Fellow in Public Diplomacy @AFPC | prev @SemanticVisions, EEAS @EUvsDisinfo | mainly authoritarian influence & democratic security
Feb 26, 2022 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
Time for a long thread. It’s all been said before but bears constant repeating until things start to change.
Bottom line: the West is failing to confront the single biggest threat to global peace & security since WWII. This failure is a matter of choice, not lack of ability.
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Putin, Lavrov, and the rest of the Kremlin cabal belong to the true faces of evil in the 21st century. Their pursuit of power at all costs, with no—NO—moral constraints, and indeed their contempt for morality as weakness, renders them caricatures of villainy.
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Feb 19, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Deterrence means the imposition of costs, or the credible threat thereof. Leaking intel may have been useful to get ahead of Russian disinformation claiming casus belli, but it was never going to be a deterrent, and especially not to Putin. It was far too little, far too late. /1
The real lesson of this moment is the utter, abysmal failure of the West’s feckless Russia policy. 2014 did not wake us up. We yawned and moved on, despite the token sanctions and finger-wagging.
Worst of all, we knew it wasn’t working. We just didn’t care enough to do more. /2
Jan 23, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The emperor is naked. At the critical moment, Germany has shown itself to be a feckless, unreliable ally, more deeply corrupted & coopted by its “commercial” authoritarian entanglements than many (esp in the US) realized. With friends like these, you don’t need enemies. /1
It’s time for Biden to stop pussy-footing around Berlin in prostration for his predecessor’s offenses and privileging the bilateral relationship over other allies and the imperatives of transatlantic security – which, indeed, Germany has been consistently sabotaging for years. /2
Jan 10, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Contrary to much of the prevailing analysis about the Kremlin’s intentions towards Ukraine, there may be reason to doubt an imminent invasion, with good chance that Putin is again simply attempting to force concessions + recognition from the West through military means. /1
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At @SemanticVisions, we ran a sentiment analysis of rhetoric about Ukraine in Russia’s national (online) media sphere. It shows that negative sentiment has been *falling* since Dec. 3, in the same pattern we saw during the spring 2021 troop buildup and subsequent deescalation. /2
Nov 16, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
My parents escaped Czechoslovakia in 1984. They planned a state-approved holiday in Yugoslavia, then climbed over the border mountains from Slovenia to Austria. What should’ve taken a few hours took 2 days because they got lost in the forest and couldn’t find the border./1
They spent four months in a refugee camp in Austria – actually a lakeside resort town whose local businesses were paid by the 🇦🇹 govt and the UNHCR, if I’m not mistaken, to house refugees. And in Feb. 1985, the Canadian govt flew them to Toronto to start their new life. /2
Sep 8, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
I am so tired of the argument that the best way to deal with Russian disinformation is to fix our own vulnerabilities. There is really no greater gift to our adversaries than ignoring how they are harming us in favor of ruminating on our own failings. Thread. 1/
This is like telling a woman who stays in an abusive relationship that the abuse is her fault. Should she be encouraged to leave and protect herself? Of course. But should the asshole who beats her face consequences? DUH. 2/
Aug 11, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1/ The last few weeks I’ve been looking into QAnon and specifically its international spread. Two disturbing takeaways:
1) QAnon is a cult gone global. Even countries that have invested heavily into ensuring democratic resilience, like Finland and the Baltics, aren’t immune.
2/ Finland scores at or near the top of multiple indices, incl. trust in media, education, happiness, gender equality, social justice, etc. It has invested into a comprehensive national strategy to combat disinformation. Even so, it is reckoning with a new far-right populism...
Aug 7, 2020 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Before I left Brussels, I sat down with @KacaSaf for a detailed interview (in Czech) to discuss what the #EU is getting wrong in its approach to tackling #disinformation. Highlights in English below👇
2/ With some exceptions (notably @VeraJourova), the EU tends to see disinformation as a narrowly technological problem – one born of the externalities of the digital information architecture.
