- We, the Leaders of the G20, strongly condemn all terrorist attacks worldwide and stand united and firm in the fight against terrorism and its financing. These atrocious acts have strengthened our resolve to cooperate to enhance our security and protect our citizens. Terrorism is a global scourge that must be fought and terrorist safe havens eliminated in every part of the world.
- We reaffirm that all measures on countering terrorism need to be implemented in accordance with the UN Charter and all obligations under international law, including international human rights law.
Implementing international commitments and enhancing cooperation
- We call for the implementation of existing international commitments on countering terrorism, including the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, and compliance with relevant resolutions and targeted sanctions by the UN Security Council relating to terrorism. We commit to continue to support UN efforts to prevent and counter terrorism.
- We will address the evolving threat of returning foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) from conflict zones such as Iraq and Syria and remain committed to preventing FTFs from establishing a foothold in other countries and regions around the world. We recall UN Security Council Resolution 2178 (2014), which requires a range of actions to better tackle the foreign terrorist fighter threat.
- We will facilitate swift and targeted exchanges of information between intelligence and law enforcement and judicial authorities on operational information-sharing, preventive measures and criminal justice response, while ensuring the necessary balance between security and data protection aspects, in accordance with national laws. We will ensure that terrorists are brought to justice.
- We will work to improve the existing international information architecture in the areas of security, travel and migration, including INTERPOL, ensuring the necessary balance between security and data protection aspects. In particular, we encourage all members to make full use of relevant information sharing mechanisms, in particular INTERPOL’s information sharing functions.
- We call upon our border agencies to strengthen cooperation to detect travel for terrorist purposes, including by identifying priority transit and destination countries of terrorists. We will support capacity building efforts in these countries in areas such as border management, information sharing and watch-list capability to manage the threat upstream. We will promote greater use of customs security programs, including where appropriate, the World Customs Organization’s (WCO) Security Programme and Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which focus on strengthening Customs administrations’ capacity to deal with security related issues and managing the cross-border flows of goods, people and means of transport to ensure they comply with the law.
- We will address in close coordination the evolving threats and potential vulnerabilities in aviation security systems and exchange information on risk assessments. We recall the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2309 (2016) which urges closer collaboration to ensure security of global air services and the prevention of terrorist attacks. We will promote full implementation of effective and proportionate aviation security measures established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in partnership with all its contracting states as necessary. We call to urgently address vulnerabilities in airport security related measures, such as access control and screening, covered by the Chicago Convention and will act jointly to ensure that international security standards are reviewed, updated, adapted and put in place based on current risks.
- We highlight the importance of providing appropriate support to the victims of terrorist acts and will enhance our cooperation and exchange of best practices to this end.
Fighting terrorism finance
- We underline our resolve to make the international financial system entirely hostile to terrorist financing and commit to deepening international cooperation and exchange of information, including working with the private sector, which has a critical role in global efforts to counter terrorism financing. We reaffirm our commitment to tackle all sources, techniques and channels of terrorist financing and our call for swift and effective implementation of UNSCR and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards worldwide. We call for strengthening measures against the financing of international terrorist organisations in particular ISIL/ISIS/Daesh, Al Qaida and their affiliates.
- There should be no “safe spaces” for terrorist financing anywhere in the world. However, inconsistent and weak implementation of the UN and FATF standards allows them to persist. In order to eliminate all such “safe spaces”, we commit to intensify capacity building and technical assistance, especially in relation to terrorist financing hot-spots, and we support the FATF in its efforts to strengthen its traction capacity and the effectiveness of FATF and FATF-style regional bodies.
- We welcome the reforms agreed by the FATF Plenary in June and support the ongoing work to strengthen the governance of the FATF. We also welcome the FATF intention to further explore its transformation into a legal person, which recognises that the FATF has evolved from a temporary forum to a sustained public and political commitment to tackle AML/CFT threats. We also appreciate FATF commencing the membership process for Indonesia that will broaden its geographic representation and global engagement. We ask the FATF to provide an update by the first G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in 2018. We call on all member states to ensure that the FATF has the necessary resources and support to effectively fulfil its mandate.
- We welcome that countering terrorist finance remains the highest priority of FATF, and look forward to FATF’s planned outreach to legal authorities, which will contribute to enhanced international cooperation and increased effectiveness in the application of FATF’s standards.
- We will advance the effective implementation of the international standards on transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons and legal arrangements for the purposes of countering financing terrorism.
- Low cost attacks by small cells and individuals funded by small amounts of money transferred through a wide range of payment means are an increasing challenge. We call on the private sector to continue to strengthen their efforts to identify and tackle terrorism financing. We ask our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to work with FATF, FSB, the financial sector, Financial Intelligence Units, law enforcement and FinTech firms to develop new tools such as guidance and indicators, to harness new technologies to better track terrorist finance transactions, and to work together with law enforcement authorities to bridge the intelligence gap and improve the use of financial information in counter-terrorism investigations.
- We call upon countries to address all alternative sources of financing of terrorism, including dismantling connections, where they exist, between terrorism and transnational organized crime, such as the diversion of weapons including weapons of mass destruction, looting and smuggling of antiquities, kidnapping for ransom, drugs and human trafficking.
