Gerda Henkel Forum: Trust and Emotions in the Relations between Russia and the West by kcsc

Gerda Henkel Forum Interviews with Participants

Trust and Emotions in the Relations between Russia and the West 3-4 July, 2018, Kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College London

“This forum tackled key topics in the Russia security challenge from building trust to preserving the INF treaty. The quality of expertise and debate was high including valuable perspectives from Russian academics. As a policy maker, I took away insights that are very useful for my work.”

Struan Macdonald Russia Policy Team Leader UK Ministry of Defence.

“The topic concerning the relations between Russia and the West has never been so relevant since the end of the Cold War. While many people claimed that there was a definitive solution for the division between Russia and the West, the topic of emotion and trust, which was discussed during the Gerda Henkel Forum, show us that the world is still divided. Russia and the West have a completely different meaning and understanding of the words ‘trust’ and ‘emotion’. This difference in meaning leads to a completely different cultural approach, and subsequently a following radical perception of the bilateral relationships. The Forum, organized at King’s College, has been a rare and great occasion to have a better understanding of these dynamics from an academic perspective. The very high-level of the speeches have given us a clear idea on the mutual mistrust and emotional responses between Russia and the West. Moreover, the forum provided us with a platform of informative conversations among the academic community and the policy-makers. Behind the logics of the political opportunity, the trust and the emotions in the relations between Russia and the West still reside into the cultural nature of these two sentiments.”

Carlo NARDI (PhD) Strategy Manager Global Coalition anti-Daesh Strategic Communications Cell UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office

“The current high politics and news coverage of strategic relations between the UK & Russia had given me the impression that the environment was not ripe for honest and mutually respectful discourse; how wrong I was! I was very fortunate to attend the Gerda Henkel Forum 2018 and was struck by the clarity, candour and camaraderie that the academic setting and issue-focused approach adopted by a wide range of experts who are all so passionate about the issues debated over two enthralling days, but within a collegiate and collaborative atmosphere. I was particularly impressed with the way that the Russian academic participants were able to ‘hold their own’ throughout the dialogue covering complex issues completely in English; I can only imagine how much more mentally taxing their side of the argument would have felt but it did not show or in any way interfere with the pace and intellect of the discussions. I learned a great deal from the event and have an improved perspective due to the engagement and commitment to relevant and contemporary academic excellence that I feel privileged to have enjoyed.”

Lt Col Robert Hobbs Strategic Communication Team UK Ministry of Defence

Contents Foreword ……………………………………………………………………………………………...

Partners Information ………………………………………………………………………………...

Emotions in the Relations between Russia and the West Simon Koschut: Trust and Emotions between Russia and the West…………………………….

Tereza Capelos: Emotions and Politics…………………………………………………………

Daria Kazarinova: Fear in the Relations between Russia and the West………………………..

The Role of Conventional Deterrence in the Relations between NATO and Russia Andrey Pavlov: Non-Nuclear Deterrence between Russia and the West………………………

David Betz: Political Signalling and Conventional Deterrence………………………………..

Beatrice Heuser: Values and Interests in the Relations between Russia and the West…………

Prokhor Tebin: Relations between Russia and the West: A New Cold War?………………….. 20 Misperceptions of the INF Treaty Violations Anastasia Malygina: The INF Treaty, Trust and the Future of Arms Control………………….

Dmitry Stefanovich: The Future of the INF Treaty……………………………………………..

Eurasian Integration Projects – Partners or Rivals? Nikolai Petrov: Eurasian Integration – Rivals or Partners…………………………………….. 29 Trust and Respect in the Relations between Russia and the West……………...……….………... Marina Lebedeva: Creating Trust between Russia and the West……………………………….

Nicholas Wheeler: Trusting Enemies…………………………………………………………… 33 Mikhail Mironyuk: The Roots of Distrust in the Relations between Russia and the West……… 36 Reinhard Wolf: Trust and Respect in the Relations between Russia and the West……………... 38 Disinformation, Propaganda and Interference in Relations between Russia and the West Vitaly Kabernik: The Role of Media in the Relations between Russia and the West…………… 40 Hanna Smith: “Information War” between Russia and the West………………………………. 43 Ilya Kiriya: News as a Filmic Entertainment…………………………………………………...

Syria: Fighting Violence and Extremism after ISIS? Alastair Reed: Syria between Russia and the West……………………………………………... 49 Konstantin Truevtsev: Russian Intervention in Syria…………………………………………… 51 Information about the Contributors………………………………………………………………...

Foreword Amid today’s turbulence in Great Power politics and deteriorating relations between Britain and Russia, the King’s Centre for Strategic Communications (KCSC) has continued to honour the academic tradition of keeping channels open to the free exchange of ideas and understanding. Such ambitions seem modest, perhaps. But in a world where political discourses now shift with alarming speed, maintaining continuity and an open mind are increasingly put under strain. Scholarly exchange has always been part of the public diplomacy of nation states. Yet when governments disagree, it is frequently those thinkers and commentators who are the first to fall prey to state sanction. A two-day forum exploring Trust and Emotions in the Relations between Russia and the West was held at King’s College London in July 2018. It took place in Bush House, recently acquired by the university but for much of the last century and until a few years ago, the home of the BBC World Service. A more apposite location for scholars of politics and communications is hard to imagine. Continuity and discontinuity are the bread and butter of good scholarship. As KCSC sought to build on the success of our 2017 forum with visiting experts and academics from Russia, Europe and America, so too did we endeavour to break less familiar ground a year on. Emotions, trust and empathy are thought by many too subjective, too ambiguous, indeed too elusive to be captured from the real world of politics. Yet increasingly, it is in this direction that we are drawn to look for new ways of conceptualising state relations able to endure the upheavals of the global media landscape. It is precisely this turn in digital technologies which is now forcing political elites – so often in the firing line these days – to address the feelings and sentiment of consumer populations. How can a richer appreciation of emotion and trust pre-empt or mitigate those miscalculations prompted by the words and actions of different players. To this end, the King’s Centre for Strategic Communications and the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Germany, in association with the European Leadership Network (ELN), the Centre of Military and Political Studies at Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), and the International Centre for Counter Terrorism (ICCT) in The Hague came together to build on the success of our first forum last year. I am grateful to our co-funders and partners. Without their belief and commitment, it would not have been possible to explore these exciting, new areas of discussion. We are pleased to present you with a selection of interviews with many of our guest speakers from the July 2018 forum. Dr Neville Bolt Director, King’s Centre for Strategic Communications September 2018

The Gerda Henkel Foundation The Gerda Henkel Foundation was established in June 1976 by Lisa Maskell in memory of her mother Gerda Henkel as a private, non-profit grant making organization. The Foundation has its headquarters in Düsseldorf. The sole object of the Foundation is to promote science at universities and research institutes, primarily by supporting specific projects in the field of the humanities that have a specialist scope and are limited in time. A special concern of the Foundation is the advancement of postgraduates. The Gerda Henkel Foundation concentrates its support on the historical humanities, mainly on history, archaeology, the history of art and other disciplines with a historical component. For a number of years, the Foundation has also increasingly addressed issues of great relevance to contemporary life and the future, above all as part of its special programmes “Islam, the Modern Nation State and Transnational Movements” and “Security, Society and the State”. As part of the Lisa Maskell Fellowships, since 2014 the Foundation has been supporting young scholars in the humanities in both Africa and Southeast Asia. Starting in 2015, the Foundation has with its “Patrimonies” funding initiative focused more strongly on the preservation of cultural heritage, specifically in regions experiencing crisis. The Gerda Henkel Foundation is active both inside and outside Germany.

The King’s Centre for Strategic Communications (KCSC) The King’s Centre for Strategic Communications (KCSC) is the leading global centre of expertise on strategic communications. Led by internationally renowned experts from the Department of War Studies and partners from the policy and practitioner communities, it provides practical solutions to contemporary communication challenges rooted in cutting-edge academic research. The Centre provides intellectual rigour and clarity of thinking to enhance understanding of an increasingly dynamic information environment.

The European Leadership Network (ELN) The European Leadership Network (ELN) works to advance the idea of a cooperative and cohesive Europe and to develop collaborative European capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence and security policy challenges of our time. The ELN’s active networks of former and emerging European political, military, business and diplomatic leaders from across the continent, its expert team’s high-quality research, publications and events, and its institutional partnerships across Europe, North America, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region give it security policy impact like no other nongovernmental organisation. Inspired by the US President’s 2009 call in Prague for progressive multilateral nuclear disarmament, the scope of action quickly widened to all the gravest threats on a continent that in the 20th century was the bloodiest on the planet – the loss of cohesion between states, peoples and institutions; the dangers of unintended war; the risks from new military technologies; the absence of dialogue and arms control. The organisation is independent, non-partisan and conceives of Europe in its widest sense, to include not only the EU but Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the rest of our diverse region.

The Centre for Military and Political Studies (CMPS) The Centre for Military and Political Studies (CMPS) is a leading Russian institution specialising in research and analysis of international security issues with the emphasis on military affairs and military policies. The key spheres of interest of the Centre include: • Defence policies of Russia and other major world powers • Relations between Russia and the USA and NATO • Regional military conflicts in Eurasia • New military technologies and doctrines • New forms of employment of power in international relations • National security of the Russian Federation. Established in 2012 within the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) the Centre has already won a reputation for exceptional military and political research achievements, repeatedly receiving top ratings from different Russian and European military and political research organisations. The main partner of the CMPS is “Almaz-Antey" Air and Space Defence Corporation, which is the leading Russian and world manufacturer of military equipment, including missile systems, radar facilities, automated control systems, training simulators, airborne equipment systems and space navigation equipment. The main mission of the CMPS is advising various government bodies on issues of national defence and security, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, the Security Council of the Russian Federation and others. The Centre also conducts extensive academic work. During its relatively short period of existence, it has already produced a substantial number of publications on military and political issues. These publications are available in Russian at the Centre’s website: http://www.eurasian-defence.ru/node/32105 The Centre’s staff consists of a good mix of experienced and young experts. It employs several renowned academics who also have an extensive record of service with various government departments, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence. Young scholars, in their turn, provide innovation and enthusiasm to the team, helping to establish the CMPS’s reputation as the leading global hub of expertise in its field.

The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT) The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT) is an independent think and do tank providing multidisciplinary policy advice and practical, solution-oriented implementation support on prevention and the rule of law, two vital pillars of effective counterterrorism. ICCT’s work focuses on themes at the intersection of countering violent extremism and criminal justice sector responses, as well as human rights related aspects of counter-terrorism. The major project areas concern countering violent extremism, rule of law, foreign fighters, country and regional analysis, rehabilitation, civil society engagement and victims’ voices. Functioning as a nucleus within the international counter-terrorism network, ICCT connects experts, policymakers, civil society actors and practitioners from different fields by providing a platform for productive collaboration, practical analysis, and exchange of experiences and expertise, with the ultimate aim of identifying innovative and comprehensive approaches to preventing and countering terrorism.

Trust and Emotions between Russia and the West Professor Simon Koschut Freie UniversitĂ¤t Berlin (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor Simon Koschut, can you tell us where we are from an emotional perspective in relations between the West and Russia now? Has trust broken down in Europe and America's relationship with Russia? Considering the role of emotions in these international relationships, I think, right now, we are caught up in a cycle of mistrust between Russia and the West. You can see this quite clearly if you look at how the language and the discourse between both sides has changed, quite significantly, within a very short period of time. I found a quotation from NATO from March 2012 which stated NATO and Russia were not adversaries or enemies, but committed strategic partners working together. This stands in stark contrast to the rhetoric that has been proliferated for the past few months if not years. There is a striking difference. This difference represents what I would call a cycle of mistrust that is underpinned by emotions or, more specifically, emotional expressions. -And when did this change happen? It is a relatively recent historical development. It basically started with the eastern enlargement of NATO and the EU in the 1990s. It was not, however, a single event that triggered this cycle of mistrust, but more of a chronology of events, including the War in Iraq, the Libyan intervention and the recent Ukrainian Crisis. The actions surrounding and responses to these events have gradually changed perceptions on both sides. And in turn led to new dominant narratives on both sides, which, in my opinion, are quite similar. They reflect a mix of disappointment, dishonour and disrespect that each side thinks it receives from the other. Each side believes that the other side has taken advantage of the trust and sympathy given to it. -And are we talking about this at the executive level of officials and diplomats or at the level of the people on the streets? Obviously, it is very hard to generalise. But I would tend to place these perceptions and feelings at the level of the elites, simply because they are the most involved participants in all these developments. I mean the ordinary people do not think on a daily basis about how the NATO or EU enlargements or the Libyan intervention affect their lives. I think this is one of the main reasons why this should be placed at the official level rather than with the general public. -And I assume that you mean on both sides. So where are the elites getting their information? Each side is getting information from their counterparts, in the U.N. for instance. We are talking about the interaction in the NATO-Russia Council. And from the media, of course. For example, in the case of the intervention in Libya, you can see how each side came with certain expectations of the outcome and how those expectations were proven wrong on both sides.

