Defence Online

From awareness to advantage: how cognitive preparedness can nullify national security threats

September 5, 2025

When advancing national security, there are two fatal misjudgments an actor can make: underestimating your adversary or overestimating your own strength. These two errors, according to NATO, are a consequence of organizational complacency.

Such blind spots in an organization’s understanding of the threat landscape have seismic ramifications – from making a nation or region vulnerable, to misspending budgets as a result of markedly misinterpreting the threat landscape in which they currently operate. So, what can be done? NATO believes the antidote is “cognitive superiority”, which at Moody’s we refer to as “cognitive preparedness”.

Terminology aside, this approach involves building a deeper, more reflective understanding of the operating environment, the adversary, and one’s own capabilities. By fostering this preparedness, decision-makers can anticipate threats, respond proactively, and maintain a decisive edge over adversaries.

Cognitive preparedness: from awareness to advantage

A better understanding of an adversary, and the threat posed, can be built across three interconnected dimensions:

Step one: building situational awareness
It begins with situational awareness. This is the process of collecting and exploiting intelligence regarding an adversary’s posturing, strength, disposition, its key partnerships, and the influence of non-governmental organizations within its sphere.  Achieving this requires highly curated, verified, and mission-relevant data—Moody’s leverages hundreds of analysts constantly refining data rather than relying on scraping technologies. This means decision-makers are equipped with reliable insights that support rapid and consistent decision-making across interconnected domains.

Step two: Enhancing situational understanding
In this second phase, awareness is further augmented by building an understanding of the adversary’s vision, operational culture, and methods. This step requires looking beyond surface-level data to make sense of the threat landscape and having an understanding of how the adversary thinks.

Step three: Gaining a cognitive advantage
The final step is transforming situational awareness and understanding into a decisive cognitive advantage. This involves not only deeper insights but also operational agility—making timely and strategic decisions faster than adversaries.

In today’s interconnected battlespace, cognitive advantage must extend across all domains: land, air, sea, cyber, space, and information. Both NATO’s Command and Control (C2) framework and the US’s Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) initiative emphasize the need for seamless synchronization across these domains. By integrating cognitive superiority into these environments, decision-makers can out-think and out-act adversaries in increasingly complex operational landscapes.

How Moody’s can help

In this effort, Moody’s can provide support across four critical areas:

1. Building a holistic view of the threat landscape to enhance situational awareness and decision-making

By leveraging robust data and risk assessment tools, agencies can build a holistic view of the threat landscape, which is critical to building situational awareness. Moody’s advanced risk assessment tools represent a powerful ally in this effort, helping organizations to uncover hidden threats, detect sanction circumventions, and safeguard critical industries.

2. Detecting sanction circumventions and uncover adversarial linkages

In this regard, Moody’s intelligence has been instrumental. Indeed, it has been used to show individuals using European front companies to acquire sensitive dual-use technologies on behalf of known adversaries—thereby circumventing sanctions. One such individual held directorships at UK-registered businesses tied to information technology, space technology, and homeland security for over three decades.

3. Identifying hidden threats through advanced data analytics

Moody’s data has been used to identify thousands of entities across NATO territories in industries such as air transport, telecommunications, and information services that have linkages to adversarial nations. Among these entities are state-owned companies, sanctioned organizations, and others subject to enforcement actions.

4. Providing actionable insights into corporate structures, beneficial ownership, and vulnerabilities

Moody’s Orbis database has provided insight on a UK-based entity providing 3D printing solutions to the space and defense industries that transitioned to foreign ownership—an insight that could be critical for safeguarding sensitive technologies.

Preparedness wins over complacency

In an age marked by increasingly sophisticated threats, complacency is not an option. Governments, agencies, and organizations must embrace cognitive preparedness to stay ahead of adversaries.

This means “thinking five deep”— or seeing the operational picture across land, air, sea, cyber, space, and information domains and seamlessly integrating decision-making processes across these silos. To this end, Moody’s advanced intelligence capabilities, combined with highly curated data and AI-driven insights, can help decision-makers to transform insights into actionable cognitive advantage—allowing them to better gauge threats before operational budget is spent on more costly countermeasures.

The stakes are high and the risks exponential. But, with the right tools and wherewithal to address the challenges, security professionals can be better equipped to not only meet the challenges head-on, but to find ways to transform today’s risks into opportunities to protect people, assets, and interests.

Learn more about Moody’s Maxsight™ Investigations platform.

Get in touch with our team today.

Article authored by: Fabian Mazza, Senior Director, National Security, Moody’s

Post written by: Vicky Maggiani

Vicky has worked in media for over 25 years and has a wealth of experience in editing and creating copy for a variety of sectors.