La Doctrina Rusa sobre la Seguridad Informacional del Personal Militar

Article Review

Andrés Miguel Cosialls Ubach, “The Russian Doctrine on the Informational Security of Military Personnel”

In The Russian Doctrine on the Informational Security of Military Personnel, Andrés Miguel Cosialls Ubach provides a dense and methodologically sophisticated analysis of how the Russian Federation has conceptualized, institutionalized, and legally framed the informational vulnerability of the modern soldier. The article constitutes a major contribution to contemporary debates on information warfare, cyber operations, and the protection of combatants, examined through the combined lenses of military doctrine, international law, and strategic culture.

The article’s central thesis is that Russian military doctrine has undergone a profound transformation since the mid-2010s, re-defining the soldier as a “digital combatant”—a node within a dense informational ecosystem rather than a purely physical actor on the battlefield. Drawing on key strategic documents such as the Russian Military Doctrine (2014), the National Security Strategy (2021), and the Conceptual Views on the Activities of the Armed Forces in the Information Space, Cosialls Ubach convincingly demonstrates that information is elevated to the status of a strategic resource, functionally equivalent to firepower, maneuver, or command and control.

This doctrinal shift is not presented as a purely technical evolution. Rather, the article shows that Russian military thought integrates technical, psychological, cognitive, and legal dimensions, treating informational exposure as a multidimensional vulnerability capable of producing direct kinetic effects.

A particularly strong aspect of the article is its use of empirical case studies to illustrate doctrinal learning. The analysis of the Makeyevka incident (January 2023)—where uncontrolled use of personal mobile devices allegedly enabled precision targeting of Russian troops—serves as a doctrinal turning point. The author persuasively argues that Russian doctrine now interprets such incidents not as isolated failures of discipline, but as structural manifestations of informational insecurity.

From a military-law perspective, this reframing is highly significant. It underpins the Russian emphasis on “digital discipline”, electromagnetic silence, and strict regulation of personal electronic devices, transforming behavioral norms into matters of operational survival and command responsibility.

The article further advances the analysis by examining hardware manipulation and supply-chain vulnerabilities, notably through the 2024 Lebanon incident involving explosive manipulation of communication devices. Cosialls Ubach shows how Russian doctrinal literature interprets this episode as evidence that the boundary between cyber operations, sabotage, and kinetic attack has effectively collapsed.

This section is particularly relevant to international legal debates, as it challenges traditional distinctions between cyber operations and conventional attacks, reinforcing an effects-based understanding increasingly relevant to IHL and the law of armed conflict.

Beyond technical threats, the article devotes substantial attention to psychological and cognitive vulnerabilities. Russian doctrine, as presented, treats disinformation, narrative manipulation, and psychological operations as tools aimed at eroding morale, cohesion, and command trust. The soldier’s cognitive resilience thus becomes a strategic asset, requiring legal regulation, training, and doctrinal integration.

This dimension highlights the article’s value for political science: information warfare is shown to operate simultaneously at the tactical, operational, strategic, and legitimacy levels, blurring the lines between military operations and political contestation.

One of the article’s most original contributions lies in its analysis of the emerging Russian normative framework of “informational military law.” The proposal to formalize an Informational Security Strategy for Military Personnel, potentially enacted by presidential decree, reflects an attempt to juridify digital conduct, supply-chain control, and cognitive security within domestic military law.

At the international level, Cosialls Ubach situates this framework within Russia’s broader advocacy for informational sovereignty and a binding International Convention on Information Security. The article carefully contrasts this approach with Western models—such as the Tallinn Manual—highlighting a fundamental normative divergence: whether information is a global commons or a sovereign resource.

This divergence has direct implications for the application and future development of International Humanitarian Law, particularly regarding the protection of military personnel, attribution of cyber operations, and escalation control.

This article represents a substantial and original contribution to the study of contemporary warfare, bridging doctrinal analysis, legal theory, and strategic studies. Its strength lies in demonstrating that the protection of military personnel in modern conflicts cannot be understood solely through physical survivability, but must encompass informational, cognitive, and normative dimensions.

The study will be of particular interest to international humanitarian lawyers, military legal advisers, strategic planners, and scholars of information warfare, offering a rare, systematic insight into Russian doctrinal thinking and its implications for the evolving law of armed conflict.