Mark Toth, Jonathan Fink, Jon Sweet - National Security & Foreign Policy - May 28, 2024

@MriyaReport news from Ukraine & replays of guests you might have missed or want to listen to again.

Join us for a marathon-length episode with two top experts in national security and foreign policy: Mark Toth (@MCTothSTL) and Col. Jon Sweet (ret.) (@JESweet2022), accompanied by the prolific author and our VIP guest and friend Jonathan Fink, creator of the Silicon Curtain YouTube channel (@CurtainSilicon on Twitter).

8 hours plus! Is that a record?

Jon Sweet is a retired Army Colonel with 30 years of military intelligence experience, including leading the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. Mark Toth is a renowned commentator on national security and foreign policy, with contributions to The Hill, New York Post, Kyiv Post, TVP World, Fox News, and more.

Recently, British media outlets have started highlighting the extent of Russian and Chinese influence in shaping public opinion through social media. Many people are unaware that the seemingly genuine online support or opposition for various issues is often manipulated by foreign entities. Individuals engage in discussions, assuming they are interacting with real people, but in reality, they are often engaging with bots or fake accounts managed by foreign operatives. This has significant and widespread effects, aligning with Russia's and China's broader objectives to undermine Western stability and reduce its capacity to support Ukraine.

Our discussion reveals that despite the pervasive nature of this information warfare, there seems to be no comprehensive state-level strategy in the West to counter it. Instead, the response has primarily come from an open-source community comprising volunteers and small organizations. These groups, while active, do not possess the resources or coordination that a state-level approach could offer. This grassroots resistance mirrors older methods of information warfare, such as those employed during World War II, but adapted to modern technologies like social media and encrypted messaging apps.

The VIP guests' commentary underscores the disconnect between the average democratic country citizens' awareness of global issues and the sophisticated disinformation campaigns targeting them.

• Successive regimes have used coercive control, and appeasing such actions is not a new phenomenon.
• Reflexive control, a tactic dating back decades, is used by regimes like the Kremlin and CCP to manipulate public opinion.
• Civics education is essential to counter disinformation and build societal cohesion, but it has been neglected in recent generations.

• What consequences would attacking the nuclear triad have?

Absolute must-listen. Dive in into these and many more topics and insights into national and international security on the background of russia's brutal invasion to Ukraine and despicable hybrid war against democracy.

Don't miss out—tune in now!

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