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Challenges in the Information Sphere of Russia’s Neighborhood

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Russia is fighting a new kind of war, one in which information is king.

The fight for hearts and minds

CHALLENGES IN THE INFORMATION SPHERE OF RUSSIA’S NEIGHBORHOOD

ELINA LANGE-IONATAMIŠVILI AND DIĀNA POTJOMKINA
26 November 2014

In the first of a three-part article, Elina Lange-Ionatamišvili and Diāna Potjomkina discuss the challenges Russia’s strong presence and aggressive information campaigns pose for the information space of the Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. Describing the environment and challenges in the wider context of post-Soviet heritage and recent political developments, the authors propose policy options for the countries in question on how to strengthen their own information space by democratic, inclusive, and comprehensive methods.

It is a historically well-known phenomenon that small states fall under the influence of big neighboring states – be it economic, cultural, security, or information and media related. Considering the rapid development of modern technologies and the increase in global connectivity and information flows during the past twenty years, inter-state influence and interdependence in the information and media spheres has grown considerably.

Such influence can become sensitive, should political, economic, or other interests of the states in question not match. The influencing state trying to compete for the hearts and minds of influenced country’s inhabitants can aim to change the latter’s chosen development vectors. Thanks to a well-executed media, narrative control, and propaganda campaigns, such pressure can become overwhelming.

A favorable environment

In the modern media environment, TV channels and social media networks have become active participants of such influence campaigns. After creating a “favorable environment,” it is then used by the aggressor state to raise discontent in the target population through the help of active propaganda. The next step is a covert military operation with the active involvement of civilians, making it hard to tell an internal conflict or uprising from an activity that is fuelled from abroad by an aggressor state. Events in Ukraine, where this type of new warfare has been applied, demonstrate that information is a weapon, and TV, social media, and other public information channels can become active participants of influence or propaganda campaigns.

This is something that can be well observed in the past decade in the Russian Federation’s relationship with its immediate neighbors. Russia’s state policy documents, such as the Foreign Policy Review (2007) and the State Security Strategy (2009), refer to the aim of increasing information influence in the strategically important neighborhood of the former Soviet states in order to keep the populations of these countries (mainly the Russian-speaking ethnic minorities) under a united, Kremlin-controlled information flow, thus making them politically vulnerable.

The ongoing crisis in Ukraine has sparked a discussion among experts on the effects of aggressive information campaigns and has raised new concerns for democratic governments, especially those who are home to larger communities of the so-called Russia’s Compatriots Abroad. Even during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, the Russian state developed a network of NGOs to promote the Russian language and culture as well as supported quality programming for the Russian media and ensured its re-broadcasts abroad to maintain a link with Russian-speaking minorities in the former Soviet Republics. President Putin formalized this approach under the concept of the “Russian world” that encourages active application of the Compatriot policy and expansion of Russia’s information space.

From the information point of view, the “Russian world” is a particular, multi-purpose concept which serves Russia’s internal, foreign, and security policy goals alike, with the information sphere being key for its successful operation. Through information influence operations, these diasporas have become targets and tools of Russia’s so-called “soft” power. Not only are they encouraged to maintain loyalty to the Russian government, their (real or alleged) attitudes and behaviors are also used to create a pretext for all types of Russia’s interference. It is important to recognize that Russia invests considerable resources to make the entertainment part of its TV channels appealing in order to attract large audiences.

The new warfare

The broader goal of Russia’s leadership is to regain influence over the former Soviet republics and prevent their Euro-Atlantic integration, affiliating them politically and economically with Moscow (in the case of the Baltic states, who already are members of EU and NATO, the aim is to make them the weakest links in these collective systems of democracy, security and economy to create opportunities for political manipulation).

The belief of Russia’s current elite that the emerging global information space can be exploited to alter the global balance of power becomes particularly dangerous when combined with well-known Soviet methods such as reflexive control, which implies interference with the decision-making process by conveying specially prepared information to incline the government in question to make a predetermined decision voluntarily; or the “active measures” which imply deceptive operations to influence the opinions and actions of individuals, governments, and societies.

In recent years, defense and security experts, including Russian authors such as Chekinov and Bogdanov, have discussed a new type of warfare where the lines between peace and war, civilian and military conflict are blurred. All of them make a similar point: the new type of warfare does not start with a declaration of war and advancing armies over borders – the only known way of waging war during the time when the Washington Treaty was drafted.

Today, the first phases of a modern war start by the aggressor state creating “fruitful soil” in the target state by using soft power tools, including culture, business, and – very importantly – mass media, in order to promote the desired worldview, mind-set or ideology, thus creating certain vulnerabilities and dependencies. In the modern world, no state can afford to doze in a false sense of security just because they see no actual conventional military threat at their borders. The war in the information space might already be ongoing at full scale.

Providing good alternatives

Clearly, for any democratic state it is extremely difficult to counter or deter such influence, as they belong to different “weight categories”: while the Russian state supports a powerful state propaganda machine and exerts effective control over the media, democratic states cannot use such methods and even have difficulties censoring harmful information. However, censorship should also not be viewed as the primary solution. The best democratic solution to compete with the influence of another state in the information space, during peacetime and crisis alike, is providing good alternatives.

Thus, first and foremost, it is necessary to strengthen the national media environment, including public service broadcasters, the professionalism of journalists, and the promotion of media self-regulation. That can be achieved by increased professional training and education of journalists, by facilitating journalistic cooperation and exchange of media best practices among like-minded countries, and by seeking to introduce more robust legal mechanisms for increased transparency on media ownership – just to name a few.

At the same time, mitigation of Russian information campaign effects and the development of preventive mechanisms require strategic thinking and long-term investment. Therefore, it is important to view the problem in the wider context of:

  • national master narratives – what is our own story that we offer to our populations as alternative to the Russian worldview?
  • State policies (including media regulation, anti-corruption, education, and integration of society[1]).
  • possible solidarity mechanisms among “natural allies” (the creation of alternative media sources, developing networks, and preparing for operation under pressure or crisis situation).

After fifteen years of mistaken silence, the Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova are now starting a serious public discussion on the modes of Russian propaganda and information campaign, and ways of mitigating them. In the next part of this article, we will discuss in more detail the Russian policies and situation in the six aforementioned states, and then proceed with some recommendations.

This article was one of the topics at The Riga Conference 2014

Elina Lange-Ionatamišvili, is a senior expert at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Latvia.

Diāna Potjomkina is currently a research fellow at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs; she has a more than four years’ national- and EU-level experience in the civil society sector. Her main research interests include Latvia’s foreign policy and Europeanization processes, Latvia’s relations with the Eastern Partnership states, and civic participation in decision-making.

[1] The integration of society is a painful issue in the states in question due to the lack of strong and progressive state policies for the integration of the Russian-speakers following the collapse of the Soviet Union. A considerable part of the Russian-speakers (which may not necessarily be ethnic Russians) have been alienated as a result of Russian propaganda and some unconstructive nationalistic policies following the regain of independence. However, the political, historic, social, and economic conditions at the time did not allow the newly independent governments much maneuver, as the key priority of the time was securing the fragile independence and overcoming the economic collapse.

Published at http://visegradinsight.eu/the-fight-for-hearts-and-minds26112014/


Filed under: Information operations, Russia, Ukraine Tagged: #RussiaLies, Russia

November 27th

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Joel Harding:

Reblog of someone else’s opinion of RT.

Originally posted on The Russian Colossus:

Russia Today, or RT as most of the world knows it, is a peculiar publication. I see it as a vaguely subtle (since it has a fairly strong western presence) Kremlin mouthpiece hellbent on reporting anything anti-America. I once had someone defend it saying, “but they have good reporting on Palestine!” My friend, that is only because the US supports Israel. RT completely relishes in any blemish they can find with America, and try their hardest to defend Russia. This is a very typically RT article, in which they claim that Putin claims that he doesn’t want Russia involved in “geopolitical intrigues and conflicts.” Assuming this is true, it would do Putin some good to realize that’s he drawn his country into much geopolitical intrigue already.

