Lecture "The deterring power of words" by Professor Andreas Ventsel

Lecture by University of Tartu Professor of Political and Sociosemiotics Andreas Ventsel at the ceremony and concert dedicated to the anniversary of the Republic of Estonia on 21 February 2025.

Honourable rector, mayor, dear university family, guests, friends

Today, in anticipation of the festive day, the title of my speech, “The deterring power of words”, may sound somewhat inappropriate; one might rather talk about something bright. However, over a hundred years ago, the Republic of Estonia was not given to us for a nice smile; it had to be fought for. Freedom had to be defended then and must be defended now. National defence no longer means just cannons and mines, but battles are fought with words, images and narratives that influence and frighten us if we collectively believe in them. The war is also waged for our minds and hearts.

With the migration crisis that hit Europe, the global coronavirus pandemic, and Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, terms such as information warfare, information operations, hybrid warfare, asymmetric threats, non-state actors, etc., have taken root in public discourse. One term that has entered people’s vocabulary primarily in connection with the war in Ukraine is deterrence. In short, it can be understood as a set of military, political, and symbolic actions aimed at dissuading the opponent from their planned actions. We can achieve this by expressing our readiness and intention to respond forcefully.

Today, I will focus primarily on symbolic actions – information security. I will talk about what we can do ourselves to avoid being deterred, while also showing our readiness and will to defend.

Fearmongering

As with understanding the concept of information warfare, the role of the public – including everyone present here – has also become central in understanding deterrence because effective deterrence strongly relies on credibility, i.e., the emotional belief that has arisen in a particular audience. In both information warfare and deterrence, a major problem is the question of whose goals the message serves, as certain topics spread uncontrollably, especially in a digitised information environment.

Due to the imagination of social media users, some messages receive significant attention and spread rapidly, going viral. To achieve this, the ambiguity of topics and the contradictions existing in the sphere of meanings are exploited. In crises, fearmongering also heightens information manipulation, directing the audience’s meaning-making in the media. Fear is often used as a tactic to draw public attention to a negative headline, a bloody photo, or something else, and to encourage people to act.

Therefore, fear can be considered one of the driving forces that can be used to justify or, vice versa, undermine various (political) decisions.

But what is fear?

As a semiotician, I try to rely on the ideas of cultural semiotician Juri Lotman, according to whom fear is most terrifying when the specific frightening phenomenon is not to be seen but can only be sensed. In such cases, the objects of fear are often mystified and semiotically constructed. The object of fear – what we fear – is a product of the semiotic codes through which society signifies itself and the surrounding world. In short, our fear is often shaped and conditioned by our culture.

Moving from semiotics to security studies, the term strategic culture is used in this field. It denotes shared beliefs and experiences that shape a country’s security policy and response to threats. This explains why different countries perceive threats and security differently: our perception of security problems is largely influenced by our past cultural experience. Understanding the impact of culture on the awareness of security threats can help us better understand them and develop response strategies, and vice versa – completely ignoring them or overreacting can become an obstacle to finding adequate responses. Next, I will examine some connections and problems between culture and information security and try to offer possible solutions.

Countering deterrence with psychological defence

As is well known, Estonia’s national defence is based on a broad approach to security, one component of which is the psychological defence of the population. I quote: “The purpose of psychological defence is to prevent panic, the spread of hostile influences and misinformation, thereby ensuring continued popular support to the state and its national defence efforts.”

It is well known that greater fear and panic arise during times of confusion and disasters, when people have lost a clear orientation in understanding the world. The events mentioned at the beginning of the speech – the migration crisis, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine – certainly belong among those that unleash confusion and fear in society. When fear is primarily expressed in interpreting various preventive signs as frightening and dangerous, then fearmongering, and thus deterrence, affects us the more effectively the more of us it resonates with. One goal of psychological defence is to assess the opponent’s credibility and to be aware of our own potential vulnerability and strategic culture. The first thing that the opponent could deter with either words or actions could, therefore, be the narratives of our cultural memory.

We have reached an era characterised by strong confrontation with Russia. It has become almost self-evident that the Kremlin tries to influence the West with its information manipulation, and that it is very good at it. The first part of this perception is true, but Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, have always engaged in propaganda. Whether such information influence is always successful is a matter of judgment. The effectiveness of propaganda is difficult to measure and depends on many factors, such as how fertile or discontented the ground is for one or another information influence.

