Musk - the owner of this platform with the largest following on Twitter - is boosting an enduring Russian propaganda & disinformation campaign into nearly all Twitter feeds tonight. The Kremlin has covertly and more recently overtly tried running CALEXIT and TEXIT campaigns on social media in america since at least 2014. texasmonthly.com/news-politics/…

Surprising and not surprising at the same time. For those interested, NYT did an excellent broadcast “Day X” about similar extremism in Germany nytimes.com/2022/12/07/wor… Again, not a surprise. They wanted to make contact with Russia.

ok, let's take a breath on Russian meddling in election via social media. The website here hosts american content gets little to no traction, the account posting memes is well known, extremely low traction nytimes.com/2022/11/06/tec…

https://twitter.com/selectedwisdom/status/1587445193489408000

At present, this is least Russian influence activity I've seen in 4 election cycles. Unless strategic hack on election day, see no evidence Russia tipping any election outcome.

Summary: “Americans use Iranian disinformation about election 2020 to create American disinformation about election 2022” this is foreign disinfo being re-used by Americans - #NotLegit

https://twitter.com/hodgetwins/status/1587974088324153344

This is a fake video the US Treasury said Iran "made in an attempt to undermine faith in the election by implying that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots."

week until Election Day 2022, regarding foreign influence & interference, my general assessment is same as 2020 “what could a foreign country do to America that America is not already doing to itself.” However, a few things we’ve seen, few to look for nytimes.com/2022/10/31/tec… 2 parts to foreign election meddling; 1) influence of the outcome 2) interference in the conduct. On #1 - foreign has been light & weak. Seen no signs that of the outcome of any contest being tipped by those outside the U.S., but one interesting highlight...

There it is. Kremlin using same strategy as February, telling on themselves. Watch the dam on Dnipro river, chemical weapons use, nuclear plants.

https://twitter.com/tom_winter/status/1584246881726922754

miburo.substack.com/p/telling-on-t…

Excellent interview with Fiona Hill, beyond the clickbait ⁦@politico⁩ headline Hill’s analysis is excellent: ‘Elon Musk Is Transmitting a Message for Putin’ - POLITICO apple.news/A10zguy8gR9SjI… She also notes the impact of Russian active measures delivered to America over the last 8 years. From Putin perspective, last term, try to get POTUS Trump to give up Ukraine, this term, try to demobilize POTUS Biden via internal political infighting.

Significant assassination inside Russia, seems Dugin was meant to be target, but this article leaves out significant data, more than 1 scenario for who killed Dugin “Daughter of prominent Putin supporter killed in Moscow car bomb attack | Financial Times” ft.com/content/a1ce13… Story insinuates scenario 1 - Ukraine connects pulled off sophisticated bombing deep inside Russia to eliminate a purveyor of Kremlin disinformation motivating Russians to support invasion of Ukraine. Maybe true, but fails logic test on several fronts. For example…

worried about mobilization to violence in reaction to today’s search at Mar-a-Lago. I’d also note that during events of heightened political tension, foreign adversaries like to make provocations. Many examples Russia/Iran/China during Jan6, election, Covid-19 Here are some examples of what I mean above. China during COVID panic using text messages nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/…

"A loud blast was heard in the Afghan capital at 6:18 a.m. on Sunday. A spokesperson for the Taliban wrote in a tweet that an airstrike hit “a residential house” in the capital city and claimed it was “carried out by American drones.” washingtonpost.com/national-secur… Pretty fascinating that > two decades after 9/11 attacks Zawahiri is killed in Kabul. Really glad to hear of this news, but also an interesting twist that he was killed in Afghanistan after U.S. forces left. Lots of fascinating questions to be answered in coming weeks, like...

Jan 6 insurrection obviously dominated extremism discussions last year, but observations online environment have shown significant increase racially motivated extremism amongst younger, online collectives, i.e. Buffalo shooter. (Pub. Jan 3, 2022)
clintwatts.substack.com/p/where-did-al… During nearly every hearing, speech Dir. Wray has emphasized racially motivated violent extremists as the biggest concern. Young men online supporting a mix of violent ideologies are the greatest concern.

