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Tag: Desinformation

  • Democracies in time

    Democracies in time

    The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (abbreviated SVR) seems busy spreading a narrative of Russian invincibility and inevitable Ukrainian defeat. Recently it was visible in one of Sweden’s largest newspapers, where American “experts” asserted Ukraine needs to negotiate immediately. In August CNN claimed The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (abbreviated FSB) was attempting influencing Westerners “through layers of ostensibly independent actors.” A known Swedish blogger accused Svenska Dagbladet for actively spreading this narrative by interviewing an “independent” American “expert”. Anders Åslund disproves the obvious faulty arguments put forward by these kinds of “experts”. Josh Rogin from the Washington Post also wrote a good opinion piece on this very issue. Finish authorities have revealed that Russian intelligence services have been active in foiling Sweden joining NATO. Who could’ve thought?

    In an interview with The Kyiv Independent, Serhii Plokhy argues that we need to brace and prepare for a long war. The coming year might be pivotal and he argues, correctly I think, that short-term memory is dangerous, tending to dominate among political elites. Personally I believe regular people oftentimes see life through a short-term memeory version too. The latest inflation rate or cost of cucumber in the store seems more damaging to the world, and the self, than a long, brutal war.

    Francis Farrelly of the same newspaper wrote an op-ed on the possibility of Ukrainian defeat. It is, to say the least, very critical of the West, and its willingness to really support Ukraine in terms of weapons, ammunition and weapon systems. Overall, I agree, although I think the Biden administration has done a marvelous job all-in-all and definitely compared to if Trump had been president, and compared to the European Union. Without the Biden administration, for all its’ faults, Ukraine would’ve fought a partisan war. The countries supporting Ukraine have the most resources on the planet. Russia has survived this far into the war because of the Soviet stockpiles, because economically, and we hear lots about how Russia has withstood economic pressure better then expected and how much stronger Russia is compared to Ukraine (from certain Western “experts” for instance), Russia has a GDP in comparison to New York state or Canada. So, approximately 150 million Russians produce as much as 20 million New Yorkers or 37 million Canadians. What do we have to fear?

    It makes me wonder if the authoritarians have a better perspective on time than democrats and inhabitants in democratic societies? Of course Putler embarrassed himself so much he couldn’t even show up riding that three-wheeled motorbike (he can’t ride an ordinary motorbike) when he realized his troops were initially pulverized by the Ukrainians. But he also knows how to gamble in the casino of International Politics and Suchlike Affairs. So, he and his men tried all they could to prolong the war in order to outweigh the losses and eventually defeat the West by beating Ukraine on the battlefield or by waiting for the short-term-memory-people in the West to think, and shrug as if it didn’t matter: “nah, not worth it anymore”.

    Johann Hari, among others, has written about our Stolen Focus, our inability to think properly because our attention span is so splintered and the gratification system is constantly set to “On”. For instance, the Swedish economy isn’t feeling too well, but the smallest evidence of a turn, like lessened increase of inflation, means that things are already turning. But an economic crisis isn’t averted by one small improvement, since the crisis itself is built up during decades. If Ukraine can’t “win” on the battlefield once, everything’s lost and we’re prepared to back our bags and go home.

    If democracies and their inhabitants can’t see over the next hill, democracy as a concept is dead. The war between Ukraine and Russia is costly in many ways – that’s war. After all the promises of support for Ukraine, all the “Slava Ukraini” uttered by prime ministers and presidents, we simply can’t surrender for an enemy which seems stronger than initially thought or because a war continues longer than people anticipated. Why wouldn’t it last for years? Swift victories seem fictitious or cineastic. Victories require time, willingess, sacrifice, logistics, money and people.

    Franz-Stefan Gady wrote about the movie Napoleon in Foreign Policy. Firstly, he mentioned the Western thought of “one major, decisive battle” which will lead to absolute and definite victory. Secondly, he writes (and has written before) about teh belief in a game-changing weapon, or a weapon system so strong it’ll lead to victory. None of these two things exist. Nuclear weapons, you say? Yes, they have delayed Western support for Ukraine, but have definitely not lead to some magical victory for the Russian forces.

    An ex-commander in the US military claimed that the People’s Liberation Army (the military of the Chinese Communist Party, not the military of the state) is preparing to invade Taiwan in 2027 at the latest. Even if this is his words, the Chinese and American leaderships are well aware of the risk of war over Taiwan, attempting to defuse the tension. It might not, hopefully, come to pass, although it’s a reminder of the tangible risk of a confrontation between two superpowers, one democratic, one authoritarian, both wanting to shape the world.

