National interest Thailand

Key methods of conducting hybrid warfare in the modern information space. Approaches to information technologies in relation to hybrid warfare

Yurii Kohut — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0700

In the contemporary landscape of global conflicts, propaganda and disinformation have emerged as powerful tools within hybrid warfare, aimed at influencing public perception, destabilizing societies, and undermining adversaries. Propaganda can manifest in various forms, ranging from overt political messaging to subtle sociological influences disguised as private opinions. This complexity necessitates a clear understanding of the strategies and tactics employed in information warfare. Notably, the “4D” strategy—comprising denial, distortion, distraction, and dismay—provides a conceptual framework to analyze how propaganda functions and how it can be countered. Complementing this, the “4f” tactics encapsulate the common methods of fabricating news, media, experts, and events to mislead and manipulate audiences. This article aims to examine these strategies, uncover their psychological underpinnings, and explore their application in the digital age, particularly through social media platforms, which have become a significant battleground for information influence.

From Drones to Doctrine: Why Russia’s Air War in Ukraine Is a Warning for Europe

Maksym Beznosiuk — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0700

This article examines the transformation of Russia’s use of drones in the war against Ukraine from improvised tactical employment into a formalised military doctrine. Drawing on primary and secondary open sources, including defense and think tank reports, and media investigations, the study analyzes the growth of Russia’s industrial production capacity, tactical innovations, and integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into hybrid warfare doctrine.
This article identifies five key features of Russia’s drone doctrine. First, industrial-scale production and distributed supply chains. Second, layered saturation tactics that combine decoys, kamikaze drones, and AI-enabled swarms. Third, tactical adaptations such as jet-powered UAVs and fiber-optic control systems. Fourth, integration of drone operations into hybrid campaigns targeting civilian resilience. Fifth, the Russian systematic use of Ukraine as a testing ground for concepts that could later be used in NATO’s eastern flank.
The conclusions indicate that Russia’s approach creates substantial vulnerabilities for NATO and EU member states. First, it is the cost asymmetries between inexpensive drones and expensive interceptors that risk eroding Western deterrence. Second, fragmented procurement patterns hinder the development of a unified counter-UAV doctrine. And finally, civil infrastructure remains vulnerable to hybrid pressure.
NATO and EU countries should urgently adopt counter-drone doctrines, stockpile affordable interceptors, expand their electronic warfare capacity, and strengthen civil defense systems. Ukraine’s experience offers a unique opportunity for joint learning, but Europe’s window to prepare is narrowing.

Beyond Myths: Unpacking Thailand’s Soft Balancing in Foreign Policy toward China

Rakwong Prakrit — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0700

Amid intensifying great power rivalry between the United States and China, how does Thailand navigate its foreign policy direction? Since the coup in 2014, Thailand has often been portrayed as bandwagoning with China. Through documentary analysis, empirical data, and case study methods, this article challenges that myth by arguing that elements of balancing exist, albeit in a soft form. This “soft balancing” is driven by Thailand’s prerequisite conditions to restrain China’s power through institutions without resorting to hard military measures. The strategy spans three dimensions: security, economy, and diplomacy. Evidence suggests that Thailand employs soft balancing by capitalizing on its alliance with the United States, imposing conditions on infrastructure investments as well as diversifying partnerships, and leveraging ASEAN institutional mechanisms. By unpacking Thailand’s soft balancing in practice, this article contributes to debates on secondary state alignments, particularly regarding how secondary states respond to great power competition and China’s growing influence, and offers policy lessons for other smaller states on deftly maneuvering toward greater powers.

Financial Sovereignty and Authoritarian Resilience in the Post-Soviet Space: Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan after 2014

Shinasak Suwan-achariya — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0700

This article examines how financial sovereignty functions as a mechanism of regime adaptation in Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan from the 1990s to 2024. Using the framework of sovereign circuits and temporal sovereignty, the study situates financial strategies within broader questions of post-Soviet democratization. Russia’s response to sanctions illustrates how authoritarian resilience can be reinforced through sovereign reserves, ruble-based circuits, and temporal design of industrial policy. Belarus exemplifies proxy-sovereignty, relying on Russian subsidies and dual-circuit mechanisms that sustain regime stability but deepen dependency. Kazakhstan demonstrates a hybrid strategy, oscillating between external anchors and national industrial ambitions. The findings suggest that financial sovereignty is not merely an economic condition but a political resource: regimes use it to reconfigure dependency, extend planning horizons, and buffer external coercion. The article contributes to debates on authoritarian durability by showing how post-Soviet states re-engineer financial time and circuits as instruments of governance under global systemic constraints.

Foreign economic cooperation between Ukraine and EU countries: current trends and future forecasts

Olesia Totska — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0700

The purpose of the article is a comprehensive analysis of the indicators of trade in goods between Ukraine and the EU, starting from 2004, identifying trends and forecasting prospects. The originality of the article lies in the combination of three research methods: extrapolation of trends – to determine the trends of export-import operations between Ukraine and the EU in 2004-2024 and obtaining point forecast values for 2025-2027; fuzzy set theory – to obtain interval forecast values of foreign economic cooperation between Ukraine and the EU for 2025 and improving the quality of forecasting; ABC analysis – to group EU countries by indicators of trade in goods with Ukraine under martial law. As a result, a polynomial trend model was built for forecasting exports of Ukrainian goods to the EU, and a power trend model for forecasting imports of European goods to Ukraine. Trapezoidal fuzzy intervals of exports of goods from Ukraine to the EU in 2025 and imports of goods from the EU to Ukraine in 2025 were obtained. When constructing trapezoidal fuzzy intervals to determine pessimistic and optimistic estimates (extreme points of the lower base and extreme points of the upper base, respectively), the author's methodology was used, according to which the optimistic interval includes approximately half of the central elements of the observed dynamic series, ordered in ascending order; they have the highest probability of verification. It was determined that under martial law, Ukraine most effectively cooperated in the field of trade in goods with seven EU countries: geographical neighbors Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia (land borders), Bulgaria (sea borders), as well as the countries of the "Big Seven" – Germany, Italy. The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using the results of the study for planning Ukraine's foreign trade operations and choosing partner countries.