Russia thought the intervention should end quickly without forcing a regime change while NATO pushed somewhat implicitly and indirectly to change the regime. It is, therefore, not surprising that Russia is now saying “OK”, we are not going to make the same mistake twice. In Syria, Russia was much more hesitant in its cooperation with the West, but that is not to overlook other geopolitical reasons for their hesitation. This is only one example of, what I think, was a gradual process, of anger, fear, and ultimately betrayal, with each side believing the other stabbed it in the back. Moreover, these feelings on both sides have strengthened and proliferated through the media, especially as some media outlets have a distinct bias in their portrayal of the other side. -We would expect that at the executive level there would be a certain amount of posturing and speaking to one's base in reference to the other side. But beneath that there is an entire layer of professionals who perhaps carry on from administration to administration working on strategies to improve the relationships. Has trust broken down at that level as well? It is hard to say without interacting with these experts on a day to day level. But for me, it is quite clear that this is the case, at least from my experience here in Germany and from the events and workshops where I have been engaging with policy experts in Germany. There has been a recognisable shift in perspectives, at that “There has been a recognisable level, with these professionals replaying and reiterating the lack of trust that has been shift in perspectives.” developing among the elites. Obviously, there are still those who think that we, as Germans, should not take sides on this issue, but they are reducing as a result you can see a general shift in perceptions. -At this diplomatic level we would expect that an emotional perspective might be stripped out of the dialogue between the two sides and there would be a much more professional approach. Are you saying that this is probably not the case now? I fear this is not the case. If you look at the discourses and the speeches by the Western - as well as Russian - leaders it is hard to not recognise the emotions within them, they have become so explicit and obvious. These emotional expressions of anger and fear have been occupying the discourse on both sides. If it was once or twice, it would not be a problem, but since these feelings are repeatedly expressed, they have become institutionalised over time, creating and recreating a sort of emotional structure that constrains and compels the behaviour of state’s agents on both sides, thereby producing and solidifying a new cycle of mistrust. -Are you saying that we are building layers and layers of mistrust? Pretty much. If you imagine emotions and emotional expressions as a sort of fluid mass, metaphorically speaking, what happens is that through the repetition of expressions of mistrust, this fluid emotional mass hardens and stabilizes into a hegemonic structure, which, in turn, constitutes the feeling of all social actors. And this is what I mean by the “…the current cycle of mistrust will be cycle of mistrust between Russia and with us for some time.” the West. It is underpinned by emotion. -So, where do we go from here? How will we break the cycle of mistrust? I see two possible ways, with one is more likely than another. The first option could come from the outside. A fundamental shock, like a major terror attack or revolution, for example, which would very dramatically and abruptly affect the

relationship between Russia and America. But I think that option is highly unlikely to happen. What is more likely, is some sort of incremental domestic change on both sides that could be similar to the development of the new thinking in the 1980s. It would be possible if a new generation of leaders, such as Gorbachev and Reagan were in the 1980s, came to the fore with a different mindset and open attitudes. But even if that second option is more likely to happen, it would take time to emerge and develop. So, I am afraid to say that, in my opinion, the current cycle of mistrust will be with us for some time. -So, what can be done until the administrations change? How do we minimise the damage? I think it would be up to the Europeans to act as mediators between both sides. Although, I realise that it would not be an easy task, as no one wants to question the value and the substance of the transatlantic alliance. Having a U.S. president who tells you to choose between Russia and the transatlantic alliance, does not make it easy to serve as a mediator. Also, there is a growing domestic pressure from below in many European countries to act tough on â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is growing domestic Russia, as we saw with the British government pressure to shift the discourse after the infamous chemical weapon attack on and put more pressure on the former Russian spy. In other countries, political elites to act more although not as dramatical, there is growing domestic pressure to shift the discourse and decisively against Russia.â&#x20AC;? put more pressure on political elites to act more decisively against Russia. I can see this in Germany, when the new Foreign Minister Heiko Maas altered the rhetoric and the language used by his predecessor from the same party Sigmar Gabriel, taking significantly stronger position on Russia. While this is the general trend, I think that the ideal for Europe, and especially for Germany, would be serving as a mediator between Russia and the U.S., taking on the traditional role as a mediator between the East and the West. Though, I am afraid that in the current climate that would be a very difficult path. -Professor Simon Koschut thank you for joining us. Thank you very much for interviewing me.

Emotions and Politics Dr Tereza Capelos University of Birmigham (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Dr Tereza Capelos, your work centres around the psychological side of conflict and violence. Does your study focus more on state versus state violence or on individual violence? I mainly focus at the individual level, and particularly the psychological dynamics that help us understand why some individuals become radicalized. One of my projects at the Institute for Conflict Cooperation and Security at the University of Birmingham is looking at why particular individuals engage in violent or illegal acts. For instance, within the context of the financial crisis - why do we see anomic political behaviours spiking in the last five years. How do some people decide that the best way for them to express their political preferences is through violence or illegal actions? -From a political perspective, there is a very clear divide between becoming radicalized and then acting violently. Is it such clear divide? This is a very interesting puzzle. In fact, in the classes I teach we look at several theoretical models that try to approximate the shifts between the ideological alignment of radical ideologies to a situation when it becomes behavioural. In short, how do you go from the world of thinking and supporting an ideology, to acting upon it. There are models that are linear, stepladder cases or pyramid models â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they suggest that there are phases to radicalization that can be expected. Other models are more flexible, and suggest there is not one single way in which people become radicalized and violent. In the end, what is important is to understand the process by which this happens. And what complicates matters is something that is not often explicitly studied â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the difference between radicalism, political extremism, and political reactionism. My research shows that the difference between radicalism, reactionism and extremism is driven by value preferences. For reactionism values point to a desire to change things backwards, to bring back the old, to reinstate imagine pasts - that might or might have not been there before. Empirically reactionism aligns with values of conservation and traditionalism. In our statistical models my collaborators and I also map the resentful emotional engagement with the political world that follows the reactionary orientation. Reaction is a very different political orientation than the radical one which desires uprooting with the old and change forward. The radical political orientation is unhappy about the present but it is not anxious about the unknown; it seeks the unknown. The reactionary orientation has a different affective hue: it is resentful about the present and anxious about new changes; instead it wants to consult the old and adopts a conservationist approach. -The reactionary mind, in some circles, is associated with governments taking on a more authoritarian position as opposed to governments that still have the capability of promising a better future. Is this true? This is certainly worth exploring. This work is at its first steps, but as we progress we should investigate how citizensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; reactionary orientations can be harnessed by authoritarian or populist

governments and discourses. This would effectively be the next step. Currently in our studies at the University of Birmingham we find interesting variations across individuals based on core values, in the way they engage with the political world. From there we can map their choice of either supporting, actively voting for, demonstrating on behalf of, or engaging with authoritarian, populist or extreme political organizations. Our model can offer valuable insights about voters’ alignment with different political options including the extremes, within the Western democratic framework. - There is a big discourse on the interference in Western elections and about how social media can push people from the margins of society even further out to the outskirts. How does that work, given that we are at a Forum that specifically focuses on trust between Russia and the West? Interference with elections is a serious challenge of democratic politics. Political psychology examines how any type of interference might have an impact on people’s electoral choices. Several scholars, for example, study the anxieties associated with social media use. Part of it has nothing to do with politics and just purely uncertainty that any new technology brings with it. Another part of it is related to the content of the messages that are disseminated and circulated in social media. Some scholars look particularly at election interference as a topdown approach; from governments or external agents. Others look at wider phenomena like fake news; we had conversations yesterday about fake news as a process. My research on fake news examines how audiences engage with the message, why some are affected and some are not; why some choose to disseminate fake news further and some do not. We cannot understand this without studying the psychology behind it. There is still much work to be done; research on fake news is at its infancy, and psychological models even more so. At Birmingham, I am running experimental studies where we manipulate the types of fake news and measure the persuasion impact of the message. It is important to realise that fake news is not just blatant propaganda. There are different types of misinformation, and how a message is constructed, affects how it is processed by citizens and this has consequences for the way citizens engage with the information, be it true, or false, or seemingly true. We want to know the psychology behind the way people think, the kind of emotions that are aroused, and how these emotions can channel citizens’ thinking. Our studies look at similarities in responses, systematic patterns of how people react to different messages. We also examine how the message interacts with characteristics of the audience that receives it and produces different outcomes. Fake news debates often carry an anxiety that audiences are brainwashed. We challenge that myth. It is naive to think American or European citizens as one homogenous group that reacts the same way to fake news – or any news for that matter. Political psychologists have been studying the individual predispositions of audiences with the aim to understand or predict how different groups of people are affected in different ways. A useful concept is that of political sophistication, which captures how much people know, understand and engage with politics. Those with high levels of political sophistication usually have trusted sources for their news intake, and they are not afraid to seek further information which they are able to process effortlessly. They also have strong anchors and pre-existing attachments to ideological preferences. For the sophisticated citizen information diet is rich and usually diverse, and they are more difficult to move around because they have strong anchors.

“It is naive to think American or European citizens as one homogenous group that reacts the same way to fake news.”

For the less sophisticated counterparts, the novices, engagement with politics and information media is more relaxed, more random and less systematic. Novices have looser political preferences and looser preferences for where they seek information. Often they navigate towards information that fits with what they already know, and away from information that challenges them, a phenomenon we call confirmation bias. They also have a limited number of trusted sources they go to, because they do not have the time or the interest to engage with the wider news offerings. And often information finds them but they do not know how to evaluate it, how to draw meaning from it, so they rely on the meanings provided by political and other elites. What happens with them psychologically, is a very different story compared to the sophisticates, because novices get influenced much easier: it takes only a little to move them, though it is not very easy to reach them, because consuming information is not part of their regular past-time. Social media changes the platform by which people access information. But social media does not change the psychological properties of sophisticates and novices. And this intersection of information environment and the predispositions of audiences is where persuasion is studied. -This kind of segmentation is within the public eye currently, especially because of discussions around the work of Cambridge Analytica. How does the segmentation you are doing differ from the Cambridge Analytica model? The Cambridge Analytica model is a marketing product, developed to sell information. It is not the only one, but it became the centre of attention recently as it promised results it could not deliver. It is important to understand that commercial models are developed for different purposes to academic models. In academic research we care about understanding why people make decisions - we do not harvest and sell their data for marketing purposes, which is what these companies have been doing for years. -This particular Ocean system that Cambridge Analytica used is a tool to try and segment people. Do you have an alternative system? What is the system that you use in order to determine how receptive someone might be to a message? Political psychology models do not aim to develop one effective model to segment audiences. We operate from a very different analytical premise, and our aim is to use scientifically developed psychological models to understand systematic similarities and differences in how people make decisions. Take our Masters Programme in the Political Psychology of Conflict and Cooperation for example. In our classes we draw from tens, even hundreds of models, and test them against each other. We aim to understand under what societal and individual conditions Model A fairs better, and under “Our job is to understand the nuances, the what conditions another Model B or Model diversion from the norm. To understand C fairs better. We know there is not one why a particular citizen will not do what model that can explain how people make we would expect them to do based on decisions all the time. Companies, like the particular characteristics.” one you mentioned, care more about creating ‘profiles’ of citizens focusing on systematic patterns that operate the same way across different groups. Our job is to understand the nuances, the diversion from the norm. To understand why a particular citizen will not do what we would expect them to do based on particular characteristics. We care about why things happen and we study variation across different contexts. We do not try to find types of citizen properties that once you put them in one big system will allow you to predict behaviour for all. We know this is not possible.