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Ya boi courtesy of Bloomberg

What is also interesting to note is that Russia has said no to OPEC’s deal to cut oil production…

View original 131 more words


Filed under: Information operations

Russia Fake Picture Identification

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Here is a fake Russian picture, posed by probably Russian GRU Spetsnaz and submitted to fool you into thinking the Ukrainian Azov battalion is overrun by Nazis.  I saw it previously, I didn’t think a thing about it, but now I know it is a fake.  I was slapped upside the head by some friends and submit my lessons learned to you, gentle readers.

From my Romanian expert:

First – the picture comes from a Russian unidentified source.

Second , if a Russian posts about a Nazi Ukrainian battalion, why are the faces blurred blacked? It’s illogical.

Third the license plate of the Russian car is blurred, this hides the real location. If you have the license plate you know the area where the car is stationed and the owner.

Fourth the equipment used by the mercenaries is used only by the “Green Men”, the equipment is used by GRU troops, not by Ukrainians.  The Ukrainians have lighter colors and they do not have that type of protection on their knees and they do not use head masks.

Fifth the weapons have extended magazines used by the GRU Spetnatz and the guy with the big hat has the latest type of AK which are black (AK-100 Family) – AK-103/104. Ukrainians don’t have black AKs, they have the classical AK – AK-47/AK-74.

Sixth, the bullet proof vests are Russian not the type used by the Ukrainians.

Seventh, the so-called Azov battalion are volunteers, not special forces. Even a kid can see that those are special forces.

Eighth, the helmets are the new Russian type.  http://www.worldmilitary.org/img/3015109711-ru-he-00001.jpg

Check the equipment, even the glasses are identical to those used in Crimea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNKsLlK52ss

Standard Russian GTU Spetsnaz

Spetsnaz in Daghestan

 

A few notes of my own.

  • Why waste a perfectly good opportunity to smear Ukraine, NATO, and throw in a Nazi flag?
  • There is a good-old Nazi salute thrown in.
  • Just between us, my friends, these guys don’t look anything like special forces.  They’re out of shape, soft and pudgy.
  • Their uniforms are a mix-match. All the Spetsnaz I’ve seen have always had amazingly similar uniforms.  It’s called standardization, so if one guy goes down we would know exactly what is carried where. Obviously this is a posed picture and, I’ll submit to you, my Romanian friend is absolutely correct, these are Spetsnaz posing as the Ukrainian Azov Battalion.

Once again, this is an attempt by Russia to portray a false picture.

Since this involves the military, this might be considered IO, I wasn’t aware that Russia did “IO”.

Bottom line at the bottom, #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies and chalk this one up to yet another pathetic attempt at fooling the common people or perhaps a leader or two.

Please, don’t try again, Russia. You’re wasting perfectly good talent.  Obviously you don’t have enough time and patience to put any real work into real Maskirovka.

 


Filed under: Information operations, Russia, Ukraine Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies

In Ukraine, it is time to call a war a war

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Russian NGO activist Elena Vasilieva described this week how she set up a Facebook page Cargo 200 from Ukraine to Russia – a reference to the Soviet/Russian euphemism for transport of dead soldiers. Based on information from families across Russia she calculates that 4,000 Russian soldiers have been killed so far in Ukraine.

Vasilieva’s estimates have been backed by other Russian NGOs such as the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers and Inform Napalm. Vasilieva herself launched the Forgotten Regiment NGO in 2007 to collect information on Russian veterans of Soviet and post-Soviet conflicts.

In only five months of fighting, Russia has lost the same number of soldiers as the US did in more than 12 years in Iraq and about a third of the Soviet losses in Afghanistan during a nine-year occupation. Such very high casualty rates reflect a full-blown war between Ukraine and Russia rather than a small-scale insurgency or terrorist campaign. The UK lost 600 troops and police in Ulster over three decades during the Irish troubles.

The ferocity of the Ukraine-Russian war has continued since the September 4 Minsk Accords that produced a tentative ceasefire. Hundreds of combatants and civilians have continued to die. In mid-November, a Russian missile battalion was destroyed by Ukrainian forces who claimed 150 Russian dead, including General Sergei Andreychenko, the highest-ranking reported casualty of the war. Russia’s losses from this battle are greater than the Ukrainian losses at Illovaysk in late August that forced Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president, to the negotiating table.

Chuck Hagel’s resignation as US defence secretary over weak US policy towards Russia is a portend of what to expect from a Republican-controlled Congress that – as in the 1980s over Afghanistan – supports hitting back at Russia by providing arms to US allies on the ground. Ukrainian envoys to the US are seeking weapons such as FGM-148 Javelin portable anti-tank missiles to use against Russian armour that has been building up during the ceasefire in the Donbas enclave. Senator John McCain increasingly resembles Congressman Charlie Wilson in the 1980s, who organised a massive crease in US covert assistance to the Afghan mujahideen.

Vasilieva lives in exile in Ukraine because it has become dangerous to collect and publicise data on Russian casualties in an invasion that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, denies is taking place. Lev Shlosberg, a Russian lawyer, was beaten after attending funerals of 76th Airborne Regiment soldiers in Pskov who had been killed in battle in eastern Ukraine. Shlosberg had been interviewed by one of Russia’s last remaining independent television channels, Dozhd, whose journalists were also attacked.

Although Russia’s denials of its invasion of eastern Ukraine increasingly resemble Soviet deception over its invasion of Afghanistan, there are two caveats.

First, under Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader in the latter stages of the war in Afghanistan, there was greater media freedom than in Putin’s Russia.

Second, Putin cannot close off all channels and information about Russian casualties is available on the internet. Ukraine publishes the freest Russian-language media in the world and these publications are available online, at least to those who have internet access.

Putin is hamstrung in achieving his objectives in eastern and southern Ukraine given the resolve of Ukrainian patriots to defend their territory, and rising opposition to the war in Russia. In September, 50,000 Russians marched in Moscow for peace in Ukraine. Russia’s respected independent Levada Centre issued a survey that found as many as 65 to 70 per cent of Russians oppose sending Russian troops to Ukraine.

In the USSR and in today’s Russia, soldiers have caused themselves horrific injuries to avoid being sent to Afghanistan and the Donbas. Vasilieva recalled being told how one soldier thought up a way of breaking his own leg, and how another burned himself with ammonia.

It is time to recognise the Donbas conflict, which has caused thousands of casualties, widespread destruction and over a million refugees, as Europe’s first inter-state war since 1945.

Taras Kuzio is a research associate at the Centre for Political and Regional Studies, Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta and non-resident fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Relations, Johns Hopkins University.

Originally published at http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/11/27/guest-post-in-ukraine-it-is-time-to-call-a-war-a-war/


Filed under: Information operations, Russia, Ukraine Tagged: #RussiaLies

U.S. Army creates a Cyber branch

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The insignia of the U.S. Army cyber command // Source: army.mil

Published 26 November 2014

Soldiers who want to defend the nation in cyberspace, as part of the U.S. Army’s newest and most technologically advanced career field, now have an Army branch to join that will take its place alongside infantry, artillery, and the other Army combat arms branches. Army Secretary John McHugh and Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno approved the creation of the Cyber branch in September. “The establishment of a Cyber Branch shows how important and critical the cyber mission is to our Army, and allows us to focus innovative recruiting, retention, leader development, and talent management needed to produce world-class cyberspace professionals,” said Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, the commanding general of Army Cyber Command.

Soldiers who want to defend the nation in cyberspace, as part of theU.S. Army’s newest and most technologically advanced career field, now have an Army branch to join that will take its place alongside infantry, artillery and the other Army combat arms branches.

Army Secretary John McHugh and Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno approved the creation of the Cyber branch in September, as one of the first official steps in establishing a 17-series career field specifically dedicated to managing the careers and professional development of officers. The remainder of the 17-series career field management program is expected to be implemented by October 2015, with both enlisted and warrant officer career paths.

This is a historic development for our Army, for the soldiers who are already defending the nation in cyberspace, and for those who will do so in years to come,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen G. Fogarty, commanding general of the Cyber Center of Excellence. “Creation of the Cyber branch acknowledges the critical role that our cyber warriors play in the armed forces of today and tomorrow, and it will provide us with the structure to make certain that the highly skilled Soldiers who are selected for these positions are well-trained, professionally developed and appropriately assigned.”

