Oral evidence: Russia: Implications for UK Defence and Security, HC 763Tuesday 1 March 2016
Oral evidence, 1 March 2016.
Witnesses
Mark Laity, Chief Strategic Communications (StratCom), SHAPE, and Robert Pszczel, Acting Head, NATO Information Office in Moscow, Public Diplomacy Division, NATO HQ, gave evidence.
Chair
Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us for this second panel. Would you please introduce yourselves for the record?
Mark Laity
My name is Mark Laity. I am the chief of strategic communication at SHAPE, NATO’s military headquarters. Previously I was a BBC defence correspondent and a special adviser to Secretary-General Lord Robertson. Now I lead and mentor the strategic communications effort for NATO’s military. I should add that, while I obviously have permission to be here, I am speaking personally, not as an official spokesman.
Robert Pszczel
My name is Robert Pszczel and I have the honour to be the second Pole on this illustrious panel. I am a Polish diplomat, educated both in the UK, at the LSE, and at Warsaw university in political science. I joined the international staff of NATO headquarters as early as was possible for my country, in ’99. I worked for many years in the press service of NATO headquarters, and in 2010 I departed for Moscow, where I stayed and worked for four and a half years as the director, the head, of the NATO Information Office. I came back at the end of last year and I am now an acting head of that office, until we find my replacement, and continue to work in the public diplomacy division.
Chair
Thank you both very much. To start us off I am going to ask Jim Shannon to ask a question.
Jim Shannon
When we were over at SHAPE and NATO, we had an opportunity to get a better perspective on what happens there. It is clear to me and other members of the Committee that there is more than one way of fighting a war—not necessarily with soldiers, bullets, guns and so on. You can fight wars by media and communications. In the light of that, I know we had a session when we were there in relation to this, but I would like to get your thoughts on it. Would like you to expand upon how Russia uses the media and communications as part of its strategy? I have a couple of supplementaries to come on the back of that.
Mark Laity
I think, in a way, following up from the three witnesses you have just seen, the thing to highlight is that the Russians take a holistic view of conflict, and that for them the information line of effort is just a part of it. So I think the most important thing is that they see it as integral and fundamental to their overall effort. If you look at what they did when they annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine, the information line of effort was fundamental, not just to give them a strategic narrative to try to justify what they did, but to use information to deceive, delay and disrupt, like a smokescreen. The whole debate about little green men, and were they Russians or weren’t they, was a delaying action, because by the time the Ukrainians and the rest of the world decided they were Spetsnaz, it was too late and they had done their job. They have a very operational, utilitarian view of information. That also fits in with what they have done historically. What is new is the internet and social media, but there is nothing new in using deception activities. It is just that they have found good new tools to use them with. The Russian attitude to information has been very sophisticated and very effective, and at a strategic level the Russians have a very firm narrative. They tell the world a certain story; they tell their audience a certain story; they tell people who don’t like America a certain story; they tell people who don’t like right-wingers a certain story. They have a narrative for everyone, but every single one of those is then aligned to an overarching narrative in support of their strategic objectives. So when they do information, they do it for a reason, they do it strategically and they do it pretty amorally. Let’s say they have a thoroughly pragmatic attitude to the truth.
Robert Pszczel
A factor that I think is very important was touched on by speakers in the previous session. At the risk of over-simplification, let’s say that over 10 or 20 years, the misinformation campaign has been used extensively in Russia itself. In other words, to put it bluntly, Russian society has been the first target. The result is—this important point has been mentioned—that it is a country in which there are not that many dissenting views. They exist, but there are very few places and forums in which they can be expressed. The media, of course, are controlled, particularly those that matter—television and so on. That is the first point. The second point is that there is a continuum. In other words, the same techniques—obviously we can expand on that—can be used for a domestic audience and for audiences in neighbouring Russian-speaking countries or those where Russian is the primary language, but also outside. The problem is that it leads to some contradictions in the narrative, but nevertheless that approach is pretty holistic.
Jim Shannon
I have a supplementary following on from that. When we were there, we were very aware that NATO and SHAPE were doing tremendous work, but I thought they were under-resourced and perhaps unable to reach out. They gave examples of surveys and who they were reaching. It is clear that not everybody will have access to newspapers and other media, but most people have communication, whether by the web, Twitter or whatever their IT system is. There are other ways of sending our message. What can the United Kingdom do better individually or through the British Council or the BBC World Service? Should we allocate more resources for staffing and more funding? I think we should. I hope I know what your answer will be. What are your thoughts? Is it something we have not done enough of? Do you feel the same?
