, integrity, and fairness, while interpersonal trust is also closely associated with broader social and economic outcomes at the national level.

An additional dimension must be considered: the epistemic dimension of trust. This concerns how individuals determine which information is credible, which sources are worth taking seriously, and which explanations are open to correction and revision. In other words, the issue is not simply “Whom do I trust?” but “On what basis can we construct a shared understanding of reality?” The OECD has highlighted that the contemporary information ecosystem increasingly complicates people’s ability to assess the reliability of information. RAND describes this phenomenon as a weakening of the role of facts and analysis in public life, an erosion of civil discourse, and growing uncertainty about what is true. What undermines shared reality is not the existence of falsehood alone, but the blurring of the boundary between verifiable information, opinion, propaganda, and conspiracy narratives.

For this reason, trust should not be understood as blind acceptance but as a critical yet functional relationship. What the OECD describes as “informed trust” implies a balance in which citizens retain their capacity for scrutiny without dismissing institutions altogether. Democratic resilience depends not on unconditional obedience but on this calibrated form of trust, one that can recognise mistakes without automatically treating every institution as illegitimate. Just as excessive naivety can invite manipulation, perpetual suspicion can be equally destructive. One opens the door to exploitation; the other undermines coordination and collective action.

The strategic value of trust

Trust is strategically important because, in times of crisis, the most essential resource a state requires is not simply the capacity to exercise power but the capacity to secure social cooperation. If people do not believe official warnings, evacuation plans, public health measures, energy restrictions, mobilisation efforts, or cyber hygiene guidance may remain ineffective regardless of how well they are designed. NATO’s own approach reflects this reality by defining resilience and civil preparedness as integral components of deterrence and defence. This perspective recognises that security is produced not only at borders but also through the everyday functioning of society. For similar reasons, the World Health Organization identifies trust as a core objective of effective emergency preparedness and response.

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated this strategic value in particularly clear terms. Comparative studies have shown that trust in government and trust in other people were associated with better pandemic outcomes, while more authoritarian regimes did not automatically perform better simply because they possessed stronger coercive tools. Likewise, a large-scale study conducted in the United States found that trust in doctors and hospitals, which was relatively high during the early stages of the pandemic, declined significantly over time. Lower levels of trust were also associated with a reduced likelihood of receiving vaccinations and booster doses. These findings suggest that trust is not merely a “soft” social value but a security variable that directly influences behaviour and outcomes.

NATO serves here as an illustrative example rather than the sole focus. The Alliance’s official approach to hybrid threats emphasises that the primary responsibility for responding to such attacks rests with the targeted state, while also recognising that significant cyber and other hybrid attacks may, under certain circumstances, reach the level of an armed attack. The implication is clear: security can no longer be measured solely through border violations or military movements. The information environment, critical services, and societal resilience have become part of the strategic equation as well.

Historical mirrors

The Cold War remains one of the most instructive laboratories for understanding the role of trust in security. Official documents in Washington explicitly described propaganda activities as instruments in the effort to win the Cold War, while the Truman Library maintains a dedicated collection on the ideological foundations of early Cold War policy. In other words, the competition between the two blocs was not based solely on military balances. It was also a contest over which system appeared more legitimate, which way of life seemed more reliable, and which sources of information were more credible. For this reason, the Cold War should be understood as a historical precursor to today’s information operations.

One of the most visible manifestations of this struggle was international broadcasting. Today, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty describes its origins as an effort to provide uncensored news to audiences behind the Iron Curtain. A 1977 U.S. government document similarly noted that Voice of America and RFE/RL played different but complementary roles in countering the distortions created by censorship and state-controlled media in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. RFE/RL’s own historical accounts further emphasise that during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the broadcaster became one of the principal sources of reliable information available to the public. The strategic lesson is clear: the connection between access to information and trust in institutions becomes even more important during periods of crisis and conflict.