The Army says that to support these goals, both the U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence, or CoE, at Fort Gordon, and the Human Resources Command created personnel career management and proponent offices to lead and shape the future development of this new Army career field.

The establishment of a Cyber Branch shows how important and critical the cyber mission is to our Army, and allows us to focus innovative recruiting, retention, leader development, and talent management needed to produce world-class cyberspace professionals,” said Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, the commanding general of Army Cyber Command.

Cyber CoE officials say the U.S. military networks evolved from providing communication systems and services to a warfighting weapons system. All of cyberspace is now considered a warfighting domain and an operational environment in which the Defense Department will conduct cyberspace operations. This new warfighting domain brings the need for a new type of Soldier capable of understanding cyberspace as an operational environment, just as an infantryman understands the land domain and a pilot the air domain.

Published at http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141126-u-s-army-creates-a-cyber-branch


Filed under: Cyber warfare, Cybersecurity, Information operations

NATO-Russia relations: the facts

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Warning.  Most Russian propaganda regarding Ukraine or NATO can be disproven by reading this pages.  I urge you to read these pages and engage Russian trolls in conversations, armed with these facts.


Last updated: 28 Nov. 2014 16:26

Since Russia began its illegal military intervention in Ukraine, Russian officials have accused NATO of a series of provocations, threats and hostile actions stretching back over 25 years. This webpage sets out the facts.

Contents

NATO and its attitude to Russia

Claim: NATO has a Cold War mentality

Fact: The Cold War ended over 20 years ago. It was characterized by the opposition of two ideological blocs, the presence of massive standing armies in Europe, and the military, political and economic domination by the Soviet Union of almost all its European neighbours.

The modern world does not feature competing ideological blocs: Russia has neither a credible ideology to export, nor significant international allies who support its aggressive actions in and around Ukraine. In fact, in a vote in the United Nations General Assembly on 23 March 2014, 100 countries voted that Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea was illegal, and just 10, other than Russia, supported it (resolution and voting record online here).

The end of the Cold War was a victory for the people of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and opened the way to overcoming the division of Europe.  At pathbreaking Summit meetings in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia played its part in building a new, inclusive European security architecture, including the Charter of Paris, the establishment of the OSCE, and the NATO-Russia Founding Act.

Over the past decades, NATO reached out to Russia with a series of partnership initiatives, culminating in the foundation of the NATO-Russia Council in 2002. No other country has such a privileged relationship with NATO.

As stated by NATO heads of state and government at the Wales Summit in September, “the Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. But we cannot and will not compromise on the principles on which our Alliance and security in Europe and North America rest.” (The Wales Summit Declaration can be read here).

This is NATO’s official policy, defined and expressed transparently by its highest level of leadership.

Claim: NATO is a U.S. geopolitical project

Fact: NATO was founded in 1949 by twelve sovereign nations: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. It has since grown to 28 Allies.

All decisions in NATO are taken by consensus, which means that a decision can only be taken if every single Ally accepts it.

Equally, the decision for any country to take part in NATO-led operations falls to that country alone, according to its own legal procedures. No member of the Alliance can decide on the deployment of any other Ally’s forces.

Claim: NATO’s purpose is to contain or weaken Russia

Fact: NATO’s purpose is set out in the preamble to the Washington Treaty, the Alliance’s Founding document (online here ).

This states that Allies are determined “to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area. They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.

In line with those goals, in the past two decades NATO has led missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, over Libya and off the Horn of Africa. The Alliance has conducted exercises from the Mediterranean to the North Atlantic and across Europe, and on issues ranging from counter-terrorism to submarine rescue – including with Russia itself.

Claim: NATO has tried to isolate or marginalise Russia

Fact: Since the early 1990s, the Alliance has worked to build a cooperative relationship with Russia on areas of mutual interest.

NATO began reaching out, offering dialogue in place of confrontation, at the London NATO Summit of July 1990 (declaration here). In the following years, the Alliance promoted dialogue and cooperation by creating new fora, the Partnership for Peace (PfP) and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), open to the whole of Europe, including Russia (PfP founding documents here and here).

In 1997 NATO and Russia signed the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, creating the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council. In 2002 they upgraded that relationship, creating the NATO-Russia Council (NRC). They reaffirmed their commitment to the Founding Act at NATO-Russia summits in Rome in 2002 and in Lisbon in 2010 (The Founding Act can be read here, the Rome Declaration which established the NRC here, the Lisbon NRC Summit Declaration here.)

Since the foundation of the NRC, NATO and Russia have worked together on issues ranging from counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism to submarine rescue and civil emergency planning. No other partner has been offered a comparable relationship, nor a similar comprehensive institutional framework.

Claim: NATO should have been disbanded at the end of the Cold War

Fact: At the London Summit in 1990, Allied heads of state and government agreed that “”We need to keep standing together, to extend the long peace we have enjoyed these past four decades“. This was their sovereign choice and was fully in line with their right to collective defence under the United Nations Charter.

Finally, any comparison between NATO and the Warsaw Pact or the Soviet bloc is an utter distortion of history. The fact is that when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe applied for NATO membership, it was of their own free choice, through their own national democratic processes, and after conducting the required reforms – unlike their incorporation into the Soviet bloc and the Warsaw Pact, which was carried out under conditions of military occupation, one-party dictatorship and the brutal suppression of dissent.

NATO as a “threat”

Claim: NATO is a threat to Russia

Fact: NATO has reached out to Russia consistently, transparently and publicly over the past 25 years.

The Alliance has created unique cooperation bodies – the Permanent Joint Council and the NATO-Russia Council – to embody its relationship with Russia. It has invited Russia to cooperate on missile defence, an invitation extended to no other partner.

In the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, agreed with Russia in 1997 and reaffirmed at NATO-Russia summits in Rome in 2002 and in Lisbon in 2010, NATO stated that “in the current and foreseeable security environment, the Alliance will carry out its collective defence and other missions by ensuring the necessary interoperability, integration, and capability for reinforcement rather than by additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces“. The Alliance has fulfilled all such commitments.

NATO’s official policy towards Russia was most recently articulated by the heads of state and government of the Alliance at the Wales Summit in September 2014 .

They stated that “the Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. But we cannot and will not compromise on the principles on which our Alliance and security in Europe and North America rest.” (The Wales Summit Declaration can be read here).

Thus, neither the Alliance’s policies nor its actions are a threat to Russia.

Claim: NATO missile defence is targeted at Russia

Fact: NATO’s official policy on missile defence was set out by heads of state and government at the Lisbon Summit in November 2010, where they “decided to develop a missile defence capability to protect all NATO European populations, territory and forces, and invited Russia to cooperate with us” (declaration here).

This was reiterated at the Chicago Summit in May 2012 (here) and the Wales Summit in September 2014, where leaders underlined that “NATO missile defence is not directed against Russia and will not undermine Russia’s strategic deterrence capabilities. NATO missile defence is intended to defend against potential threats emanating from outside the Euro-Atlantic area“.

NATO also proposed a transparency regime including the creation of two NATO-Russia joint missile-defence centres. Russia has declined these offers.

These Summit declarations are more than political promises: they define NATO’s policies. Rather than taking NATO up on cooperation, Russia has advanced arguments that ignore laws of physics as well as NATO’s expressed policies.

The NATO system is designed to be large enough to defend against limited attacks by states and non-state actors potentially threatening the Alliance. However, it still remains small enough not to fuel regional arms races. In terms of the types of interceptors, their numbers and locations, it is configured to defend against the principal threats to NATO’s European territory, and is not directed against Russia’s much larger and more sophisticated strategic deterrent forces.  The interceptors to be deployed in Europe, including at the planned sites in Romania and Poland, are not designed to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles.  Their capabilities are too limited and their planned numbers too few.

Independent Russian experts have publicly agreed that the US European Phased Adaptive Approach and NATO’s missile defence system, even when fully developed, will have no appreciable impact on Russia’s numerous and highly sophisticated strategic nuclear forces.  This has been documented in numerous scholarly articles by Russian generals and rocket scientists in Russian journals.

The Russian government has used missile defence as an excuse for accusations rather than an opportunity for partnership.

Claim: The accession of new Allies to NATO threatens Russia

Fact: Every country which joins NATO undertakes to uphold the principles and policies of the Alliance, and the commitments which NATO has already made.

