Let “Message Gladiators” Have At It.

Unproductive To Isolate Voices From The Russian Federation.  Time For Opponents Of Moscow To Be More Confident In Their Messaging.

Banishing Is The Best Endorsement For Strategy Of Opposition- They Know Their Messaging Has Impact.

Diplomats, Journalists (Russia Today (RT), Izvestia, Tass News Agency, Etc.), Educators, Influencers, Think Tank Thinkers, Civil Society Advocates From The Russian Federation Should Be Encouraged To Travel And Engage.

Every Marketplace Has Its Fanatics, Lunatics, Nuts, And Those With The Courage Of Their Ignorance.  But, Every Marketplace Also Has Its Thinkers, Reasonables, And Rationals.  They Need Oxygen.

Have More Confidence In The “Marketplace Of Ideas” And Faith That Citizens, Constituents, Voters Can Embrace Right From Wrong, Good From Evil, Practical From Illusionary. 

Does It Require Too Much Effort To Be Informed?  Smart?

Ronald Reagan, 40th President Of The United States, Eagerly Battled Messaging On The Global Communicative Spectrum With Leadership Of The U.S.S.R.- As They Did With Him.  Why Is Joseph Biden, 46th President Of The United States, Afraid To Emulate President Reagan With Its Last Remnant?  Where Is The Boldness And Confidence Of Charles Wick And His Team At USIA?

Time For Diplomats To Re-Engage, Military Officers To Consult, Legislators To Dialogue, Journalists To Re-Connect With Sources, Academics To Re-Establish Collaboration.

Since 1 August 2008, and then more forcefully from 20 February 2014, and then even more forcefully from 24 February 2022, the eleven time zone Russian Federation- its government infrastructure, its privately-owned and government-controlled companies, its educational institutions, its government-controlled and privately-owned media, and its 144 million citizens have been subjected to and impacted by varying degrees of exclusions, inconveniences, prohibitions, sanctions, and restrictions.

This disruption in connectivity was and continues to be by some governments a response to commercial, economic, humanitarian, military, and political decisions of the government of the Russian Federation and the armed forces of the Russian Federation:

• On 24 February 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded and further invaded the territory of Ukraine in what Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation (2000-2008 and 2012- ), defined as a Special Military Operation [SMO] then on 22 December 2022 he redefined as a war.  The initial invasion by the armed forces of the Russian Federation was in part from the territory of the Republic of Belarus.   

• The war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine did not commence on 24 February 2022.  The roots began their trajectories on 20 February 2014 when the armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded the Crimean Peninsula and the area known as the Donbas Region (Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast). 

• The armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded Georgia on 1 August 2008 in the region of Abkhazia and the region of South Ossetia.

Heads of state, heads of government, leadership of intelligence agencies, executives of software application developers, editors of publications, presenters and commentators on radio and television, among constituencies have sounded the general alarm about the threat of messaging originating from the territory of the Russian Federation and, more recently, from the territory of the People’s Republic of China:

• “CHINA’S SPENDING ON PRO-RUSSIA DISINFORMATION (The Guardian):  James Rubin, coordinator for the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center, said that China spends billions globally to spread disinformation, including pro-Russian disinformation, and that the United States has been slow to respond.  “We as a nation and the west have been slow to respond and it is a fair judgment that we are facing a very, very large challenge,” he told reporters while on a European tour.  “In the communication space, the alignment between China and Russia is near complete.”  Rubin also said cuts to the BBC’s World Service were unhelpful in the fight against disinformation.”

Shouldn’t the response to the general alarm about messaging be confidence rather than fear?  Be a challenge accepted not with trepidation, but with the conviction of a professional athlete competing in the finals, the championship of their sport?    

Reconnecting does not mean that anyone is giving into anything.  The contrary is true.  Engagement provides each side, or sides to an issue or issues an opportunity to make their case(s).  Those who believe they are most soundly in the right should not fear efforts to persuade by their opponents.  Those efforts should be welcomed- as the proverbial lamb is to the slaughter.

Prohibiting the free-flow of information and opinion only serves to create increased curiosity and question why one’s government would expend such energy to prevent a citizen from observing and interacting to determine validity or lack thereof for themselves?  People can become far more susceptible to messaging they must struggle to access.  Democracies, liberal or illiberal, must accept the risk of failure rather than choke-off anything of concern.

