Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

Vol. 75 No. 2 (2022): Dezinformacja i operacje wpływu

Dezinformacja i operacje wpływu

NATO’s seventy years war against disinformation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35757/SM.2022.75.2.03
Submitted: April 5, 2023
Published: 2022-12-31

Abstract

Russian disinformation directed against NATO predates the organisation’s birth in 1949. For more than 70 years of the alliance’s existence, Moscow’s information operations have been consistently directed against NATO’s cohesion, the political security of democratic states, civil society and freedom of choice based on knowledge and public trust, and in military terms, against credible deterrence and collective defence. Disinformation was treated as a substitute for a hot conflict and as an asymmetric tactic to reinforce the impact of other means of rivalry with the West. The next few decades confirmed the continuity of Russian strategic goals and the place of active measures in Moscow’s arsenal. Those years have also shaped the modus operandi of NATO’s strategic communications based on verified, truthful and timely information. Nowadays, the massive scale, speed and modern technologies in the service of Russian (and increasingly Chinese) disinformation brought about an intensification of NATO’s activities in this area. The perception of the threat posed by disinformation as an autonomous challenge, and a component of complex hybrid scenarios pursued by Western adversaries, has been emphasised, since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, by NATO’s strategic documents, including the latest edition of its Strategic Concept (2022).

References

  1. Baumann M., Propaganda fights and disinformation campaigns: the discourse on information warfare in Russia-West relations, „Contemporary Politics” 2020, vol. 26, No. 3, doi: 10.1080/13569775.2020.1728612.
  2. Bryjka F., Wojny zastępcze, Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, Warszawa 2021.
  3. Chłoń T., NATO and countering disinformation. The need for a more proactive approach from the member states, „Globsec” [online], 16 V 2022 [dostęp: 17 VI 2022]: .
  4. Disinformation, narratives and memory politics in Russia and Belarus, ed. A. Legucka, R. Kupiecki, Routledge, London 2022.
  5. Documents talk. NATO–Russia relations after the Cold War, ed. R. Kupiecki, M. Menkiszak, Polish Institute of International Affairs, Warsaw 2020.
  6. Foreign Service Dispatch 116 of September 8, 1952, US Embassy Moscow, The Soviet Union and the Atlantic Pact, [w:] G. F. Kennan, Memoirs 1950–1963, Little Brown, Boston 1971.
  7. Galeotti M., Controlling chaos. How Russia manages its political war in Europe, European Council of Foreign Relations, 1 IX 2017: [dostęp: 23 VI 2022].
  8. Galeotti M., The „Gerasimov Doctrine” and Russian non-linear war, „In Moscow’s Shadows” [online], 7 X 2015 [dostęp: 14 VI 2022]: .
  9. Galeotti M., The mythical „Gerasimov Doctrine” and the language of threat, „Critical Studies on Security” 2019, vol. 7, No. 2, doi: 10.1080/21624887.2018.1441623.
  10. Galeotti M., Russian political war. Moving beyond the hybrid, Routledge, London–New York 2019.
  11. Gerrits A. W. M., Disinformation in international relations. How important is it?, „Security and Human Rights” 2018, vol. 29, doi: 10.1163/18750230-02901007.
  12. Giles K., Handbook of Russian information warfare, NATO Defence College, Rome 2016 (Fellowship Monograph, 9): [dostęp: 11 IV 2022].
  13. Giles K., Seaboyer A., The Russian information warfare construct, Royal Military College, Kingston, March 2019: <https://cradpdf.drdc-rddc.gc.ca/pdfs/unc341/p811007_a1b.pdf> [dostęp: 22 VII 2022].
  14. Kennan G. F., Memoirs 1950–1963, Little Brown, Boston 1971.
  15. Kucharski L., Russian multi-domain strategy against NATO. Information, confrontation and US forward-deployed nuclear weapons in Europe, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information, 2018, doi: 10.2172/1635758: [dostęp: 4 VII 2022].
  16. Kupiecki R., „Mit założycielski” polityki zagranicznej Rosji, „Sprawy Międzynarodowe” 2019, t. 72, nr 4, doi: 10.35757/sm.2019.72.4.03.
  17. Kupiecki R., Siła i solidarność. Strategia NATO 1949–1989, Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, Warszawa 2012.
  18. Kupiecki R., Bryjka F., Chłoń T., Dezinformacja międzynarodowa. Pojęcie, rozpoznanie, przeciwdziałanie, Wydawnictwo Naukowe „Scholar”, Warszawa 2022.
  19. Kux D., Soviet active measures and disinformation. Overview and assessment, „Parameters” 1985, No. 4.
  20. Lanoszka A., Disinformation in international politics, „European Journal of International Security” 2019, vol. 4, issue 2, doi: 10.1017/eis.209.6.
  21. Najzer B., The hybrid age. International security in the era of hybrid warfare, Bloomsbury Publishing, London 2020.
  22. NATO strategy documents 1949–1969, ed. G. D. Pedlow, Historical Office SHAPE, NATO International Staff Central Archives, Brussels 1997.
  23. Nimmo B., Anatomy of an info-war. How Russia’s propaganda machine works and how to counter it, „Stop Fake” [online], 19 V 2015 [dostęp: 22 VII 2022]: .
  24. Pacepa I. M., Rychlak J. R., Dezinformacja: były szef wywiadu ujawnia metody dławienia wolności, zwalczania religii i wspierania terroryzmu, przeł. M. Machnik, Editio, Gliwice 2015.
  25. Paul Ch., Matthews M., The Russian „firehose of falsehood” propaganda model. Why it might work and options to counter it, RAND Corporation, 2016, doi: 10.7249/pe198: [dostęp: 23 VII 2022].
  26. Radin A., Demus A., Marcinek K., Understanding Russian subversion. Patterns, threat and responses, RAND Corporation, 2020, doi: 10.7249/pe331: [dostęp: 19 VII 2022].
  27. Rid T., Wojna informacyjna, przeł. M. Tyl, Bellona, Warszawa 2020.
  28. Sorrels C. A., Soviet propaganda campaign against NATO, US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Washington DC, October 1983: [dostęp: 21 VII 2022].
  29. Szymański P., Towards greater resilience: NATO and the EU on hybrid threats, Centre for Eastern Studies, Warsaw 2020 (osw Commentary, 328).
  30. Treverton G., Thvedt A., Chen A. R., Lee K., McCue M., Addressing hybrid threats, Swedish Defense University, Stockholm 2018.
  31. Ünver A., Kurnaz A., Securitization of disinformation in NATO’s lexicon. Computational text analysis, „All Azimuth. A journal of foreign policy and peace”, 21 II 2022 [preprint]: [dostęp: 25 VII 2022].
  32. Volkoff V., Dezinformacja. Oręż wojny, przeł. A. Arciuch, Delikon, Warszawa 1991.
  33. Volkoff V., Petite histoire de la désinformation. Du cheval de troie à internet, le rocher, Éditions du Rocher, Paris 1999.
  34. Wilson A., Four types of Russian propaganda, „Aspen Review” [online], 15 III 2017 [dostęp: 20 VII 2022]: .
  35. Wojnowski M., Zarządzanie refleksyjne jako paradygmat rosyjskich operacji informacyjno-psychologicznych w XXI w., „Przegląd Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego” 2015, nr 12.
  36. Zandee D., Meer S. van der, Stoetman A., Countering hybrid threats. Steps for improving EU–NATO cooperation, Clingendael, October 2021 (Clingendael Report): <https://www.clingendael.org/pub/2021/countering-hybrid-threats/> [dostęp: 3 VII 2022].

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.