Countering radicalization conducive to terrorism and the use of internet for terrorist purposes
- Our counterterrorism actions must continue to be part of a comprehensive approach, including combatting radicalization and recruitment, hampering terrorist movements and countering terrorist propaganda. We will exchange best practices on preventing and countering terrorism and violent extremism conducive to terrorism, national strategies and deradicalisation and disengagement programmes, and the promotion of strategic communications as well as robust and positive narratives to counter terrorist propaganda.
- We stress that countering terrorism requires comprehensively addressing underlying conditions that terrorists exploit. It is therefore crucial to promote political and religious tolerance, economic development and social cohesion and inclusiveness, to resolve armed conflicts, and to facilitate reintegration. We acknowledge that regional and national action plans can contribute to countering radicalisation conducive to terrorism.
- We will share knowledge on concrete measures to address threats from returning foreign terrorist fighters and home-grown radicalised individuals. We will also share best practices on deradicalisation and reintegration programmes including with respect to prisoners.
- We will work with the private sector, in particular communication service providers and administrators of relevant applications, to fight exploitation of the internet and social media for terrorist purposes such as propaganda, funding and planning of terrorist acts, inciting terrorism, radicalizing and recruiting to commit acts of terrorism, while fully respecting human rights. Appropriate filtering, detecting and removing of content that incites terrorist acts is crucial in this respect. We encourage industry to continue investing in technology and human capital to aid in the detection as well as swift and permanent removal of terrorist content. In line with the expectations of our peoples we also encourage collaboration with industry to provide lawful and non-arbitrary access to available information where access is necessary for the protection of national security against terrorist threats. We affirm that the rule of law applies online as well as it does offline.
- We also stress the important role of the media, civil society, religious groups, the business community and educational institutions in fostering an environment which is conducive to the prevention of radicalisation and terrorism.
DPRK Missiles, China and Global Nuclear Footprint and Russia’s Veto
Graphic on the estimated global atomic weapons stockpile
After almost five years of difficult negotiations, Russia and China moved to a new level of arms trade in 2015. Russia finally agreed to sell China 24 Sukhoi‑35 (Su-35) combat aircraft and four S-400 SAM systems for approximately USD $7 billion. These are currently among the most advanced weapons Russia produces. This agreement marked a turning point. It was the first significant sale of Russian major weapons to China since the mid-2000s, representing a sizeable addition to Russia’s total annual value of arms exports, which has hovered between USD $13.5 billion and USD $15 billion in recent years.
The agreement could herald a new phase of large sales of Russia’s most sophisticated arms to China. However, it could also be viewed as a last chance for Russia to gain some income from arms sales to China before the latter becomes self-sufficient. The first scenario would fit the picture of warming Russian–Chinese relations, following the crisis in Ukraine. The second scenario is more tightly bound to Russian financial hardships and the difficulties in its arms industry since 2015. This sale could well be the last chance for Russia to engage in a major sale of military equipment to China. At the same time as the Su-35 and S-400 are due for delivery, China will be introducing its own more advanced Jian-20 (J-20) combat aircraft, as well as its own advanced jet engines, large transport aircraft, helicopters and long-range SAM systems—many of which are on a par with or even better than Russian systems.
When it comes to the arms trade, China has not only learned from Russia, but succeeded in challenging it. Given its financial and defence industrial base, China is likely to have more chances to develop new military technologies than Russia. China’s electronics, composites, advanced materials and shipbuilding industries are all more advanced than those in Russia. The size of the Chinese economy means that it has many more resources and much more manpower to invest in research and development. Thus, it is more than likely that China’s military technology will surpass that of Russia on all levels. More detail and history here.
SEOUL, July 7 (Yonhap) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in sought to rally support from other global leaders Friday in condemning North Korea for its recent missile provocation and ridding the communist state of its nuclear ambitions, his presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.
“It is not a scheduled topic for discussion, but as president of the Republic of Korea I cannot but talk to you about another serious challenge that urgently requires the joint interest and action of the G20,” the South Korean president said in the Leaders’ Retreat on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit held in Hamburg, Germany, referring to South Korea by its official name.
“And that is North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations,” he added, according to a script of his remarks released by Cheong Wa Dae.
Moon’s remarks came after the communist North launched what it claimed to be its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) earlier in the week, prompting fresh condemnations from Seoul and its allies.
In a three-way meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Hamburg on Thursday, the South Korean leader was joined by his U.S. and Japanese counterparts in calling for stronger sanctions by the international community to bring North Korea to a dialogue table to discuss its denuclearization.
“To resolve the North Korean nuclear issue that has become a global threat, the international community will have to put enhanced pressure on North Korea,” partly by issuing a new U.N. Security Council resolution, Moon told other G20 leaders at their retreat.
“By doing so, we must make the North Korean regime realize that its nuclear arms and missiles will never guarantee its existence and come to the dialogue table,” he added.
The South Korean president also rallied support for what he called the “clear determination” of G20 leaders to jointly address the issue at their gathering this week, apparently seeking a joint reaction or a statement from the global leaders condemning the North’s missile provocations.
“I ask for you, G20 leaders’ full interest and support,” he said.
Kim Jong Un’s Big Nuclear Push Is Closing In on America
Bloomberg: Kim Jong Un has sped up North Korea’s nuclear program since he took power in late 2011, testing more powerful weapons and developing longer-range missiles to carry them. On July 4, North Korea said it had successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile called the Hwasong-14, a claim that brings the isolated state closer to its aim of building a device capable of hitting the U.S. mainland with a nuclear warhead. The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting later Wednesday after the U.S. confirmed North Korea’s rocket launch was its first intercontinental ballistic missile.