This is why we focus on micro-processes like how anxiety or anger affects decision making, how perceptual biases influence evaluation of new information, how sophistication influences how people engage with political messages. We care about the process, rather than the final behavioural outcome. This focus orients our work and research to a very different objective. When you work with concepts and processes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; your puzzle is the human mind. Our political psychology discipline is fascinating! We do not segment groups of individuals, and we do not conform to the argument of rigid boundaries of how people will or should behave on the basis of particular characteristics. On the contrary, what we try to understand is how each of those characteristics can impact decisions. Because we aim to map out the process of decision making, our models are evaluated on how good they are in understanding the characteristics, not the decisions of the people. -Alexandr Kogan, who was at Cambridge and then was with the GSA, was very active in pushing the Ocean system. However, he claimed recently that the system did not work very well. He talked about the people who politically sit in the centre, but never about those on the outskirts. Do you feel like what he said may be true? And do you feel that people at the margins are more vulnerable? Well, it is good to come to the realization that once you start classifying people, it becomes complicated. Once you segment the electorate in predefined categories, which you identify as whatever you want them to be, you are going to have some aggregate assumptions that by definition, cancel out the very essence of understanding human behaviour. Psychological models do not engage with this categorising of people because that is not what we are interested in. We do not want to put people in boxes and to try and understand how each box is going to behave. Instead, within each individual, we identify part of their behaviour system as a separate box. We, political psychologists look at the processes and at the factors that determine the way a particular individual will behave. This allows for variation, and understanding this variation is fascinating. Take the topic of ideology for example. When we want to study the effects of political ideology on the left and right on a particular decision, in other words how people vote, or how people prefer a policy over another, we do not split people in right and left-wing voters. We look at ideological identification as a process. And we use data from surveys, experiments, interviews, focus groups, content and discourse analysis, ethnographic methods, to answer many puzzles. For example we study how much and how people engage with an ideology, why this happens, how does polarisation take place among people in specific societies, how this polarisation is manifested sometimes as action and sometimes as inaction, what can trigger change in the way citizens behave. Studying change is the key. The human mind is not static. And this is a very different way of conducting research than saying these people are the lefties, these people are the conservatives, these are the extremes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s put them in a group and see how we can make them shift. This is not what academic research is about. The study of political psychology engages with concepts and tests models; it does not sell or prefer one model as the best one. Years of research humbles us to know such a claim does not go beyond scratching the surface of the human mind. And we want to do much more. -Dr Tereza Capelos, thank you for that very clear explanation. My pleasure.

Fear in the Relations between Russia and the West Dr Daria Kazarinova, People’s Friendship University of Russia (RUDN – University) (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Dr Daria Kazarinova, how does fear play out across relations between Russia and the West? Fear is being used as a tool for politics. A new reality is being created, one in which a new form of politics is formed within the context of post truth and free emotions. -Are you talking about fear amongst the people or amongst the leaders? It is a fear amongst the people because there is a lack of trust within their societies. There is much confusion regarding the future that makes people feel uncertain. Politicians, who manage this fear and attempt to quell their societies anxiety, will be most successful politically. -Let us assume, for the sake of argument, we do share the same values. What does fear look like on the ground in Russia? What are people afraid of and how are they being manipulated in order to exploit this fear for political gain?

“Politicians, who manage this fear and attempt to quell their societies anxiety, will be most successful politically.”

I do not think that people in Russia believe in post truth realities. I do not think that commonsensed people believe the discourse led by the media. Young and middle-aged generations prefer search for information themselves in Internet or get it from social media. In my opinion, they distinguish between propaganda and the truth. -So people do not believe the news, do they? I think people do not unconditionally believe everything the media has to say. Not only in Russia but globally as well. -Some people argue that the post truth era arrived firstly in Russia and is now spreading globally. Would you say that this is true?

“I do not think Russian society is different from any other … There are a many different discourses and this is not something unique to Russia.”

I do not think Russian society is different from any other. The Russian society is not united. There are a many different discourses and this is not something unique to Russia. So yes, it is occurring globally, but not because it happened in Russia first.

-What can be done in order to decrease the impact of fear and to change that? I do not believe we can ever overcome all of the circumstances which conjure fear. However, we can rationalise our fear by opening up the lines of communication and talking to each other more. -Dr Daria Kazarinova, thank you for your time. It was my pleasure, thank you very much.

Non-Nuclear Deterrence between Russia and The West Professor Andrey Pavlov Saint Petersburg State University (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor Andrey Pavlov, you were participating on a panel about the role of conventional deterrence in relations between NATO and Russia. What were the main themes that came out of the discussion? The main theme is directly related to emotions and trust, the topic of the Forum of emotions and trust. I think that this new trend of non-nuclear deterrence in the Russian strategic thinking is an important addition to the traditional nuclear deterrence. This trend should be evaluated by both the West and Russia with caution because it can play both a positive and negative role. It needs a serious effort from both sides to make this deterrence effective. Deterrence is not a bad thing – it prevents conflicts and wars. So if deterrence is employed correctly, and well thought through, then it can enhance security in a time of rising tensions between two countries. Thus, it is highly important to seriously evaluate the possibility of Russian non-nuclear deterrence, because, currently, there is no strongly developed concept required for its effective implication. Another theme is that the West need to make a more concerted effort to better understand “…the West need to make a more concerted the messages sent from Russia and to effort to better understand the messages make their own messages clearer for sent from Russia and to make their own Russia to interpret.

messages clearer for Russia to interpret.”

-You talk about effective deterrence. Are you able to give examples of ineffective deterrence, and when it does not work?

There are many examples to call upon. There was a period before World War II when many attempts were made to deter Germany from invading Poland, these did not work and Germany was not deterred. So deterrence failed and that led to the start of WWII. -We would like to think that emotions would not play a strong role in nuclear deterrence and that only rational actors are in control of their usage. However, coming out of your discussant panel – is it clear that rationality is not always the operating model? Rationality has never been the only factor in nuclear deterrence. Although, I would say that the background for any deterrence concept is rationality. Nobody can pretend that we all behave rationally all the time. In the sphere of deterrence, irrationality has to be taken into account. The role of irrationality in the study of deterrence is a very important field. -We would like to think that emotions would not play a strong role in nuclear deterrence and that only rational actors are in control of their usage. However, coming out of your discussant panel – is it clear that rationality is not always the operating model? Rationality has never been the only factor in nuclear deterrence. Although, I would say that the background for any deterrence concept is rationality. Nobody can pretend that we all behave rationally all the time. In the sphere of deterrence, irrationality has to be taken into account. The role of irrationality in the study of deterrence is a very important field.

-Is it possible that irrationality could be used at the policy level to approaches around decision making in relation with deterrence? Yes, I believe it can and is currently the case. When we discuss national defence and national security policy, politicians are making decisions in a very sensitive sphere. Even in liberal democracies decisions to use armies, weapons and nuclear power are sometimes made by a very small group of people. This is part of deterrence strategy, as nobody is one-hundred percent rational. -What are the main themes that are coming out to you from the Forum and what will you take away? First of all, I think, I better understand what the emotions and misperceptions of the cultural political climate are. I think both Russia and the West have to be concerned about that. Even before this event was organised, I knew there were many contradictions between Russia and the West over the topic of trust. Their realistic and pragmatic interests contradict each other and this is a problem, which cannot be â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is a complex set of contradictions resolved quickly. There is also a originated from misperceptions and lack of complex set of contradictions originated willingness to understand each other.â&#x20AC;? from misperceptions and lack of willingness to understand each other. This lack of understanding comes from a worsening lines of communications and it is getting more and more difficult to understand the concerns, beliefs and perceptions of each other. It is difficult of course to change this because in a situation of conflict, when you see your adversary, you ask yourself why should I undertake an effort to understand their view? Yet, I do believe that experts and scholars can reduce the impact of these misunderstanding, misperceptions and emotions. This can be done, I believe, because we still have contact, we still speak the same language and we understand each other as professionals. So this can be done and it can really alleviate and help to look at the existing problems in a more constructive way. -Professor Andrey Pavlov, thank you for your time. No trouble at all.

Political Signalling and Conventional Deterrence Professor David Betz King’s College London (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor David Betz, you spoke on a panel about the role of conventional deterrence in relations between NATO and Russia and you opened provocatively with a video. Please could you tell us the content of this video? I showed an advertising video from a Russian defence company, which makes a weapons system called the Club K or the Caliber Cruise Missile System. This is a family of cruise missiles that are distinctive in a number of respects. Firstly, it is containerised, so it works out of the box and essentially arrives in a shipping container which you can fire it out of. This is important because it is very independent – you do not need to put it on an expensive warship. You could put it on an expensive warship, but it will work just as effectively off the back of a barge or the back of an 18 wheeler truck. So that containerised aspect is important. It is also a very effective piece of missile engineering – it has a number of variants and export variants that are less capable than the full Russian military version. Essentially, it is a fairly sophisticated cruise missile system. It is capable of independent navigation, of changing its course multiple times in its approach to a target – depending on terrain or need to avoid radar systems. It can carry a number of different types of warheads, optimised for sinking ships, for example, or warheads that deploy sub-munitions that would be very good for attacking ground based targets, particularly, conventional battle groups. Any country to which Russia will sell this system, has a very credible conventional deterrent. Britain is not going to put one of its aircraft carriers in the range of one of these systems, unless there was a very-very adventurous Prime Minister. -Have there been examples of these cruise missiles being sold and deployed? Have we seen them fired? Yes. There was a very important instance of it being used by the Russians, not by a proxy, but by the Russians themselves to attack positions of Islamic State or other anti-regime forces in Syria. It was an impressive attack on the target. However, what was more impressive, was the way in which they were launched. They were launched from the Caspian Sea, a long way from Syria. They undertook multiple course corrections. A cruise missile is, unlike a ballistic one, it does not follow a parabolic trajectory, it stays within the atmosphere throughout its flight time and it uses the terrain to increase the surprise effect to its rivals and to remain undetected. So it was fired from quite a long way away, navigated with a significant number of obvious course corrections, hit its targets and was fired from assets in the Caspian Sea, that normally would not be able to fire weapons of that capability. I am not sure if these systems have been sold elsewhere, but the clip I presented was an advertising copy from 2013 designed to attract international clients. -What was Russia trying to say and who were they saying it to? They were trying to say we can sink capital ships at long range. We can wreck your airfields. You would be wrong to think you were safe, as the West have done many times in the past.

You would not be able to operate a no fly zone out of friendly airfield in a neighbouring country, because you have knocked out an opposing air force. The Russians or anyone operating this system could credibly attack their adversaries with this system. -So who are they saying it to? To Britain, to America, to France. To the “West”. So this would, for example, been a product Gadhafi might have been interested in. Or, in an earlier era, the Serbians. -So what was your message to the panel from showing this video? That the West cannot take unilateral “My message to the room was to action anymore without fearing some kind of consequence. It is a much demonstrate that the Russians have bigger gamble to do. My message to signalled, very obviously that the era the room was to demonstrate that the of cost free interventions is over.” Russians have signalled, very obviously that the era of cost free interventions is over. Zimbabwe cannot make one of these systems on its own, however, Russia might or might not sell this system to them. If they do sell it to someone, then that country has a very credible conventional deterrent against the forms of intervention which the West have practiced thus far. It would raise the costs of intervention considerably. For example, the Somalia intervention of 1993 could not have happened. It started as a humanitarian intervention but ultimately we became drawn in as active combatants in a civil war. In that case, the US fleet, which provided the landing ships and the support aircraft and all the logistics functions which were deployed within visual range of the Somali coastline, could not have done so fearlessly with this system being deployed against them. -Where does this leave NATO, the West and the US? I think it leaves us in a position where we must calculate very carefully, whether the next time we contemplate an intervention of, let’s say, Libya, whether it is a correct move? If Russia is prepared to invest the diplomatic capital, it can provide this system, which works more or less out of a container, to that target state. -Was this Putin’s primary reason for the intervention in Syria? I cannot give an answer to the question, as you pose it. Logically, when the system was deployed, in the manner that I described earlier, it was intended to deliver a deliberate message from Russia: this is what we are capable of. -What, in your opinion, is going to happen at the Helsinki meeting between Putin and Trump. Where are we going to be a month from now? I think they are going to get on. -Where will NATO be at the end of it? NATO is diminished, it is not going to be diminished as a result of this meeting, its already diminished. The story of its diminished relevance is a very long one. For myself, I think the key point was when, a few years ago, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter aircraft in Syria. In my view, in hindsight, historians will look back and say that was the moment when most NATO countries said: we are not going to war for Turkey, and we are not going to war with Russia over Turkey. I think it was a very important moment, effect of which has been reinforced subsequently in Syria. There are also elements of it, which relate to Ukraine, the Georgia war of 2008, or the ongoing competition in the Baltics, where the ambiguity about the continuing

validity of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty has been introduced. If you had asked me ten years ago if Russia conducted a military operation against a member state of NATO, would we all go to war? I would say almost one-hundred percent yes. Now, I would say there is a 50/50 chance, depending on what country is attacked. -So NATO is diminished. Putin and Trump get along. We have significant interference in elections. What is next for the EU with Russia? I would just stipulate for the court – to answer the question “Where is next for the EU and Russia?” - one needs to have a discussion first on “Where is next for the EU?”. I believe it is nowhere good. So one of the ironies of people being upset at the prospect of a Trump and Putin meeting, is that Merkel and Putin have had a meeting in 2017 and she announced a month ago that they were looking forward to having another meeting in 2018. -But no one thinks that Putin helped Merkel or Macron to get into office, so I think this is where that perception becomes odd, because there is a real lack of trust among the public towards the Russian-American collaboration. “The bottom line is that “Russia meddled narrative” is a very convenient story for politicians to reach to. I think they probably find it an agreeable way to rationalise their inability to make good arguments to sell to their own publics.”

