By your very own nina who has done stellar work at the Wilson Center disinformation fellow. The coolest title ever, since last october. Before that she was a scholar on russia and ukraine. How to lose the information or , russia and the future of congress conflict is an amazing title for it is essential reading for everyone on this call, zoom in all of your friends. We remember russian Successful Campaign in 2016 showed distrust and confusion in front of the president ial election. In order to win the information war, as needed say, we need to understand what disinformation is. I have heard her on this topic before. And it what it is not. This information is used to false or misleading information with malign intent. That is different from misinformation which can also be harmful but lacks malign and intent. It is brought goals and propaganda which involves the promotion of a nations worldview. What need arise, unlike soviet propaganda, sought to promote specific communist centric worldview, the kremlin today divides populations around the world with one goal in mind. The destruction of western democracy as we know it. Our democracy, no supplies to anyone on the zoom, continues to face tremendous threats from disinformation. This year we face not only another election, but also a pandemic which nina will tell us has spread a shadow pandemic of disinformation of Covenant Team prayed we have heard her on this topic and have done programming on this. In writing the book, nina had the rest of us had no clue the coronavirus are working around the corner she is done excellent job keeping up with the changes and disinformation affects more and more of the media landscape. Id like to say that ninas job is to spread information in a world of disinformation. In her work jump book she engages a writing so with a rigorous look at how disinformation spreads she draws her on the ground experience in ukraine where she received a fulbright grant to advise Ukrainian Government on strategic communications. Most importantly, she does with the Wilson Center does the best, which is to offer clear headed policy recommendations to the United States and other governments facing this challenge. Joining me on todays panel is matt your jansky. As well as a former fbi counterintelligence agent who is now senior lecturer at lail University Jackson institute for Global Affairs print please note that if you have questions for the panel, you can email them to canon at Wilson Center. Org bird Wilson Centers one word printer mention is on 20 and on twitter at the Wilson Center to kick off the discussion now, it is my delight to recognize maps. You are a treasure at the welcome center. And all the good work you do for us is just magical. Very exciting part okay matt. Alright thank you so much i mexican start things off and im going to that by thanking you and everyone at the Wilson Center so much for your support for the past three years its been a three year long process from conception when i was living in ukraine to today hear from my office. I would not of been able to do without the support of the canon institute. And matt saw the worst of the project when it was in its infancy and help save me the room and the space to develop it. And of course megan the program really sheltered it to the end. Im so grateful for your support and im thrilled to be with you here today. I thought i would read a little bit from the conclusion of the book which i wrote around this time last year. The end of july early august when i was trying to realize what future scenario would look like for the United States. We did not begin to push back against disinformation. Not just a russian but the domestic variety as well. It has begun to our discourse at an alarming rate recently. So again, think youll find some of the elements or hitting a little bit closer to home than i imagine when i wrote them. Though imagine its july 2028 in another president ial election is fast approaching. Talking to most americans are you would not know it, turn out has on a steady decline since 2020 when allegations of a nationwide Democratic Party organize social media manipulation campaign spread. After election and came and went, trump easily won a second term. A ukrainian journalist uncovered the manipulation story was fabricated. It originated from a troll account based in russia where another troll factory had been operating quietly for years. The story alleged the leadership of the Democratic National committee itself ive been using russian style social media tactics with the well timed tweet from an end account to Rudy Giuliani the rumor got its legs. With the single retreat, the former new york mayor during the entire twitters fear rabbit. Across party lines. It was no better that the story was complete hearsay. No one ever produced a shred of concrete evidence about the whole affair. But after the dnc had been hacked and emails plaque jump plastered across the internet in a 2016 election. It lost the trust of its members in the unaffiliated swing voters for they are fed by nonstop talk of scandal. Is it vicious unending circle the news media reported on the new allegations despite a lack of evidence. It is with voters, candidates, and parties were discussing how could they leave it untouched . That and the integrity of the electoral process balloons. On election day technical difficulties that precincts with electronic Voting Machines were perceived as potential votes of packing. Theres the security of improvement of the election since 2006 he made that theory plausible. Doubt for low turnout despite four years of organizing against trump, you third outreach to the lowest turnout ever. Young people were too disillusioned with the correct system to participate. Trumps base ever loyal turned out into roseburg reelection and the deterioration of the american ecosystem continue to pay spread his Administration Funding for the public broadcasting station and National Public