Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you by your television provider. On tuesday, Intelligence Experts talked about Disinformation Campaigns and Political Warfare during the coronavirus pandemic. They explore tools used to spread this information and the best ways to fight against these campaigns. The center for strategic and International Studies hosted this event. Hi, everyone. Welcome to this discussion on disinformation and Political Warfare in the age of covid19. Have two outstanding experts the Senior Vice President for europe, asia and the arctic. She is the director of the Europe Program and the author of two outstanding studies on aspects of what we are going to talk about today. Have questions going to the link for this and you can ask questions. We will talk for group for 20 to 25 minutes and go to your questions. There is a component where you can ask questions. And the director of the Transnational Press object. Lets get into the Current Situation with information disinformation and then we are going to get into a little bit of history of playing off of thomass recent book active measures. We will look at the future. Start with the present and moved to the past and then get into the future thomas, why dont we start with you. Russian, chinese and u. S. Activities today, how would you characterize what is going on around the kremlin . That is tough first question ,ecause we are seeing things politicians and top officials from china and also from the United States sometimes trying spin the covid19 question, with the origin of the virus. I hesitate to call that disinformation or active measures because we are not looking at the early days. We are not looking at a system. We are looking at spontaneous spinning and lying in order to sell salvage reputations and present careers. There is a difference between intelligence, bureaucracies running up operations, access measures, Disinformation Campaigns like what we have seen in 2016 as this continues. You define how would active measures and disinformation and how to distinguish it from political leaders lying. In my book i tackle that question up front. What i am looking at in the book measuresly is active and the output of active theures is a term in 1960s. They found disinformation is not helping because it focuses the mind too much on the distinction between fault between forgery and the truth. Active measures are active when they tap into fears and existing frictions and cleavages, and then amplify something that is already existing. You usually have some element of limited to the identity of the source of information. A kgb or cia message. In some cases, some of the most important cases, there is no forgery. Some active measures a wrongful or misinformation. Information. Finally these operations when you see the memos of how their planned. That theyn objective want to achieve. Thanks. Heather, you have been watching that watching very closely what is going on in europe and how some of the lies have been spun coming out of capitals are being used in europe. Can you talk a little bit about and how chinese the europeans are doing. Heather thanks so much, seth. I think the good news here is your has been increasingly influencebout malign disinformation operations, and the creation of a Strategic Committee kitchens office has been alert to this disinformation. They are identifying the problem. In some ways, it demonstrates for europe on chinese the introduction of chinese disinformation which is been a real challenge politically here and of course the controversy in april where an initial draft and a report that was highlighted was eventually watered down a little bit because of criticism from the Chinese Government and i think again and again eu is a countering the political navigation of highlighting this information and getting this information. Europe is much more attuned to it. Had an even have historical backward looking attempts of russian disinformation that go back to 2015 in germany and in the lead up to the 2017 are limit elections and how russia is hacking into whether it is Angela Merkels emails or the christian democrats unions emails or the german parliament. We saw it in 2017 with the president ial french president ial election. They are much more attuned and alert. It is kind of the same. The challenge is the disinformation is being used as exploiting our government and leaders and our society in presenting. That is what they are amplifying. There different objective for russian and chinese disinformation for sure. I was given the report card for europe progress. They are highlighting the issue. They are recognizing it and doing what they can but the politics gets very difficult. The chinese are making this very politically difficult for europe. What are examples that you are seeing. What are examples of this surrounding covid in europe . Whether it is the origins of covid . Or other aspects . What do you think are the predominant types of misinformation disinformation, lies or other kinds of activity . Let me talk about russian use and if you move quickly to the chinese disinformation. Again, we are seeing similar patterns in the u. S. You can almost take this as transatlantic disinformation. The use of fear and confusion, so it plays on both. It also creates this is what i would argue great attempts of some classic russian disinformation going back into the 1980s operation denver and suggesting the receipt through a very successful Disinformation Campaign that a virus was caused by a u. S. Weapons, a biological laboratory. It was the cia who did