Still, the launch risks a serious escalation with North Korea’s neighbors and the U.S. over its weapons program. The regime is thought to possess rockets that can hit South Korea and Japan with as many as 20 atomic bombs. More here with graphics.
***
Meanwhile:
According to Reuters, Moscow said it believes North Korea fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile on Tuesday.
The Trump administration has confirmed it was, in fact, a longer-range intercontinental missile that has the potential to reach the U.S.
“Therefore we are not in a position to agree to this classification on behalf of the whole council since there is no consensus on this issue,” the email said.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley criticized Russia’s reluctance to recognize North Korea launched an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the U.S. according to experts, a threshold North Korea has not reached before.
“If you need any sort of intelligence to let you know that the rest of the world sees this as an ICBM, I’m happy to provide it,” she told the Security Council on Wednesday.
Security Council resolutions have to be agreed to by all 15 members.
Reuters reported it’s uncertain if the U.S. will negotiate with Russia to adjust the resolution.
DHS, FBI Declare Hackers Target Nuclear Facilities
Bloomberg: Specialized teams from Homeland Security and the FBI have been scrambled to help extricate the hackers from the power stations, in some cases without informing local and state officials. Meanwhile, the U.S. National Security Agency is working to confirm the identity of the hackers, who are said to be using computer servers in Germany, Italy, Malaysia and Turkey to cover their tracks.
Many of the power plants are conventional, but the targeting of a nuclear facility adds to the pressure. While the core of a nuclear generator is heavily protected, a sudden shutdown of the turbine can trigger safety systems. These safety devices are designed to disperse excess heat while the nuclear reaction is halted, but the safety systems themselves may be vulnerable to attack.
Homeland Security and the FBI sent out a general warning about the cyberattack to utilities and related parties on June 28, though it contained few details or the number of plants affected. The government said it was most concerned about the “persistence” of the attacks on choke points of the U.S. power supply. That language suggests hackers are trying to establish backdoors on the plants’ systems for later use, according to a former senior DHS official who asked not to be identified.
Those backdoors can be used to insert software specifically designed to penetrate a facility’s operational controls and disrupt critical systems, according to Galina Antova, co-founder of Claroty, a New York firm that specializes in securing industrial control systems.
Starsalliance
Hackers Are Targeting Nuclear Facilities, Homeland Security Dept. and F.B.I. Say
Since May, hackers have been penetrating the computer networks of companies that operate nuclear power stations and other energy facilities, as well as manufacturing plants in the United States and other countries.
Among the companies targeted was the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation, which runs a nuclear power plant near Burlington, Kan., according to security consultants and an urgent joint report issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week.
The joint report was obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by security specialists who have been responding to the attacks. It carried an urgent amber warning, the second-highest rating for the sensitivity of the threat.
The report did not indicate whether the cyberattacks were an attempt at espionage — such as stealing industrial secrets — or part of a plan to cause destruction. There is no indication that hackers were able to jump from their victims’ computers into the control systems of the facilities, nor is it clear how many facilities were breached.
Wolf Creek officials said that while they could not comment on cyberattacks or security issues, no “operations systems” had been affected and that their corporate network and the internet were separate from the network that runs the plant.
In a joint statement with the F.B.I., a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said, “There is no indication of a threat to public safety, as any potential impact appears to be limited to administrative and business networks.”
The hackers appeared determined to map out computer networks for future attacks, the report concluded. But investigators have not been able to analyze the malicious “payload” of the hackers’ code, which would offer more detail into what they were after.
John Keeley, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, which works with all 99 electric utilities that operate nuclear plants in the United States, said nuclear facilities are required to report cyberattacks that relate to their “safety, security and operations.” None have reported that the security of their operations was affected by the latest attacks, Mr. Keeley said.
In most cases, the attacks targeted people — industrial control engineers who have direct access to systems that, if damaged, could lead to an explosion, fire or a spill of dangerous material, according to two people familiar with the attacks who could not be named because of confidentiality agreements.
The origins of the hackers are not known. But the report indicated that an “advanced persistent threat” actor was responsible, which is the language security specialists often use to describe hackers backed by governments.
The two people familiar with the investigation say that, while it is still in its early stages, the hackers’ techniques mimicked those of the organization known to cybersecurity specialists as “Energetic Bear,” the Russian hacking group that researchers have tied to attacks on the energy sector since at least 2012.
Hackers wrote highly targeted email messages containing fake résumés for control engineering jobs and sent them to the senior industrial control engineers who maintain broad access to critical industrial control systems, the government report said.
The fake résumés were Microsoft Word documents that were laced with malicious code. Once the recipients clicked on those documents, attackers could steal their credentials and proceed to other machines on a network.
In some cases, the hackers also compromised legitimate websites that they knew their victims frequented — something security specialists call a watering hole attack. And in others, they deployed what are known as man-in-the-middle attacks in which they redirected their victims’ internet traffic through their own machines.
Energy, nuclear and critical manufacturing organizations have frequently been targets for sophisticated cyberattacks. The Department of Homeland Security has called cyberattacks on critical infrastructure “one of the most serious national security challenges we must confront.”
