Conference Program

This contribution analyses deepfakes not only as tools of information manipulation, but as emerging cybersecurity threats that reshape how war narratives are produced, weaponised and contested in digital environments. It situates synthetic audio and video within broader transformations of contemporary conflict, where informational and cyber domains are increasingly integrated under the rubric of hybrid warfare and information operations. In this perspective, deepfakes become instruments through which state and non‑state actors intervene both in strategic interaction with adversaries and in the mediated relationship between citizens, institutions and distant battlefields. In conflict and crisis contexts, the convergence between narrative manipulation and technical intrusion has direct implications for coercion, signalling and crisis stability, as well as for public understandings of war. Conceptually, the paper is grounded in a constructivist approach to international politics and security. It draws on work on strategic narratives and the social construction of threat, which highlights how meanings of aggression, defence, victimhood and responsibility are produced and stabilised through communicative practices and visual representations. From this perspective, deepfakes are understood as narrative and performative devices that can reframe identities and intentions by credibly simulating leaders’ speech and behaviour (“deepfake diplomacy”), thereby affecting recognition, (de)legitimation and the possibility of de‑escalation. The paper also engages constructivist research on norms and practices, asking how security communities, platforms and expert networks come to define certain synthetic artefacts as “incidents”, “attacks” or “acceptable” uses of AI, and how these classificatory practices contribute to the emergence of shared expectations and informal rules around the use of deepfakes in international and domestic politics. Empirically, the paper adopts a qualitative, multi‑case design focusing on episodes where synthetic media has been used or discussed as a tool to impersonate political, military or corporate actors in high‑stakes situations (e.g., fake military orders, fabricated emergency messages, fraudulent requests for access) and where these artefacts intersect with war or security narratives, including in the Russia - Ukraine context. Drawing on opensource investigations, academic and policy studies on “deepfake diplomacy” and “deepfakes and international conflict”, and industry reports, it maps how such deepfakes are anticipated, produced, disseminated and detected, and how organisations translate them into cybersecurity incidents (e.g., social engineering attacks, compromise of communication channels, integrity breaches. The central research question guiding the analysis is: How do security communities and political actors, understood in constructivist terms, come to frame deepfakes as a distinct cybersecurity threat, and how does this framing reshape the practices, norms and narratives through which war and security are publicly represented?