Despite Russia’s rhetoric about “weapons without analogues”, be it the Oreshnik or the Armata tank, these have not added credibility to the Kremlin’s military deterrence in practice. It is well known that the first was a modification of an earlier missile, and the Armata tanks broke down during the Victory Day parade on Red Square. Nevertheless, such weapon rhetoric represents a sign that the fear of the Russian military as the “second army in the world” has obtained great significance for some. Was it not the same in the early days of the Estonian War of Independence, when only schoolboys were not afraid of going to the front against Russia and were among the first to take up arms? To strengthen psychological defence, we should be aware of the manipulable risk groups and understand their background, fears, and expectations, which make them susceptible to the aforementioned narratives.

Social division

Similarly, we should consider what could be distinctive in Estonia’s strategic culture. One cornerstone of today’s Estonian identity creation is the success story of e-Estonia that began with the Tiger Leap programme, and according to which we see ourselves as an innovative and technologically advanced nation. This story carries forward the slogan worded by Jakob Hurt about a nation small in number but great in spirit.

However, being small in number also points to one of our vulnerabilities, as our number may not always be sufficient to protect the narrative of the Estonian love of freedom, the culmination of which we celebrate here today. The opponent can successfully deter this narrative. Stories about the servility of the Estonian political elite towards the European Union and NATO allies or the “theft of democracy” related to e-elections are examples of narratives attacking the vulnerability of strategic culture. Let us recall that at the beginning of February, an article related to the security of e-elections triggered a debate that also sparked angry comments on social media. We did not even have to wait until the elections to see the explosion of such polarising stories on social media.

It is important to realise that social media manipulation techniques are becoming increasingly covert. We should not think that the Kremlin wants to convert us to Putinism. Its goal is to deepen societal divides by amplifying all kinds of narratives that enable polarisation. These resonate within all of us and are easily shared and followed. This can include the security of eelections, Nursipalu expansion, or the New Year’s identity cabaret show at the Estonian Drama Theatre. In crises, we must be aware of the psychological aspects of influence techniques, such as cognitive biases and confirmation biases, to reduce the lack of critical thinking stemming from inattention, automatism, and emotions, and to maintain clear thinking.

Social cohesion

Psychological defence has another, perhaps even primary, goal: to promote social cohesion and the will to defend. Therefore, the hope for success is greater if we can propose narratives that unite different social groups. In the context of the war in Ukraine, we have seen that within the Russian-speaking population, the front line often runs between generations.

In a report published at the end of last year by NATO strategic communication experts, the destructive narratives spreading on social media and their impact in the Nordic countries and Estonia were analysed. These are stories depicting fear, instability, and catastrophe, with the hostile aim of disintegrating the state or society and sowing distrust. One of the findings was that political trust among the Estonian Russian-speaking audience decreased more due to destructive narratives than in the Nordic countries. Greater anger and fear were also observed. Political trust among the Estonian-speaking audience remained almost unchanged under the influence of destructive narratives. From this, it could be concluded that Estonia should continue emphasising its historical narratives and national identity to counter Kremlin narratives. At the same time, special strategies should be developed to address the Russian-speaking population to increase their resilience and awareness of propaganda mechanisms. Perhaps such cohesion strategies should be more future-oriented and based more on finding cultural and social common ground with those with whom it is possible, rather than treating everyone as a homogenous segment. Just as it is impossible to convince a deeply conspiracy-minded person of the inadequacy of their opinion, there will always be those for whom Russia will forever remain a peace-loving liberator. But I am not sure that this constitutes the majority of Estonia’s non-Estonian-speaking population.

In conclusion, identity stories that operate in deep cultural memory are precisely those that, when contradicted, make the decision-making process dependent on emotions and lead to the reduction of complex socio-political problems to black-and-white yes-no alternatives.

Unfortunately, the current media ecology supports messages based on speed, brevity, and conflict, and the background information explaining their meaning often requires too much attention. Therefore, introducing the meaning-making aspects of the mediatised world and the basic psychological mechanisms of misinformation could be part of education and lifelong learning. This would help minimise the deterring power of messages.

Thus, the problem is not talking about scary and dangerous things. The problem is how we talk about dangerous things.

To keep our homes in order, we must keep our heads clear.

If our heads are clear and our homes in order, we are worthy of Estonia.

Thank you, Estonia, happy anniversary!