On May 11, during the attacks, President Trump signed an executive order to strengthen the cybersecurity defenses of federal networks and critical infrastructure. The order required government agencies to work with public companies to mitigate risks and help defend critical infrastructure organizations “at greatest risk of attacks that could reasonably result in catastrophic regional or national effects on public health or safety, economic security, or national security.”
The order specifically addressed the threats from “electricity disruptions and prolonged power outages resulting from cybersecurity incidents.”
Jon Wellinghoff, the former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said in an interview last week that while the security of United States’ critical infrastructure systems had improved in recent years, they were still vulnerable to advanced hacking attacks, particularly those that use tools stolen from the National Security Agency.
“We never anticipated that our critical infrastructure control systems would be facing advanced levels of malware,” Mr. Wellinghoff said.
In 2008, an attack called Stuxnet that was designed by the United States and Israel to hit Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility, demonstrated how computer attacks could disrupt and destroy physical infrastructure.
The government hackers infiltrated the systems that controlled Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and spun them wildly out of control, or stopped them from spinning entirely, destroying a fifth of Iran’s centrifuges.
In retrospect, Mr. Wellinghoff said that attack should have foreshadowed the threats the United States would face on its own infrastructure.
Critical infrastructure is increasingly controlled by Scada, or supervisory control and data acquisition systems. They are used by manufacturers, nuclear plant operators and pipeline operators to monitor variables like pressure and flow rates through pipelines. The software also allows operators to monitor and diagnose unexpected problems.
But like any software, Scada systems are susceptible to hacking and computer viruses. And for years, security specialists have warned that hackers could use remote access to these systems to cause physical destruction.
Chicago: ISNA has Linda Calling for Jihad Against Trump
Title of the conference:54th Annual ISNA Convention
Hope and Guidance Through the Qur’an
Chicago Tribune: “ISNA’s Annual Convention is more than simply a coming together of the Muslim community,” said Azhar Azeez, ISNA President. “Our goal is to unite people across different faiths and backgrounds in the spirit of peace and better understanding. We hope the convention will be used as platform and catalyst for social change”, he added.
ISNA has invited a rich list of speakers, scholars, community leaders and public servants to address Convention attendees. Linda Sarsour, co-chair of the National Women’s March, will be the keynote speaker during the Community Service Recognition Luncheon which will honor Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed for his lifelong dedication to serving the community, building interfaith relationships and social justice advocacy.
Complementing the main ISNA offering of programs, there are conferences being hosted by the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. & Canada (MSA National) and the Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA).
ISNA is the largest and oldest Islamic umbrella organization in North America. Its mission is to foster the development of the Muslim community, interfaith relations, civic engagement, and better understanding of Islam.
*** So, what did one of these esteemed speakers have to say at this convention?
Do you suppose anyone from CNN, MSNBC or NBC attended and reported this? Nah….but the Huffington Post did publish a report and well, they used the same definition of ‘jihad’ that former CIA Director John Brennan used…..it just means struggle. Ah sure… Anwar al Awlaki called for peaceful demonstrations too. Maybe HuffPo should check with their counterpart Peter Bergen at CNN on al Awlaki. After the Secret Service visited with Kathy Griffin for an hour, will they too go pay a visit to ISNA or to Linda?
Conservative news sites are targeting activist Linda Sarsour again, this time for using the word “jihad” in a speech to a mainly Muslim audience.
Speaking in Chicago at the annual Islamic Society of North America convention over the weekend, Sarsour, an organizer of January’s Women’s March, discussed what it means to be a patriot in the United States.
In her speech, which was posted online Monday, Sarsour discussed leaders like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali who helped shift culture by being unapologetically themselves.
A number of conservative outlets zeroed in on a particular section of Sarsour’s speech, in which she used the word “jihad” to describe efforts to resist unjust policies.
The word “jihad” has long been misused and misunderstood by both Muslim extremists and people seeking to spread hatred against Muslims. But for the majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, “jihad” is a word that literally means “to struggle.” It’s a concept within Islam that represents a commitment to serve God, and to be good to yourself and your neighbors. It can be personal, like struggling to get through a rough workday, or overarching, like striving to seek justice for all people.
As Sarsour recounted in her speech, the Prophet Muhammad is said to have described the best form of jihad as “a word of truth in front of a tyrant, ruler or leader.”
FBN: She said that Muslim-Americans’ number one priority should be protecting and defending their communities, not assimilating or pleasing people in power.
“I hope, that when we stand up to those who oppress our communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad, that we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America, where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reining in the White House,” she said.
Sarsour was a leader behind January’s Women’s March, and she was named a “Champion of Change” by the Obama administration in 2012.
Watch her full address above, and see Asra Nomani weigh in on Sarsour and the anti-Trump movement using this link.
What did Putin Know About Flynn?
U-S lawmakers say there is new evidence that Soviet-era leaders were backing plans for a secret war to be fought by Soviet agents in America during the cold war.
Former agents of the Soviet intelligence service, the K-G-B, say there were plans for sabotage, assassination, and perhaps even the use of small nuclear devices on U-S soil as late as the 1970’s. And you think Moscow is trustworthy? Remember, China and Russia are the lead team now dealing with the North Korea threat.