    According to a report from a German think-thank, Russia could rather quickly rearm and reconstitute in order to continue aggressions. The current Russian leadership, and many rightwing extremists perceives several states (like the three Baltic states) surrounding Russia as rightfully belonging to the Russian Federation, as former parts of the Russian Empire. The claim of renewed/expanded aggression has been made by the Swedish military and military analysts since the fullscale war on Ukraine.

    Russia has also transformed itself, again, into a full-fledged dictatorship, bent on territorial and influential expansion. Belarus is already virtually annexed. Russia won’t bend because Ukraine negotiates. They won’t bend because NATO or the EU withdraws or abandons Ukraine.

    We can’t be as naïve as Neville Chamberlain and his cohorts and accept dictators and authoritarian states to remain calm and peaceful. Unfortunately, Theodore Roosevelt was right when he wrote you should speak softly and carry a big stick, and that a good navy (here military) is not a provocation to war, it is the surest guaranty of peace. Russia must loose on the battlefield. No one should even consided abandoning Ukraine. You stand by your promise, by your friends.

  • Book review: How to lose the information war

    Book review: How to lose the information war

    I first noticed Nina Jankowicz while reading the report Malign Creativity: How Gender, Sex, and Lies are Weaponized against Women Online. However, I didn’t know Nina was specialized in Central and Eastern Europe, that she has been stationed in Ukraina and knows Russian (thus also being able to understand Polish, Czech and Slovak). Her second book is focused on that same geographical region and, as the title implies, information warfare, directed by Russia. But she weaves the information war of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Poland and Ukraine with that of the US, and concentrates on the way to loose information war, but also how to try and tackle it.

    “With the advent of the internet and social media, individual citizens are now ‘news’ outlets themselves.” This fact countries like Russia uses against democracies in order to spread false narratives. In the introduction Nina gives us a more thorough dive into The Mueller Report about Russia’s interference prior under during to the presidental election of 2016. It was far more insidious and elaborate than arranging one protest and counterprotest at the same time and location. The Internet Research Agency (IRA) managed to run popular Facebook pages like Blacktivist and Being Patriot, as well as arrange unseemlingly fun and popular protests in Washington D.C.

    Nina takes us to five countries that in different ways have tried, and are trying, to fight against Russian information warfare: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Poland and Ukraine. In discussions with government officials, politicians and alternative media, she paints a picture of the different ways these countries try to combat Russian interference and pressure. These could provie the US with lessons on how to lose the information war.

    The lesson of lessons

    When it’s in front of you, it’s completely obvious. You ask yourself why you never saw it or verbally was able to say it out loud. Nina does just this. In the chapter of Estonia, she delves into the issue of the Russian minority, how it’s discriminated against and can’t be part of the Estonian society. This Russia uses to its advantage, to cast doubt on the Estonian government and majority. How to solve?

    Whenever we discuss issues related to technology, we tend to see technical solutions. Probably because the tech industry wants it no other way. Probably because we are entranced by technology, living in a technoreligious society, believing in technology as a good force in itself. So, why not simply throw in a tech solution to a tech problem? Like she writes: “How can any administration that intends to protect free speech censor the authentic opinions of its own citizens?”

    Why not solve this societal issue with a societal solution instead? Simply put: restore trust in government, give the minority chances to become part of the society as a whole. Try not to evoke bad feelings and animosity between people, heal the rifts. Two important pillars of media literacy (that Taiwan has tried) are schools, as in Finland, and public libraries and the powerful information and searchability librarians hold to guide citizens in the endless stream of information and literature. Thus Russia can no longer use this issue to splinter relations between people and create even bigger rifts. Because one thing Russia does is never to invent new issues, but use the old societal problems to sow discord and splinter society and the nation.

    Downsides

    Four downsides with the book:

    It was published just after Joe Biden was installed as president of the Unites States, thus missing the Biden administration’s take on cyber warfare, dual-use technologies, spyware and transnational repression. It differs from previous administrations.

    It was published one year before the Russian war against Ukraina in 2022, which renders some of the politics described obsolete. For instance, Estonia has once more turned more suspicious of the Russian minority, meaning that, for instance, the chapter on Estonia is not up to date, although it’s still relevant as a historical lesson. Settings for information warfare have changed rather drastically in one year.

    Somehow, I really dislike fictional writings “capturing” a technology and its implication in the present or future. Carissa Véliz does it in Privacy is power. Nina does it, and it’s erroneous, partly because it’s written before Biden’s presidency, partly because it’s the usual bleak, dry, predictable onset to an issue now, set in 2028.

    In the chapter about Ukrainian efforts to provide positive aspects of Ukraine in the Dutch election about EU-legislation should have been problematized more. Even though the Russians seemed to have played a part in negative campaigning, the Ukrainian part could also be considered foreign interference in an election. Julia Slupska’s piece on election interference is well-worth a read.