Mark Laity
Because I am a NATO official and even speaking personally, I don’t want to start poking individual nations in the eye, but I think it is fair to say that all NATO nations can look to do better. It is not just resources. It is partly, but it is also being very clear about what we are trying to achieve. As the three previous witnesses highlighted, there is a coherence about Russian strategy, and that gives it an extra force so we need to be very clear about what we are doing and why, and what we are trying to say. Again, as was highlighted, if the Russians detect what they believe is a weakness on our part, they will play upon it. So the first thing is what we are trying to say. We have to be very clear about what we are trying to say. Then we must look at the various vehicles that are looking at it. Frankly, to get at Russian audiences in Russia is very hard, even on social media. Russia, again, through the operationalisation of the way it does information, has regarded this as a bastion that must be protected, so over a period of years, it has systematically taken over the main elements—the newspapers, television and so on—and then worked down to the social media; I think Robert will be better placed to talk about that. Outside that, the key thing that we have to do is find trusted intermediaries. There are people out there who need to be influenced, and the issue is not just the means of influence; it is who is influencing them. Anyone who has a child knows that at a certain point their peer group is more influential on them than the parents are. It is the same with any audience. They need to feel that the people speaking to them are people they trust, so if you want to speak to Russian minority audiences, you need Russian minorities. That is one key element. When it comes to resourcing, in the military sense there are a lot of issues. We do not train enough people; we do not keep them doing the job long enough; and we are still somewhat behind in integrating the information line of effort into everything else we do. I could expand on that, but I won’t.
Chair
We are going to have to move on.
Robert Pszczel
Very quickly, what is it that we do in NATO? What we don’t do is respond to propaganda with propaganda. We really try to be very proactive when it comes to our narrative. Also—we believe this works in all circumstances—we need to have, and we do have, a proactive rebuttal policy. There is always a dilemma. One cannot answer, because the Russian misinformation campaign is so far-reaching and active that you cannot answer every single myth that is produced, but nevertheless you have to answer some of them. The key thing is the quality, of course, and the principles, but the number of voices also matters, and that is where we believe we are doing a relatively good job. We are allying ourselves with colleagues who make similar efforts in the European Union, but there are still huge reserves in the member states. The number of voices is important. This is also about having comprehensiveness, and the timing of the response, because at the end of the day we are confident we have the right answers and the right arguments; it is just that one has to resist the fatigue that comes with answering the effort that Russia is putting into a variety of sources. One has to find the strength to answer it.
Chair
We are going to have to move on a bit sharply now.
Richard Benyon
On that last point, it was very shocking for those of us who visited NATO to hear about the propaganda example of the Russian 12-year-old girl whom they claimed was raped in Berlin—it never happened. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on” is never truer than when dealing with Russia. But may I ask you about doctrine? Do we in the West—does NATO really understand; is it fleet enough of foot to understand the changing doctrine over the last few years in Russia and particularly the role of multidimensional warfare in Russian military policy?
Mark Laity
I would say that we are catching up. My personal view is that we were behind the curve. We had a warning with Georgia, which we then did not fully integrate. We then saw what has happened with Crimea, and we are now on this 100%. My personal view is that we are playing catch-up. We have the right questions and we are coming up with the right answers, but the doctrine itself is really quite difficult to work out, because there are certain natural advantages. I’m sure you are going to see this document that I have quite a lot. It is the Gerasimov slide. You may have already seen it. It shows how the Russians use information from a covert stage through six phases of warfare to the re-establishment of victory. Information confrontation is conducted in every phase, including covertly, in peace and in war. Our doctrines do not allow us to do a lot of this stuff till the fighting basically starts. So there is a disconnect there, which we are grappling with, and part of that disconnect is ethical. We do not want to be like the Russians. We want to learn what we can, to do a better job, but we don’t want to ape them, because that’s not what we are. So there is a doctrinal catch-up going on, and I am one of the people leading the effort, for instance, for a new military policy on strategic communication, precisely to deal with this kind of thing.