This includes the commitment that NATO poses no threat to Russia, as most recently stated at the Wales Summit.

Therefore, as the number of countries which join NATO grows, so does the number of countries which agree that “the Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia.”

Continued at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_111767.htm


Filed under: Information operations

Iranian woman breaks the law by dancing on Tehran Metro متروی تهران

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Dancing is illegal in public in Tehran, Iran.

Why?

An Iranian woman has filmed herself defying Iran’s restrictive laws against women by dancing to a song by British pop group Little Mix with her hijab around her shoulders.

The unidentified young woman can be seen energetically dancing on a train in Tehran while other passengers hold the camera.

Her dancing may seem innocuous enough, but the young woman is actually breaking two laws in the ultra-conservative country, where dancing in public is prohibited.

The woman initially begins with her hijab on her head, but her lively moves cause it to slide off. Other female passengers appear to be trying not to look at her as she moves up and down the carriage, while a couple agree to hold a mobile phone and film her.

The viral video was posted to the Stealthy Freedoms of Iranian Women Facebook page, which has over 700,000 followers.

Here is a great video of a Persian woman flaunting the law.

Dancing on a subway train takes a lot of guts whoever and wherever you are — but it’s particularly true if you’re a woman in Iran. This video, posted on the Facebook page “My Stealthy Freedom,” where Iranian women upload photos and videos of themselves without the mandatory ḥijāb, shows a young woman breaking out some serious dance moves to Little Mix’s ‘Salute’ on the Tehran metro, without her head covered.


Filed under: Information operations, Iran

UA: The Cabinet is going to create a “Ministry of Counter-Propaganda”

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Translated from Russian using my Chrome browser.


The government is creating a Ministry of Information Policy.

Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook.

“There is an idea to create a structure of the Cabinet of Ministers Ministry of Information Policy, whose main task is the protection of information space of Ukraine from the Russian propaganda and counter-propaganda in Russia, on the territory temporarily occupied territories of the Crimea and the Donbass. This issue is long overdue, and I would even say overripe, “- he said.

“I am confident that such an initiative, if it is agreed by all five factions of the coalition will be unanimously supported by the parliamentary majority”, – said Gerashchenko.

Gerashchenko noted that the post of Minister of Information Policy discussed the candidacy of Yuri Stec.

Published at http://inforesist.org/v-kabmine-sobirayutsya-sozdat-ministerstvo-kontrpropagandy/


Filed under: Information operations, Russia, Ukraine Tagged: #RussiaLies

Kremlin organizing “fifth column” in Ukraine’s parliament — Kremlinologist

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Russian political scientist Lilia Shevtsova

Respected Russian political scientist Lilia Shevtsova believes Russia lacks sufficient funds for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine at present. However, it is preparing plans and channeling funds to set up a “fifth column” in Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament). Putin’s close aide Vladislav Surkov is personally responsible for the effort. He is believed to be the “man behind the scenes” for the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbas.


Published at http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/11/30/kremlin-organizing-fifth-column-in-ukraines-parliament-kremlinologist/

2014/11/30 • NEWS

Vladislav Surkov, a  top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is already making plans and channeling funds to Ukraine in order to wield influence and create a pro-Kremlin group in the Verkhovna Rada, the Russian political scientist Lilia Shevtsova said during an interview with Novoye Vremya (New Times).

Vladislav Surkov

“Clearly, Putin, in addition to the military solution, is looking for other solutions. For example, to create his own fifth column in the new Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada. Vladislav Surkov (is the person responsible — Ed.). He is a man of war. A political operative — one of the best, who created an array of fake parties and the so-called ‘sovereign democracy’ in Russia. Now he is experimenting in Ukraine. I think that Surkov is already making plans and channeling funds to Ukraine in order to solve the problem through peaceful means — to create a Russian pro-Kremlin fifth column in the Verkhovna Rada and to wield influence,” she said.

According to Shevtsova, Moscow does not have sufficient funds currently for a full-scale war against Ukraine and the world, but there will be enough money for the demoralization of the Ukrainian elite.

“The entire history with Ukraine was not an end in itself for Vladimir Putin. People think that everything began with Ukraine. That is not true. Everything began in 2011, when the Bolotnaya and Sakharov (demonstrators) took to the street. Afterwards, ever since Putin returned to power in 2012-2013, before Maidan, he has spent all his time building a new political regime. By the end of 2013, he had formed it in Russia,” she said.  (In December 2011, mass demonstrations against election fraud took place on Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Ave. in Moscow — Ed.)

In Russia, Surkov is referred to as the “gray cardinal, a master of political intrigue and PR, and the main political administrator. He was responsible for creating the political establishment under Putin, for controlling elections to the State Duma, and for approving the (candidate) lists of parties close to the Kremlin.As previously reported, Surkov is a top political aide to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. He has managed the Ukrainian issue since the 2004 elections. In 2013, according to many sources, he has been responsible for Russia’s relations with Ukraine. Since early 2014, he has been acting secretly as Putin’s special representative in Ukraine. He has visited Kyiv at least twice. According to media reports, Surkov has the authority to negotiate with the Ukrainian establishment and to enter into informal arrangements.

Continued at http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/11/30/kremlin-organizing-fifth-column-in-ukraines-parliament-kremlinologist/


Filed under: Information operations, Russia, Ukraine Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, Lilia Shevtsova, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Verkhovna Rada, Vladislav Surkov

16-30 November 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

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Originally posted on Hackmageddon.com:

The Cyber Monday has just gone, and here we are with the second Cyber Attacks Timeline of November (Part I here).

Even if no massive breaches against retailers have been discovered so far (however do not get carried away since they will probably need several weeks to surface!), this month equally shows some remarkable events for Cyber Crime, Hacktivism and Cyber Espionage.

Actually I just really did not know where to begin, since each sector shows at least one noticeable events. However, after scrolling down the list, I believe that the crown of the month is all for the powerful Regin, the brand new cyber weapon discovered by Symantec. If you believed that the complexity of Stuxnet, Flame and Duqu was a closed page, you will have to change your mind.

This event has overshadowed the massive attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, allegedly traced to North Korea, in…

View original 246 more words


Filed under: Information operations

US Discusses New Sanctions against Russia

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Pro-Russian separatists pose with the picture of Joseph Stalin at checkpoint in the Spartak area near the Sergey Prokofiev International Airport in Donetsk November 18, 2014. (REUTERS/Antonio Bronic)

Kerry: Sanctions haven’t altered Moscow stance on Ukraine but hit its economy

U.S. to Discuss Possible New Russia Sanctions With European Allies

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday Western sanctions have not halted Russia’s support for separatists in Ukraine but have damaged the Russian economy, which is now projected to slide into recession next year.

A senior State Department official, accompanying Kerry to a NATO meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels, said he would talk to allies about imposing further sanctions on Russia if pro-Moscow separatists do not cease violence in Ukraine.

Kerry told a news conference Russia could avoid further sanctions by agreeing to steps towards ending backing for the rebels, who seized mainly Russian-speaking areas of eastern Ukraine after protesters toppled Kiev’s pro-Moscow president in February. Russia denies supporting the separatists militarily.

Citing the weakening of the Russian currency, the rouble, and comments by a senior Russian official that the economy will fall into recession in 2015, Kerry said: “Clearly the economy is feeling the impact of these sanctions.”

Russia’s gross domestic product will probably fall by 0.8 percent next year, hit by low oil prices and sanctions, Russian Deputy Economy Minister Alexei Vedeva said, in a dramatic change from a previous forecast of 1.2 percent GDP growth.

“Russia has the opportunity to make a very different choice,” said Kerry. “We are prepared, as others are prepared, to sit down to negotiate reasonable ways in which all the parties can agree to very specific steps that can be taken in order to move in a different direction that is available.”

The United States and the 28-nation European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia’s financial, defense and energy sectors over Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and perceived backing of the separatists in eastern Ukraine.

“Russia has not lived up to its promises to end all support for armed separatists, withdraw troops and weapons, release hostages, allow OSCE inspectors to do their jobs and respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory,” Kerry added.

