The Prague Manual How to Tailor National Strategy Using Lessons Learned from Countering Kremlin's Hostile Subversive Operations in Central and Eastern Europe
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Kremlin Watch Report 30.04.2018 The Prague Manual How to Tailor National Strategy Using Lessons Learned from Countering Kremlin's Hostile Subversive Operations in Central and Eastern Europe This report was created with the Kremlin Watch is a strategic program which financial support of the International aims to expose and confront instruments of Visegrad Fund. Russian influence and disinformation operations focused against Western democracies. The Prague Manual About the project: This study has been conducted thanks to the funding of the International Visegrad Fund with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Netherlands within the project "Analyzing best practices from Visegrad &EaP countries responses to hostile disinformation operations". The International Visegrad Fund and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Netherlands assume no responsibility for facts or opinions expressed in this publication or any subsequent use of the information contained therein. Sole responsibility lies on the European Values Think-Tank and on the consortium of authors of the publication. Editors Veronika Víchová, Jakub Janda (European Values Think-Tank Team)1 National contributors Antoni Wierzejski (Centre for International Relations) Monika Masarikova, Jaro Nad (Slovak Security Policy Institute) Mario Nicolini (Sebavedome.sk – Confident Slovakia) Lóránt Györi (Political Capital Institute) Hasmik Grigoryan, Stepan Grigoryan (Anaytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation) Irakli Porchkhidze (Georgian Institute for Strategic Studies) Roman Shutov (Detector Media) Petru Macovei (Association for Independent Press) Vugar Bayramov (Center for Economic and Social Development) Associated expert Ruud Oosterwoud (DROG) Project management European Values Think-Tank 1 Radko Hokovský, Andrea Michalcová, Alžběta Chmelařová, Roman Máca, Jakub Fišer, Markéta Krejčí, Jan Stehlík, Veronika Špalková, Karolína Miksová, Barbara Zmušková, Milan Zálešák, Kateřina Kroupová 1 The Prague Manual Contents About the project: ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Contents ................................................................................................................................................... 2 Executive summary .................................................................................................................................. 3 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 5 Part 1: The threat of Russian subversion ................................................................................................ 6 Part 2: Policy assessment of the initiatives from Central and Eastern Europe ...................................... 13 Fact-checking: Exposure of the problem, not the solution ................................................................. 15 Governmental initiatives: How European governments (did not) learn to communicate ................... 22 Research: In need of mapping pro-Kremlin actors and polling .......................................................... 29 Investigative media projects ............................................................................................................... 36 Ethnic minorities and different social groups: You need to know them to work with them ................ 41 Networking and coordination: When the government is in denial, civil society must work together .. 46 Legislative proposals: Only good when temporary ............................................................................ 54 Education: Not just about media literacy ............................................................................................ 62 Part 3: How to design and implement strategies against the Kremlin’s hostile influence ...................... 67 “Collaborators” ....................................................................................................................................... 73 “Countries in Denial” .............................................................................................................................. 77 “The Hesitant” ........................................................................................................................................ 84 “The Awakened” ..................................................................................................................................... 92 “The full-scale defenders” ................................................................................................................... 100 Annex 1 - Policy Questionnaire ............................................................................................................ 103 2 The Prague Manual Executive summary Goal of the report • The threat of Russian hostile subversion is more and more relevant for all European countries. Some of countries are starting to realize the gravity of the threat, but other governments still doubt whether any threat exists or even contribute to its spread. It is necessary for European liberal democracies to take action and to learn from the Central and Eastern European countries, which have direct experience with facing this challenge. • Many initiatives and activities in the Central and Eastern European region, governmental and non-governmental, have attempted to identify, analyse, expose and counter Russian subversion. Some of them have proved highly efficient, and others have been inadequate or found out that their approach is not fitting for the local environment. The West has a unique opportunity to identify the lessons learned from these countries and use their best practices, as well as avoid their mistakes. Lessons learned for European governments • One over-arching lesson is the need for very thorough preparation and planning before launching any initiative. This especially applies to any governmental activities, which can intensively interfere with the cultural habits of a country, along with its political and media culture. Any new public institutions or legislative measures should be proportionate, designed to fill in gaps in the domestic system after a thorough threat and policy assessment. Quick and easy solutions in any area can cause a political backlash and end up being counter-productive, mostly because the topic of hostile subversive operations is very sensitive. • When it comes to the strategic communication activities of the government, it proves more efficient to establish permanent bodies with clearly stated competences and goals. Ad hoc activities responding to single issues tend to be badly coordinated, chaotic and often add to the uncertainty of the situation. Stable strategic communication units with experience can do long- term, systematic activities like training of public officials, monitoring or communicating state policies, while also responding more quickly and readily to crisis. • No matter what solution the government decides to implement, most steps should be widely consulted with local civil society. Involvement of non-governmental organizations, experts in the community, and the private sector in the preparation of counter-measures can help avoid some of the most obvious mistakes and make the initiative more acceptable to the public. Generally, cultivating long-term relationships with NGOs working on countering Russian subversion in any way can be very advantageous for both sides. Governmental support to civil society might enable more projects to be launched. This gives NGOs more expertise and specialty in the areas the government needs. As a result, these organizations can help the government in times of crisis with their knowledge and skills (for example in the area of cyber-security) or communicate with the public in more detail about issues which the government cannot and should not address itself. • In an ideal case, all the included actors – government officials, political parties, NGOs, journalists, and academia – should be able to occasionally meet, network and coordinate their activities. Discord, the lack of support to each other and doubling the work is a common trait of the efforts 3 The Prague Manual in many countries, but that can be very easily avoided. The cooperation can be highly informal and does not have to go much further than exchange of information in the beginning, but it can go a long way for the participants. Lessons learned for the non-governmental sector • All the countries under review still have significant gaps in research. In some of them, there have been attempts to map the pro-Kremlin actors in the country, which is highly needed in every region. Showing and analysing different actors willingly or unknowingly helping the Kremlin to reach its goals and examining the links between them in a comprehensive way is important for being able to expose the scope of the threat. The goal is for the interested community to understand the problem and to be able to show it in a coherent way to the public and policy- makers. • Secondly, there is no systematic and regular polling aimed at the level of public susceptibility to the messages of disinformation campaigns and the disinformation outlets. There have been individual attempts to get more data in that area, but none of them have been repeated with the same set of questions. This is one of the most troubling issues when it comes to showing clear evidence of