Defence Leaders

Senior Consultant Land Advisory Group

EUSPA - EU Agency for the Space Programme

Finabel has been listed as a Public Partner of the EU Space ISAC, which held its General Assembly on 20 September.
The main objective of the EU SPACE ISAC is to enhance the security and resilience of the space sector by raising awareness and developing the expertise of its Members. The initiative will engage the industry, public sector institutions and academia and act as a network-based information-sharing platform, connecting its Participants in a trusted environment.
The EU SPACE ISAC will serve as the primary communication channel for the space sector regarding security-related information and the sharing of best practices. It will support the development of relevant knowledge, services, and resources to enable Members to prevent, tackle, and mitigate security challenges more effectively and efficiently.

Strategic Advisor

Finabel - The European Land Force Commanders Organisation

Taking care of the management and the daily business of the organisation, under supervision of the country holding the presidency.

Director

Senior Subject Matter Expert Cyber Defense

Deputy Chief

NATO Land Operations Working Group (LOWG)

Member Research Development

NATO

Contracting Specialist

With over 30 years of experience in the defence domain, I am the Director of Finabel HQ, the European Land Force Commanders Organisation, where I lead the management and daily business of the organisation. I am also the organisation's international representative. My strategic planning, leadership, and negotiation skills have been honed through my previous roles at Belgian Defence and NATO.

My passion for military interoperability guides my mission to enhance collaboration and mutual understanding among European land forces. I am actively involved in several NATO and EU working groups, where I contribute to international cooperation and effective dialogue on defence policies and issues. I also represent Finabel on a broader stage as a Senior Subject Matter Expert on Cyber Defence. I am dedicated to driving innovation, promoting efficient communication, and ensuring a unified and robust defence system for Europe. I welcome the opportunity to connect with anyone who shares my interests and goals.

Mario Blokken

I don’t just work in defence — I live it with energy, passion, and drive.

From building the Defence & Security business domain at Solita from the ground up to earning trust across ministries, militaries, NATO, and EU, my journey has been about turning small beginnings into credible, strategic impact. Colleagues and partners have called me a force of energy who “lives for this,” and that’s true: defence for me is never just business. It’s deeply personal, shaped by growing up in newly independent Estonia and driven by a lifelong commitment to protect what matters.

My focus regions are the Baltic Sea and Arctic, extended through the UK-led JEF framework, NATO, EDA, and EDF. I bring a proven track record of not only shaping strategy but also getting into the room, building credibility, and delivering results across Europe’s most complex defence ecosystems.

Key areas of expertise

Digital Backbones & Autonomy as Capability – enabling forces to adopt modular, scalable systems that perform in peacetime and crisis alike.

Emerging Tech in Defence – AI, uncrewed systems, sensor fusion, and cloud-edge for mission advantage.

Dual-Use Growth – guiding SMEs to enter and scale in defence, build credibility, and become trusted partners to primes and end-users.

Ecosystem Building – connecting innovators, primes, and users to break through the “Valley of Death” and accelerate adoption.

Building & Scaling Domains – creating defence businesses from scratch, securing buy-in, and establishing trust across governments, industry, and alliances.

Security & Compliance Leadership – from serving as a national-level CISO to driving ISO 2001 & ISO 9001 certifications, ensuring EU/NATO-aligned legal, security, and policy frameworks (incl. EDF).

I am recognised as a NATO DIANA Defence Mentor, Nordic Women in Tech Awards nominee, and trusted advisor across defence, security, and critical infrastructure. My strength lies in uniting diverse actors from disruptive SMEs to established primes to shape ecosystems that are resilient, scalable, and mission-ready.

If you are seeking a leader with unmatched energy, proven credibility, and the ability to build from zero to impact someone who combines strategic vision with hands-on execution, builds partnerships that matter, and drives transformation through trust, technology, and collaboration, let’s talk.

True deterrence is collaboration.

I am now open to bringing this energy and experience into my next mission.

Eva Sula

Frank Hoffman’s “Assessing Cognitive Warfare” is one of the clearest, most grounded pieces I’ve read recently on what many still struggle to define, underestimate, or misunderstand entirely. 

"Cognitive Warfare is the application of targeted and tailored messages and non-violent methods used against civilian and military decision-makers or the general population of a target state to gain a positional advantage in the cognitive domain  and achieve political, military, or informational outcomes."

This definition matters. A lot.

What makes this article particularly valuable is how it cuts through the noise:
- how China explicitly treats the human mind as a battlespace alongside land, sea, air, cyber, and space
- how Russia doesn’t need new terminology at all, because it has been practicing active measures, reflexive control, perception management for decades
- and how United States and much of the West still struggle to integrate the cognitive domain beyond fragmented “information operations”

This ties directly to what I’ve been writing about in my Russian mini-series over the past weeks:
* these methods are not new
* they are deeply historical
* technology didn’t invent them, it scaled and accelerated them

Social media, generative AI, deepfakes, poisoned open-source datasets don’t replace old playbooks. They weaponise them at speed, volume, and precision we’ve never seen before.

And this is where I want to be very clear. The answer is not to outsource thinking to AI.
Tools matter. AI matters. Data matters. 
But critical thinking, judgment, and common sense are the last line of defence in the cognitive domain.

If we stop training our own minds, if commanders, analysts, leaders, and citizens lose the ability to pause and say “wait, this doesn’t make sense” —
then no tool will save us.

AI should support cognition, not replace it.
Tools must remain tools not decision-makers, and not convenient scapegoats when judgment fails.

Later this month, I’ll go deeper with:
- a dedicated mini-series on Russian active measures
- and then into cognitive warfare 

Because this is no longer theoretical. The battlefield increasingly runs through perception, trust, doubt, and decision-making itself.

And if we don’t take the cognitive domain seriously we will keep losing long before the first shot is fired.

#CognitiveWarfare #InformationOperations #HybridWarfare #NationalSecurity #AIandSecurity #DecisionMaking #NATO

https://lnkd.in/d3fdCchy

Open article: Assessing “Cognitive Warfare” by irregularwarfare.org

taplio

The Battle

Mario Blokken

Eva Sula

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taplio

The Battle

Mario Blokken

Eva Sula

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Eva Sula's LinkedIn Performance

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