Disinformation across ages: Russia’s old but effective weapon of influence
Fragment of the cover of Disinformation, a book by Ion Mihai Pacepa, ex-deputy chief of communist Romania’s foreign intelligence, and law professor Ronald J. Rychlak
Article by: Marko Mihkelsoni
I. The Metropol gala
It may have seemed like any other Thursday in Moscow. The dismally overcast sky and near-freezing temperature lay heavy on the city, heralding the darkening days of winter. On that morning, the historical Art Nouveau-style Hotel Metropol Moscow, situated between the Kremlin and the FSB (formerly KGB) headquarters, was slowly and quietly filling with important guests. It is unlikely that many passers-by noticed the members of Russia’s power elite, headed by President Vladimir Putin, arriving one by one at the hidden entrance.
It was 10 December 2015. Russia’s global propaganda television channel RT (formerly Russia Today) was celebrating its 10th anniversary with a lavish gala. The organizers had put great effort into hand-picking the guests: the tables were filled with high-calibre figures active in the fields of politics, the economy, and propaganda.
When analyzing images taken at the event in light of the information available today, it is immediately clear to a watchful eye that this was a carefully planned Russian active influence operation. Its main objective was not to promote the television channel but to prepare for the massive interference in the upcoming US presidential elections.
Retired US General Michael T. Flynn had taken his place at Putin’s right hand. By that time, it was well known in Moscow that Flynn could play a key role in advising presidential candidate Donald Trump on national security issues. A battle-hardened veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Flynn’s pronounced negativity towards Islam suited Russia very well.
Putin and General Flynn at the celebration of RT anniversary in Moscow, 10 December 2015. Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev
Flynn did not fail to meet the expectations of those who had ordered the speech. For 40,000 dollars, the retired general scolded Obama’s administration for its Middle East policy and kept mum about Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, as well as the many civilian casualties of air strikes in Syria. One must not forget that during the Metropol gala the international situation was rather tense, especially when it came to Russia’s relationship with the West. Only a couple of weeks had passed since Turkey had shot down a Russian Su-24M attack aircraft on 24 November 2015. Flynn was not bothered by this.
Putin did not shy away from egging Flynn on during their dinner-table talk. Having essentially been removed from the position of director of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Flynn had a bone to pick with President Barack Obama. Thus, Putin’s jaundiced views on Obama and Hillary Clinton fell on fertile ground. Flynn admitted in a later interview with Dana Priest of The Washington Post that the only thing he remembers from his table talk with Putin was the latter’s deep mistrust of the Obama administration.
Flynn had likely been under surveillance for a while. When he was still the director of the DIA in 2013, the three-star General Flynn received an unusually warm welcome in Moscow. He was the first—and so far the only—high-profile US officer to have entered the headquarters of Russia’s Main Intelligence Agency (GRU). Flynn himself remembers this with great pride because he was asked to conduct a masterclass on the professional development of leadership. The mind boggles at the thought of what the listeners made of him at the time. After all, countering the activities of the US and its allies was and continues to be one of the GRU’s main priorities.
Nevertheless, it is evident that Flynn ending up as the main guest at the December 2015 gala was no coincidence; the role of RT commentator was merely a suitable cover. However, Flynn was not the only one to attract attention on that table of ten bigwigs.
Right across from Putin sat another fateful figure from the US—the Green Party’s presidential candidate Jill Stein, who is known for her accentuated friendliness towards Russia. She also made a presentation at the gala, although her presence was advertised more modestly than Flynn’s. Still, it was Stein who became the dark horse of the November 2016 elections.
To-be U.S. presidential candidate Jill Stein in Moscow’s Red Square, December 2015. Screenshot from a video
Stein drew more votes in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan than Trump’s margin of victory over Hillary Clinton. Stein received the votes of 1.4 million people nationwide, i.e. 1% of voters. All this could have been an additional reason for stopping Clinton from becoming president.
Putin was not the only one gracing Flynn and Stein with his undivided attention at the main table. The conversation was steered by the then Kremlin Chief of Staff and former KGB general Sergey Ivanov, the president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov (who is also regarded in intelligence circles as Putin’s national defence adviser), one of the Kremlin’s leading propaganda chiefs Alexey Gromov, and RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, who is known to be friends with Putin.
In order to help Flynn and Stein blend in with the crowd, the main table also included Willy Wimmer, a veteran German politician from Angela Merkel’s party and a former member of the Bundestag (1976–2009), and the former Czech foreign minister, Cyril Svoboda. Both are also known for their pro-Russian attitude. For instance, Wimmer has said that pursuing an anti-Russia policy is a crime against the whole of Europe. As expected, Wimmer’s analysis has no room for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, because he believes that the coup in Kyiv was caused by the West.
The picture of what transpired at the Metropol would be incomplete without mention of Julian Assange, whose presentation was broadcast via a live link and who was later suspected of leaking 20,000 emails stolen from the server of the US Democratic Party; former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, who has justified Russia’s aggression against Ukraine with the need for protection from NATO; and a former analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, Raymond McGovern, who had become a scandalous political activist in the 1990s. McGovern later admitted to having voted for Stein in the 2016 elections.
As the event at the Metropol drew to a close, few people realized that something big was happening. Back then, nobody outside his immediate circle knew Flynn. Today, his name features in the international media almost every day, and with good reason. The most dramatic outside interference in the US presidential elections is a fact, and Flynn played one of the key roles in it.