radio. Inset u. S. Foreign broadcasters on a path to extinction. This of course is the ideal outcome for moscow. Americans democracy once a shining city on a hill is weak and crumbling in 2028. The debate, dissent and protest was that the u. S. Was founded are increasingly foreign concepts. Corruption, was kept in check by an active media and engage electric, reaches the highest levels of government. Consumed by problems at home, the u. S. Is less engaged abroad. And the kremlin points to the failing of our democratic system to justify repressions in a broader embrace of authoritarianism inside and outside its borders. This scenario should not seem farfetched. The United States, along with some of the countries profiled in my book, and european democracies were all on our way to affect reversion of democracy like, it which the tenants at the democratic process, participation in protests are under attack. My book, how to lose the information work, lays out how to avert this scenario. And really about how to rebuild our discourse. Reporting from five countries on the front lines of the information war, estonia, check you crop public and ukraine, introduce readers to the people who fought this information prayed some successfully some less so. And the lessons that they have learned. The most important what is that people need to be at the heart of the response to this disinformation. Tech platforms, governments, journalist, none of them can fact check their way out of the crisis of truth and trust that we face. But, if we educate our citizens and repair the crooks in our democracies that allowed troll farms to influence in the first place, we might have a shot at averting disaster. If we dont, i hear our efforts will become another cautionary tale and another example of how to lose the information war. And now im going to turn it over to matt. Thank you so much, thank you jane, and also for joining a straight nina said it exactly right we at the kennan institut institute, it was just canon supporting nina buttoning his work supporting cannons mission at a really difficult time for talking and thinking seriously about russia, ukraine, former soviet reunion luncheon region issues and certainly anything that had a whiff of election interference about it. You will all know very well, cant imagine inuit on this call is not noticed you cant open your mouth and have a conversation about what is happening in that part of the World Without it instantly, really basically being about american politics. Nina comes along with a doggedly i would say clear commitment to the idea that you can work on this topic and not have it just be a prophecy for american domestic policy or for some other political agenda. I want to offer a few further thoughts on why this book is worthwhile to read. I have reddit. I really enjoyed it and why the candidates were so fortunate to be able to support nina and her work. First is that there is something almost metaphorically perfect that nina began as a fellow in what seems like ancient history back in 2017 buried and has now ended up wonderfully with us at the Wilson Center but in the Science Technology and Innovation Program as a disinformation fellow. Sounds like something youd have on the death star but its not that part is a cool new opportunity that did not exist back in 2007. When you start to unpack a lot of the dysfunctional and dangerous dynamics and russias conflict with the west, disinformation being only one of them. You find yourself relatively quickly when you get to the essence of the issue you find yourself in a place its not so much about russia or about u. S. Russia relations. Almost always muscle needs bigger, something thats fundamentally human. Something that thats about who we are, how we define ourselves, the conflict the makes the world go around and so on. Section very sitting that ninas research follow that pathway as well. I will come to that in just a moment that i think her final are just. They are just exactly on point in that respect as opposed to so much of what we see and hear in washington. Mr. Book thats organized into chapters. I read a lot of books about the former soviet space. A lot of them or organize intercountry regional chapters. A lot of them are not worth your time for that reason. They sort of treat each of these cases is kind of interchangeabl interchangeable. They will apply the same tired methodologies. They will shoehorn individuals players into the same what you would call type cast role. Who is a champion of democracy in this country . You all know these narratives. Nina doesnt do that, right . These are rich i think being used to almost journalistically very well narrated retelling from ninas own expenses on the ground in the country to give you a very rich feel of what is like to be engaged in a public debate in which disinformation features prominently in countries that are by and large in the border regional and of course the Czech Republic not. But they are in the legacy with quite a bit of russian influence there is a russian element, theres an element much bigger than russia. There is an element that is very specific to the region, the country, the time and place for all that is of great value. Then there is a big question that is raised. I hope we can come to this in our discussion. This is something that we as americans seem to be thinking very hard about now. We would have what i would argue, jane would know very well the most rigid twoparty systems in the world. Where the incentives if you are coming from the outside or from the french, heaven forbid you have an idea that is not mainstream. If someone is apparently helping you, stirring up dispute that maybe brings more attention to your cause, its very hard in the face of that sort of monolithic mainstream machine to decline that help or distance yourself from it. This is one of the topics it is absolutely vital that nina raises in the book as we watch really dangerous fringe elements gain