• “There is an "informational materials exemption," also known as the "Berman amendment," found in § 2502(a) of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, Pub. L. No. 100-418, 102 Stat. 1107 (1988), and § 525 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995, Pub. L. No. 103-236, 108 Stat. 382 (1994).  These amendments to § 5(b)(a) of the Trading with the Enemy Act, 50 USC. App. §§1-44 ("TWEA"), restrict the President’s authority to regulate, directly or indirectly, the importation or exportation of information or informational materials, regardless of the format or medium of transmission or whether the information or informational materials are for personal or commercial use. Sections 5 15.206 and 5 15.332 of the CACR, respectively, provide notice of this exemption and define the term "information and informational materials."  Informational materials has been deemed to include books, magazines, videos, music, electronic information, photos, paintings, sculptures, and other works of art. This was revised in 1994 to include electronic media.  The Amendment is named after representative Howard Berman, Democrat of California. It has been in force since 1988 and would require new legislation to overturn it.  No executive order can touch it.”

“Issa Slams State Department Funding of European Group that Developed ‘Enemies List’ of Conservative Media”

• WASHINGTON, DC (7 March 2023)- Congressman Darrell Issa [R- California, 48th District] sent a letter [LINK To Letter] to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for a comprehensive inquiry into federal grants and congressional appropriations awarded by the State Department to the Global Disinformation Index – a Europe-based organization that maintains an exclusion list of conservative media sites to target for “disinformation.”  The list included established media outlets including the Washington Examiner, Real Clear Politics, the Federalist, Newsmax, Breitbart, the Daily Wire, One America News, and the New York Post.  Following the release of the letter, Congressman Issa made the following statement:  “The weaponization by the federal government of the term ‘disinformation’ for the purposes of silencing and censoring free speech must stop. The Department of State’s flagrant disregard in this case is a clear violation of Congressional intent, the principles of our democracy and the inherent rights of all Americans. It is imperative that the Department of State undertake a prompt and comprehensive inquiry into any grants, authorities, and policies that may be improperly and illegally used to curtail the free expression of conservative and domestic media.” 

There was the imprudent decision by the Biden-Harris Administration (2021- ) at G20 Summit on 15/16 November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia, to avoid interaction with Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. 

• Members of the G20: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkiye, United Kingdom, United States, and the European Union (EU) representing collectively its twenty-seven country members. 

Numerous opportunities for Joseph Biden, 46th President of the United States; Antony Blinken, United States Secretary of State; and Jacob Sullivan, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, to engage directly with Minister Lavrov.  Instead, President Biden and some, but not all G20 participants departed when Minister Lavrov was speaking.  While the optic may have been a feel-good moment- and good for television, how did it enhance United States-Russian Federation bilateral and multilateral relations?  Particularly for issues relating to United States citizens incarcerated in the Russian Federation; nuclear weapon control and proliferation; United Nations (UN)-related matters; climate and environment challenges; Iran; Libya; Syria; and Ukraine.

Would not the more confident decision by President Biden (and those heads of state and heads of government who agree with him) have been to listen to Minister Lavrov and then launch into a full-throttled rebuke?  Engage with Minister Lavrov at every opportunity.  The message delivered by ignoring Minister Lavrov was not so much that he was ignored, but that others were fearful of providing him with a moment to defend the position of his government.  Important to remember that Minister Lavrov did show up. 

At the G20 in Bali, President Biden was avoiding Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (MBS), the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, because he believed MBS abrogated an “agreement” relating to not decreasing quantities of oil production.  That was childish.  Just as absurd was what seemed to be President Biden walking clockwise around a room trying to avoid the counter-clockwise walking Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkiye, because of disagreements relating to the Russian Federation (Turkiye’s continuing economic and commercial engagement), Ukraine, NATO (ascension of Finland and Poland), and military equipment procurement issues (S-400 systems purchased from the Russian Federation).

• NATO members: United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Albania, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, Spain, Turkiye, Latvia, and North Macedonia.  