Trump and Flynn during the 2016 presidential race. Photo: George Frey
Even though his career as President Trump’s national security adviser was cut short, his suspicious and covert ties managed to cause serious damage to the reputation of the US as the leader of the Western world. The story does not end there. One thing is certain: this is the first time the global public has felt the reach of Russia’s influence operations and the professionalism of its subterfuge so clearly. Many see this as something new and unexpected but, in reality, it was a long time coming.
II. The Marquis de Custine’s timeless testament
In 1839, a French aristocrat, the Marquis de Custine, traveled to Russia to seek support for his reactionary views. He was resentful of the representative democracy of his own country and thought it would lead to mob rule. He was a well-known travel writer and had published eloquent accounts of Spain and Italy.
Custine got the idea to write about Russia from the 1835 book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, in which the author foretells a great future for Russia and the US. Custine was later called “the Russian Tocqueville”.
He spent most of his time in Russia in Saint Petersburg, but he also visited Moscow and Yaroslavl. Custine was interested in the lives, customs, and mindsets of both the aristocracy and common folk. His hopes of finding support for his ideas in Russian authoritarianism were promptly crushed. He was especially appalled by the fact that Russians were ready to cheerfully collaborate with their own enslavers.
Having collected only one year’s worth of immediate impressions and information, Custine managed to turn the material into a book titled La Russie en 1839, which captures the nature of Russia extremely well. The book was so successful that for a long time it was banned by the Russian authorities. The unabridged version of Custine’s book was finally published in Russia 157 years later, in 1996.
Among other things, the author noticed the tendency of Russians to deceive their guests or alter reality. Custine wrote that everything in the country was an illusion and the professional misleading of foreigners was a practice only known in Russia.
In 1839, Custine recorded the thoughts of a noble Russian companion on the role of lie in his government’s policy
A former US ambassador in Moscow, General Walter Bedell Smith, wrote an introduction to the English edition of Custine’s book in 1951. Smith stressed that Custine’s political analysis was “so penetrating and timeless that it could be called the best work so far produced about the Soviet Union.” All of today’s extensive historical books on Russia owe thanks to Custine’s contribution. In Russia, however, the Frenchman is seen as the father of classic Russophobia.
Custine was not the first or only person to draw attention to Russia’s “Susaninist” nature. Even during the Livonian War (1558–83), the tsar’s negotiators tried to leave the misleading impression that Tallinn was situated on ancient Russian land and that Livonia should, therefore, be ruled by Moscow. The “villages” of Prince Potemkin, a favorite of Catherine the Great, have even acquired a proverbial meaning.
III. The KGB and the beginnings of disinformation as a science
The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 changed everything. All previous experiences paled before the extent to which deliberate lying, deception and misleading became a conscious choice in the forge of the Bolshevik special services. In the course of a century, many people from all over the world, from popes to presidents, from countries to international organizations, witnessed the disinformation skills of the Cheka/GPU/NKVD/KGB/FSB and the implementation of active influence measures in the service of Russian foreign policy.
The use of disinformation as a tactical weapon of influence became organized as early as 1923, when the Deputy Director of the GPU, Józef Unszlicht, formed a special disinformation unit to conduct active intelligence operations. Born in Poland, Unszlicht was one of the founders of the Cheka and saw disinformation as an excellent opportunity to create successful diversions in open Western societies.
On 22 December 1922, Unszlicht and Roman Pillar wrote to Stalin’s Politburo that the special disinformation unit should focus on the creation and distribution of misleading information. The best way to spread disinformation in a credible manner was to use the media of open societies. Stalin and the Politburo approved the proposal and urged Unszlicht to proceed.
The first notable and successful use of disinformation was Operation Trust. This ran from 1923 to 1927 with the aim to mislead the White Army and monarchist organizations in exile and foreign intelligence institutions with false information about an extensive resistance organization, Trust, operating within the Soviet Union. The illusion helped to lure many anti-Soviet (Boris Savinkov and Pavel Dolgorukov) and foreign (Sidney Reilly) agents into Russia, who were then arrested and executed. Interestingly, both the beginning and the end of the operation had close ties to Estonia and Latvia.
Trial of Boris Savinkov, an ardent anti-Bolshevik, who was lured to the USSR by Soviet secret services in August 1924. He was sentenced to 10-year imprisonment and was said to have committed suicide in jail in May 1925. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Trust was followed by a number of other known and less-known operations that have provided material for hundreds of books. One of the best sources is the collection of notes made by Vasili Mitrokhin during his 30 years as a KGB archivist before he fled to the West in 1992. The historian Christopher Andrew has written two hefty books based on these notes.
Another person who deserves a mention is Ion Pacepa, a general in the Romanian communist special service Securitate, who fled to the US in 1978. In 2013, he published the book Disinformation, in which he uses his own immediate knowledge to shed light on the creation of false narratives such as the framing of Pope Pius XII as “Hitler’s Pope” during World War II.
In the Soviet Union, disinformation became a science in its own right and was honed to perfection over the years. The term was first used in The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia in 1952, where it was presented as classic disinformation. According to the book, disinformation constitutes false news distributed in the media with the intention of misleading the public. The entry added that such tactics were used by the West against the Soviet Union. The truth was, naturally, the exact opposite.
Curiously, “disinformation” did not enter Western dictionaries until the late 1980s. The English word is directly derived from the Russian дезинформация [dezinformatsiya — ed.].