The politically motivated cyber campaign that targeted Estonia in 2007 offered an early glimpse of the digital dimension of hybrid pressure. The attacks disrupted both government and commercial systems. In response, the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence was established in Tallinn in 2008, and the first edition of the Tallinn Manual was published in 2013. NATO later recognised cyber defence as part of collective defence at the 2014 Wales Summit and stated that cyber attacks could, under certain circumstances, become relevant to discussions surrounding Article 5. What links these developments is that they highlighted questions of perception, thresholds, and resilience before questions of legal interpretation. The challenge was not simply technical; it concerned how societies and institutions understood and responded to emerging forms of pressure.

COVID-19 demonstrated the societal consequences of eroding trust to a much broader audience. As the World Health Organization argued, the infodemic did not merely create information disorder; it also increased distrust toward health authorities and weakened public health responses. In subsequent policy guidance, the WHO reaffirmed that building trust should be considered a central objective of risk communication and emphasised that misinformation and conspiracy narratives spread more easily when trust deteriorates. The lasting damage to institutional trust observed in some countries during the pandemic also illustrated an important point: hybrid-style effects do not always require an external adversary. Poor communication, frequently changing and insufficiently justified decisions, and increasing political polarisation can produce similar outcomes from within, even in the absence of a foreign actor.

The limits of the response and a policy framework

Efforts to protect trust through excessive information control may appear effective in the short term, but they can produce unintended consequences over time. The World Health Organization argues that maintaining trust requires communication that is timely, accessible, and transparent; it also requires clear explanations when recommendations change and openness about the evidence on which decisions are based. UNESCO and the Council of Europe similarly identify freedom of expression and access to information as central principles in efforts to counter misinformation. Both organisations have warned that broad internet shutdowns can disrupt access to verified public information while simultaneously creating conditions in which unverified content spreads more easily. For this reason, blunt censorship measures and information blackouts do not merely raise concerns about rights and freedoms. They may also deepen legitimacy crises by reinforcing suspicions that authorities are concealing information. This final point is a strong, though context-dependent, conclusion that emerges from current institutional thinking.

Strategic ambiguity presents a similar double-edged challenge. NATO’s official position deliberately leaves decisions regarding collective responses to significant cyber attacks on a case-by-case basis. The deterrent value of this approach is clear: potential adversaries cannot be certain which threshold is safe to cross. However, analyses from ETH Zurich and the German Marshall Fund note that this same ambiguity can leave uncertainty about which types of attacks would genuinely trigger a collective defence response. In a crisis, such uncertainty may contribute to miscalculation by both Allies and adversaries. Strategic ambiguity can strengthen deterrence by complicating an opponent’s planning, but it can also create opportunities for continuous probing, delays in coordination, and escalation risks.

For this reason, the most practical policy framework is not one based on greater control but on stronger institutional capacity and legitimacy. Priorities should include improving the reliability and quality of public institutions, making the evidence behind decisions more visible, preparing crisis communication mechanisms in advance, strengthening accountability at both national and local levels, and protecting diverse, independent, and verifiable sources of information. The OECD’s approach to information integrity similarly emphasises three broad objectives: strengthening societal resilience, increasing transparency and accountability, and modernising institutional governance structures. Effective communication capacity is not something that can be built overnight when a crisis emerges. It must be developed long before it is needed.

At the same time, important limitations and uncertainties should be acknowledged. Trust is a multidimensional concept, and its measurement is far from perfect. Indicators of interpersonal trust may be meaningful at the national level while being less reliable when applied to individual behaviour. Likewise, it is not always possible to determine whether low trust creates greater vulnerability to misinformation or whether misinformation itself further erodes trust. The relationship often works in both directions. For this reason, the most effective approach is not to search for a single solution but to build a layered resilience architecture that operates across institutional design, media ecosystems, psychology, education, and law.

Ultimately, some of the most dangerous attacks in contemporary conflict are not those carried out by tanks crossing borders. They are the pressures that undermine a society’s ability to make collective decisions and maintain a shared understanding of reality. A loss of trust does not automatically render every state decision illegitimate, but it does increase the costs of coordination during crises, heighten vulnerability to misinformation, and make the work of hostile actors considerably easier.

Security strategy should therefore place legitimate institutions, transparent governance, a pluralistic information ecosystem, and a healthy culture of public trust alongside defence spending and technological investment. The most important line of defence a society possesses is not its army, but the trust that holds it together.