Reference Citations

RUSSIAN MPs WALTZ INTO VIENNA (Politico): As previously reported in Playbook, a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation In Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly will take place at the end of the week in Vienna, including on the day of the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine — with 18 Russian MPs on the guest list.  Waltz the talk: To give the Putin men a proper welcome, the Austrian far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) has invited the Russian officials to its annual ball on February 24, in the same Vienna Palace where the OSCE meeting is taking place.  All eyes on Vienna: Austria will start issuing visas to the Russian delegation today — a “total disgrace,” a senior EU diplomat told my colleague Nicolas Camut. “It seems that Vienna, a homeland of so many prominent composers, has turned tone deaf,” said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.  18 to tango: The 18 members of the Russian delegation, led by the Russian Duma’s deputy speaker, Pyotr Tolstoy, are all under sanctions from the European Union.  No comment: The FPÖ’s Viennese section did not reply to a request for comment.  The date is ‘very unfortunate,’ Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg told Playbook, arguing his country was bound by its status as OSCE host to invite delegations from all member states. 

MOSCOW’S PROPAGANDA SUCCESS (Politico): “Russia claims that we started this war,” Borrell said, referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He said this brazen propaganda was taking off in some parts of the world, and posed serious danger if left unchecked.  Exhibit B: A majority of Chinese people (79 percent), Turks (69 percent) and Indians (80 percent) still see Russia as a partner or ally, while they mistrust Western motives for supporting Ukraine, as Playbook reported Wednesday, citing data from the ECFR.  Exhibit C: “Or take fertilizers,” Borrell said. “People tell me that because of our sanctions, Russia can no longer export fertilizers to the rest of the world. But the numbers show that this is not true. They are practically exporting the same amount that they exported before. But the propaganda weighs heavy.”

PLAYBOOK SCOOP — A FOREIGN AGENTS LAW FOR THE EU? A survey making the rounds in Brussels has non-profits and consultancies spooked that they’ll soon have to report foreign revenue to the bloc under binding rules being prepared by the office of Commission Vice President for Justice Věra Jourová, three sources told Playbook.

• Receipts, please: In the survey, which was seen by Playbook and carried out by a third party on behalf of the Commission, respondents are asked to spell out whether they receive funding from outside the EU. The question has some worried that they are effectively putting themselves on a future list by answering a survey that is merely meant to inform the Commission’s work on a draft law.

• Are you a threat? This question about funding “took a lot of people back,” said Nick Aiossa, head of policy and advocacy at Transparency International, who said he participated in an oral questionnaire with the third party conducting the survey. “The guiding questions suggested they were evaluating whether Transparency International was a threat to democracy.”

• What’s the problem? Some NGOs voiced concern that if Europe goes ahead with its own version of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, it could be weaponized by strongmen like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to clamp down on pro-democracy forces in their country. 

• Defense of democracy: A spokesperson for Jourová did not immediately answer a request for comment. Her office is in charge of developing a “defense of democracy” package, touted by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech, the aim of which is to protect key institutions from undue influence by foreign actors. The law is slated to be finalized toward the end of May.

• But the timing is awkward. Georgian protesters took to the streets en masse last week against a law that would have declared media and non-governmental organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad as “agents of foreign influence.” (ICYMI, my colleague Dato Parulava filed an excellent on-the-ground report from Tbilisi.) The protests forced Georgia’s government to withdraw the bill. “It’s odd that we’re having this conversation as this is happening in Georgia,” said Aiossa.

HOW RT FRANCE DODGED EU SANCTIONS (Politico): The EU’s sanctions were designed to keep Russia’s state-run propaganda network RT off the air. But the Kremlin-backed channel has continued to pump out disinformation about Moscow’s war from its offices on the outskirts of Paris — aiming it not just at Europeans, but also at Francophone countries in Africa, such as Mali and Burkina Faso, where Russia has sought to shore up support.  RT has only started to feel the pressure in recent months, after the French government blocked its bank accounts following an EU asset freeze order. Now, RT France is facing bankruptcy; it was placed in receivership at the end of February and a hearing is scheduled in April to decide on the way forward. Laura Kayali and Clothilde Goujard have the story of how Putin’s French propaganda outlet managed to dodge sanctions for so long.