Still, EU diplomats say there is little appetite among EU states for more sanctions unless there is a further sharp escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. Russia is Europe’s leading energy supplier and many EU countries fear the sanctions and Russian reprisals could hurt their own economies.

Ukraine’s military and separatist forces agreed “in principle” on Tuesday on a new ceasefire from Dec. 5 in the rebel-held Luhansk region, the OSCE security group said. The original truce agreed in September has been regularly violated.

Continued at http://news.yahoo.com/u-discuss-possible-russia-sanctions-european-allies-113916300.html


Filed under: Information operations, Russia, Ukraine

Truth is the Victim

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These pictures show the same picture being used by multiple parties to tell multiple stories. Alas, we may never know which one is real. ht to bp

From the left; Russian bomb in Ukraine, Ukrainian bomb in Russia and, Israeli bomb in Gaza! pic.twitter.com/fYz7Rq1k52

Someone is claiming to have the original pictures with the same scene from other angles:  “it’s whats left of a SMERCH 300mm, I have 2nd pic, diff angle same incident.”

This shows almost all picture evidence, today, is suspect.


Filed under: Information operations, Israel, Russia, Ukraine

NYT Shows How Propaganda Works

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Amid the crisis over Syria, President Vladimir Putin of Russia welcomed President Barack Obama to the G20 Summit at Konstantinovsky Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Sept. 5, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

In the multilayered double standards of its international coverage, the New York Times demonstrates how propaganda works: Outrage is the only appropriate response when an adversary breaks a rule but a shrug is okay when it’s “our side.


 December 2, 2014

Exclusive: The U.S. mainstream media pretends it operates with professional standards of objectivity and fairness, but – especially in its international reporting – the only real standards are double standards, as the New York Times has shown on Ukraine and Syria, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

In the multilayered double standards of its international coverage, the New York Times demonstrates how propaganda works: Outrage is the only appropriate response when an adversary breaks a rule but a shrug is okay when it’s “our side.” Plus, there must be perfect evidence to accuse “our side” of an offense but anything goes when it’s an adversary.

Recent Times’ articles illustrate how this hypocrisy works. Take, for example, international law, especially prohibitions against aggression. When the topic is Ukraine and the alleged violator is Russia, no extreme is too extreme in denouncing Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. But the concern about international law simply disappears when discussing Syria and the desirability of U.S. President Barack Obama overthrowing the government there.

In Ukraine, despite the murky circumstances surrounding last February’s coup d’etat ousting the elected president and unleashing war in the ethnic Russian east, the Times refuses to see any merit in the Russian side of the argument. It’s all about the sacred principle of non-intervention; the mitigating circumstances don’t matter.

However, when it comes to demanding Obama dispatch the U.S. military to take out Syria’s government, the Times forgets international law; it’s all about the mitigating circumstances that justify the U.S. bombing of Syrian government troops and paving the way for a rebel victory.

A good example of this is a Nov. 28 article by Times correspondent Anne Barnard that hammers Obama over the supposed inconsistencies in his policy of bombing Islamic State radicals inside Syria but not also turning the U.S. military loose against the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Barnard writes that anti-Assad forces inside Syria “conclude, increasingly, that the Obama administration is siding with Mr. Assad, that by training United States firepower solely on the Islamic State it is aiding a president whose ouster is still, at least officially, an American goal.

“Their dismay reflects a broader sense on all sides that President Obama’s policies on Syria and the Islamic State remain contradictory, and the longer the fight goes on without the policies being resolved, the more damage is being done to America’s standing in the region.”

It may be a fair point that the U.S. military strikes inside Syria against Islamic State radicals, who have also seized territory in Iraq, is at least a technical violation of international law, but the Syrian government has acquiesced to these attacks since they are aimed at a rebel force that is widely regarded as terrorist. Thus, the bombings have some color of legitimacy.

However, attacking Syrian government forces is a horse of an entirely different color. That would be a clear-cut violation of international law. It would be a war of aggression deemed by the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II to be the “supreme international crime” because it “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Yet, this important legal point is entirely missing from the Times article, which focuses instead on how Obama has offended Assad’s opponents by attacking the Islamic State, not Assad.

In effect, the Times is pushing the neoconservative line that the United States should first undertake “regime change” in Syria before it deals with the Islamic State. In making that case, the Times not only leaves out the question of international law but gives short-shrift to the danger that destroying Assad’s military might open the gates of Damascus to the Islamic State or al-Qaeda’s affiliate Nusra Front, the only two effective fighting forces among the Syrian rebels.

Addressing International Law

A more professional news article would have seriously addressed both the international law issue and the dangers inherent in a U.S.-driven Syrian “regime change,” including the very real possibility that a jihadist victory in the heart of the Middle East could force a full-scale U.S. military intervention, requiring hundreds of thousands of troops and costing hundreds of billions of dollars.

Indeed, the Times’ coverage of the Syrian crisis often looks like a replay of the newspaper’s gullible acceptance of the neocon-predicted “cakewalk” through Iraq in 2003. In the Iraq War, too, there was scant attention paid to the question of the United States violating international law and to the chance that the invasion might not go as smoothly as the neocons dreamt.

While ignoring the issue of U.S. aggression in a war on Syria, the Times presents the Ukraine crisis as a simple matter of Russian “aggression” by leaving out the context of a U.S.-backed coup on Feb. 22 that forced President Viktor Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives and prompting resistance to the new order from eastern and southern Ukraine which had been Yanukovych’s political base.

As former Rep. Dennis Kucinich has written, this important background – and the earlier expansion of NATO into eastern Europe – would put the Ukraine story in a very different light: “NATO encirclement, the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, an attempt to use an agreement with the European Union to bring NATO into Ukraine at the Russian border, a U.S. nuclear first-strike policy, are all policies which attempt to substitute force for diplomacy.

“Russia’s response to the terror unleashed by western-backed neo-nazis in Crimea and Odessa came after the local population appealed to Russia to protect them from the violence. Russia then agreed to Crimea joining the Russian Federation, a reaffirmation of an historic relationship.

“The Western press begins its narrative on the Crimea situation with the annexation, but completely ignores the provocations by the West and other causal factors which resulted in the annexation. This distortion of reality is artificially creating an hysteria about Russian aggressiveness, another distortion which could pose an exceptionally dangerous situation for the world, if acted upon by other nations. The U.S. Congress is responding to the distortions, not to the reality.”

Propaganda Vehicle

Another way that the New York Times makes itself useful as a neocon propaganda vehicle is by applying two radically different standards for proof when an accusation is made. If, for instance, anyone notes that U.S.-funded “non-governmental organizations” played a behind-the-scenes role in instigating the Ukrainian coup – even though there is clear documentary evidence from the public reports of the National Endowment for Democracy and similar U.S.-funded entities – that is deemed a “conspiracy theory.”

However, if you want to accuse the Russians of secretly financing anti-fracking groups in Romania, you don’t need any evidence at all, just vague assertions. So, on Dec. 1, the Times published a lengthy article by Andrew Higgins promoting the Romanian government’s suspicions that local environmental groups which have blocked Chevron’s use of hydraulic fracturing for shale gas are fronts for Russia’s energy industry.

The article acknowledges that “this belief that Russia is fueling the protests, shared by officials in Lithuania, where Chevron also ran into a wave of unusually fervent protests and then decided to pull out, has not yet been backed up by any clear proof. And [Russia’s] Gazprom has denied accusations that it has bankrolled anti-fracking protests.

“But circumstantial evidence, plus large dollops of Cold War-style suspicion, have added to mounting alarm over covert Russian meddling to block threats to its energy stranglehold on Europe.”

It’s not exactly clear what the Times’ “circumstantial evidence” is either, but the article next turns to more unsubstantiated accusations aired in September by then-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who “pointed a finger at Russia” by citing its alleged support for NGOs, another hypocritical twist because many NGOs are actually funded by the U.S. government and are deployed to disrupt or destabilize adversaries around the world.

Ignoring this hypocrisy, Rasmussen declared: “Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations — environmental organizations working against shale gas — to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas.”

