Narrative Intelligence Webinar: The New Frontline of National Security

The battlefield has shifted. While military forces still contest physical terrain, today’s most consequential conflicts unfold across the ungoverned, often invisible battlefields of the digital information ecosystem. As Katie Kendall, counsel at Blackbird.AI and former special operations attorney, recently explained at a Carahsoft-hosted discussion,

“Narratives define the battlefield, and our ability to operate effectively in physical space increasingly depends on how well we understand and shape the information space.”

In an era where Russia deploys AI-generated avatars to sow discord, China floods social media with regime-aligned narratives, and terrorist organizations coordinate attacks through encrypted messaging, narrative intelligence has emerged as a critical capability for national security. Blackbird.AI’s presentation demonstrated how advanced AI and machine learning can detect, analyze, and counter these narrative threats in real-time, transforming what was once a manual, reactive process into a proactive, data-driven defense strategy. The implications are profound: organizations that fail to operationalize narrative intelligence risk being outmaneuvered in the information domain before physical conflicts even begin.

WATCH ON-DEMAND: Information as Influence: How Public Sector Leaders Are Integrating Narrative Intelligence into National Security

The landscape of national security has undergone a fundamental transformation. Congress’s establishment of a subcommittee on open-source intelligence in late 2024 marks a watershed moment—a formal acknowledgment that publicly available information is no longer ancillary but central to understanding threats, actors, and global sentiment.

“Threats in the information environment are operational risks that directly impact the force in the mission,” testified General Fenton of U.S. Special Operations Command. This isn’t hyperbole. The ODNI’s 2025 annual threat assessment highlights how adversaries, ranging from near-peer competitors to non-state actors, coordinate influence operations, synthetic media, and data exploitation to shape perceptions on a large scale.

The sophistication is staggering. Russia’s GRU creates entire networks of fake journalists and news outlets, complete with fabricated credentials, to legitimize Kremlin narratives. In 2022, a deepfake video of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy urging surrender briefly aired on national television, creating confusion at a critical moment in the conflict. China’s “50 Cent Army” floods platforms with regime-aligned content, creating artificial consensus while drowning out dissent.

Perhaps most concerning is the newest frontier: adversaries are now flooding online ecosystems with coordinated narrative attacks specifically designed to poison the training data of large language models. The goal? Degrade the reliability of AI-powered analysis tools that governments and organizations increasingly depend upon.

Understanding Narrative Intelligence: Beyond Traditional OSINT

Narrative intelligence represents a paradigm shift from traditional open-source intelligence gathering. As Kendall defined it, it’s “the systematic ability to detect, analyze, and understand the stories shaping public perception, particularly when those narratives are being manipulated to achieve strategic or geopolitical goals.”

This isn’t simply monitoring social media for trending topics. Narrative intelligence bridges information operations and intelligence operations, using publicly available information to identify, understand, analyze, and act on narratives that shape real-world operations in real-time.

The operational applications span the entire targeting cycle. Before operations, narrative intelligence provides operational preparation of the environment—enabling an understanding of the information landscape before deploying resources. During operations, it allows real-time monitoring of emerging threats and population sentiment. Post-operation, it can assess impact, gauge the credibility of claims, and identify emerging counter-narratives.

Daniel, a Blackbird.AI intelligence analyst who previously supported DHS and CDC in identifying foreign influence operations, demonstrated this capability using data from Ukraine’s Kursk incursion. From 1.385 million documents collected in August 2024 alone, Blackbird.AI’s platform automatically identified distinct narrative clusters, flagged bot networks, detected coordination patterns, and assessed the credibility of claims against authoritative sources.

The Anatomy of a Disinformation Campaign

The platform’s analysis of the Kursk incursion revealed a textbook example of Russian information warfare. Initial reports emerged of Russian forces surrendering to Ukrainian troops—an embarrassing narrative for Moscow. Within 72 hours, two counter-narratives appeared: claims that Ukraine was using chemical weapons and allegations that Western mercenaries were fighting alongside Ukrainian forces.

The network analysis was revealing. While the original field reports showed organic distribution patterns, the counter-narratives displayed heavy coordination. Thirty-five percent of posts promoting the chemical weapons narrative came from accounts classified as Russian state supporters. Chinese state supporters contributed another 7%, demonstrating coordination between different state actors’ information operations.