it. You are seeing that coming through. The origins perhaps not coming from this is from u. S. Biological agents. There is a center in georgia which is to help discover these types of vaccines, russian disinformation, that is where the virus came from, the republic of georgia. Using the antivaccine group. Andsing groups to concern amplify their concerns, entering their chat rooms to create confusion. ,e are seeing the u. S. Origin the fanning of farm rights, extremist voices, conspiracy theorists to create that confusion, lack of trust and institutions. Double leave what you are hearing from authorities. That is chinese information buckets are slightly different. This is focused on trying to prevent criticism of the origins of the virus from wuhan, certainly. You are seeing a much more aggressive chinese posture, particularly the medically. If the government keeps any criticism, there is very focused effort. Shipment of humanitarian supplies they want to get credit for that. With the medical supplies you cannot criticize. The russians have used supplies both in the u. S. The u. S. Purchase russian medical supplies. To russiaust sent u. S. Medical supplies. The delivery of a russian Field Hospital to hit italy has some employeesn concerns, may have been intelligence specialists. Theres a lot of mistrust on both sides even when there is a humanitarian gesture that should be positive. It has a doubleedged sword. Let me turn to you about the medium that countries are using today. Most people are going to be aware of information or disinformation put out on social media. I was wondering if i can look back to heathers response. Is that ok, seth . Was then denver which kgb also codename for the infection. Sometimes this is the term. Aids isg the myth that an american bioweapon developed. It evolved out of another operation in south east asia. The goal was to distract from chemical off biological weapons and bring new Development Inside the soviet union at the time. On operation is fascinating a number of levels. One of them is they have picked up the rumor, the Conspiracy Theory that aids is an american creation. They didnt come up with it themselves. They picked it up from american conspiracy theorists in the lgbtq at that time called Gay Community where it was making the rounds already. That leads to two fascinating observations. One, sometimes the most ective active measures that is in fact also the case. The second one is imagine you are the kgb officer writing that memo. So you are a partner from germany asking them to help you spread the myth. One is, you are telling them to do it and they will not understand what is disinformation and what is correct information because it is a blend. What you see internally is a thatof self disinformation large bureaucracies when they engage in these campaigns over tors will lose the ability clearly see what is false information and what is true information. Because they are amplifying something that is already disinformation, they will often fall for temptation to exaggerate their effect. Because it is impossible to say where the original Conspiracy Theory ends and where their own amplification begins. The effect is self disinformation and self exaggeration. Eventreates a pernicious because that leaves bureaucracies to believe that they are doing here is very impactful, although it may not be. I would provoked you and our viewers here by observing that we run the risks here in the United States and the way that we discussed in 2016 to the effect of what happened for the intelligence agencies involved. Mean overstate the effectiveness of Russian Operations . Yeah. Historically the temptation was the perpetrators exaggerated their own effect internally for bureaucratic reasons. Usually the victims of didntrmation operations really play along and exaggerating the effect. In 2016, we see the rather extra extraordinaryther mueller investigation. I mean, since the election has been a hot news item, we run the risk of exaggerating and going and doing their work for them. I want to come back in a second to operation denver, thomas. Let me go to heather. Thomas raised the issue of 2016 elections. I want to give you a chance to provide your perspective on that including russian tensions. Thomas is issue of overstating the significant significance. Heather i think for me it is important to take a quick step back. Doctrine. Litary it is called new generation. It is warfare. Campaignsongoing intended to overfocus on the election period because an election is an opportunity to sow seeds of distrust. These are ongoing campaigns. The seeds of which have implanted years before. Sometimes different tools are used. Sometimes they do not need to be used. With the strategy of influence to break the internal coherence of the democratic system, so it is break, faith and trust between the governed and the government and institutions. Why is that important . Because russian disinformation, that is what makes the United States exceptional is democracy, it is constitution. When you break faith with that, you are no longer exceptional, youre the equivalent of russia. Without that distinction and with a deeply divided government and people, you are a country and a government that can be much more accommodative to russian interest. Theres is a real purpose to this. With an election, there is an important moment. These are ongoing efforts to divide society. I agree with thomas, sometimes ive always felt that if we handle this with confidence, with our allies and partners, we can overcome this, because it is the weaknesses that are we