I know that many people believe that Russia influenced the US election. Poor Hillary - she lost because of Putin. Brexit of course happened because of Putin. There was the Dutch referendum on the Ukraine Association agreement. And so on and so forth. Relative to the number of claims of Russian meddling, there is very little evidence to support them. I have already mentioned Turkey. We are worried about meddling in elections. You have the Turkish government, which is openly meddling right in the electoral processes of practically every European government - people do not seem to be quite as up in arms about this as I would have expected. The bottom line is that “Russia meddled narrative” is a very convenient story for politicians to reach to. I think they probably find it an agreeable way to rationalise their inability to make good arguments to sell to their own publics. That is certainly the case with Hillary. I think that her idea, that Russia stole the election, is pretty self-serving. There is no any evidence to back it up. -Is there one big takeaway you have from your session? For nearly two decades now, Western governments have been operating within the international system using the concept “Responsibility to Protect”. In practice, this means that in certain cases of war crimes or large scale egregious abuse towards citizens of a country it becomes incumbent upon the international community to intervene. There has been a lot of controversy around this idea. On the one hand, the proponents of this idea say that this is humanity’s way of defending itself against inhumanity. On the other, critics say it is a convenient shield behind which Western states get to conduct regime change against states they do not like. However, whichever way you look at it, I think that critics have a practical rejoinder, which is hard to answer back, from a technological weapons perspective. We may find ways of defending our very expensive military assets from hypersonic cruise missiles, in which case, the offense/defence balance comes back and could put “Responsibility to Protect” back on the agenda. However, we do not have that currently. That was my primary take-away. My secondary one is that I do not think that the Russia threat is a direct threat. It is more of a proxy nature, as I have just described. -Professor David Betz, thank you very much for your answers. Thank you too. 16

Values and Interests in the Relations between Russia and the West Professor Beatrice Heuser University of Glasgow (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor Beatrice Heuser, your view on the narrative around the end of the Cold War, is not necessarily a conventional one. Could you expand on this view for us please? I totally reject that the West won the Cold War, because it is very clear to me that Humanity won the Cold War. We are still here and alive to tell the tale. It was a victory for all of us because we were under threat of a third world war - a nuclear world war - which few of us if any would have survived. So we have all been victims in the Cold War, including the Russians. The Russians have also won the Cold War because their civilization has survived. However, some in the West keep saying that the West “won” and the Russians and the East European states “lost”; indeed, I have heard East Germans say this.. Looked at with hindsight, this makes no sense. There were bureaucratic reasons for why the United States at the end of the Cold War issued medals to their soldiers in Europe, proclaiming that they had won the Cold War. This was something that they needed to do, so their soldiers could come home bearing some sort of reward for what they had achieved in those years of occupation in Europe. But it was simplya very limited interpretation. I believe this unilateral interpretation was a very foolish mistake to make. -This particular interpretation impacts Russia’s status and whether Ruissia is seen as superpower, a great power or a medium power. Could you differentiate between those two labels and whether Russia maintained their status? One of the big themes of this conference is that Russians feel hurt by the West’s denial of a status that they think they ought to have. Russians believes their country should continue to be referred to as a superpower, as Russia was in the Cold War. Currently, there are a number of different definitions of a superpower or a great power. To be a great power, you have to fulfil a certain number of characteristics. I think superpower is a term that came up in the 20th century and applied to powers that had nuclear weapons. Indeed, we must concede that if a power has nuclear weapons, somehow it gives it a higher status. Having said that, this world is not big enough for too many superpowers. “…the term superpower somehow Even if they now have nuclear weapons, the implies an involvement in the rest of term superpower somehow implies an the world, the responsibility to the rest involvement in the rest of the world, the of the world and, possibly, even the responsibility to the rest of the world and, aim to dominate the rest of the world.” possibly, even the aim to dominate the rest of the world. If we add up criteria, not only as military power but economic power, political power, the size of the territory, population and general influence in the world, it is true that even today, the United States, China and to some extent Russia remain as superpowers. Economically, however, Russia does not come up to standard, and her poor economic performance arguably brought down the Soviet system at the end of the Cold War.

Even talking merely about great-power status, Russians must understand that Europe is full of countries that have been great powers at some stage in their past, and all are still slightly arrogant about it. However, they have gradually come to terms with the fact that they are no longer in that category. Russia hovers between a superpower and a great power category, and yet she is, in many respects, weaker than some of those European powers who are at best placed in the second league. European countries believe that it is very arrogant of Russia to assume that she has the right to a sphere of influence and the benefits of a superpower or a great power, when the European powers have had to give this status up. On the whole, Europeans no longer accept the idea that great powers should have spheres of influence. But Russia clearly claims its sphere of influence. -Is it time for us to re-evaluate the way that we look at Europe? Rather than evaluating them as individual countries should we look at them as a totality? And do they then move into superpower status? Within Europe there are many different political views. In most European countries, nationalistic and populist tendencies have been rising. In some ways, there has been a return to 19th or early 20th century patterns. However, the whole construction of the European Union has been built on a convergence of values, which, for example, are that one should not use military power to scare one’s neighbours, or that one should not be neglectful of the needs of one’s neighbours. Therefore, great powers should take into account what smaller powers need. In that context however, we could ask whether there are differences between the value systems of Russia and the countries of the European Union. Whether Russia and the European Union have such divergent value systems (and this is very often claimed) is up for debate. I would argue they do not. Something we have heard repeatedly at this forum, is that both sides have been “What we need to do is to come underscoring the importance of international together and agree that since the law and accusing the other sides of crossing red Second World War, security lies in lines that have been set up by international law. Russia blames the West for the bombing of the upholding of international Serbia over Kosovo and for actions in Iraq, order, and note that this is saying this is something Western powers something we actually agree on.” should not have done. The West says that Russia has not upheld international law and the Budapest Convention when it came to the annexation of Crimea. Which shows that in fact both sides actually see international law as a yardstick. What we need to do is to come together and agree that since the Second World War, security lies in the upholding of international order, and note that this is something we actually agree on. So we should be talking much more about this convergence of our values. -In this moment of divergence, do you see this happening? Are you hopeful? I am hopeful that if political will is present to cooperate, that cooperation could come very easily. I think the political will for co-operation is absolutely crucial, as long as one is not merely talking about it to augment one state’s power and status. - The point was made yesterday by one of the Russian participants, that as Europe moves away from the U.S. in its values, Europe and Russia could find themselves in a position of greater cooperation. What do you think? I think cooperation is always a good thing if it is not at the expense of somebody else. Obviously, if we have an overall intention and aim to try and make the world safer, whilst

upholding human rights and values of liberalism, then there is absolutely nothing to be said against such cooperation. This begs the question of what our interests and values are. Both words have been abused. Interest is a term that came up in early modern history, people began to say if a state has interests and the state is sovereign, it can do just about anything because it is the sovereign right of a state to pursue its interests. However, we have learnt horribly painful lessons, in which individual, powerful states have pursued their own interests, at the expense of everybody else. It should be clear today that interests are not something you can pursue to the point where they harm others. In the same way John Stuart Mill defined liberty: my liberty has to stop when it begins to harm somebody elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. I think we have gradually come to the understanding that it must be in our interest to be mindful of the interests of all our neighbours. Our values are intimately linked with those of others. By definition, in a zero-sum game, â&#x20AC;&#x153;selfish interestâ&#x20AC;? is never in our interests, because it would make somebody else uncomfortable and ultimately lead to a more insecure world. - Professor Beatrice Heuser, thank you very much for your time It was my pleasure.

Relations between Russia and the West â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A New Cold War? Mr Prokhor Tebin Russian International Affairs Council (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Mr Prokhor Tebin, you participated in a panel about the role of conventional deterrence in relations between NATO and Russia. What were your main takeaways from that panel? It was an interesting session and there were several different views, but conventional deterrence between Russia and the West is a large topic and probably we cannot discuss it in one session. I have seen some misperceptions, mistrust during this session and some fear. Nevertheless, my key understanding was that things are not as bad as they are often depicted. There is an understanding between parties and some dialogue, although we must understand that this session was primarily between academics and experts. However, there was also several people from government bodies and they also have some insights which were constructive. -Where do you think most of the mistrust originates from? I think both Russia and the West have different angles of viewing the current global situation. When we speak about the West, it includes numerous different actors, views, agendas, resources and angles. Russia is one actor but there are also different views inside the country, between public and political elites. In general, I think that Russia feels insecure and it wants to restore its power which was undermined and significantly damaged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia wants to defend its national interests, restore its sphere of influence and improve its security. The West led by the United States does not wish to accept an independent great power. It appears that the US do not understand that the unipolar momentum ended long ago. -I cannot see how anyone would react to the threats of destabilisation without feeling threatened and being angry about that. How do you think the West should react? I believe that the West needs to recognise that the great power competition has returned and that it is a natural state of international relations. Some might like it â&#x20AC;&#x201C; others may not. However, we have many common problems, including the threat of nuclear proliferation and international terrorism. Both parties, I hope, want to prevent a war. Therefore we must develop a dialogue, improve understanding and establish a stable balance of power. -So what, from the Russian perspective, is the necessity of returning to great power competition? To protect the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s national interests, guarantee sovereignty, national security and economic development. -There is the narrative, whether true or not, that Russia lost the Cold War. That history had come to an end. However, a return to the competition of great powers is, in fact, a return to the Cold War. Do you think that, nowadays, sovereignty should come again instead of cooperation or that nuclear competition should replace the existing set of international checks and balances?

Indeed we can say that the Soviet Union lost the Cold War because it collapsed. However, the history had not come to an end. The unipolar momentum was only a momentum. The US and the West do not rule the world and there are numerous other actors with their own interests. Some of them are great powers like Russia, China and India. It does not matter whether the West accepts this or not – a multipolar world is a reality. A return of great power competition by no means is a return of Cold War. And sovereignty-cooperation opposition is totally incorrect despite the fact that there are examples of cooperation between a great power and countries with limited sovereignty (between the US and Germany or Japan, for instance). Moreover, there are some checks and balances in the current world and the UN Security Council is the key of them but it is wrong to compare relations between great powers on the one hand, and citizens of a country, on the other. Existing checks and balances are often ignored, one has only to recall Kosovo declaration of independence in 2008, the Iraq War or the 2011 intervention in Syria. We should work toward equal and indivisible security and understand that great powers should respect national interests of each other. A world build of a sole dominant superpower is a grim but mercifully unrealistic dystopia. -Should we reignite the Cold War narrative? I think, what we see today is definitely not a Cold War. If we put aside anger, tough talk, cruel fake news, we will see economic and political tensions, but from a military point of view, there is not any similarity with the Cold War. We have a war of sanctions but nothing close to the Euromissile crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Berlin crisis of 1961. . We must minimise the information war from both sides. We must understand that we are not on the brink of a real war and that both parties have to negotiate and find compromises. It is especially important to exchange the fierce misperceptions and anger that parties may have towards one another, in order to understand each other. You can dislike the other party, but you cannot destroy it. You have to make some new system of relations where you look to why conflict arises and where cooperation can occur. Russia tried to cooperate with the West. Russia was open. But Russia during the 1990s was a “The US continues to protect its own great power which lost its resources, its national interests, yet made it clear that interests were damaged and its global standing the national interests of other countries was destabilised. are inconvenient for the US, if they did Russia wanted many things from the West, but not fit into the Western framework.” the West did not want to listen to these requests. It was like a bad school boy and tough teacher – in terms of homework – the school boy was directed to make democracy by following A, B and C, but Russia had its own national framework and its own set of pragmatic national interests, which have always been unique and dissimilar to the West. The US continues to protect its own national interests, yet made it clear that the national interests of other countries are inconvenient for the US, if they did not fit into the Western framework. Germany and France for instance had some issues with the US during the Iraq invasion, but because they are NATO members and are liberal democracies, they toe the line. Russia rebuilt itself and suddenly emerged with its own agenda and interests. The current situation is the result of almost 20 years of misunderstanding and hidden competition. When Russia wanted to translate its interests and its anger to Washington and Brussels, it was met with silence with no attempt of understanding.