Again, the Times notes that Rasmussen presented no proof, saying that his judgment was based on what NATO allies had reported. Yet, despite this admitted lack of evidence, the Times still devotes portions of two pages to this Russian-hand-hidden-behind-the-anti-fracking-cause hypothesis. If such flimsy speculation were aimed at the United States, it would be laughed off as a paranoid conspiracy theory or labeled “disinformation.”

Also not noted in the Times article is Rasmussen’s record for getting facts wrong. As Danish prime minister in 2003, he supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq and famously declared that “Iraq has WMDs. It is not something we think; it is something we know. Iraq has itself admitted that it has had mustard gas, nerve gas, anthrax, but Saddam won’t disclose. He won’t tell us where and how these weapons have been destroyed. We know this from the UN inspectors, so there is no doubt in my mind.”

Of course, pretty much everything that Rasmussen declared about Iraq’s WMD was wrong, but it succeeded in tricking the Danish parliament into voting to join Bush’s “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq. Rasmussen was later rewarded for his role in this aggressive war against Iraq by getting a plum job as NATO secretary general where he similarly has hyped alarms about Russia.

Yet, the New York Times ignores this history as this “newspaper of record” applies its endless double standards to ratchet up tensions in Syria and Ukraine.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon andbarnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.


Filed under: Information operations, Propaganda

Russian Propaganda Is As Crude And Ineffective As Ever

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Mark Adomanis Forbes Contributor

by Mark Adomanis

US and European Russia analysts of a more hawkish bent have long declared the need for the West to more aggressively counter Kremlin propaganda. Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss are the latest to make such a case, but many other high profile experts, such as The Economist’s Ed Lucas and former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, have made similar pleas over the past several years.

People who subscribe to this school of thought are, quite obviously, not identical in their interpretations. It is fair to say, though, that the “propaganda hawks” generally think that, absent a large-scale and concerted effort on the part of the United States and its European partners, an increasingly sophisticated propaganda campaign from Moscow will disorient, divide, and ultimately weaken resistance to Russian foreign policy goals.

While remaining contemptuous of the goals of Russian propaganda, the hawks generally show great respect for its efficacy. Weiss and Pomerantsev, for example, state that “the Kremlin successfully erodes the integrity of investigative and political journalism” and that it has been able to successfully exacerbate a growing “lack of faith in traditional media.” Other analysts have been far more alarmist in their predictions, suggesting that the Kremlin’s shadowy web of political operatives and media handlers could mount a near-total takeover of public opinion.

I’ve long been skeptical of these claims. Why? Because, when judged by its actual output, there is every indication that Kremlin propaganda remains amateurish and ineffective. The latest evidence for this was provided just the other day, when Russia state television publicized a “satellite image” from a “foreign intelligence service” that purported to show a Ukrainian fighter jet shooting down MH-17.

It was clear from the very beginning that the story stunk to high heaven. The sourcing was poor verging on non-existent, there was not even the most basic explanation of how the Russians could have possibly gotten their hands on such a piece of evidence nor any explanation of how a photograph could have been taken at the exact moment that a missile had been launched.

Just as you would expect, the whole thing started to fall apart almost instantly.Here’s how the Telegraph summarized what happened next:

Russian and international bloggers quickly pointed to what they said were a mass of discrepancies with the supposed satellite image, including the fact the markings on the side of the Boeing were in the wrong place for a Malaysia Airlines jet, the clouds in the picture were identical to those in a Google Earth image from 2012, and the image was not consistent with the flight path of the jet.

Russia’s ”sophisticated campaign of disinformation,” in this case, essentially consisted of elementary use of Google Maps, Adobe Photoshop, and a word processor, and resulted in a story that had a useful half-life of roughly an hour. Hardly the output of a conspiracy that will fundamentally alter Western public opinion.

Propaganda is, of course, bad and it deserves to be countered. But there doesn’t seem to be any hard evidence that the Russians are comprehensively outmaneuvering a tired and diffident West in an information war. Indeed the latest “sensational” fake news story was refuted almost instantaneously by all of the much-maligned mainstream press outlets. Wariness is, as always, justified, but the evidence to date suggests that, for all of the outcry it has attracted and for all of the money spent on creating it, Russian propaganda remains crude and ineffective.

Published at http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2014/11/15/russian-propaganda-is-as-crude-and-ineffective-as-ever/


Filed under: Information operations, Russia, Ukraine

Dakota Meyer not afraid of ISIS ‘cowards’ targeting him

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Marine Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer attends the People/Time Party On The Eve Of The White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 26, 2013 in Washington. (Photo: Michael Loccisano / Getty Images for Time Inc.)

By Jeff Schogol, Staff Writer1:01 p.m. EST December 3, 2014

Terrorists want to track down service members using social media, and Marine Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer is hoping they drop by his place because he would love to meet them.

“I take the threat seriously, but you are talking about a bunch of cowards,” Meyer told Military Times on Wednesday. “We’re not cowards. We’re the most feared nation on the face of the planet, and we’re worried about some radical group, some extremists that prey on the weak? I mean, that’s like sheep preying on lions.”

The FBI has reportedly warned service members to scrub their social media accounts of any information connecting them with the U.S. military to avoid being targeted by the Islamic State terrorist group, which wants to kill U.S. troops in their homes.

When asked by the website Scout.com about the FBI’s warning, Meyer said it would be a “dream come true” if Islamic State terrorists came to visit him.

“Hopefully one of these a**holes actually shows up,” Meyer told the website. “They’ll definitely get more than they want at my place!”

Meyer later tweeted an invitation to the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS, to join him at his home for some light reading.

Fellow Marine and Medal of Honor recipient Kyle Carpenter retweeted the picture.

Meyer told Military Times that he is confident he would be able to defend himself if the Islamic State took him up on his invitation.

“The wrong people to be targeting in the United States of America is our military, because [they are] the finest men and women on the face of the earth,” he said.

But Meyer stressed that he takes the threat to service members seriously and does not want to see the Islamic State show up at any other service members’ homes.

“I’m just tired of us as Americans living in fear,” he said. “I want people to know: Stand up to this; stand up to these people. I don’t want to put anybody else in harm. They can come after me.”

Published at http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2014/12/03/dakota-meyer-isis/19826769/


Filed under: Information operations, ISIS, Islamic State Tagged: Dakota Meyer, ISIS Taunt, MOH

A Response to General Allen

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A response to General Allen, by Pascale Combelles Siegel.

In response to US should target ISIS online: American General

I invited Pascale to write a response.  I like the way she thinks.  I like the way she writes. She has more than a decade of experience in this field.  Thank you, Pascale, for standing up to this challenge and doing a great job!


 

In response to General Allen’s call for targeting ISIS online.
General Allen is right on the diagnosis. Yes, the ISIS has been successful in promoting its brand and attracting support.  Yes, it has a very successful use of the Internet and social media. And yes, more needs to be done to tackle the ideological dimension behind the movement.
Yet, the general is also disingenuous. First, work is being done. Many countries involved in the anti-ISIS coalition do some work to contest the ideological space. They monitor radical websites, blogs, social media. They arrest propagandists.  They develop counter-propaganda material. They promote voices opposing or condemning the ISIS. Grassroots counter efforts have even been spurred (the #notinmyname campaign for example). Maybe these efforts are not enough. Maybe they are not quite right. Maybe they are not as effective as we wish or want.  But these efforts exist.
Second, this is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. This is not as easy as hopping on social media to highlight the brutality of ISIS’ rule.  It requires developing effective counter-narratives that address the fundamental motivation of why people are tempted by the ISIS’ message.  It thus requires a clear understanding of what might appeal to ISIS’ recruits and sympathizers. Listening to counter-terrorism officials, it is unclear that we have developed that understanding yet.  This is also difficult because the ISIS does not use the Internet and social media the way we (Western democracies) do. It does not use them as a marketplace where it presents its ideas and ‘consumers’ just buy-in. ISIS uses the Internet and Social Media to identify, stalk, lure, and indoctrinate prey. It is not just a contest of ideas.
Third, and to speak specifically of the US, we might be in a better position to fight this war if, for the past thirty years, we had not engineered a complete gut-out of our strategic communications assets. After the Cold War, Congress, in its infinite wisdom, killed the United States Information Agency. After defeating the Soviet Union, Congress could not imagine the rise of any other ideological competitor. That led to the dismantling of the human and organizational capabilities familiar with counter-propaganda. The State Department has never recovered from that and its very small counter-propaganda shop is not to the scale of the problem.  Meanwhile, in the US military, PSYOP/MISO capabilities fare no better. These forces have undergone repeated reforms in the past few decades but remain fairly small, overused, and tactically oriented. If given a choice, it seems the military will choose any piece of hardware over funding PSYOP/MISO or Public Affairs.  In IO, they will fund cyber over the soft side of perception management.