that we are offering in the russians are amplifying. If we heal our cleavages, they will have a lot less to amplify. We can talk about russian tactics until we are blue in the face, but what it comes down to is making sure we are healing the divisions within our society, and then we can turn with a projection of a positive agenda and confidence, but the russians fear our most is our democracy working in russia. To return back to that positive spirit. We cannot give them too much spirit. And for me this is in the u. S. Context and there is quite a bit of division in europe as well it is very hard to write now detect where we stop and where the russians begin. We are delegitimizing our own election today. Our elected leaders are saying daily that this election is going to be rigged. You dont need to have a foreign actor helping you anymore, because you are already delegitimizing your democracy and leaders and institutions when you cripple the judicial system and law enforcement. You have done so much damage that the russians can certainly amplify that. They are. They are using farright extremism to do that today. We are already working quite well in that path. It is very hard and in some ways we need to over judge the russians. I believe a lot of the healing and work that needs to be done andithin our own Society European society to heal some of these longstanding positions. Thanks. If i can come back briefly to in part, because some have argued there are interesting differences with what we have seen coming out of tehran, beijing, moscow and even washington, about the origins of covid19. Some have argued that it was manufactured in u. S. Laboratories. U. S. Has done the same with china, that it was manufactured in chinese laboratories. From your perspective, how was this similar or different from other campaigns . Yeah, a pandemic and aids was a pandemic in the early 1980s. It is of course the best raw material that you can wish for her and active measures. Why . Because people are generally genuinely scared. Theres a lot of divisions. Run an all you need to operation into exploited. Want tocase, i would let a little bit of time pass. When i wrote my book in the book is very ambitious. He goes from throughout the it goes from the entire cold war up to 2016. As we transition into the 1990s and with the intelligence archives closed. Documentation after 1990. Versions, output digital forensics, for example. You can see the fog rise. It becomes much harder to really come to high confidence conclusions about objectives, about success, etc. I think it is important to declare today that what we see that we do not have the visibility. We dont have visibility into the semicovert operations. Seth thomas i think it would be helpful for folks listening to perspectiveroader of how this has been done historically. Can you talk about the cold war cases. In your book you walk through a number of them, swastikas in germany, racial engineering, the whole piece counsel. Counsel. What are the similarities . Thomas lets talk but the 1959 1960 campaign that the kgb put on in west germany and around the world. It started at the newly reopened synagogue in cologne that had been reopened in september 1959. Christmas 1859, swastikas 1959, swastikas were dogged on the synagogue. Within a shorter amount of time, based on nine hundred antisemitic incidents within a space of a few weeks in germany alson france and u. K. , but in the United States in 50 different cities including new york. Cases. Ia coverage of the germany was seen as regressing into the dark times that many people thought would be behind germany. Goodperation had very evidence of this. It was an active measure. It was a provocation on the part of kg p to exploit the simmering trauma that germany strength to get out of. When i talk about this operation today, i am german myself, there will be germans to say, wait a minute, you are saying that germany needed russias help our antisemiticommit acts in the 1950s. Are you kidding . That is the point of active measures, to take something that is existing and amplify it. This campaign is the perfect example. And theres akly degree of speculation but i am confident, kgb was quickly not in a position anymore to distinguish the fake antisemitic acts from the real acts that were provoked. We know this because even east berlin there were antisemitic incidents that were draped across the wall against their own interests. This is why active measures are called active measures. They are active and they will actively shape reality. That is one of the most extraordinary examples that we see. I also want to highlight one point, and that is around the time of that operation in the early 1960s to late 1960s. We see a deescalation in the west. We see cia pulling out of the Political Warfare. Fewer forgeries, no more aggressive Front Organizations whichlin, for example, was a thing in the 1950s. We see escalation in the soviet bloc. That is a really important observation. We have no moral equivalency. You cannot excel at democracy and deescalation the same time. Seth good point. Heather, leads me to a broad question for you. ,s you look towards the future and this comes out of one of the questions that one of our viewers has asked. Do we see evidence of close u. S. Eu cooperation . There is an underlying issue also is there is substantial disagreement between many European Countries and the u. S. , but there is a broader ue when we look at the hungary, for example. How do you see u. S. Do collaboration . Is the u. S. And eu who should be cooperating the most closely. For