-You say the problems are not as bad as many are perceiving. Are you hopeful going forward? Yes. I think the real situation is quite stable and at the moment the real military threat in Eastern Europe is not significant for either party. If we have political willingness to negotiate our differences, then I believe there would be no need to speak about Cold War resurgence. - Mr Prokhor Tebin, thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

The INF Treaty, Trust and the Future of Arms Control Dr Anastasia Malygina Saint Petersburg State University (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Dr Anastasia Malygina, would you explain to us what the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is? Well, that was a treaty that was signed in a very specific historical period. It was very important for the security of Europe, and for global security as well, because it eliminated a certain type of weaponry that could be used for delivering nuclear warheads. The INF treaty was a step towards stopping the nuclear arms race. It required destruction of the Parties' ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. And it was very important for global security, because it supported the article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which says that nuclear powers must do everything that is possible to slow down the arms race. -So how is Russia violating this treaty now according to the United States? Let me add a few words to my previous answer, because then it will be easier for me to answer your question. The Treaty was signed at the end of the Cold War in the context of continuing geopolitical tensions between two nuclear superpowers. Moreover, the Treaty was signed in a very specific technological context. Therefore, while the provisions and their wording are quite clear, they reflect the technical capacities and technical vision of that time. For example, if we look at the definition of a ground-launched cruise missile given in the Treaty, we see that unmanned aerial vehicles also fall within the frameworks of this definition. And it is important to remember that when the diplomats and the lawyers were negotiating this definition back in the 1980s, they were obviously not thinking about UAVs. Any treaty is developed in a certain political strategic and technological context, and there is an assumption the treaty needs to be adapted when required. This has to be taken into considerations in our discussion.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Treaty was signed at the end of the Cold War in the context of very tense political and geopolitical tensions between two nuclear superpowers.â&#x20AC;?

Now regarding your second question. Russia sees that Americans concentrate their efforts on accusing Russia of testing ground-launched cruise missiles with the range of more than 500 kilometres between 2008 and 2011, something that goes against the limitations of the Treaty. Later on there were some reports that Russia maybe even had deployed these systems. The Kremlin, however, does not accept these allegations. Russians claim that they have not violated the Treaty, arguing that any issues regarding the compliance to the Treaty have to be discussed by a Special Verification Commission according to a provision in Article 13 of the Treaty. The last meeting of this commission was held in 2016 and it was fruitless. One of the reasons why all meetings on this issue were fruitless so far, according to the Kremlin, is that Washington has never provided any evidence for its acquisitions.

-Let me just follow that up with another question. If one actor, say Russia in this circumstance, is operating outside of the treaty and another actor, say the United States in this circumstance, says we believe you are violating the treaty, and then Russia comes back and asks to see the evidence – aren’t they just asking that classified documents be transferred from one country to another with possible exposure of vulnerable sources? It is a good questions, however, the INF Treaty had a big number of different types of verification and transparency mechanisms that created a stable network of confidence-building and transparency. According to the provisions of the INF Treaty, the Parties may use their national technical means of verification. What Russia asks for should not be something highly classified that would make Washington expose any secret and vulnerable sources. Each side knows that it is monitored by the other. - OK. This leads us to the third question – do debates about compliance exist because of misperception or is there something more fundamental? As I understand it, the roots of the problem are really technological. The Treaty needs to be adapted to the changed technological context. For example, one of the arguments presented by the Kremlin is that the US is very actively employing unmanned aerial attack vehicles that, according to Moscow, fall under the INF Treaty definition of medium-range ground-launched cruise missiles. While the main focus of the debate is “The Treaty needs to be adapted to technical, the lack of progress in adapting the treaty is caused by fundamental the changed technological context.” disputes regarding understanding of the current geopolitical situation, the current role of each of the states involved on the global arena, and how each of them perceives the actions of the other. Because of these geopolitical reasons we have been witnessing for quite a long period of time a certain decrease in appetite for arms control. -Do you think that something has changed under the Trump administration? Has the situation worsened? On the one hand, during his time in the White House, Barack Obama was more focused on values and norms. He was more oriented towards long-standing cooperation and the concept of allies, therefore the idea of trust was very important to him. On the other hand, Donald Trump is more pragmatic and thinks more short-term. He is ready to negotiate something that is visible and will bear fruit relatively fast. -So as an outcome of this change, has the dialogue significantly changed between the two countries? The dialogue significantly changed between the US and Russia not because of decisions taken by Donald Trump, but because of significant changes in American domestic politics. Therefore, even if Trump’s administration would reach any agreement with Russia, it would be very difficult to sell it to the domestic audience. -But that's not really the question I asked. What I'm asking you is how the dialogue between Washington and Moscow has changed under Trump. Well, the current problem with the INF Treaty is, in fact, a logical consequence of many longgoing transformations and it is wrong to directly associate it with the decisions of one American president or another.

- You talked about trust, associated with the Obama administration, and about more practical and immediate things, associated with the Trump administration, so to what extent do emotions, mistrust, fear, etc. influence these negotiations? First of all, there is a certain lack of appetite for arms control. Secondly, it is difficult for Russia and the US to talk about anything right now, and this lack of common ground basically diminishes any perspectives to talk about the INF Treaty more fruitfully. Thirdly, even when trust exists, any new solution will not work properly without political support and an operationalization of the decisions made on the expert level and on the level of high diplomacy. A Russian proverb says, “trust but verify”. In the case of nuclear arms control, there could not be complete openness or total trust, but both the Soviet Union and the US managed to reach a very high level of transparency and confidence in the decades of the Cold War. Nowadays, however, the geopolitical context shows that there are no guarantees that any agreements will remain stable and viable for a long period of time. That undermines the ability to reach any agreement, thus creating a certain level of insecurity. “…the geopolitical context shows that there are no guarantees that any agreements will remain stable and viable for a long period of time.”

-So how do we fix this? First of all keep talking! What we are witnessing right now is a very high risk of losing socalled institutional memory. For a long period of time Russians and the Americans were talking on different levels and many people were involved in that process, creating a stable network of contacts with a joint understanding and vocabulary that helped to conceptualise and rationalise very challenging issues. Even if you think of the New START Treaty, signed in 2010, there was a distinctive generational gap between the senior experts and diplomats and the mid-career professionals. There was a serious lack of mid-level professionals who support such negotiations, and this lack will become even worse in the years to come, especially if we stop talking. Secondly, I would suggest using a so-called hybrid diplomacy approach. Official representatives may be involved in different events together with experts from the academic community, thus creating a more flexible network and trustful atmosphere. I believe that different combinations of “track two diplomacy” might be very helpful in this situation. And the third suggestion is to use what I call a “…the more we try and the more we “holistic approach”. In my opinion, when we are discuss, the better chances are that we witnessing a stalemate in arms control, we should will find a proper solution that will address a broader array of security issues and try suit all parties." different combinations of solutions and discuss different packages of deals. On the one hand, we cannot predict what combination will work. On the other, the more we try and the more we discuss, the better chances are that we will find a proper solution that will suit all parties. -Dr Anastasia Malygina, thank you for joining us. Thank you very much for interviewing me.

The Future of the INF Threaty Mr Dmitry Stefanovich Russian International Affairs Council (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Mr Dmitry Stefanovich, you participated in a panel about misperceptions of the INF treaty violations. What are your takeaways from that panel? Well, my major takeaway is that the experts from both sides are willing and ready to discuss these misperceptions. At the same time, the level of trust is rather low and both parties are not open to admit that they have made mistakes and violations. So this is the major problem for finding a way through this issue: How each party can “limit its admittance” of its mistakes in such a manner that will be good enough for the other party to agree with the explanations. -In the US, I think the general public would be shocked and might even deny the idea that the US had been in violation of these treaties. Would you find the same thing with the general public in Russia? There is a very interesting difference between Russia and the West. Originally, the name of the treaty referred to Elimination of Short and Intermediate Range Missiles. Now it is called the INF treaty, which stands for Intermediate Nuclear Forces. Therefore, for the West the main idea of the treaty is about nuclear weapons, whereas for Russia, the treaty is about delivery vehicles. Thus, I think, the shock for the West would be much bigger than for the Russian general public. However, the Russian officials and the President himself, were all very clear and adamant that they were not violating the treaty. So I believe the hardest task for both parties will be to find a way of overcoming their differing opinions of treaty violations. In fact, from the Russian perspective (at least as explained by some of the experts and policy makers), the US has not actually violated the letter of the treaty, but its spirit. My understanding is that initially, these issues were raised not to accuse the US or to address some military threat, but to establish some kind of framework to update the treaty. We know that the treaty was signed in the 1980s, the process of negotiations was very difficult and it even stopped at some stages. However, when the circumstances changed, the treaty was written and agreed in a very swift manner. So obviously it could not address everything, especially the things that have appeared 30 years after it was signed. We have had technological and geopolitical developments - so the treaty is important but an update may be really useful. -You have written about nuclear cybernetic systems. Can you talk about that a little bit? Well I think it is one of the most interesting and hyped ideas that somehow cyber weapons can affect nuclear weapons. Looking at state and non-state actors, it may result in some nuclear accidents, with nuclear weapons or even “…the main problem is that Russia, the unauthorised launches of nuclear weapons. US, NATO, China and other countries who All systems we use now are cybernetic or possess nuclear weapons are investing information systems - including within the heavily in cyber weapons as well.” military. Therefore, you have to address this, and the main problem is that Russia, the US, NATO, China and other countries who possess nuclear weapons are investing heavily in cyber weapons as well.

We all know that NATO and the US have stated that cyber is a warfighting domain. If we do not have red lines or limits for warfighting in the cyber domain, it becomes an increasingly dangerous situation. It is likely that the best way to solve this problem, at least to some extent, is to release some bilateral or multilateral statements that the nuclear weapons are off limits for cyber operations. -Where is an attack of this type likely to come from - another nuclear state or is it more likely to come from a non-nuclear state? This type of ambiguity is very difficult in regards to cyber: it is very hard to verify the source of the attack. Cyber weapons consist of two parts, a bit similar to missiles and nuclear weapons: the delivery vehicles and the payload. Some delivery vehicles may serve as intelligence gathering systems, at the same time the very same delivery vehicle may serve as a way to deploy some cyber strike package. It is problematic to not know where this attack is coming from. Especially if the attacker can tamper not only with the weapons’ systems, but with the early warning systems and with command and control. Probably the only way to avoid this problem is just to let nuclear forces have their own types of systems and protocols. Obviously, this is very hard to achieve. -I interviewed the director of the NATO StratCom Center of Excellence in Riga recently. He proposed to me that it might be time for a cyber NATO. What are your thoughts on that and what do you think Russia’s reaction to this would be? I do not see how it would be different from a normal NATO. It would be the usual drill: NATO announces that it will do this; Russia says that NATO is a dinosaur from the Cold War. I believe every state in the world understands that cyber has become a domain that has to be addressed through a security framework. So I do not think a Cyber NATO will change things a lot. However, if this idea of a Cyber NATO somehow included a framework for cooperation of non-NATO and even not aligned with NATO states, then it in fact might be really good. -So if a person does not have the confidence to sort the truth from the lies in the media sphere, does the responsibility then fall to institutions? I believe there should be an equilibrium. Some believe that institutions can control, regulate and somehow block parts of media information. In an ideal world, I think there should be a flow of undistorted messages without any kind of regulation. -Do you think there are any solutions to overcome Russian and Western misperceptions of the INF treaty violations? It is good that the two sides have started talking about it. NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which Russia and some post-Soviet states are parties to, can help in a way. Now, NATO do not talk to CSTO, but they both release statements on the INF treaty and the need to preserve it. Essentially, the resolution of Russian and Western misperceptions rests in the ability of these Allied structures to find multilateral solutions. Another option may be to acknowledge the violations, and find a process to update the treaty, regardless of them, rather than trying to send a new treaty through Congress or the Duma. So, I think, if “So, I think, if both parties start to discuss both parties start to discuss officially officially and unofficially, preferably in a and unofficially, preferably in a bilateral manner - it can be very useful.” bilateral manner - it can be very useful. There is one so-called violation that Russia accuses the US of, it is the deployment of long range unmanned aerial vehicles, as that roughly fits into the description of the long range cruise 27

missile that we have in the treaty. The same problem is also present within the Missile Technology Control Regime, it has been discussed for some time. It would be good for Russia and the US to start looking for a definition of long range unmanned aerial vehicles, even not under the framework of the INF treaty (because, obviously, the US would not be happy to admit that there is an issue with their compliance to the treaty). So if the discussion begins with regard to changing or updating the definitions within the Missile Technology Control Regime, it may be a good trust building measure. Currently, from what I understand, the meetings between Russian and US officials discussing INF treaty are no longer emotional and no longer shaped around accusations. They discuss the technical parameters, but still make very limited progress. If we shift these discussions into another framework, progress may be achieved more successfully. -Mr Dmitry Stefanovich, thank you You are welcome.