“This is a classic example of Russian disinformation tactics,” Daniel explained, showing how network graphs revealed the accounts promoting these counter-narratives were essentially the same audience—a heavily networked cluster of known propagandists responding to embarrassing battlefield realities with inflammatory accusations designed to muddy the waters.

The platform’s “Compass Context” feature added another layer of verification, conducting real-time searches of authoritative sources to validate or debunk claims. In this case, no credible sources corroborated the chemical weapons allegations, confirming their status as disinformation.

From Reactive to Proactive: Operationalizing Narrative Intelligence

Moving from detection to action requires systematic integration of narrative intelligence into operational architecture. Kendall outlined three critical steps:

First, agencies must deploy platforms using natural language processing, machine learning, and network analysis to detect narrative threats in real-time, identify bot amplification and influence clusters, assess polarization and sentiment, and distinguish organic discourse from coordinated manipulation.

Second, organizations need to understand the diverse range of use cases where narrative intelligence is applicable. This encompasses a range of activities, from pre-operation environmental assessment to real-time monitoring during events to post-operation impact analysis. Each phase requires a different analytical approach and response strategy.

Third, identifying and understanding the dynamics of adversarial messaging is crucial. What stories are being told? Who’s telling them? How are they spreading? What effect are they having? Without this awareness, strategic messaging remains blind and reactive.

Building Organizational Maturity

Greg Young, who oversees strategy at Blackbird.AI, presented a maturity model for organizations developing narrative intelligence capabilities. The progression is telling:

Nascent organizations often rely on off-the-shelf social listening tools that lack effective capabilities for detecting manipulation. Small, specialized teams work in isolation, conducting manual analysis of tabular data. Mitigation is purely reactive—akin to digital whack-a-mole.

Proficient organizations integrate multiple data sources, use machine learning to identify patterns, analyze network graphs to understand influence flows and engage cross-functional teams in proactive planning. They begin exploring counter-influence techniques based on environmental analysis.

Leading organizations demonstrate discipline, repeatability, and rigor. They leverage non-traditional data sets, maintain standardized frameworks for identifying tactics and procedures, invest in deepfake detection, understand the information operations kill chain, and track effectiveness through multiple signals. These organizations don’t just respond to threats—they shape the information environment.

Counter-Strategies in the Information Domain

Effective response requires a three-pronged approach:

Containment involves denying, disrupting, or degrading adversary impact through targeted actions—such as account takedowns, reach limitations, and resource targeting.

Counter-narrative actively shapes the information environment by out-competing harmful narratives using techniques from communications, marketing, and advertising.

Resilience requires proactive planning and preparation of both the information environment and potentially targeted stakeholders. This demands robust scenario planning and a deep understanding of adversary methods and motivations.

Success requires all three approaches, calibrated by high-fidelity data and insights. As Young emphasized, understanding the creative elements that make narratives “share-worthy”—the cognitive biases being exploited, the opportunities being leveraged—unlocks 60% of campaign success.

THE WAY FORWARD—THREE CRITICAL ACTIONS FOR ORGANIZATION LEADERS

• Embed narrative intelligence into your operational architecture now. The technology exists to transform reactive information monitoring into proactive threat detection. Organizations without these capabilities are essentially blind to adversary preparations in the information domain—missing critical indicators that precede physical actions.
• Build cross-functional teams that treat information as a strategic domain. Narrative threats don’t respect organizational silos. Effective defense requires coordination between intelligence, operations, public affairs, and cybersecurity teams, all working from a common operational picture of the information environment.
• Invest in understanding your adversaries’ narrative playbooks. Know their preferred tactics, target audiences, and amplification methods. The ability to anticipate and pre-empt narrative attacks—rather than simply responding after they’ve gained traction—will determine success in future conflicts.

As adversaries continue to weaponize narratives with increasing sophistication, the organizations that master narrative intelligence will maintain strategic advantage. Those who don’t will find themselves perpetually reactive, fighting yesterday’s information war while tomorrow’s threats take shape unseen. The tools exist. The strategies are proven. The only question is whether organizations will act before the next narrative attack reshapes their operational reality.

• To receive a complimentary copy of The Forrester External Threat Intelligence Landscape 2025 Report, visit here.
• To learn more about how Blackbird.AI can help you in these situations, book a demo.