Thou Shall Stop! is not a strategy Matt Armstrong, March 18th, 2019, https://mountainrunner.us/2019/03/thou-shall-stop-is-not-a-strategy/ Articles appear periodically on how the United States, or its allies, could improve its game in today’s decentralized information environment. So many that it is often hard to keep up, so if I criticize one here — like I’m about to do — […]Read More

Kevin Truitte, Georgetown University Security Studies Review March 11th, 2019 http://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2019/03/11/an-american-national-information-security-strategy/ In today’s Digital Age, information is a potent weapon. American adversaries such as Russia and China understand the power of information and seek to manipulate it to their advantage. From injecting or magnifying divisive messages in social media to penetrating government networks to steal […]Read More

The path from online propaganda to murder isn’t only the domain of the Islamic State Philip Bump, March 15th, 2019, Washington Post It didn’t take long for American authorities to recognize an unusual factor powering the rise of the Islamic State several years ago. While its ideology and violence may have seemed medieval, its recruitment […]Read More

In Indonesia, Facebook and Twitter Are ‘Buzzer’ Battlegrounds as Elections Loom Reuters in the New York Times, March 13th, 2019 Almost every day, “Janda”, a self-described Indonesian housewife with 2,000 Twitter followers, dispenses lifestyle tips, complains about city life, and praises how the government of President Joko Widodo has improved her life as a young […]Read More

#DisinfoWeek was a series of strategic dialogues focused on the global challenge of disinformation. The Atlantic Council, together with U.S. Missions and Embassies in Europe, hosted a series of events in Athens and Madrid, and a capstone forum in Brussels, from March 4-8, 2019. https://disinfoweek.org/ Transcript from the Madrid event is here. Transcript from the […]Read More

Laura Rosenberger and Thomas Morley, March 11th, 2019, Alliance for Securing Democracy, German Marshall Fund of the U.S.https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/russias-promotion-of-illiberal-populism-tools-tactics-networks/ Understanding the rise of illiberal populism has been a focus of recent debate on both sides of the Atlantic. This “illiberal international” has many faces, often seemingly at odds: Donald Trump and Jill Stein in the United […]Read More

Chris Zappone, March 12, 2019, The Strategist https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/in-fighting-online-interference-the-first-line-of-defence-is-the-mind/ ‘Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests’, British statesman Lord Palmerston famously observed. Two centuries later, the adage of foreign policy remains true but the internet extends its relevance into a nation’s domestic affairs. That’s because the internet and social media give […]Read More