Eurasian Integration - Rivals or Partners Professor Nikolai Petrov National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor Nikolai Petrov, you have a very challenging view on what is happening with the Eurasian integration both for the West and Russia. Could you talk about this please? My perception is that the West does not understand the positive consequences that the integration of Russia and post-Soviet states could bring about. Previously, Russia wanted to be a unilateral power, similar to the Soviet Union. Nowadays, however, Russia believes that discussions has to take place and compromises have to be made with other countries. It is a very positive development. There is also an internal competition, for instance from Kazakhstan where the small and medium sized businesses are becoming more profitable than those in Russia, which promotes an internal competition and positive development.

“I do not believe that Russia wants

I do not believe that Russia wants to restore to restore the Soviet Union.” the Soviet Union. One authoritarian leader in Kazakhstan, for example, will not eagerly become subordinate to another authoritarian leader from Russia. I think the relationship between Russia and other former Soviet states like Belarus is a very good example of how complicated it is for a dominant economic power to get whatever it wants from smaller states. I believe steps towards integration is positive for both Russia and the smaller states. -The cliché is that you have an oligarch leader in Russia who may put his candidate in a country like Ukraine and there will be a paternalistic governing system adopted. So how is this different in reality? The West wrongly assumes that a Russian leader has to be all-powerful. I used to work for the Laboratory of Social Geography of the USSR and I was responsible for the academic analysis of the social geography of the country. In my view, there is only a subtle difference between Russia and Ukraine in terms of human capital. The only significant difference between Russia and Ukraine is that the political development was going on differently being defined by their economies. In Ukraine, unlike in Russia, you cannot “The only significant difference have unilateral control in politics because you cannot control all the major sources of between Russia and Ukraine is that income. So in Ukraine, we do see the political development of the competition between different oligarchs. It latter is defined by its economy.” does not necessarily mean that they are more democratic than their Russian counterparts. It only means that if nobody can win then nobody can dominate. In Russia, the situation is different, and this is why I think the economic crisis and the decline of oil prices will ultimately be positive for Russian politics. It will become more similar to Ukrainian economy and the political development will become more competitive.

-Eurasian integration is looking like powerful Russian expansion, even if it comes after a retraction. Do you think it can be interpreted differently than a manifestation of empire? Firstly, there is a difference between colonialism and building relationships between two sides. So if you use market economy tools to build this relationship it cannot be seen as building an empire. Secondly, I think that an integration between countries, which are similar and whose economies used to be part of the same economic organism, is quite a rational course of action. We can benefit a lot from creating a single giant market. This is what has been occurring in the post-Soviet space. “I think it is foolish that the West is I think it is foolish that the West is attempting to attempting to partake in a rivalry partake in a rivalry with Russia – the West will with Russia – the West will never be never be able to win against Russia in the postable to win against Russia in the Soviet space. Although Russia is much weaker post-Soviet space.” in economic and soft power terms, the leverage Russia enjoys with regard to post-Soviet countries is incomparable to Western influence. And Russia, whose interests are bigger, can accept higher costs. Co-operation between Russia and the West is, therefore, inevitable and both need to look for compromises. -What are the chances of independence across the post-Soviet countries? I think it is different and it is based on context. Unfortunately, countries with less natural resources are less capable to develop a real economy and to develop democracy. But at the same time, it is understandable that small states like Georgia are inevitably connected to their neighbours. In the case of Armenia, it is understandable that cooperating with Russia is the single geopolitical option for it to survive, vis a vis Azerbaijan. The West does not acknowledge countries who are willingly cooperating with Russia, yet it is eager to support those that oppose Russia, whether it is Azerbaijan or other countries in Central Asia. However, the biggest threat to the European Union or Russian integration efforts is the lack of acknowledgement given to China. China is promoting economic dependence and economic control over these countries. Here, I think, the interests of Russia and the West do overlap and it is very important. “The very idea of forcing Ukraine to In my view, although Russia is guilty for what refuse the integration with Russia has happened in 2014 in Ukraine, the West has and replace it by a promise of been very irresponsible. The European Union integration with the West, was very was never able to support Ukraine in case of the irresponsible from the outset.” economic collapse. The very idea of forcing Ukraine to refuse the integration with Russia and replace it by a promise of integration with the West, was very irresponsible from the outset. -What are your expectations for the coming meeting between Trump and Putin? I do not think it will play any important role except for increasing PR for both of them. It is understandable why there is nothing they can really agree on. Moreover, there is nothing Trump can do against Congress, even if he did make a deal with Putin. -Professor Nikolai Petrov, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. Thank you.

Creating Trust between Russia and the West Professor Marina Lebedeva Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University) (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor Marina Lebedeva, thank you for joining us. Would you explain why you think the trust has broken down between Russia and the West or has it broken down at all? It is very difficult to explain, because I see it as a set of processes that have been continuously developing over several decades. Probably, one of the main reasons were the expectations that came with the end of the Cold War, which, at least on the Russian side, did not materialise. But this, I would say, is only one of the reasons. We are talking about a relationship that involves two sides. So, it is very difficult to pinpoint exactly a single reason for the contemporary lack of trust between Russia and the West. -Do you think that Russia has completely lost its trust in and respect for the West? Certainly not. It is necessary, as I see it, to separate the problem into two different levels. The first is the official level, and the second one is public opinion. At the public level there is a certain lack of respect and trust, but it is not as significant as on the official level. At the personal level, i.e. individuals, there is much more trust in and respect for the West. -Are you saying that trust still exists on a personal, individual level? Yes. At the individual level trust definitely still exists. And I would identify three different areas that still maintain significant levels of trust and respect: culture, science and education. I believe that professionals in these areas still work to establish, maintain, and improve the levels of trust and respect between Russia and the West. -So while the professionals respect and trust one another in the areas of culture, science, education and so on, the public reads the image of the other through the media. What role has the media in all that? I think media plays an important role in â&#x20AC;&#x153;â&#x20AC;Śit is important to start with establishing trust. However, I do not think everything is or should be seen dialogues, between Russia and through the media. For example, the West, which are not overtly releasing the content of sensitive discussions between Russia and the West political in nature .â&#x20AC;? can create, in fact, the opposite effect. It can undermine the conversation by making it public, and reduce trust. Moreover, in general, I believe that it is important to start with dialogues, between Russia and the West, which are not overtly political in nature. That is why I mentioned culture, science, and education. Cooperation in these areas can bring people from both sides together, allowing them to discover that there are more similarities between them than differences. Over time this can help to restore trust and respect.

-What should that look like in practice? Is it about more cooperation in culture, science and education? Yes, for sure. I think there is a huge potential for more cooperation in these fields. Russians typically ask two very traditional questions: “Who is to blame?” and “What should we do?” To move forward, it is important to put aside the first question and try to focus on the second: what we can do to improve our relations. -So, should this operate at the government level or should it be at a different levels? It is important to develop cooperation at the official level of the governments. However, as I already mentioned, there are two routes: the official one and what we call public diplomacy that facilitates a true interaction between the people in the West and in Russia. At the official level we obviously need to have a productive dialogue. Unfortunately, right now we have a series of monologues, accompanied by so-called Twitter diplomacy. I believe that at the official level we need to return to the classic diplomacy conducted without significant media involvement at least until some headway is made. -But, do you believe that is possible in the media and social media landscape that we live in now? Well, I would like to clarify to avoid any misunderstandings. I do not imply that the media should be ignored. Not at all. I mean that the ground work could be done without full media coverage. In my view, at the official level preliminary negotiations and cooperation have to be based on a high level of professionalism, on both sides it has to move past decision-making based on emotions, on feelings of blame, fear, and mistrust. -OK, so if this needs to operate at the government level what can be done at the institutional level, let’s say it at the level of universities? This is the second track, which is just as important as the “We need comprehensive first for establishing trust between Russia and the West. conversations, not monologues For example, it is important to create productive that currently preoccupy the dialogues between scholars from all fields. Not only discourses on both sides.” from the field of international relations, but from other disciplines, such as sociology, history, political thought, philosophy and so on. We need comprehensive conversations, not monologues that currently preoccupy the discourses on both sides. -Professor Marina Lebedeva, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you.

Trusting Enemies Professor Nicholas Wheeler University of Birmingham (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor Nicholas Wheeler, your work focuses on the concept of trust and you have just published a book about that. Would you talk about the book? The book is called Trusting Enemies and it was published by Oxford University Press in March of this year. The book argues that International Relations theory has not given a good account of how two states, trapped in a relationship of enmity, can break out of that relationship. I look at a number of different theories that have tried to explain how we can break out of these adversarial situations. I argue that they are all deficient because they do not explain what initiates the process in the first place. They discuss how initial relationships of cooperation can develop into much deeper trusting relationships, failing to take into account the signals that are sent by parties to try and build trust. Unfortunately, they do not lead the other side to reciprocate in the way that is expected - leading to disappointment and disillusionment on the part of the actor that sends the signal. The problem is, that these adversarial relationships lead to situations where decision makers operate with enemy images, where they impute malevolent intent to the other. As a consequence, any apparent signals that appear to be conciliatory are dismissed as a trick or as a sign of weakness. So the problem is how one can break “…any apparent signals that appear out of this problem. I argue in the book that the mechanism of trust-building to be conciliatory are dismissed as a that is often neglected is face to face trick or as a sign of weakness.” interaction at the highest levels of diplomacy. I argue that trust can develop in those situations under certain conditions and that as a result, signals sent between leaders will be interpreted positively. This allows leaders to promote policies of cooperation domestically. -Do you mean that institutional actors can develop a greater trust on the basis of individual actors signalling to one another and establishing a stronger personal relationship? Yes, though I put it slightly differently. It is when an interpersonal interaction between state leaders and top level policymakers develops trust through a process that I call social bonding. It does not mean that it necessarily leads to trust between other actors in the government or more widely within society. My book talks about the possibilities of building trust between leaders and what that can do in terms of opening up new practices of security cooperation. You talked about sets of conditions that are required for this process to occur – what are they? So the first condition is what I call security dilemma sensibility. This is a concept that I first developed with Ken Booth of Aberystwyth University in a book called The Security Dilemma that we published in 2008. It is an intuition that another state is behaving the way it is because it is fearful and insecure. It is a recognition of how your own actions have contributed to that

fear and insecurity. So it is a particular conception of empathy that is a critical precondition for trust to develop in a face to face encounter. I argue that this can be applied much more broadly than international relations. Trust will only develop in a face to face encounter where actors enter the room with an intuition that the other is potentially trustworthy. If they enter the room with an enemy image of the other, then it is much more problematic. An intriguing question is whether we saw something like that with the Singapore summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un. Trump claimed afterwards, there was ‘a special bond’ between them, but we do not really know anything about what Kim Jong Un really felt. What we do not have, based on historical research, are good cases where the enemy images have broken down in or prior to face-to-face ”The first Reagan and Gorbachev summit interaction. The first Reagan and Gorbachev meeting in Geneva in November 1985 is an summit meeting in Geneva in November example where both leaders began their 1985 is an example where both leaders interaction having exercised security began their interaction having exercised dilemma sensibility and this opened up the security dilemma sensibility and this opened space for the possibility of trust .” up the space for the possibility of trust. The next stage in the process draws on Robert Jervis’s notion of an ‘index’ developed in his path-breaking 1970 book, The Logic of Images in International Relations. The way I use the idea of an index in Trusting Enemies is as a credible signal of another individual’s trustworthiness. I think in International Relations theorising about trust we talk a lot about trust but not enough about trustworthiness. So the idea is that in face to face interaction, someone has to acquire an index, this then is a signal - it could be verbal, it could be non-verbal of the other’s trustworthiness; that their future behaviour will resemble their current behaviour. What happens then is that if the two preconditions of security dilemma sensibility and an index are mutually present in face-to-face interaction, there is a possibility to activate a process of social bonding. I argue that a process of bonding develops out of two fundamental constituent elements. The first is what I call positive identification of interests; is it not just that our interests are mutually perceived as congruent, but that we positively identify with one another’s security and welfare. The second is what I call a process of humanisation where you start to see your adversary as human rather than as a cold representative of an enemy state. If both of these components of the bonding process are present, trust will develop. If the bonding process develops to the point of what I call ‘identity transformation’, then I argue that the actors enter into a mental state of ‘trust as suspension’ which is characterised by a situation where neither actor calculates the risks of defection on the part of the other. - It looks, at least in the public eye, that trust has broken down completely in regards of the current Brexit negotiations. How do you see these moving forward? So my theory is applied to adversarial relationships, but I would like to claim it has wider applicability because it is about interpersonal relationships in international conflict. Brexit is a profound crisis of trust and it is perceived by the other members of the EU as a betrayal on the part of the UK. In this partnership, like a marriage breaking down, one partner is exiting. So there is a sense of betrayal that the UK is defecting on the promises and commitments into which it entered. Now one party is trying to leave on terms which are disrespecting the other because the exiting party is expecting the other to give up on their fundamental values and give them special concessions.