Robert Pszczel
I would simply add that I think our Russian colleagues have helped us to improve the situation and awareness, precisely because of their shocking misinformation examples. You mentioned one to do with events in Germany—or alleged events—but we have seen precisely these cases when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine: the famous issue of the allegedly crucified child, and so on. The point is that we have taken on board this challenge and addressed it through the efforts that the nations have been undertaking as part of their answers to hybrid warfare, which the Russians, by the way, constantly try to update. Yesterday, General Gerasimov was talking about the fact that they need to update day to day on hybrid warfare because allegedly we are the ones who are engaging in it. He was mentioning the so-called coloured revolutions. He was talking about the risks of the Russian Duma elections and so on. Looking at the situation in house, for example, through the emergence of the centre of excellence on strategic communications in Riga, we are doing much better. But there is also the educational part, for example, the question of the awareness of the general public. Some people call it media literacy, and so on. Not everybody, when they read the comments on the websites of famous newspapers, realise that half of them are written by Russian trolls. A lot of things could be done to improve that.
Richard Benyon
What about Russian perceptions about where UK weaknesses might lie? You rightly say that we want to be the good guys. We don’t want to go down the agitprop route. Do they perceive that as a weakness? We all remember in Soviet Union times that their perceptions of the West varied from viewing us as an aggressor to viewing us as being decadent and unable to respond to the strength and order of their doctrines. Are we going back to that kind of awful scenario?
Mark Laity
When I said they have a thoroughly pragmatic view of the truth, I meant it in all its senses.
Richard Benyon
They lie.
Mark Laity
The important word there is “pragmatic”. If telling the truth helps, they will tell the truth. If telling a lie helps, they will tell a lie. The editor of “Russia Today” is famously quoted as saying there is no such thing as objectivity, so for them, I would say that the Russian approach to information really is operational. They would therefore see us being slow, not being resourced or something as a weakness. To them, telling the truth or telling a lie is about the effect. They are 100% effects-based. If it achieves the effect, they will do it and do it up to a very high level. For instance, seeing President Putin having a summit about peace on the same day as they launch an offensive in eastern Ukraine. This kind of operationalising of information as an integral part of everything is what the trick is.
Robert Pszczel
I would just add that I think they are making a mistake. Pragmatic is one word. They make certain assumptions and they are pretty well informed obviously because we are an open society. For example, they perceive it as a weakness that NATO has 28 countries, therefore each of them rightly may have a slightly different view of things, at least initially. But that is also our strength. The proof is in the fact that their arguments are contradictory most of the time. They are not even very persuasive for those Russians who bother to think about them. I have in mind the position on Ukraine, for example, where there was a strong assumption, which the propaganda machine played for a long time, that Ukraine was going to disappear from the map and collapse. Nothing of the sort has happened. The Russians are counting on fatigue and the fact that at some point we just get slightly bored—how many misinformation myths et cetera do we have to deal with? There is also the fact that Russia has unfortunately become a problem, even though we tried very hard for it to be a partner, but Russia is not the only game in town. There are a lot of challenges for us, but they are not just pragmatic, I think they are being too cynical. At the end of the day, they don’t fully understand the capability that we have and the strength of our society.
Bob Stewart
Sorry I am late; I have been in a hospital—old injury, Laity, you might recall?
Mark Laity
Well, it wasn’t me!
Bob Stewart
The thing that has always puzzled me is why, considering that the Black Sea fleet was in Simferopol in the Crimea, NATO seemed surprised by Russian actions such as taking over the Crimea, when frankly, to people who had thought about it, the Russians would not leave that jewel in their crown utterly isolated, behind a foreign border. It was almost an inevitable consequence. Why was NATO surprised, do you think?
Mark Laity
The fact that somebody can do something doesn’t mean they’re going to do it. I think that there has been a huge effort and desire on the part of NATO to be real partners to Russia. I think that, however cynically people look at it, NATO tried very hard, and that may well have included wanting to believe the best of things. When it happened, it happened very fast. It happened in ways that were carefully used to make it unclear what was going on, and therefore it was hard to work out not just what was going on, but what we do about it. If you like, it was a coup—it was a coup de main: it was a very fast action. I think we learnt from that, and I think you saw the same thing when they tried to do the same thing in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainians had learnt from it, the world had learnt from it, and the sanctions went on much more quickly. So I think, if you like, it was scales dropping from people’s eyes, against a desire to get on with Russia. Russia may say, “We don’t want to get on with them,” but believe you me, I’ve been in NATO since 2000, and the effort put into trying to get on with Russia is extraordinary.