russian disinformation, europe has been a laboratory for decades. In some ways, what caught us by surprise in 2016 is we had the audition we had the audacity and saying how could russia be so audacious and bring those tactics to the u. S. . This is exactly where we need to be together, Intelligence Services working together and really political leaders ensuring that there is a strong sense of transparency and trust. Trust of institutions and leaders and transparency into what government is doing. As thomas said, most of the disinformation is pulling into those threads that have already exist that have already existed. Our government to government linkages are the highest level. There is not the level that we should be thinking about. The future, and this is what is the example of hungary is quite perfect. That is where ongoing Disinformation Campaigns, or i would say influence activities which pulls government or leaders towards their benefactors. In hungary, close relationship between the Prime Minister and jinpingt putin and xi allows in some ways those governments to work against when orropean union means that may take additional efforts to perhaps Block Russian activities. If a member state or to have already been compromised, they are not going to allow that policy to move forward which breaks the internal coherence of the European Union when one or two members have made the decision to go against it. It makes it extremely difficult. When one starts following, then you see others moving in similar directions. A precedent is set. That is my other fear that hungry hungary is an early adopter of trends that other eu members, smaller ones in particular, may gravitate towards. It is and in normas challenge. Seth thomas, one of the questions from one of the viewers is back to a question i asked earlier. It. Me reask what are the tools that government use in the meetings that the use . Pastou pointed out in the point it out in the past . Not just social media. How do you see options available . Thomas the active measure with a is very large box lot of different tools in it. Leaking files is historically one of the most effective tools, because as soon as you have information that somebody is trying to hide, the correspondence or secret information, that of course is high news value. What we often see historically, and we see that clear in ukraine in 2014. There are many instances of leaks that contain forgery. Forgery that is something we should respect in the future. Dont think leaks are clean and pure material that can be reported and be used for news coverage. They are likely to contain some form of forgery which means you cant just factcheck one thing and then conclude that the rest is correct. You have to factcheck every single detail based on leaked information. Another tool in the active measures toolset, the unlinking and foraging is Front Organizations. We see Front Organizations existing for a very long time, more than a decade, evolving sometimes out in the semiopen. Sometimes there are rumors going around. That is the case of sore american some american organizations in germany. Could beanization publishing houses, magazines, activist groups. Seth would you include the World Peace Council . World Peace Council is one of the betterknown ones. I have several that i discussed in the book with a lot of archival evidence. There was one that was run by cia in the 1950s in the pr office, kramer. Because is fascinating we have the full project files so we can talk about it and a lot of details. It tells the story of how the cia controlled it and lost control. Mention notanted to just Front Organizations but this culture of anonymity that the internet unleashed in the early 2000. It literally the unanimous the anonymous was a dream come true for active measures, four disinformation operators. You could suddenly hide accurate leaked information behind the virtual facade of an anonymous activist group. It is almost a mix of a Front Organization and a new form of internet culture. We see that weird convergence of internet culture and active measure after 2013. Good. I am rolling through some of your questions now. Heather, im going to direct to you which is, how significant is disinformation during this covid19, in terms of political gain, including the reelection of officials . Obviously, this is relevant to the u. S. As well as other countries. Heather i would say, not just information but performance. Government performance is probably the biggest game changer quite frankly in terms of political games. The disinformation dynamic, for me this comes back to trust and credibility, and you see a wide range of political responses to how they are dealing with, again, trust, transparency, credibility. Whether science is involved, some political figures have used science to shape their views and their statements. The information they are sharing, others have not. Some have hidden behind it. Some have gotten out in front of it. This information is in ella disinformation is an element of it. Politically, i would put it into the scapegoating area. What we are seeing is some political leaders, because they have been challenged by the response is trying to scapegoat. This gets into the ecosystem of the far extremist conspiracy laden voices. Personalities,e the bill gates, george soros, the antisemitic tropes that are coming. Blaming the other for a lack of response. That to me is a growing sense of disinformation that citizens will have to weigh when it comes time to hold the election. One other comment to thomass note, when i think in the future what