In the late 1960s, the Director of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, took disinformation as a successful instrument of influence to a whole new level. Andropov himself said that
“disinformation is like cocaine—sniff once or twice, it may not change your life. If you use it every day, though, it will make you an addict—a different man.”
FSB reinstalled the memorial plaque to Andropov, which was dismantled in 1991, on its Moscow headquarters in December 1999, shortly before ex-FSB director Vladimir Putin became acting president of Russia. Photo: Anatoly Novak
In general, it is customary for foreign intelligence services to be created on the basis of collected information to advise a country’s political authorities in matters of foreign relations. However, in addition to collecting past facts, the tasks of Russian foreign intelligence involve manipulating the future.
Furthermore, the masterclass of Russian special services includes the creation of a new past to destabilize the opponent, which is then used to tamper with the latter’s international image. I will look at Estonian examples later, but Russian attempts to change the past to serve its foreign-policy interests are best illustrated by the subject of World War II.
It is crucial to understand that the fall of the Soviet Union changed nothing. The KGB was broken up and reorganized, but its tasks remained roughly the same. Mistrust in the Western system of values and security persisted.
For instance, in his 2007 book Comrade J, Pete Earley uses the story of Sergei Tretyakov, a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer who defected while at the UN in 2000, to demonstrate how Moscow continued with active intelligence and influence operations against the US even in the 1990s, the friendliest period in their relationship.
Tretyakov makes a thought-provoking statement in the book:
I want to warn Americans. As a people, you are very naive about Russia and its intentions. You believe because the Soviet Union no longer exists, Russia now is your friend. It isn’t, and I can show you how the SVR [Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service — ed.] is trying to destroy the US even today and even more than the KGB did during the Cold War.
Thanks to the endless possibilities of the internet, disinformation and national propaganda acquired an entirely new meaning with the rise to power of the former KGB intelligence officer and FSB director Vladimir Putin in 1999. The KGB’s machinery was polished and harnessed to serve Russia’s imperialist interests. The state quickly assumed control over the media, and the leading television stations became the world’s most professional propaganda outlets.
The authorities turned their attention to information security, which quickly found its way into new strategy documents. Its nuances were made famous by Russian general and current Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, in his notorious doctrine.
The introduction of social media and its rapid development have proved to be an unprecedented goldmine for intelligence services. The distribution of disinformation is considerably easier in today’s world than it was in the late 1980s, for instance.To compare: it took more than three years for the KGB’s Operation INFEKTION to succeed in spreading a global rumor that the HIV virus originated from the Pentagon’s biological weapons program. This information leak first appeared in a small pro-Soviet Indian paper, Patriot, on 17 July 1983. Two years later, this was referenced by a popular Soviet weekly, Literaturnaya Gazeta, as the source of the scandalous story. From there it found its way to the front page of a British tabloid, and by April 1987 the fake news had been published by the mainstream media of 50 countries.
A standard message featured by a leftist paper within the AIDS disinformation campaign
On the eve of the decisive round of the 2017 French presidential elections, the favorite, Emmanuel Macron, fell victim to a massive hacking attack. The database of his e-mails and other documents went viral on a file-sharing service within minutes. In the space of just three hours, the post was shared around 47,000 times, and half a day later it was trending worldwide on Twitter. Even though Russia has denied involvement, the cyber trails prove otherwise.
In the noughties, several Western intelligence leaders were already complaining that Russia had become more active than it had been during the Cold War, but this went largely unnoticed. Russia was off the radar while the focus lay on Afghanistan and the Middle East in general. The Western political elite began to regard Russia as a threat only after the occupation and annexation of Crimea. This also brought Moscow’s activities back into the sights of intelligence services.
IV. Estonia as a target of Russian information attacks
Depicting Estonia (and Latvia) as a country that discriminates against minorities and promotes Nazism has been one of Russia’s largest and most consistent international deception operations in the last 25 years. The reasons for this are numerous, the main one being Moscow’s strategic interest in restoring its authority over the Baltic States. Russia became particularly pushy in the 1990s when Estonia and the other Baltic States were applying for membership of NATO and the European Union.
On 4 December 1991, only three months after the restoration of independence, the Estonian foreign ministry was forced to send its Soviet counterpart a note condemning President Mikhail Gorbachev’s hostile attitude towards the Baltic States during his appearance on Soviet Central Television the previous day. Gorbachev first blamed the Baltic States for violating the human rights of minorities and then added that Russians, Ukrainians and other minorities living in the Baltic States had requested protection from the Soviet Union. Estonian diplomats treated this as a threat to national security.
Active measures continued to be taken in this spirit on both diplomatic and journalistic levels for years. Essentially, it has not stopped, even today. The situation was particularly severe in the 1990s when Russia tried to influence the West to ignore the Baltic States. Moscow also tried to discourage Estonia from adopting the Aliens Act in 1993 by issuing threats bordering on the undiplomatic.
For instance, on 18 June 1993, the then Russian deputy foreign minister, Vitaly Churkin, who later became Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, said on Radio Moscow that: “Russian-Estonian relations are clearly deteriorating. We are currently preparing a package of serious diplomatic, political and perhaps not only political measures with regard to Estonia.” Six days later, President Boris Yeltsin said that Estonia had “forgotten” geopolitical and demographic reality and threatened that Russia had the means to refresh its memory. Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev did not hold back on 14 August 1993, saying that international relations in the Baltic States had “strong potential for violence and unrest.”