- What can the UK do to restore the trust with the other EU member states? With the Europeans, it is very difficult for the British government to restore and repair trust because what it would take to reassure the other members of the EU would risk betraying the trust of those in the UK who voted for Brexit. So balancing these different trust constituencies is extremely challenging for the British Prime Minister. We see this challenge of maintaining trust in different relationships all the time. For example, consider the Singapore summit. We know that North Korea welcomed Trump’s announcement to suspend the exercises with South Korea and I think it sends an important positive signal to North Korea. However, this signal has been weakened by other US moves that have sought to speed up North Korea’s denuclearization when the North Koreans believe this can only happen in the context of trust developing between the two sides. But Trump’s decision to suspend the exercises was taken without consulting the South Koreans and sent shock waves through the Japanese because it raises questions about the credibility of the US nuclear guarantee to Japan in a context where North Korea is pressing for the US to withdraw its military forces from the Korean peninsula. Trump’s decision is also problematic for the South Koreans because while they are committed to inter-Korean reconciliation on the one hand, they also rely on US military support for their security. A similar dynamic has been a work in relation to NATO enlargement. On the one hand, it has weakened trust between NATO and Russia, but on the other hand, it was seen by NATO states as critically important to reassure the former Warsaw Pact states that were nervous about being outside NATO in the face of Russian strategic power. So building and maintaining trust comes down importantly to how you develop trust with one party without at the same time weakening it with others. I think that is a perennial challenge for policymakers. - Professor Nicholas Wheeler, thank you for your time. You are welcome.

The Roots of Distrust in the Relations betweeen Russia and the West Dr Mikhail Mironyuk National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Dr Mikhail Mironyuk, during the Forum, it has been stated that Russia and the West have deep structural differences. For example, many argue that they perceive civil society practices, such as the rule of law, very differently. What is your opinion on this? There are strong reasons to agree with the statement. However, at the same time, I would suggest Russian authorities do agree that there is a problem with the rule of law. They are trying to handle this issue and solve these problems. They may not be liberals, however they do need the rule of law and at least some institutions of good governance to make thing right in the Russian economy. Therefore, I believe that the West and Russia have more in common than it is often portrayed. -So, if this is the case, how do we move beyond appearances and focus on the strength in our similarities? That is a very practical way of putting it. To begin overcoming the current miserable state of affairs, all sides should start debating instead of issuing unilateral charges. If there is debate, then there is communication. Communications should always be there. Silence is the worst way of trying to strengthen relationships. -Is there a similar distrust for the West within Russia? I would not say that Russia strongly mistrusts â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is important to state that such the West. There may well be a lot of resentment resentment is not equal to mistrust toward certain actions by the West. However, this resentment is something that has been or hate, and it is most likely the characterising the Russian foreign policy for result of the West refusing to listen almost two decades. It is important to state that to Russian interests.â&#x20AC;? such resentment is not equal to mistrust or hate, and it is most likely the result of the West refusing to listen to Russian interests. -So, the lack of respect the West shows Russia is the real issue? Yes, I believe it is. I do not believe that Russia disrespects the West, the opposite is true. I believe that the West still enjoys much respect in Russia. The United States is still respected by the Russian authorities. That does not mean however, that the United States is viewed as a credible partner. Respecting America is not equal to trusting it.

-I have not seen a level of distrust or disrespect, like I am seeing now between Russia and the West, since the collapse of Soviet Union. It seems that we have hit a profound crisis that there is almost no way to return. In your opinion, is there a way to come back? And if there is one, will it be directed by our leaders or will it come from another direction? I do not really know the answer, but I do not expect the normalization to come from our current leaders. There is also strong reason to believe that these current hostilities will continue. Naturally, Russians will be blamed for hacking American democracy. Whilst the West will be accused of involving themselves in Russian politics, in an attempt to influence public opinion. My understanding of the situation is quite pessimistic. -The West is often criticised for being hypocritical and allowing Western governments to interfere in foreign countries and their elections. The West support their actions by underlining the â&#x20AC;&#x153;rule of lawâ&#x20AC;? framework which these countries are required to operate within. What do you think about this? In my understanding, the biggest problem with the current situation is the confusion over what it means to be a state in general, and a good or a well governed state in particular. For me, the answer comes down to a question of norms. A century ago, it was quite normal for states to take land from other states or nations. It was acceptable to build empires. Nowadays, it is not acceptable. Norms are changing, as is our â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am not sure that building a understanding of what is good and bad.

democracy in a country that has I am not sure that building a democracy in no particular conditions or prior a country that has no particular conditions or prior history of democratic institutions is history of democratic institutions necessarily a good thing. In most cases, it is necessarily a good thing." will end not as a stable democracy, but as a total mess. Therefore, the international community, or the West, should become more patient. Instead of building democracy from scratch, they should build on the already existing institutions which will enable a stable and capable state. So the priority of state building should be as a tool for stability rather than as a tool for democracy. -If we were to look five years down the road. What do you see? All I know is that when I try to predict, my negative predictions are usually correct. I think in five years we will see the same things we do not like today. Russia will be blamed for everything it has been blamed for the past decade. Russians will continue blaming Russian authorities and, probably, the West for everything they are currently blaming them for. So I think we will be in the same situation as we are now, whether Putin is still in power or not. -Dr Mikhail Mironyuk, thank you. My pleasure.

Trust and Respect in the Relations between Russia and the West Professor Reinhard Wolf Goethe University, Frankfurt (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor Reinhard Wolf, the subject of the Forum focuses on trust and emotions. Your talk, however, is about trust and respect. How do trust, emotions and respect differ in terms? My view is that disrespect engenders distrust. Respect is felt when someone you recognise, acknowledges your socially accepted status, as well as the status you claim for yourself. The feeling of disrespect is one wherein you are not given adequate consideration. Disrespect can generate anger and one may feel that injustice was done to him because he believes that he deserves a greater acknowledgement. If this relationship remains and nothing is done to alleviate the feelings of disrespect it can lead to distrust. -In the relationship between Russia and the West, who, in your opinion, feels disrespected and why? I believe only Russia, and, I think, the West fuels this feeling to some extent. From my point of view, Russia thinks it deserves more respect than the West is willing to grant. More or less, Russia believes it deserves to be treated as “Potentially, Russia can no longer be an equal by the United States.

classed as superpower. However, it is,

Potentially, Russia can no longer be indeed, a great power and is almost as classed as superpower. However, it is, important as the United States.” indeed, a great power and is almost as important as the United States. The West however, do not treat Russia accordingly. Moreover, other NATO countries are not ready to treat Russia as an equal either. Once you share the Russian perspective that it deserves an equal status, then it is easy to see why it feels disrespected. -Does Russia deserve this equal status and if so, on what basis would that be? It depends on the ‘status markers’ you deem important. In the West, people believe that a country’s status should not purely be based on its military power. They uphold a belief that these ‘status markers’ should include human rights, democracy, rule of law and a working economy that generates high technological skills. From the Western point of view, Russia has failed “…the West sees Russia, with regard to upholding these markers, while other in comparison to other states, such as Estonia or Poland, have succeeded in former Warsaw Pact their modernisation. Therefore, one can say that the West sees Russia, in comparison to other former countries, as failing.” Warsaw Pact countries, as failing. To some extent, this is very humiliating for Russia, and it should not be surprising that the Russians have reverted to an old notion of status, arguing the superiority of military power, resources and territorial space. So there is a real disconnect here between the Western and Russian perspectives.

-In the early part of this decade it became very clear that Russia could not meet the standards of the EU or the United States. Do you think that this had an impact on Russia’s feeling of disrespect? Russia, as a great power, believes that it is entitled to have its own sphere of influence. In a way, the EU and US have violated this. Furthermore, the US, at least implicitly, claims its own sphere of influence. There is a long history of Russia experiencing disrespect, starting with NATO enlargement, which was followed by NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999. The deployment of ballistic missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic only added more fuel to the fire. All these Western actions can be seen as an infringement upon the Russian sphere of influence. According to the tale, Putin keeps a set of index cards where he has noted all the cases where the United States violated agreements and disrespected Russia. From the Russian point of view, I think, there is a long list of reasons for their feelings of disrespect. -From Russia’s perspective, what can be done to re-stabilize this balance of unequal status? It is a difficult situation. On the one hand, they could accept that they are not granted equal status, something, I believe, they would be unwilling to do. It would be difficult for Putin to do this, as accepting inequality would make him look weak, and the Russian patronage system means that Putin cannot afford to look weak. So he is unlikely to do that. Another option would be to modernise Russia according to Western ideals and to reintroduce the rule of law and free and democratic elections. However, he is unlikely to do this either for the very same reasons. So it is a structural problem. -What can the West do to reset this relationship? Is there anything - without compromising their ideals? I don’t believe they can. To some extent, I believe the “To some extent, I believe West mistreated Russia. Perhaps Russia should have been granted more of a voice in the 1990’s. Maybe we the West mistreated should do more to rectify the ignorance given to the Russia.” Russian suffering after World War Two. These are steps the West could make in an attempt to reset the relationship. However, the status markers, which the West deems important, are directly related to its values and it is unprepared to shed these values. So I think it would be very difficult for the West to grant Russia equal status. -How do you expect status and respect will play out in the Helsinki meeting between Trump and Putin? Trump may be able to grant Putin the respect he expects. From my interpretation, Trump is not interested in democratic values and the rule of law. He does not place as much emphasis on Western political values as previous administrations have done. On the other hand, Trump himself is very interested in respect as well. Therefore, I think there are two possible outcomes here: one could be an understanding that they are both the leaders of great powers, who are focused on national interests and oppose multilateral institutions. However, due to the fact that both are quite sensitive personalities, a lack of such understanding can lead to another possible outcome – even bigger confrontation. -Professor Reinhard Wolf, thank you very much for your interesting insights. Thank you for the your interesting questions.

The Role of Media in the Relations between Russia and the West Mr Vitaly Kabernik Centre of Military and Political Studies, MGIMO University (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Mr Vitaly Kabernik, your institute is one of the partners of the Forum. Would you tell us, please, what was your reason for participating in this event? The general focus of the Centre of Military and Political Studies is on the role of hard power, and our main purpose is to conduct research on this topic. Therefore, you are right, it might be surprising that we decided to be one of the official partners of this Forum, focus of which is not necessarily on hard power, but on more “soft” topics, such as emotions and trust. However, after looking more deeply into the theme of the Forum, we realised that the question of trust is, in fact, the foundation for all our studies and research. Simply because trust and mutual understanding are prerequisites for reaching any kind of agreement, be it arms control, couter-terrorism cooperation or any kind of dialogue between the West and Russia. It is definitely worth further exploration together with our Western colleagues. -There have been many diverse views today from Russian, as well as Western, scholars. Has anything arisen today changed your understanding of the relations between fake news and trust? Yes – much of my understanding has altered. “News is rather an As I see it, both the West and Russia are simplifying the concept of ‘news’ to be seen interpretation, a type of framing as something factual. In reality, however, it is exercise, which in many cases a significantly more complicated concept. involves an emotional response.” News is rather an interpretation, a type of framing exercise, which in many cases involves an emotional response. My panel focused on propaganda, misperceived interpretations and the potential interference between Russia and the West. After very interesting and engaging discussion, I think, we need to discuss more about our misinterpretations around the concept of ‘news’, because currently, we operate in too simplistic terms and we need to deepen our understanding of the problem. Unfortunately, I also witnessed certain level of opinions polarisation, including mentions of moral equivalence and repeating cliches that can be traced back to propaganda exposure. Definitely, we need to get rid of this to develop positive, unobstructed common agenda. -Can you talk about the problem of misinformation in Russia and what you might be facing both domestically and from abroad? We see many Western media outlets working in Russia, which have relatively isolated audiences, many relying on the internet to spread the word. It does not reflect the entirety of Russian audience, because, in my opinion, these outlets are only talking to people already favourable to the promoted points of view, and their representation of the facts can be distorted and negative.

