Post-Truth in the Security Field: What Impact?

In the current post-truth era, standard verification methods, deemed to be intrinsically based on expertise, become mired under a nebulous mass of information where facts, opinions, propaganda, influence, manipulation, blurring of the lines between truth and falsehood, and indifference to the truth intermingle. A context where signs of erosion in trust in the ability of experts to generate the knowledge required for decision-making have reached a heightened degree, giving rise to a landscape marked by a tendency to bend the truth and adapt it.

This contribution focuses on investigating the dimensions of the impact of post-truth on security-related decision-making processes, supporting in passing the hypothesis that facets of post-truth have infiltrated various fields, including security, leading to a certain reduction in the quality of truth.

It aims to investigate the impacts of post-truth on security-related decision-making and contribute, through a mixed quali-quantitative approach, to the identification of the causative factors behind it. It has just supported the assertion that the phenomenon of post-truth fuels the fire of confusion between the true and the false and thus further complicates the task of identifying and grasping reality and subsequently making the right decisions, including in security matters. It underpins and contributes to warning and drawing attention to the crisis, duly acknowledged that our relationship with facts is undergoing today, a crisis with undeniably fundamental stakes that affect security and democracy foundations.

More precisely, the main contribution of this work is to highlight that post-truth presents a genuine challenge to the quest for discerning the truth and making sound decisions, particularly those with security implications, owing to technological, socio-philosophical, ideological, and operational reasons.