Today is episode 1 of @selectedwisdom podcast with Matt Eversmann. Matt has been a great leader in the military and civilian life. I spoke with Matt about his career & combat before/after the book & movie Blackhawk Down. Episode 1: Matt Eversmann clintwatts.substack.com/p/episode-1-ma… A little more than a decade ago, I launched a blog called "Selected Wisdom". Today, I'm launching an audio blog - a.k.a. a podcast - of the same name seeking to share insights from amazing people I've met in my career and life.

Russia pulling back from Kyiv speaks to success of Ukrainian military defense of city, Russia could not encircle Kyiv, taking serious losses, but their move here during peace talks more about concentrating combat power
apnews.com/article/russia… Russia's ranks depleted on many fronts, need more troops to not only take but hold areas if they are to settle on taking a chunk in the east, imagine some of these troops/weapons be shifted to Sumy, Luhansk corridor. wsj.com/articles/ukrai…

Reminder: Russian disinformation is like Mad Libs - the narrative template stays the same, but is updated for current context & Kremlin objectives. Russia's disinfo system is at max speed right now, Phase "Throw everything at the wall." Firehose of Falsehoods whichever narrative sticks, Kremlin will double or triple down on that narrative inside the Russian audience space. This weekend they brought out some of their greatest hits - Biolab claims, secret laptop - same narratives were advanced in different context before

Strangest thing - entire world watching a massive Russian armor formation plow towards Kyiv, we cheer on Ukraine, but we’re holding ourselves back. NATO Air Force could end this in 48 hrs. Understand handwringing about what Putin would do, but we can see what’s coming Putin knows stop the West throw ‘nuclear’ into discussion & we’ll come to a stop, but the world should not be held hostage to a killer of societies, the west has nuclear weapons too, and Putin’s track record is clear, every war he wins is followed by another war

Impressive counterterrorism mission by the U.S. demonstrating how far American Special Forces have come in last two decades they can maintain pressure worldwide on al Qaeda & ISIS. Great work, lots of things to consider in 2022 post Iraq & Afghanistan some notes 1 - decentralized, intel driven global counterterrorism was a philosophy more in line with what I'd heard Biden push in 2009 when Obama decided to surge in Afghanistan. Biden ended AFG, today we see what the approach might look like. see 2009 nytimes.com/2009/10/14/wor…

note - predicting Russia invasion Ukraine based on open source/news, Kremlin knows watched from every angle (intel/public), many if not most RU maneuvers are denial/deception, moves in plain sight w/intention to deceive, trend lines matter though, anecdotes can be misleading Hence difference in Ukraine & US assessments on possibility of invasion & Putin moving pieces progressively into place to make decision when he chooses, share that decision with few people. Don't know if he will invade, signals can be interpreted both directions

Last few months, had opportunity interview top experts climate change, 1st episode out today @FPRI John @Conger477 @CntrClimSec @CSRisks provides insights into how #climatechange will shape DoD thinking on #nationalsecurity Check it out and subscribe fpri.org/multimedia/202… Climate change has clearly become a national security issue with dynamic changes creating major uncertainty for countries, companies and citizens. I believe climate change most important issue today, a topic I'm personally interested in but know little about.

Anyone doubt how effective Russia’s influence campaign on 🇺🇸 over last 7 years? warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolli…

https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1485780422734737409

Prime time cable news host Tucker spends night after night worried about Putin’s interests, not americas interest to advance democracy & strengthen alliances nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna…

Here we go, lots of details #Ukraine #Russia "Treasury Sanctions Russian-Backed Actors Responsible for Destabilization Activities in Ukraine." home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel… Some Election 2020 - Russia tie-ins 🙂

Final installment, Part 3 of Assessing Domestic Extremism A Year After #Jan6 "Where Is Domestic Terrorism Headed In 2022?" clintwatts.substack.com/p/where-is-dom… Several scenarios to worry about in 2022. Namely that an office holder at state/ local level does not respect the outcome of confirmed vote tallies, interferes with voting/counting, claims they won when they did not and refuses to leave office.