we are going to see if this is going to become much more organic to the voices. This is where i think the evolution of tactics of russian disinformation in 2016, it was you could see the russians. They were paid in rubles. We are seeing where pacific specific campaigns, disinformation and private chat rooms. They are becoming much more organic to the voice of their society which is enhancing the effort, because they know the issues that will exacerbate societal tensions. It is going to be harder to combat as we go, particularly in the u. S. Where First Amendment is so important. The lines are so blurred from that which is amplified by russian. Amplified by russia. Heather, just a followup for you. This comes from one of the questions that somebody asked. Can you talk briefly to the degree that we understand it, what organization, like the gr like theolved gru, are involved. What are the tactics are using . How do we educate people in the u. S. . Heather such multilayered questions. Again, this is where the Mueller Report and other investigations from the 2016 election are good. We do have a sense of knowing the cyber units within the gru which are responsible for the hacking, the forgery of documents, the interests Internet Research agency and other amplifiers of messages. I think we know where they are coming from. It comes back to the education of the citizens. Literacyg greater efforts, particularly when it comes to this testing. Getting something from a friend and youre not sure it is right, how do we fact check it . Where are sources of information . That needs to be happening at the grade school level. Children need to be taught this. Adults need to be kept abreast. We need Public Service announcements to help people discern disinformation. No it, recognize it. Be able to combat it. Population knowing the tactics and the tools. He gets back to exploiting the week it gets back to see exploiting the weaknesses. Amplify ands to accentuate those divisions. Healing the divisions and making more alert the actors trying to exacerbate those divisions will go a long way. A more bipartisan, more Community Unified effort would be externally helpful. Listening to people that you respect, not necessarily the top levels of government. Seth some of you, for example. Heather community leaders, listening to them. Thomas can i jump in . Seth yeah. Thomas going to provoke a few viewers did a lot of americans today think the Russian Election interference of 2016 resulted in donald trump coming president. Becoming president. Basically the russians install donald trump through their sophisticated tools. The evidence we have does not back up that conclusion. It is an unknowable fact to what extent the Russian Election interference had an impact on donald winning the election. We have a lot of people in the u. S. , especially on the democrat side have an emotional issue with the president. Probably many republicans as well. H the default to quickly extreme disinformation. I am thinking probably foreign influence, certainly back in 2016 and actually 2017, that was a huge tendency. Of course, that is a risk. Thatld go as far as saying our perception of russian interference is creating more of a problem than the russian interference itself. Why . Because if a democracy starts blaming domestic problems on foreign interference, then it is what countries like russia and turkey are doing, laming domestic ills on foreign interference. One question that is a followup, thomas, for you is, how did both the soviet union and u. S. Respond . You talk about the actions that they took during the cold war, including the aids campaign, some kgb,a efforts. How do they respond to Disinformation Campaigns coming from the other side . What are lessons that we take for today . Thomas that is a difficult question because the response to changes over time. It is different in the u. S. Versus the soviet union over time. In the 1960s, the soviet response was escalation. We can see a dynamic of u. S. Political warfare provoking more soviet disinformation active measures operations. What you see later is in the 1980s, the u. S. Government, the cia especially, to the desk to a degree fbi as well, start pushing to publish information through congress that exposes ongoing soviet active measures in great detail. Some of this material is extort neri research. Is extraordinary research. Journalists expected to be tricked in the 1980s. Sometimes they were successfully tricked. They turned the disinformation story into the story itself. Seth thomas, what is the challenge . Are you confident that you are seeing that . Thomas i am, for example, confident. Some positive trends and if you problematic trends. A lot of people are expecting disinformation today. It is still possible to make information and have it covered. It is a little harder than it used to be. I was watching it in real time and it was very bad. There were so many mistakes. Still we are relatively successful. That is different today. Wikileaks is no longer an object they can easily exploit. A lot of people are expecting it today but their Operational Security is getting better. Look at it from the point of view of gru, they are up against towering expectations and against social Media Companies that are much better prepared against public and a press corps in the United States is much better prepared. In a way the u. S. Is, despite its extraordinary polarization, a harder target than it was in 2016. Interesting as we move into president ial election season. You get the lastquestion, heather. I am going to pick up another question. That