    Summary

    The book is true to its’ title. Information warfare pervades the book, and it doesn’t confuse information warfare with espionage or cyber warfare. Terms here are very important and so are the differences between them. Although Russia is the focal point, which narrows the scope of information warfare, that’s an advantage here. To write about information warfare in general or include Chinese, Iranian, American or any other country, would water it down. One can’t cover everything to make a topic or an issue interesting.

    Lessons from the book are important and relevant. Countries must learn from one another, can’t hide from information warfare, and develop a battery of counter measures. And those counter measures are seldom technological, but rather societal, economical and political. That’s the most important things I learned reading this book.

  • Book review: Reset

    Book review: Reset

    “We can reclaim the internet for civil society. The principle of restraint should be our guide.”

    The end.

    Basically, I could stop here and write no more. These are the last two sentences of the book Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society of Ronald J. Deibert and the profound solution to problems with internet, social media, tech companies, surveillance, espionage, cyberwars, is about.

    Deibert founded The Citizen Lab in 2001 as a research group with a mission he had came up with: the dirty backside of the Internet. For once I read a boo by an author who doesn’t need to restort to the creepiest descriptions and depictions on what could happen – he controls this subject totally. You can read it between the lines, see it in the examples given, often from the research of the Citizen Lab and from various other sources, not the usual ones, he doesn’t inundate you with details and a massive amount of examples about everything that is inherently wrong with internet (for that, listen to Grumpy old geeks), and because of the chapters he’s chosen to focus on. He knows this stuff without the restless need to show how well he has (begun) to master this subject after a couple of years. The combination of chapters are his strength.

    Causes

    Surveillance capitalism as a concept is the first subject Deibert touches, writing about the omnipresent tech in our lives, the gadgets we surround ourselves with day and night, for most reasons. This has been covered by Carissa Veliz, Adam Alter (review coming) and (obviously) Shushana Zuboff (review coming), to name a few. Deibert writes about different absurd apps, ideas to capture more personal data and dangerous paths taken by companies, paths that can easily lead to authoritarian perspectives on society and societal change.

    How our addictive machines are used to spread propaganda, disinformation, misinformation, to destabilize societies, divide and rule among foreign adversaries is another bleak chapter. Companies, state actors, organisations are playing a very perilous game with democratic states and risking all progress on human rights. Insititutions are seemlingly falling apart, or at least being unable to thwart a slide towards more fragile societies.

    Thirdly, intrusive powers is about how technology is used to circumvent human rights and deliberation by (nation) states. Abuses of power become harder to track, inhibit and hold accountable. Technology is more often used to suppress minorities and people rather than elevate them.

    Aspects of climate and environment are usually completely excluded from books written by tech-related authors. The link to the natural world is many times exempt from being questioned. Two of the few eexceptions are Kate Crawford and Tung-Hui Hu, both of whom I’ll cover in time.

    I worked in politics for almost seven years and I concur with Deibert that “material factors play a major role in shaping political outcomes”, must be taken into account and politics should, at times, adapt to societal changes rather than neglecting them. Sometimes you simply follow, not lead. And tech is very much physical, material.

    No other expert, that I have encountered, has been able to combine all these issues and subjects into one coherent text about the state of the internet and democracy. A fellow Canadian and political scientist at that, Taylor Owen (yes, listen to his podcast), is the closest one we’ve got.

    Solutions

    Deibert’s a political scientist at heart, although you might think (or decieve yourself) he’s a computer scientist, and it shows when he delves into solutions. He presents the ideas and theory of republicanism, the theory “to tie down and restrain the exercise of power not only domestically, but also across borders.” Politics usually move rather slowly in democratic states and rightfully so, argues Deibert and the republicans, because decisions should take time and deliberation is necessary so as not to react emotionally or irrationally due to some fancy. Deliberation has become a word with negative connotations. Things should be decided quickly, without thoughtful processes, almost impulsively. Deibert argues that deliberation offers restraint, inhibits decisions to be simple (and often stupid) reactions to very contemporary issues. As such, restraint should be exhibited much more, in social media, in politics, on technologically related decisions. Deliberation should be a guideline, not an insult.

    At first my thoughts were similar to my reading of Beijmo’s De kan inte stoppa oss – basically, we’re f*cked. After a while I actually feel hope. For once, here’s a person with vast experience and knowledge of how bad things have turned for more than two decades, who can show us real adequate and suitable actions on a systemic level. Here are no individual recommendations on “block cookies”, “encrypt all your communications” or “refuse to use social media”. Deibert has spent more time than most humans on these issues, so what he writes is very much what we should do. We should move slower, more deliberately, in order to reclaim internet for civil society, not for states or companies.

    Conclusion

    If there’s one book to rule them all, this is the one.