The line separating conventional diplomacy from state-sponsored asymmetry has completely collapsed. Over the past several months, European security agencies have unravelled a disturbing pattern of surveillance, influence operations, and hybrid activity stretching across the heart of the continent. Most alarming of all is the evidence pointing toward the hubs facilitating these operations: formal embassies and diplomatic missions. For decades, the West treated Iranian state actions as a localized Middle Eastern problem. However, the recent weaponization of social media platforms by Iranian embassies -using coordinated satire, memes, and political trolling to mock international security threats and mask escalating aggression-unmasks a deeper institutional malaise. When official diplomatic channels are diverted to run deniable, grey-zone information campaigns and coordinate intimidation, it is no longer just bad diplomatic etiquette. It is a profound structural threat to European in...
The line separating conventional diplomacy from state-sponsored asymmetry has completely collapsed. Over the past several months, European security agencies have unravelled a disturbing pattern of surveillance, influence operations, and hybrid activity stretching across the heart of the continent. Most alarming of all is the evidence pointing toward the hubs facilitating these operations: formal embassies and diplomatic missions. For decades, the West treated Iranian state actions as a localized Middle Eastern problem. However, the recent weaponization of social media platforms by Iranian embassies -using coordinated satire, memes, and political trolling to mock international security threats and mask escalating aggression-unmasks a deeper institutional malaise. When official diplomatic channels are diverted to run deniable, grey-zone information campaigns and coordinate intimidation, it is no longer just bad diplomatic etiquette. It is a profound structural threat to European in...