Yes, we should do more. The real questions are: who? how? and what’s the budget?

Pascale

Pascale Combelles Siegel
Insight Through Analysis, LLC
(ph) 571-594-6453
pcsiegel@ita-online.net
LinkedIN:  • www.linkedin.com/in/pascalecsiegel/

 


Filed under: Information operations, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Strategic Communication, Strategic Narratives

Frequency in Influence

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How effectively is the BBG reaching their target audience?

How often do you recommend a message be presented to your target audience?

For this topic I borrow from the advertising industry.

Why The Frequency Of Your Message Matters (Again And Again)” contemplates the subjects of consistency and continuity.  When corporations blew their annual budget and advertised once, say, during the Superbowl, for many they did not notice a Return on Investment.  Their numbers remained low.  If they advertised three times, there was not a significant uptick. But the number seven seemed to be the magic number for when the message would resonate with the audience.

Does the same work for marketing? Why Frequency Matters in Marketing addresses the same issue but gives less specificity in numbers.  They say you are making an impact if you reach your audience 2 to 4 times within a one month period.  More important that frequency, contrary to the title, may be the following:

  • Is your message creative?
  • How compelling is your message?
  • Is your message memorable?
  • How consistent is your message?

I almost imploded when I read that, the author completely ignores the subject of the article and redirects the reader.  *argh* Because this is a blog, from time to time I am allowed to deviate from the main topic but the article is supposed to be a professional discourse on the topic of frequency.

Finally, the subject which gives me heartburn at the BBG, the US’ Broadcasting Board of Governors.  “Reach vs. Frequency“.

Reach is the number of people you touch with your marketing message or the number of people that are exposed to your message. Frequency is the number of times you touch each person with your message. In a world of unlimited resources you would obviously maximize both reach and frequency. However, since most of us live in the world of limited resources we must often make decisions to sacrifice reach for frequency or vice versa.

The BBG often presents they “reach” many people, for instance: “BBG Audience Reach Doubles In Ukraine“, but there is no mention of frequency.

Going back to the Reach vs. Frequency article, “Reach without Frequency = Wasted Money” (emphasis in the original).  The BBG is run by mass communications professionals, for the most part. Their world revolves around reach.  Whenever I sit in their briefings, however, whenever I am presented with a datapoint involving reach, I have always asked (albeit to myself), “how effectively are you reaching the target audience”?  To this question I have never received an answer, not even a bad answer.  I have even asked *gasp*, what are your “measures of effectiveness” – again to myself but now in public

In the world of governmental information and influence, how do we measure frequency and effectiveness?


For the past five years or so I have asked for any studies or reference works which show scientific analysis and recommendations based on facts and figures for how the BBG works.  The same for IO.  To date everything – SC, PD and IO – we do is based on a gut feeling and “experience”.  At least advertising and marketing are based on rock solid market studies and effectiveness (ROI) analysis.  Two and a half years ago, USAToday, in Tom VandenBrook’s now infamous hit piece on IO, U.S. ‘info ops’ programs dubious, costly, questioned the ROI of IO in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The BBG should have taken this as a wakeup call and addressed this problem.

Now I ask: How effectively is the BBG reaching their target audience?


Filed under: Information operations, Public Diplomacy, Strategic Communication

Joint Centre for Control and Coordination (JCCC)

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I received the following today, which doesn’t make a lot of sense:

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is not a participant in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) in eastern Ukraine. However, some Russian press outlets regularly report that the JCCC is a joint operation with the OSCE, which is untrue. The US has protested that members of the JCCC sometimes pose as OSCE observers, wear OSCE patches and use OSCE vehicles.

The JCCC is:

The joint centre set up by Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in East Ukraine will coordinate the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in the country, the Trilateral Contact Group said on Saturday.- http://itar-tass.com/en/world/752774

What are the rumors about the JCCC?  Who is supplying the personnel?

The implication from this report is that the JCCC is a de facto proxy for the Russians but I cannot find any information on this, can you help?

Just a word of advice for those searching Google for more information.  I found doing a search using “centre” versus “center” much more productive…  Darn Queen’s Engish.

This question is for you, dear readers!  Help!


Filed under: Information operations, Russia, Ukraine

Mass Hypnosis, Mind Control and other Secret Government Projects

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This is blog #998.

Ladies and gentlemen,

As I research government influence, information operations, strategic communication and public diplomacy, I often run across claims that the US government is exercising mind control over the population.  Mass hypnosis if you will.

There are some very outlandish claims without a shred of evidence.

This is about as conspiracy theory as it gets, there is no basis for believing this. I live and work in the Washington DC area, spent 26 years in the Army, nine in Special Forces, much in Military Intelligence and have tons of friends in the US intelligence community. My friends, this is not happening and can’t happen.

The US government is not nearly as good as many say it is, and you probably don’t think it is doing a good job in anything. Why, therefore, would you believe the government has this super-secret program that can manipulate masses of people?  If we had such a program don’t you think we would tell Russia to get out of Ukraine and give back Crimea?  Don’t you think we’d tell Kim Jong Un to get real, join the real world and bring North Korea into the 21st century?  Don’t you think we’d tell ISIS to just stop running around being stupid and making stuff up about Islam that isn’t true?  Oh, by the way, stop killing people. Yeah you, IS.

Propaganda. Mind control. These fall within my field of professional expertise. There is a whole bunch of theories and ideas on propaganda but little of it even borders on actually influencing other people, let alone entire nations or other governments.

As for mind control, it’s not happening. I can’t convince my wife to make me breakfast most of the time, yet somehow you think parts of the US government have some expertise in mastering mind control? This blog is closing in on 1,000 blogs about influence, information operations, strategic communication, public diplomacy, and propaganda. I’ve been working in this field for 20+ years and involved with National Security for 35+ years. It’s just not happening.

Take a moment now and think about this.

Oh, and if you see the name Alex Jones, run away.  Don’t pass go. Don’t collect $200.  He’s bad juju.

There, I influenced you.  That’s all I have.


Filed under: Information operations, Propaganda, Public Diplomacy, Strategic Communication

EW Weekly Report – 5 Dec 2014

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Blog #999

Electronic Warfare Weekly Report for 5 December 2014

ARMY

Army Testing Improved Electronic Jamming Technology

Military.com, 2 Dec 14, Kris Osborn

The Army is testing a series of new electronic warfare technologies designed to address a wider range of threat signals in the electromagnetic spectrum, service officials said. Electronic warfare can be used for a wide range of combat functions to include jamming or thwarting an electronic signal used to detonate an IED, identifying enemy communications or electronic signals, and attacking or disabling enemy electromagnetic signals. The new EW technologies are being engineered to detect, respond to and operate in a wider range of frequencies to provide commanders with more offensive and defensive options. They are being designed as upgradable hardware and software that can accommodate new threat information as emerging signals are learned, Army officials said.

Laser defense system under test at White Sands

DVIDS, 1 Dec 14, John Hamilton

A possible future of Army laser weapons is undergoing testing on White Sands Missile Range. The High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator, or HEL-MD, is a proof of concept weapon system designed to demonstrate how a laser system can be developed into a tactical, mobile platform that can be deployed and used in the field. Not an adopted Army weapon system, the HEL-MD is a test bed that is being used in various test environments and scenarios to evaluate the capabilities and determine what a system like it can do, and how it can be further developed. “This is an Army science and technology program, it is a demonstrator. It’s not a fieldable system yet, but it is truly a test article for the follow on to a potential program of record,” said Gary Hunter, test operations lead from the U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command. The testing is being conducted at WSMR’s High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility, or HELSTF, as well as at a few specialized locations on the range with HELSTF support.

