How western democracies can respond. Hi and welcome. Im a Senior Research fellow here and we are delighted to welcome you here to a panel titled assessing u. S. And partner posture to countering disinformation and propaganda. One of the most pressing foreign policy, and National Security issues facing the United States and allies its out to address militias influencer over these. The spectrum of threats is complex ranging from violence extremists to state actors. This got the brought to the experts, the roller United Services institute and the Global Engagement center. We will begin with some comments on the Current Situation from heinie director of analytics and research at the gcc followed by a Panel Discussion of two new publications. First will be joined by social professor of sorenson university and editor of the special issue which analyze is a variety of propaganda and disinformation threats targeting democracies globally. Will also be joined by our own whos done a yearlong Research Project for the jayz titled persuade or perish, addressing gaps in u. S. Posture to confront propaganda and disinformation threats which seeks to assess and remedy crucial gaps in the u. S. Govern posture to confront militias influence activities over all these two publications offer strategic framework for understanding state and non state militias activities and policy guidelines for the u. S. And its allies. Please join me in welcoming yemeni roadside. Ladies and itll and. Good morning. My name is yenni i am the director for analytics and research at the center it is my pleasure to be here on the behalf of the d. C. Special envoy. She does send her regards from the uk. Before i give a few remarks outlet to say thank you to George Washington university and his program and for their continued support and the partnership which supports our ability to do research and to be data driven and a special note of gratitude to whom weve been working for the past year as hes been evaluating the u. S. Governments posture to confront disinformation and propaganda. Its been a privilege to participate in these interviews and share our plans asked part of your inquiry and were also honored to be participating in this event with doctor alice or read from the royal united institute. The special envoy and our staff are committed to using every available tool to counter disinformation propaganda to stop americas adversaries from weaponizing information that undermines our societies. Having received the review of the doctrine greats analysis we are encouraged to read to his assessments of our ability to do so is optimistic and we look forward to todays discussion of the paper and its recommendations. We are especially interested in the papers framing of states propaganda and information as anti democratic threats due to their sheer detention to erode trust and democracies and experts in society. For me having worked with the special envoy for the past year as well as our Senior Leadership at did she see i can say first hand that the jussies position itself as the Mission Center of the u. S. Government in pushing back against our adversaries false narratives and the distorted world views that those narratives creates and amplify. In our work the information is never final. Its always changing with every passing year more and more people have access to the internet and therefore more people are able to reach these audiences globally. This of course creates a competitive informational landscape that makes it more difficult for the u. S. And our partners to not only reach these key audiences but to make our message stick for example i can tell you that even as of today with high degree confidence that one of our adversaries has taken advantage of and it continues to take advantage of the coronavirus outbreak and has continued to push Disinformation Campaign in at least five different languages globally and some of these narratives that theyre pushing include one with the coronavirus being an engineered by a weapon, to that it was the cia that cooked up this virus because china is now an economic rival to the United States, and three blaming bouquets as the mastermind behind this and im sure bill gates is a whole busy being hold up on an island be as you and i may easily dismissed these narratives as foolish or ask ourselves how can anyone believe this, the fact is many audiences around the world to believe these lies and for some it reinforces their views of the west and for others it shapes them. If these false narratives are on challenged and repeated over months and years it may become increasingly difficult for example for u. S. Public diplomacy efforts to forge where theyre most needed for u. S. Policy to get properly executed and for u. S. Businesses to operate and these narratives to be a baseline for this decisionmaking. This is our challenge at the d. C. That we are easy and poised to meet and more importantly were grateful to have partners from the academic and governments with us in this fight. Today by far the gec has the strongest mandates the largest left and the bigger budget is ever had before and in that regard like to share with you are five key lines of efforts the first is to lead the u. S. And the coordinating integrating antagonizing this efforts, the second is to do the same with our International Partners the third is to leverage the private Sector Civil Society including academia through engagements such as these and then as well as the Tech Industry and the media as well. The fourth is to assess and adjust to be effective Information Base we must be asking ourselves what is working where isnt working, and we find what is necessary the fifth and last is to strengthen the jussies work fourth and process is not all five of these efforts weve made progress especially in the last year but gec its hard at work on both big and small problems to big resilience, exposed this formation and gets to the point where we can be more effective in ensuring our adversaries and our partners. Have horse we cannot do it alone and ill take all of us and thats not something i am putting here but i say from a practical perspective its true from the u. S. Government