Bob Stewart
That’s totally understandable, going back all those years to partnership for peace and all that stuff that you and I were involved in a long time ago. We always thought too well of them and didn’t distrust them enough, the Russians particularly. Could I ask, therefore, a follow-up question to that? What would happen if Russia did a similar act to a NATO country? Would the NATO alliance falter? Would NATO actually react in a proper, upfront way or would it whinge, take ages in the NAC to consider the matter—some people would actually whinge away from it—and allow it, frankly, to be another fait accompli?
Mark Laity
As one of the previous witnesses highlighted, the Russians would clearly try to position any activity on what they would see as the ambiguities contained within article 5. I’ve watched NATO for nearly 15 years now. I believe firmly that if they tried to do something like that, they would breach article 5—they would be seen as breaching article 5—and very, very firm action would follow; and frankly, they’d be damn silly if they tried to do it.
Robert Pszczel
Their objective is indeed to blur the complicated question of attribution for any action that might lead to article 5, but we make an assumption that they are rational people in the end. Of course, it can be shown in practice that one can a mistake; nevertheless, they have proven on a number of occasions that they recognise the strength of the unity of the alliance when it matters. By the way, on the historical grounds, we only activated article 5 once, in 2001, and it took us, if I’m not mistaken, about 11 or 12 hours.
Bob Stewart
That was for Afghanistan.
Robert Pszczel
No, this was for 9/11. These were, of course, different circumstances but, speaking frankly, I think our record as an alliance is not bad, and we are saying pretty openly and directly to our Russian colleagues, or anybody who would like to listen, that nobody should test us, because we have both the capability and the will to resist. So it’s kind of an unthinkable situation that they should not try and enter even in a hypothetical way.
Bob Stewart
I will end my questions by asking you both to nod when I ask you this: do you agree that NATO would stand firm and do something if a NATO country were attacked and that there would be no shilly-shallying in the North Atlantic Council?
Robert Pszczel
Yes, I do.
Bob Stewart
That’s good enough. Thank you.
Chair
Splendid. Thank you. The last two questions from me and Johnny Mercer will be about propaganda. Before that, and following on from what we have just heard, Russia still has a presence at NATO headquarters. Is there any value in that? Is there a potential in that for facilitating improved relations if there were a move by both sides in favour of improved relations?
Robert Pszczel
Yes, Mr Chairman. That is exactly the thought and policy behind NATO’s approach. Russia has a presence in NATO because, first of all, the Founding Act of 1997—the constitution of NATO-Russia relations—remains valid. We strongly believe that Russia has violated it but, with the political wisdom of the allies, the allies decided that we want to stick to it. That means that although the practical co-operation—military and civilian—was frozen on 1 April 2014, the dialogue remains an open possibility. In fact, it is not a secret that we are currently having some primary discussions with Russia because the allies are ready to hold a NATO-Russia Council at an ambassadorial level. That is important for us because NATO’s policy on Russia at the moment can certainly be described as strong defence with important elements of deterrence, but also as an openness to dialogue. At least for the purpose of avoiding any incidents such as with the downing of a Russian plane over Turkey’s airspace, we should maintain this dialogue. We remain hopeful that Russia will change its ways in the future, so that presence and other forums are important.
Chair
Moving on to propaganda, throughout the cold war years and the communist era Russia always had a sophisticated propaganda operation and, in particular, a network of front organisations that could link up with sympathisers in target countries. There were organisations such as the World Peace Council, the World Federation of Trade Unions and the World Federation of Scientific Workers—something for every distinguished level of activity in society. Those days have gone, and the doctrine has gone, but Russia has quite a sophisticated propaganda operation now, notably in the television channel “Russia Today”. How effective are the propaganda tools that Russia is using to get its message to the West in reaching Russian minorities in the West, influencing the Russian people back home, and persuading people in the West—perhaps on issues such as common approaches to terrorism—who are simply looking at the Russian channels with an open mind?
Mark Laity
I think it’s a mixed picture. The effect on their domestic audiences is almost absolute. Their control is really tight. With regard to their compatriots, the Russian language is very difficult and they have considerable influence there. The problem that we have outside the Russian Federation is to come up with feasible competition. One should also then look at the nature of what they are trying to achieve. Are they trying to persuade us that they are right, or are they trying to get us to do what they want? I think a lot of it is that they are just trying to get us to do what they want. That can just be delaying decision making by disrupting and confusing, or it can be by disinformation. A lot of what they have done has been highly—I keep using this word, but it is important—operational. They just wanted to achieve an effect. President Putin lied about Crimea, and a year later he admitted that he had lied. Why did he do that? Because it didn’t matter anymore. The operational aspect is overarching, but they have problems. The credibility of Russia worldwide has definitely gone down. I think it is effective, but it is a mixed picture and it is by no means unbeatable.