JOINT

High-tech monitoring keeps U.S. secure

New Jersey Star-Ledger, 30 Nov 14, Unattributed

The digital age has made online information widely available both for good and bad purposes. When it comes to the nation’s security, monitoring, tracking, securing and analyzing digital data is a key factor in defending intelligence networks. Creating a line of cyber warfare defense is the U.S. Navy’s responsibility, which has a community charged with mastering the capabilities, tools and techniques required to effectively collect, process, analyze and apply information.

Airstrikes Continue Against ISIL in Syria, Iraq

DoD.mil, 1 Dec 14, U.S. Central Command

U.S. military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria using fighter, bomber and remotely-piloted aircraft to conduct 27 airstrikes Nov. 28 through today, U.S. Central Command officials reported today. Separately, officials said, U.S. and partner-nation military forces conducted 28 airstrikes against ISIL terrorists in Iraq Nov. 28 through today using attack, fighter, and remotely-piloted aircraft.

Pentagon to Begin Drafting Technology Roadmap

National Defense Magazine, 3 Dec 14, Sandra I. Erwin

The Defense Department is seeking to recapture the technology magic of decades past that propelled the United States to become the world’s only superpower. The Pentagon’s new effort to spur innovation is casting a wide net in hopes that outsiders in the private sector and academia can help inject new thinking into weapon programs and investment plans. “We recognize that all good ideas don’t originate in this building,” said Stephen P. Welby, deputy assistant secretary of defense for systems engineering.

GLOBAL

Inside North Korea’s elite cyberwarfare unit

CNBC, 1 Dec 14, Heesun Wee

As Sony Pictures looks for a possible North Korea link to a cyberattack, there’s a nagging question. Does the poor country even have advanced technology capabilities to infiltrate a large corporation? The answer is yes. The isolated, communist nation has been pursuing cyber-strategies as far back as the 1980s. North Korea more recently has targeted a bank, university and media websites, according to prosecutors. The rogue state possesses drones and electronic warfare tools to create digital quiet zones. The regime also nurtures and trains its brightest to become cyberterrorists—based in North Korea and possibly even China.

China’s Poly Group unveils WB-1 directed-energy crowd-control weapon

Jane’s Defence Weekly, 27 Nov 14, Richard D Fisher Jr.

The China Poly Group Corporation used the recent Airshow China 2014 to reveal its WB-1 millimeter-wave beam- projecting non-lethal anti-riot system. Similar to Raytheon’s Active Denial System (ADS), the Poly WB-1 projects the millimeter-wave beam to heat water molecules just below the skin, resulting in intense pain. Chinese reports note that it has an effective range of 80 m but with increased power its range can be increased to 1 km. The United States revealed the ADS in 2007. While it was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, and military commanders repeatedly requested its use, the system has yet to be used in combat due to fears of fuelling enemy propaganda.

Electronic Warfare Battalion officer: We are in a race against time

The Jerusalem Post, 3 Dec 14, Yaakov Lappin

The IDF’s offensive Electronic Warfare Battalion is in a “race against time” against Israel’s enemies, a senior officer told The Jerusalem Post. The race is between the battalion, which is tasked with disrupting command and control and communications capabilities, and the terrorist organizations and enemy states that are upgrading their equipment continuously. “We saw our good capabilities in action during Operation Protective Edge,” the officer said last week. “Between wars, there is a race against time – a technological race. The other side swaps or upgrades its equipment. We have to follow these changes. After we complete an operation, we can’t rely on the assumption that nothing is changing.”

Report: Iran Hackers Infiltrated Airlines, Energy, Defense Firms

Defense News, 3 Dec 14, Joe Gould

An Iranian hacker group has breached airlines, energy companies, defense firms and even the US Navy-Marine Corps Intranet, according to the US cyber security firm Cylance. The firm says these attacks — dubbed Operation Cleaver — showcase a dangerous leap forward in Tehran’s cyber skills as it seeks to retaliate against Western cyber attacks on its nuclear program. The goal of these attacks was apparently infiltration and information gathering, with motives beyond intellectual property theft. “After tracking the Operation Cleaver team for over two years, we’re led to the inexorable conclusion: The government of Iran, and particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is backing numerous groups and front entities to attack the world’s critical infrastructure,” Cylance said in its 86-page report, released Tuesday.

Russia Aims to Cut NASA Dependence With Modernized Space Tracking Ship

The Moscow Times, 3 Dec 14, Unattributed

The Russian navy has begun modernizing a space tracking ship that will allow Moscow to monitor and communicate with its spacecraft in orbit without relying on U.S. help, news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday. The ship, called the Marshal Krylov, is the last of the Soviet Union’s sprawling tracking fleet, which was dismembered after the collapse of communism. Although Russia covers nearly one-eighth of the world’s landmass, its ability to communicate with satellites and spacecraft is limited to brief windows when they pass over Russian territory. To communicate with the International Space Station, for example, Russia’s space agency depends on the goodwill of NASA, which shares its communication and tracking network.

Pentagon Worries That Russia Can Now Outshoot U.S. Stealth Jets

The Daily Beast, 4 Dec 14, Dave Majumdar

American fighter planes are the fastest, most maneuverable jets in the world. But their weapons are becomingly increasingly obsolete—and that has some in the U.S. Air Force spooked. High flying and fast, the F-22 Raptor stealth jet is by far the most lethal fighter America has ever built. But the Raptor—and indeed all U.S. fighters—have a potential Achilles’ heel, according to a half-dozen current and former Air Force officials. The F-22’s long-range air-to- air missiles might not be able to hit an enemy aircraft, thanks to new enemy radar-jamming techniques. The issue has come to the fore as tensions continue to rise with Russia and a potential conflict between the great powers is once again a possibility—even if a remote one.

OF INTEREST

Cyberattacks in Space: We Must Defend the Final Frontier

Newsweek, 27 Nov 14, David Livingstone

On November 12, The Washington Post reported that the U.S. satellite weather network had suffered an electronic attack, forcing cyber-security teams to “seal off data vital to disaster planning, aviation, shipping and scores of other crucial uses.” The attack resulted in an “unscheduled maintenance” of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s data feed for weather forecasts. Although the maintenance required had only a small impact on weather forecasts, the hack has highlighted a vulnerability in satellite systems that reaches far beyond the meteorological community. There are now many hundreds of satellites orbiting the Earth, with many built and controlled by commercial concerns, possessing capabilities that hitherto have been found only in the defense or special intelligence communities. The U.S. government’s recent decision to loosen its export control restrictions on satellite technologies to allow private sector capture of 25cm-resolution imagery shows the importance of the market forces in play.

Detroit power failure raises alarms across the country 

USA Today, 2 Dec 14, William Welch

The power failure that plunged Detroit’s schools, fire stations, traffic signals and public buildings into darkness Tuesday reflects a larger problem of aging electrical infrastructure around the country that has worried experts for years. The chaos of unexpected power loss is all too familiar for people who work in downtown Detroit. Its aging municipal system was responsible for major power failures that caused blackouts in 2010, 2011 and 2013. But the problem is not isolated to one city. A series of federal and private studies raise alarm bells about the power distribution system nationally, saying it is plagued by aging equipment with high failure rates, obsolete system structures and outdated engineering.

House passes bill to mitigate threat of EMP attacks

The Hill, 1 Dec 14, Cristina Marcos

The House on Monday passed a bill to require the Department of Homeland Security to include the threat of electromagnetic pulse events in national planning scenarios. Passed by voice vote, H.R. 3410 would direct the agency to conduct a public education campaign about the threat of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) events and authorize research into its prevention and mitigation. An EMP is a burst of electromagnetic energy caused by a nuclear weapon or solar storms.

McCain Ready To Tackle Cyber Threats, Cost-Plus Contracts as SASC Chairman 

Defense News, 3 Dec 14, John T. Bennett

Sen. John McCain is 78 years old. But that doesn’t mean cyberspace escapes him. The Arizona Republican and incoming Senate Armed Services Committee chairman says in all his years in Washington — 31 total — the cyber issue holds a special distinction. McCain told a forum here Wednesday that of all the meetings he has attended on a long list of issues, none has less action happened afterwards than on threats emanating from cyberspace. That’s why, when asked by a conference moderator about his top agenda items for his coming SASC chairmanship, cyber ranks among the top three.


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