United States Department Of State
Washington DC
9 March 2023

2024 Fiscal Year Budget

Strengthen Global Democracy by shoring up fellow democracies and building resilience against authoritarians’ efforts to undermine them. This request includes more than $3.4 billion in diplomatic engagement and foreign assistance funding to counter corruption and advance democratic governance and renewal as well as country and global priorities under the Summit for Democracy and the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal. It also includes over $3 billion to advance gender equality and equity across a broad range of sectors and surpasses the President’s goal to more than double gender equality assistance.

Modernize Diplomacy and Expand Overseas Engagement. The Budget request will drive forward an ambitious modernization of American diplomacy and development to ensure we are equipped to meet the challenges and opportunities of our time. It expands the Department of State’s workforce by over 500, with a focus on advancing the Indo-Pacific Strategy, expanding professional development opportunities, and managing increasingly complex embassy operations. Funding is also included to continue Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) and workforce engagement initiatives.

United States Department Of State
Washington DC
7 March 2023

QUESTION: Russia is slated to lead the UN Security Council next month. Is this something that United States is worried about, the world should be worried about?

MR PRICE: Well, Alex, this is part of a rotation of the members of the UN Security Council. If I recall, Russia was president of the Security Council in February of 2022, and it was during a pretty notable session of the Security Council that Russia tried to bring together to issue its own propaganda to talk about what it termed speciously the violations of human rights in the Donbas region. But despite Russia’s best efforts, the international community came together and exposed what Russia was planning to do to its neighbor on an unjust, illegal basis in the coming days. Secretary Blinken laid that out in that session in pretty exacting detail. Other countries who were represented at that roundtable in the UN Security Council chamber voiced similar concerns, grave concerns, about what we highly suspected Russia would be doing in the coming days.  So even if Russia and when Russia again takes the helm of the Security Council, there will be no amount of propaganda, of disinformation, of misinformation that Russia can attempt to manufacture to drown out its lies and to hide to the truth from those represented in this body and those around the world who are listening to it.

QUESTION:  The United States refused to issue visas to Russian diplomats who were heading to New York this week for an event at the United Nations.  Do you have any comment here?

MR PRICE:  I don’t.  If we if we have anything to offer on that, we will.

United States Department Of State
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
1 March 2023

QUESTION (Journalist From Uzbekistan):  Mr. Blinken, we feel an enormous pressure from Russian propaganda here, and it really shapes minds of our people, so we, our local media, try to struggle with it.  Is there any plans the United States going to help us in this struggle?  Thank you.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Yeah, thank you.  Well, I think it only underscores the importance of having a strong, vibrant, and well-resourced local media.  And one of the things that we discussed today, including with the president, was the importance of that, the need for that in part to be able to deal with misinformation coming from Russia or from any other source.  So we have programs, as you know, to support independent media but also in our own engagements with other governments urging them to do what’s necessary to create the right environment in which media can grow, can flourish, and can bring a diversity of voices and a diversity of views to the public.  And with that information, let people make up their minds about what’s right and wrong, what’s good policy and what’s bad policy, what’s an appropriate direction or not.  But it’s certainly true that Russia has built up a very strong and long-enduring propaganda and misinformation system that is felt here and is felt in other parts of the world.  And the best answer to that, of course, is the strongest possible environment for genuinely free, independent, open media to bring the facts to people and let them make up their minds.

United States Department Of State
Washington DC
3 February 2023

We know that – similarly that Russian military and intelligence entities are engaged in a broad disinformation and propaganda effort. This includes malign social media operations, the use of overt and covert online proxy media outlets, the injection of disinformation in television and radio programming, hosting of conferences designed to influence attendees into falsely believing that Ukraine, not Russia, is at fault for heightened tensions in the region, the leveraging of cyber operations to deface media outlets and conduct what are known as hack-and-release operations.

To give you one example, we know that the Russia’s – that Russia’s Federal Security Service, or the FSB, directly tasks and influences proxy media outlets – for example, NewsFront – to publish content that denigrates Ukraine and falsely depicts it as the aggressor. Articles written by this and other outlets as a result have made their way not only to pro-Kremlin proxy outlets but also official Russian state media outlets, like RIA Novosti, and others. You know that the other week we put out a great deal of information on Russia’s disinformation and propaganda efforts. This has been long-running, but we also know that this type of activity has accelerated in recent weeks, which further fuels our concern. 

