Challenges to national defence in contemporary geopolitical situation

This paper examines how digital media discourse influences national security and institutional trust using UK-related data (39,760 mentions; reach 255.3 million) collected between November 2025 and April 2026. Applying AI-assisted media analytics, it identifies key risk patterns, including the dominance of negative sentiment, platform-driven amplification, and the transnational circulation of narratives. The findings show how these dynamics generate structural vulnerabilities for democratic institutions and complicate strategic communication. The study proposes a practical analytical framework for monitoring influence operations, enabling earlier detection of coordinated campaigns and supporting faster, evidence-based policy responses in complex digital information environments today.