Robert Pszczel
Although General Gerasimov mentioned yesterday that soft power is an undeveloped instrument and should be worked on, in reality Russia has not attached such importance to it. For example, one compares the Russian efforts when it comes to so-called soft power with the Chinese efforts. Economic attraction is certainly not there, to be honest, and there is not really an equivalent of the Confucius Institute. In a sense, this leaves a lot of stress on the political muscle. As Mark said, with the Russian population it has worked, to a large extent. It is pretty effective when it comes to those people who watch Russian media, including those outside Russia. But it has not been tremendously successful. Some of the statistics on “Russia Today” are, frankly, rather inflated. Just because a channel is part of a certain satellite package does not mean that everybody watches it. Ultimately, the key thing is the strength of their arguments, which are not very persuasive. That is why Russia has to resort to misinformation, hoax stories and the use of trolls or just plain intimidation. It is a very crude method. There is the example of the commander of the Russian 80th Brigade who talked about its capabilities, saying it could fight in Spitsbergen. Well, he forgot to mention that Spitsbergen is part of Norway. I am sure that that was done on purpose. There is a lot of that, which proves the fact that there are limits to propaganda, but those limits are also set by our societies and how receptive they are. That goes back to the questions that were mentioned earlier.
Johnny Mercer
The UK Government aim to engage with the Russian public as a way of countering this propaganda that we have talked about. Is that realistic? Is that something which we can really interfere with or interject in? Would it have any effect?
Mark Laity
Engaging with Russian speakers is important. We can’t just abandon the information battlefield, but we have to be realistic about the difficulties of that. Practically, it is very hard to get into the Russian Federation, but we shouldn’t abandon it.
Chair
What are our main methods of doing this?
Mark Laity
At the moment, you’ve got your standard BBC kind of material, and America has the same thing. There are problems of credibility. The best way of influencing people is with people who they believe, so we need social media and that kind of access. We have to put the information out there for people to see. We have to expect a relatively low return, but it is an effort that has to be made. We need to put more effort into the Russian language, because if we don’t we are abandoning millions and millions of people, and ultimately we do need to change that viewpoint.
Robert Pszczel
I agree with that, but I would add a number of points. First, as I have mentioned already, there are not enough voices. Part of that is to do with the way that our institutions work. There are only a certain number of people who are allowed to speak on the record, and so on. We are dealing with an onslaught, essentially, and so the numbers matter. Secondly, engagement is still important. For instance, we regularly invite a group of Russian media, not just those who write critical stories about us. They have a chance to deal with facts. There is also engagement with various NGOs, even if we know that they are, let’s say, closely connected. All of this matters, but at the end of the day the most important thing is that the Russian propaganda machine is like an industry, and therefore it operates to some extent on the basis of market principles: supply and demand. That means that if we are sufficiently confident and really have the right arguments, as I believe we do, the messages do get picked up. They feel obliged to pick them up. They may add a commentary, but sometimes we can still reach an audience even without having a direct opportunity, and we do try. For instance, I personally accept some invitations to appear on Russian television. It is not a great pleasure but, still, somebody has to do it. There are not that many. If we have the right arguments and they are picked up by BBC, Reuters etc. and they are relevant, they will still be shown on Russian television.
Johnny Mercer
Do you know if any other NATO member states are doing much in this regard? Is this your focus of effort, or not really?
Robert Pszczel
There is quite a lot of effort these days, for the reasons that we have discussed. We are living in very dangerous times. Russia is very non-transparent when it comes to military activities, and that worries us a lot, because we are transparent and we believe there is an intrinsic value to minimising the risk. So there is a lot of effort when it comes to civil society, where those issues exist. NGOs and various groups recently hosted a small combined group of Russian and Ukrainian experts at NATO HQ.
Mark Laity
It is all about critical messages.
Robert Pszczel
It is about messages, but also we should not be afraid. On the contrary, we should encourage any engagement opportunities that exist, but with our eyes wide open.
Chair
I am afraid we have to leave it at that. Thank you both very much indeed for packing so much information into a relatively short slot. Oral evidence: Russia: Implications for UK Defence and Security, HC 763 7