To give you just one example, during December, a couple months ago, Russian language content on social media covering the narratives that we’ve talked about – the lie that Ukraine is the aggressor, the lie that it is Russia that is being threatened – increased to an average of nearly 3,500 posts per day. That was a 200 percent increase from the daily average just the month before. And it was the month before that we had seen a similarly large spike.  So we are quite concerned by all this, we’re concerned by the specifics, but we’re also concerned by the broader trends that, to us, are reminiscent in many ways – many disturbing ways of what we saw in 2014 and what we fear we may be seeing a replay of now.

ABC
Sydney, Australia
24 February 2023

South Australia's premier said he strongly considered pulling state government funding from Adelaide Writers' Week amid controversy over its line-up, but decided against such a move because it would have been a step “down a path to Putin's Russia”  The appearance of Susan Abulhawa at Writers' Week has been deeply divisive.  Premier Peter Malinauskas said he strongly objects to her views on Ukraine, which he described as “patently absurd”.  But he said withdrawing financial support for the festival would be a step on a “very dangerous path”.

Three Ukrainian authors have withdrawn from the event in protest against Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa's views about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  Ms Abulhawa, who is scheduled to speak at the literary festival next week, has accused Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy of dragging "the world into the inferno of World War III" — a view described by SA Premier Peter Malinauskas as "patently absurd".  Major sponsors including law firm MinterEllison have also withdrawn support, voicing concerns to organisers about the likelihood of "racist or anti-Semitic commentary" at the event.  Writers' Week gets underway tomorrow but was formally launched last night by Mr Malinauskas, who said he had made it clear to organisers that he would not be attending certain sessions and any "that are associated with anti-Semitism".  Regarding Ms Abulhawa's views on Ukraine, Mr Malinauskas said he had "struggled with" considerations around freedom of speech and "cancel culture".  "Susan Abulhawa … has made references to President Zelenskyy having provoked Russia to attack Ukraine which in my view are patently absurd comments that aren't really worthy of too much recognition," Mr Malinauskas told ABC Radio Adelaide's Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz.

He said while Ms Abulhawa's views do not accord with those of most of the general public, and that her attendance "doesn't sit comfortably with me", withdrawing funding was not the answer.  "If I make that decision to withdraw funding from a cultural event on the basis of the fact its contents don't accord with my taste, or the government-of-the-day's taste, we start to go down a very dangerous path," he said.  "Event organisers, festival promoters – particularly those that are premised on the whole idea of freedom of speech and contest of thought and debate – they would live in fear that at any moment, if they've got someone appearing that the government of the day doesn't agree with, they'll withdraw funding.  "That then, at its logical extension, takes us to some pretty dangerous places where governments act as a stifler of public debate, and that takes us down a path to wherever Putin's Russia is."

Last month, the SA opposition called on the government to cancel the appearance of Ms Abulhawa, accusing Writers' Week of providing an outlet for propaganda.  Association of Ukraine in SA president Frank Fursenko expressed dismay at Ms Abulhawa's appearance and accused the event's director of being a "useful idiot" in Russia's propaganda machine.  Mr Malinauskas said hate speech was indefensible and should not be given a platform, but said it "would have to take something pretty extraordinary … for the government to start dictating what is and what isn't culturally appropriate".  "There is a profound responsibility on governments, particularly in our democratic system, to ensure freedom of speech isn't compromised by cancel culture, every time something bobs up that we might disagree with," he said.  "The whole idea of Writers' Week is to hear other perspectives, even if we don't particularly like them."  Adelaide Festival artistic director Ruth Mackenzie welcomed the Premier's views, and described Ms Abulhawa as a "serious writer" who has been "acclaimed around the world".  But she declined to comment on Ms Abulhawa's political stance.  "I'm not going to defend or comment on her social media account — that is her right, and it's my right not to comment on it," she told ABC Radio Adelaide.  "She's not invited because of her Twitter account, she's invited because of her writing.  "This is a free democratic country where it is absolutely the right of audiences to choose to come — or not —to hear the 158 brilliant writers of Writers' Week which includes a focus of dispossessed people, including Palestinians."  Ms Mackenzie also declined to comment on whether security at this year's event had been boosted.

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