is the big question on democracy and democratic values. Supporting covid19 withs china has supported covid19 with positive reinforcement by sending medical supplies to europe. The question gets to, what democratic shouldnt should not be doing. In some ways it is going back to basics. Back to, if the essentials of transparency of democratic governments and institutions and rebuilding trust between citizens. That has been waning, both of those have been waiting for a great deal of time. We have to have the urgency of rebuilding because foreign act theres, state and nonstate, are using them. Its cheaper to disassemble a democracy then fight a conventional conflict. This is a cheaper variation of that. We have to go back to basics. You need and informs an informed citizenry. Informed and to be take personal responsibility for their own security, their information security, cybersecurity. This is how we protect our. Emocracy everyone has a heart to play, everyone has their role in not sharing this information to make sure they have trusted factual information to make informed decisions. Back to basics moment on china, in some ways the provision of humanitarian assistance during a crisis of this magnitude should be warmly accepted. China was certainly sending this strictly to European Countries that were the most devastated, italy, spain, france, elsewhere. They had two issues. The supplies themselves were faulty. Equipment was not up to standard so they could not be used. When governments were criticizing the quality of that this is when chinese diplomacy became incredibly communistism of the party or their leadership and their gifts positive softe diplomacy of sending medical assistance and humanitarian aid andended up backfiring created a heightened awareness that even the provision of humanitarian supplies came with some Strings Attached when you could not criticize the Chinese Government. It has not been well received necessarily, but for those who were in need and some of the equipment was important at that moment. Bey tuned, this is going to a much more dynamic era with dynamic diplomacy in europe. The fact that the u. S. Is not working more closely with allies to prevent that is unfortunately creating opportunities for chinese disinformation to be more successful than it should be. Thomas, do you want to weighin . The temptation here for the United States intelligence will bey at some point to give in and try to take the gloves off. What does it mean to take the gloves off here . Occasionally when i speak with people in the National Security establishment in Different Countries they think active measures should be countered with active measures, fight fire with fire. Incentive for the Intelligence Community in the u. S. Is the right one. The incentive is, understand facts driven analysis and what would happen and how this pandemic started and how china is using its leverage in europe to put other governments under pressure. Fact driven reporting and assessment and analysis. The incentive structure in the white house appears to be of ent, lots risk is at some point over time we are seeing signs that the Intelligence Community will become more politicized and put er pressure in an ideological environment like communist Intelligent Services in the 1960, when you train the muscle that is producing forgeries and disinformation at scale over time you will lose credibility becomeour allies and less able to respond in a factbased democratic way. Lets be careful here. Can do is, are you following people on twitter , outletssocial media that occasionally say things that you completely disagree with. If you isolate yourself in a self reinforcing bubble of opinions you tend to only confirm your own views when you go online. Then you are making yourself more susceptible to disinformation. Find people to disagree with. Those are good instructions for everybody listening in their daily habits of what they watch on television and who they follow on twitter. Make sure we collectively as a society are being as objective as possible. Thomas,u very much to professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins university, he has a fantastic book out, active measures, the secret history of disinformation and Political Warfare. And the Senior Vice President for europe, eurasia, the arctic, director of the europe row graham and the author of the kremlin playbook and the kremlin playbook two among other publications. Thank you for your participation. Book and anus objective look at disinformation, Political Warfare, and other comfortable terms. Cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. 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Through a loss of confidence in our institutions, a wave of cynicism has left us unable to trust what we are told by anyone who calls themselves an expert. It becomes difficult to rise from a challenge like this. Our first reaction is to say they are lying to us and only in it for themselves. Institutionsonal have to take on the challenge of persuading people again that they exist for us and are here for the country. Onjune 7 at noon eastern indepth, a live conversation with author and American Enterprise institute scholar, his most recent book is a time to build. Join the conversation with your phone calls, tweets, and facebook messages. Watch on book tv on cspan two. Prior to wednesdays President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump toward the orion capsule at the Kennedy Space center in order and received a briefing on the spacex launch. And received a briefing on the launch