traction through disinformation in our case studies. But how do we address it with the United States in a context is that he was out of the gate that new ideas are not needed in our debate . And finally i just want to echo, ninas own concluding words in her excerpt its about people its about education is about democracy. And i use the term resiliency. Kind of completes the thought i opened earlier. One of the most exhaustively written about, and i think also exhausting and effectiveness policies is that of punishing bad guys. We have been in search of a quartercentury or more of tools that will work to punish bad guys. Whether that is Vladimir Putin or kim jongun, or al qaeda. It is an overuse of sanctions, ocs under and over use of drones diplomatic finger wagging. Its enormously refreshing and if i do say so fundamentally about what nina has written is it looks inward. It is selfcritical about the way that we are not resilient in the face of challenges that are going to be there. But it is the Vladimir Putin out there behind us or there isnt. I find that very was rushing. Its an unfortunate description of a reality. But its very refreshing. I think well have a bit of a conversation have a question for jane for audience out there, please. Thank you matt. I wanted to pick up where you left off in terms of why this book is important to americas understanding of this problem. Which i think is stymied this book actually addresses all three of those. The first is that, as nina points out in her book, this is not americas first rodeo with disinformation coming from russia. This is the kgb mo, their hearings about this in 1982, we have looked at this. Largely with the fall of the soviet union, we thought it was all over. We find that what ninas book does is it goes through starting soon after putin comes to power, and how methodically the kgb tactics and methods have been practiced, refined, inc. , new technologies. And basically as we stood by they have been practicing. And they have been finding ways to make it more and more effective as it crept closer and closer to the United States. And it literally caught us unaware. Because we stopped seeing russia as a serious threat. In 2008, think of or 2012 obama made fun of romney for saying that russia was a threat. I think what nina chose also was our blinders being on and with what she mentioned about russia not being constrained by an ideology is it gives russia much more ideology of putting its tentacles into American Society which is something that is very constraining for it during the cold war. We had a natural prophylactic because we were in an ideological struggle. Theyre only really fringe elements that could be receptive to communist efforts. Now we see they have made inroads into the left. And so i think it is this kind of global iteration. The practicing of all these methods but we can see each of these case study elements that have shown up in the United States. In each of these countries. There are some aspect of it that has manifested here for it is an important lesson for us. The second thing and it kind of goes along with why we had a blinders on, about americans had going to the fbi in 2002, right after 911. It has been all terrorism all the time. We dont think of a threat if it doesnt involve blowing things up and dead bodies and someone trying to light a shoe on fire on an airplane. That is him start taking drastic measures. This i think, for americans, we are very naive about this. It is hard for americans to get their mind around. I think this is just also partly about the american psyche because we have not been practiced upon or they develop a certain understanding of it. Americans fundamentally dont get it. We think of war we have very clear dichotomy in america. War and peace. Terrorism or no threat or Something Like that. We have these very clear ideas. The Information Warfare really turns this on its head. And i think these case studies really help illuminate why this is very dangerous. Why this is a threat even if you dont see something blow up. Its not, an explosion or Something Like that. Think related to that, this is the third thing purred i also make americans a very naive about the idea of information as a weapon. This i think is partly a good thing. It is because our first amendment, our constitution, offers so much robust space for robust disagreement. The freedom of the press. We have been conditioned as americans to think of speech and information as a net positive. The way the marketplace of ideas, the movie combat bad speech with good speech. And we havent fully understood how the marketplace of ideas doesnt necessarily translate into the digital space. In this whole idea of information as a weapon. It is really something there just get your mind around. I think nina does a fantastic job of why this is dangerous why it can translate purred the flash mob pizza in your first information about how information can translate into behavior where people can actually become puppets and then act out on the beliefs that they are being they are consuming. I think it is a very, very important lesson for the american body to understand. I think you kind of hit all of these blind spots. These places of ignorance that american audiences have when it comes to the issue. I hope we kind of touch on all of these. It can be hard to get your mind around. It is very easy to say, you know, yeah i can check my sources. Whats the big deal . Why is this really a problem should address . So thank you for that. I learned a lot from your book. I will admit that i am not a person who is an expert also someone who is affiliated with the media purred our media does not do a good job also of focusing on what is happening abroad we are incredibly ignorant of what is happening abroad. I think you shine a light on why that is important to us and whats happening now. Thank you prayed the goal for the next 15 minutes or so as to give people a bit of a teaser with