On 23 August 1993—exactly 54 years after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact—Yeltsin’s press secretary, Vyacheslav Kostikov, naively stated that
“the forces that try to push Russia out of the Baltic States must consider that Russia governed the Baltic geopolitical area for centuries and it has invested great material and intellectual resources into its development.”
On 2 March 1994, Artur Laast, a diplomat at the Estonian Embassy in Moscow, was invited to the Russian foreign ministry, where the head of the Second European Department, Yuri Fokin, made a threatening oral statement about President Lennart Meri’s criticism of Russia in his speech at the annual Matthiae-Mahl dinner in Hamburg on 25 February. The memo of the meeting ends with Laast quoting the Russian diplomat: “If the course that is focused on aggravating the relations between the two neighboring countries does not change, Estonia will assume full responsibility.”
In the 1994 report “Russian Threats to Estonia” by the embassy in Moscow, an Estonian diplomat discusses political hazards among other questions. The author of the report writes that Russia
“attempts to influence Estonia by damaging us on the international arena. For this, it uses the well-known thesis of violating the human rights of the Russian minority, spreads rumors that Estonia has become a transit country for crime and that Estonian citizens participate in military conflicts in Tajikistan and Chechnya, and accuses us of supporting separatism in Russia.”
These are only a few examples from the archive of the Estonian foreign ministry that illustrate Russia’s diplomatic pressure on Estonia, but also on the West. At the time, occupying forces were still in Estonia. The troops were withdrawn on 31 August 1994.
When the First Chechen War broke out at the end of 1994, Russian media gave extensive coverage to a false news story about alleged Baltic female biathletes serving as snipers on Dudayev’s side. As the so-called “White Tights,” the phantom snipers even featured in songs.
From my time as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, I clearly remember a detailed, multi-page account in the daily Moskovskiye Novosti of how Estonians were skilled and disciplined killers: all this to distort our image and influence public opinion at home and abroad.
World War II has remained one of the main arguments in the information war against Estonia over the last 25 years. The tension grew at the beginning of Putin’s tenure and finally led to the Bronze Night events in 2007. Russia has not made much progress on this matter or on other topics.
Russian anti-Estonian cartoon attacks Estonian schools as an alleged hotbed of Nazism as opposed to Russian/Soviet-style “peace education.” Source: newsbalt.ru
Estonia has now been a member of NATO and the EU for 13 years and will use its presidency of the EU Council to collaborate with other member states to implement more effective means to combat Russia’s information attacks and disinformation campaigns.
V. In place of an epilogue
In 1930, Professor Dmitry Manuilsky of Moscow’s Leninist School of Political Warfare wrote that Russia was creating the world’s most progressive peace movement to lull the West to sleep. Convinced that a war between the two great systems was inevitable, Manuilsky thought that
“foolish and decadent capitalist countries will be happy to use the opportunity to cooperate with us to bring about their own destruction. They will use every opportunity to become friends. As soon as the enemy lets their guard down, we will crush them with our iron fist.”
The Soviet empire used various means to achieve its geopolitical goals and, to an extent, world domination. At the forefront of the campaign in the free world were the “useful idiots” and agents of influence.Moscow took good care of its mouthpieces. In the 1980s, French communists were paid 24 million dollars, while Americans received 21 million dollars. Finnish communists received a generous reward of 16.5 million dollars for their pro-Russian views. During the final two decades of the Soviet Union, Moscow distributed more than 400 million dollars of such benefits all over the world, mainly to extremist communist movements.
The fight for the hearts and minds of the free world was on, and it has not subsided even today. Russia’s new clients are mainly extremist forces of both left and right, and by supporting them Moscow tries to weaken the integrity of the European Union and NATO, disrupt the internal stability of their member countries, and create the circumstances for a Finlandization of Europe.
Russia has managed to make a right mess of America’s domestic politics. However, the Dutch and French elections provided some assurance that Moscow’s influence operations have limits and that Europe is not disintegrating. Then again, the fight continues and it is too early to draw any final conclusions.
The international debate has provided many good ideas and political suggestions to counter Russia’s aggression, information attacks, and propaganda. History provides good counsel, even here.
On 14 April 1950, only 12 months after the founding of NATO, the US National Security Council’s special task force presented President Harry Truman with top-secret report No. 68. The 58-page document was essentially the basis for the US long-term policy on the Soviet Union, which culminated with the victory in the Cold War in the late 1980s. The report described the challenge posed by the Soviet Union as something that could cause “the destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself.” The Soviet Union was treated as the exact opposite of the US, with Moscow’s expansionist policy deemed a great threat to the security of the free world.
Among other topics, the report also highlighted the fight against the Soviet Union’s influence operations. The document stressed that the campaign for truth must above all become a fight for people’s minds.
Putin boasts of Russia’s fight against ISIS in Syria to the filmmaker Oliver Stone showing a U.S. video from Afghanistan. Screenshots from Stone’s film The Putin Interviews (2017)
A lot has changed by 2017 but, in general, Russia and the US, together with the latter’s allies, remain in fundamental opposition. Hence it is vital that the allies’ conflict-avoidance strategy looks beyond the false hope of solving problems with meaningless dialogue.