In recent years, the Romanian political vocabulary is flooded by relatively new terms, at least for the general public, but also by words that I thought was left behind, fertilized somewhere between the tabs of historical and used files, from time to time, just for the didactic exemplification of the “human evil”.
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Unfortunately, however, we came to discuss [iar] About extremism, manipulation, anti -Semitism, legionaries – quite old terms – but also about hybrid war, cyber attacks or “useful idiot” – relatively new notions for the Romanian public. In order to be able to navigate among these terminals of today's political language and to give meaning to the geopolitical storms in the middle of which we are, I think it is important to bring some clarifications, at least on the significance and historical dynamics of some of these concepts.
Hybrid war is a form of confrontation in which state or non-state actors combine conventional and unconventional means-from military pressure, to information manipulation, cyber attacks and political subversion-to weaken the interior opponent, without formally declaring war. NATO describes it as “a combination of coercive and subversive activities, conventional and unconventional methods (military, political, economic, cyber and information), used in an integrated way to achieve strategic goals, without formally declaring war” (Warsit Communiqué, 2016). Almost a decade before this document, military analyst Frank G. Hoffman spoke of the coherent merger of conventional war capabilities, irregular tactics, terrorism and criminal activities (conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars, 2007).
Ironic or not, the concept of hybrid war, theorized by Hoffman, reaches relatively quickly to be integrated into the Kremlin's political-military vocabulary and raised to the “strategy assumed”, or through official documents, or by statements of high Russian dignitaries.
In the classic sense, Carl von Clausewitz stated that “the war is the continuation of politics by other means” (about war, 1832). In our time, hybrid war is the continuation of politics by all possible means – including by manipulating minds and emotions – in order to defeat the opponent without occupying (physically) the territory. This strategy is based on the erosion of internal cohesion, the cultivation of distrust and undermining the legitimacy of democratic institutions.
Although the instruments of the hybrid war are multiple and complex – from information manipulation and cyber attacks, to economic pressure and infrastructure sabotage – in this analysis I will focus on two particular, but extremely efficient elements: the exploitation of extremism and the use of “useful idiot”.
Extreism is a political or ideological attitude that rejects pluralism and compromise, cultivates hatred and exclusion and proposes radical solutions, which undermine the fundamental rules and values of democracy. Therefore, everything contributes to increasing contrast and tension in society can be used as a “strong currency” in hybrid war. Radical ideas, whether political, ethnic, religious or cultural, become fertile ground for destabilization operations. Hostile actors deliberately cultivate these tensions, support or infiltrate radical groups, and amplify hatred speeches to polarize society. Instead of coming in the form of a military invasion, the attack appears in the form of an internal fracture, among citizens who no longer perceive as part of the same common destiny.
This approach is not new – we find it in the oldest war textbooks or political philosophy – but it acquires new valences with the dynamics of global communication and communications. The supply of extremism, as a central axis of the hybrid war, is neither accidental nor improvised. High -ranking Russian officials have explicitly acknowledged that they claim “in all possible ways” – “Apertum et Secretum” (open and secret) – the political forces in the West serving their interests. The statement, belonging to the former president Dmitri Medvedev (February 2024), confirms the support of Russia for candidates and parties with “national” programs, hostile to Western globalism – a proof that the theory of hybrid war has become a practice assumed in Kremlin.
In Romania, this strategy can be seen in the way extremist themes are recycled and repackaged: the fear of “external danger” is combined with historical resentments, national myths are rewritten to justify isolationism, and western strategic alliances are presented as acts of “betrayal” of national interest. On social networks, misinformation campaigns introduce seemingly harmless content, but with radical subtext, meant to normalize ideas that were formerly marginal. Thus, extremism no longer appears as a marginal current, but as a “legitimate” voice in the public debate.
In this equation, the “useful idiot” also appears – a term consecrated during the Cold War, used to describe people who, without being direct agents of a foreign regime or power, often promote or validate from naivety, vanity or ideological blindness, the natives and objectives of the enemy. Zbigniew Brzezinski emphasized that the success of ideological subversion depends on the existence of credible vectors “from the inside”, capable of reproducing the hostile message without seeming manipulated (The Grand Failure, 1989). The “useful idiot” sees himself as a defender of a “straight” cause, but becomes a multiplier of hostile propaganda.
In the current context, the “useful idiot” can be both the unconsciously propagating the narratives that attack the social and historical fiber of their own nation, as well as the politician who, motivated by the short -term electoral earnings, adopts the rhetoric and the positions that serve the strategic interests of the opponents (themes that can be included in the populism, so “. Messages of the type “We have armament money, but we have no money for pensions”, “The cereals in Ukraine bankrupt our agriculture”, “We do not take care of our children, but we take care of the children of the Ukrainians.”, “To beat with the mass, in Brussels, to show them who we are!” SATURA! There are illustrative examples of false narratives, multiplied on the logic of the “useful idiot” of socio-political communication. The distinction between naivety and complicity becomes secondary when the final effect is the same: erosion of trust in democratic institutions.
In the contemporary hybrid war, this profile is extremely valuable: it is perceived as “from the inside”, so credible, and can take the radical message in otherwise refractory to direct propaganda. In this context, Timothy Snyder warned, a few years ago, that at the time of “post-truth” and digital platforms, people who repeat a manufactured narrative become more efficient than classical propaganda agents (The Road to Unfreedom, 2018).
Understanding this type of confrontation can no longer be reduced to weapons or institutions. As the researcher Leor Zmigrod shows, in the world of unseen confrontations, worn through TV screens or mobile phones, the new battlefield has become the human brain. There we try to draw “ideological furrows”, through which hatred, division and exclusion (ideological brain. Political neurosciences and rigid beliefs, Polirom, 2025) are cultivated. If, in the past, the front was geographical, today it moves inside us, in mental perceptions and reflexes. This reality explains why extremism and the “useful idiot” become so effective: they not only mobilize, but also model thinking, gradually weakening the democratic immunity.
The phenomenon is not exclusively Romanian. In the US, the misinformation from external sources has fueled political polarization and conspiracy theories, including those that led to the assault on the Capitol of January 6, 2021. In the European Union, states such as Hungary or Poland have become examples of how a democratic government can use radical and illiberal themes to change the rules of political game. In other cases, such as Ukraine before 2014, political and media infiltration prepared the land for military aggression.
The strategy is simple, but effective: weaken social cohesion, fragile institutions, compromise credible leaders and create the impression that democracy is a corrupt and useless mechanism. In this landscape, extremism and “useful idiot” become complementary weapons: one generates tension, the other validates and a propaga.
For Romania, the lesson is double. The first – we must not look at extremism only as an internal problem, but also as a strategic vulnerability methodically exploited by hostile actors. The second-we must recognize and neutralize the role of the “useful idiot”, whether it acts out of personal interest, or is caught in an ideological blindness. In a democratic state, combating these phenomena is not done by repressive measures, but by strengthening democratic resilience: civic education, historical memory protected by forgery, institutional transparency, strong press, in the service of public interest, and a political dialogue based on facts, not inventive.
The hybrid war does not have a clear moment of beginning and end, and the victories are not measured in the conquered territories, but in changed minds and beliefs. If we understand that extremism and “useful idiot” are two of its favorite weapons – and that their use is not an accident in history, but a deliberate and articulated strategy -, we will also understand why democratic vigilance is not an intellectual luxury, but the elementary condition of our freedom.