I believe, similar situation can be observed in the West when we talk about the influence of RT or Sputnik. Their audiences and impact are not so extensive but the hype they create is so large that there is a belief that these channels represent an informational aggression. This is not true, but this view is promoted as a mainstream opinion – also a result of rising polarisation I mentioned above. In both cases we need to establish a dialogue, study each other deeper, so that people would understand that these outlets are just representing certain interpretations, which do not reflect wider beliefs. -Russia Today’s small audience is mainly targeted through social media. When you are talking about Western media outlets operating within Russia, is the information also being disseminated via social media? Yes. Social media represents a problem for media analysis because their users are shaping the information environment, which surrounds them, thus creating an echo chamber. I am apprehensive about the ramifications social media can have on the general population, because it usually presents a distorted picture. -In the West many solutions for how to deal with fake news and disinformation are shaped around teaching media literacy or media regulations. What are the Russian internal solutions? We have a longstanding tradition of interpreting official messages dating back to the times of the Soviet Union. Many people have experience in verification of the information disseminated by the media using multiple sources. So when you are talking about media literacy, this is one of the solutions, but I doubt it is universal or omnipotent. We are talking about beliefs here, not an analysis job. Whether one have media literacy or not, he or she will perceive the news emotionally firsthand, not analytically. And modern news corporations, completely aware of that fact, are pushing more and more towards emotional response, not the factual interpretation. -So if a person does not have the confidence to sort the truth from the lies in the media sphere, does the responsibility then fall to institutions? I believe there should be an equilibrium. Some believe that institutions can control, regulate and somehow block parts of media information. It is hardly possible in the modern world, though we now see attempts to shape the picture represented by national media and even social networks to reflect certain policies, thus limiting the freedom of press. In an ideal world, I think there should be a flow of undistorted, competing messages without any kind of regulation, but this kind of freedom implies responsibility as well. -The West has many concerns about organisations like the Internet Research Agency in Russia and about Russian interference in Western elections. How do Russians perceive this? The Russian public, in most cases, find it laughable – particularly in relation to Trump’s election. When we see the Cambridge Analytica case however, this seems far more realistic. They have a good budget with methodology to study the media space and it was used for a specific purpose. -There are deep suspicions that ties will be ultimately found between Cambridge Analytica and the Russian government. Does that sound plausible to you? I do not think so. When I was here previously at another conference, I said that the general public in the West wants a good universal explanation for everything: Trump, Brexit and Russian hackers. This claim, I think, is still valid. The reality is much more complicated and I believe not every global controversy links back to Russia.

- What do you think could happen at the meeting between Trump and Putin? I believe it depends a great deal on the results of the NATO summit that takes place before the meeting. The NATO member-states have topics to discuss and they will have to come out with some form of plan. However, regardless of the NATO summit, I think the very fact of the meeting between Trump and Putin is positive, because we are finally starting to talk to each other. It has been a year without any kind of communication except media bombs, etc. The fact that they are meeting is already a very positive thing, however, I would not be brave enough to make any prediction of what outcomes may occur . Let us wait and see. - The head of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence recently told me that he thought it might be time for a Cyber NATO. How do you think Russia would react to that? Russia would react completely negatively to this prospect. Any kind of Cyber NATO is in direct contrast to the Russian concepts of international information security, which is promoted by Russia in the UN. Any kind of development towards cyberspace militarisation would be seen very negatively by Russia. Mr Vitaly Kabernik, thank you for your time. Thank you too.

“Information War” between Russia and the West Dr Hanna Smith The European CoE for Countering Hybrid Threats, Helsinki (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Dr Hanna Smith, Russia has been strengthening control over its own information space to protect its information sovereignty against foreign influence. Western countries are contemplating similar measures to protect themselves from alleged Russian interference. Would you say it is true? I would like to challenge how strategic that statement makes both parties sound. There are many changes when it comes to our understanding of information and the media landscape. So it is true that Russian and Western control over their information has changed. In Russia’s case, there is an attempt to understand this globalised media in its own space, simultaneously experimenting in how it can influence thing’s outside its own borders. I think, Western countries are much more restricted to traditional methods of looking at strategic communication and they are still “In Russia’s case, there is an attempt to wondering how to approach these new understand this globalised media in its own social media networks and understand space, simultaneously experimenting in how it the role of the state in accordance with can influence thing’s outside its own borders.” them. -Why is the West behind on this curve? Well in the West, media is separated from the state. There is a course of co-operation. There are laws that govern it much more in the West. In Russian case, you can bend the rules. So you can be much faster and creative than in a democracy where you have to follow the rules. -Let's start by interrogating the West. What does the Cambridge Analytica scandal, their association with the UK Foreign Office and allegations over swinging elections, say about the Western approach to interference in elections through new technologies of social media? The way social media can be used is very new and the West is still behind the curve , learning the rules. However, we must take into account that when there are no rules, then we, as humans - whether it is a democracy or something else - we are very eager to push boundaries for our own purposes. So if you harvest information for advertising purposes, someone else starts thinking how they could use that information for a different purpose. That is why there is an importance of certain rules relating to social media. The difference with the Cambridge Analytica case is that the scandal it is being talked about quite openly, which usually does not happen outside of democratic countries. -Are you saying that we are seeing the West having a dialogue with itself about the appropriateness of this kind of action to take preventive actions in the future? Yes, I think that is the nature of democracy. Of course, it is not a flawless system. There are flaws within it, but once these flaws are pinpointed, effort is made to correct them. So the nature of democracy is that it is very self-critical. You have to try and develop to get better.

-So now let’s look at Russia and the controversy surrounding the Internet Research Agency. The US Congress recently blamed them for driving people, who are on the edges of political opinion, right out into the margins. The theory is that it will break down people’s faith in their institutions. How much acknowledgment is there within Russia that these actions are occurring? I think officially there is none. Yet, in Russia’s case, very few things are clear cut. So I think there are unofficial acknowledgements. Russia has a significant number of technologically gifted individuals – so definitely there can be traces back to Russia. However, whether you can trace everything back to the Kremlin is another matter entirely. I think the Kremlin’s influence is not as influential as sometimes people suggest. -If it is not being linked with the Kremlin, what could possibly be the motivation for engaging in these kinds of actions? I believe we have to put all these actions into a larger context. Within Russian society, there is an emotional, socio-political culture willing to aid the Government against its adversaries. Whether through self-censorship or producing information, Russian citizens are creating content to damage the West in the “Whether through self-censorship or pursuit of supporting Russia. Thus producing information, Russian citizens many leads can be traced to Russian are creating content to damage the West citizens, but not necessarily the in the pursuit of supporting Russia.” Kremlin. -The US and the UK are currently engaged in investigations into how Russia may have interfered with domestic elections. These are quite serious matters that cut to the heart of democracy and yet it is very clear that Facebook, among other private companies, has been obfuscatory around information that might aid the investigations. If we were investigating children’s toys and a company was being obfuscatory – that’s one thing, but if we are investigating issues of national security then how should governments regard that? Facebook is definitely not doing absolutely everything they could to help. When we come to national security and we think that another country is influencing our information space, whether it is by social media, influencing the economic elite or putting pressure on our infrastructure, it is very difficult to tell what crosses the line of national security. Once that line is officially crossed, then we have a new set of rules that has to obeyed. This officially, is not being done and it is a grey area and this is why I believe it is so complex. -Do you think these are national security issues? So if we see attempts to influence decision making within a country - which is at the core of every country’s sovereignty - it starts becoming a national security issue. However, we have not defined social media and disinformation, in terms of national security before. Mostly because national security has been commonly defined as something related to territorial threats. However, now we need to start talking about it in the context of a globalized world – where someone far away can penetrate internal affairs from the outside. So this new reality requires a new definition of what national security issues are. -I've heard the argument that hybrid warfare is not necessarily warfare. Would you agree with that? I would agree partially. To make things even more complicated I would say that there are two concepts: hybrid threats and hybrid warfare. Hybrid threats are not warfare, but an attempt to

influence the decision making without any military means, outside of the concept of war. With hybrid warfare, we do have a combination of means whether they are military or otherwise. I would say we live more in a world of hybrid threats than in the world of constant warfare. -If you are trying to influence decision making through these methodologies, are you conducting this influence on the policymakers or the populace? It is a combination. It is a tailor made approach according to the country. In some countries it would be enough just to influence a certain politician. In some countries, you would need to influence the key officials and practitioners, and in others, you might need, for example, a local entity which has an influential position and can influence a whole country’s decision making. -I have heard a statement about the Internet Research Agency that if we come to an understanding of what it is they are doing, then they will have probably moved on to do their next thing. What are you worried about that we do not know yet? In a war context, it is always said that militaries are preparing for the war that’s just gone. However, I think it is quite clear that in the past decade we have learnt that we live in a context where everything is always changing. What we need to learn for the future is to not overplay it; to understand that potential threats are not necessarily going to become threats. Also, when somebody says “No! That is impossible!” – we question the authenticity of this statement. -We are getting close to a situation where nobody believes any of the news information that they receive. That seems like a condition that is incredibly difficult to counter, what can we do to counter this coming situation? Yes, it is and it is very difficult to counter. However, I do not think that it is a hopeless situation. Firstly, a country’s leadership should take more responsibility of denouncing this. So we have people who take on the position of responsibility. Secondly, we must go to the schools. I do not think we need to change everything, instead, I believe, we must start teaching critical thinking. I think we underestimate the new generation’s ability of deciphering social media, we need to nurture their critical thinking and develop it. I believe that would be a good way to start. -Dr Hanna Smith, thank you for your interesting insights. It was my pleasure.

News as a Filmic Entertainment Professor Ilya Kiriya National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor Ilya Kiriya, you are working on media, media economies and disinformation. Can you tell us the current state of play in regards to these topics in Russia? For a long time, the Russian media system has been interpreted as a transitional system. One that has been evolving from a traditional model towards a new democratic one. In my opinion, this vision is quite false. I believe, the Russian media system is quite stable and it combines both these factors. It comprises of elements from both a traditional role of authoritarian rule, and a new model, linked intrinsically with a liberal market economy. -From the Western perspective, this system looks as though it is a challenging combination – is this true? It is a very difficult mix, especially because the regulations and rules we try to use in Russia do not always work. During the last twenty years, Russia has seen a number of progressive and liberal reforms which can be identified with the freedom of speech and the freedom of information. Many people believe that the Regulation Act on media, granting the freedom of speech and journalistic freedoms, do indeed work. At the same time, Russia is rated poorly for freedom of speech. This is the case because much of the progressive regulation framework does not work in Russia due to the fact that it is distorted by many political and economic restrictions. This situation means that ownership of the media is mediated and self-censored. -You mention regulation. What kinds of regulation are you talking about? It is not purely official regulations but industry and self-regulating models. Therefore, it is not necessarily a rule written on paper, but something which is collectively shared, understood and acquired. -So what does a free press look like in this kind of environment? We have examples of relatively free press. I use the term relative because as a media analyst and scholar, I am not a fan of the normative model which says there is freedom of speech. In my opinion, any kind of freedom is relative “In my opinion, any kind of freedom, as any freedom is regulated by something. In Russia, there are some media outlets freedom is relative freedom, which are ‘free’, until they touch upon particular as any freedom is regulated themes and particular topics. For example, by something.” political media outlets may feel reasonably free, yet journalists at Vogue and Cosmopolitan would think otherwise. Some journalists would go as far to say they are entirely free, they believe they are working on their own prerogative and for their own objective. As soon as you challenge them, asking why they are not covering certain topics, they will give you a rational explanation for why they are not covering, for instance, the so-called non-system of opposition.

-So journalists are rejecting their self-censorship? Yes, I believe they are. I think the majority of journalists will tell you that they do not need to cover the activities of Alexei Navalny because he is someone, who is not supported by the majority. His party is not represented in the State Duma, so they are not obliged to cover it. -In other post-Soviet states, you can find NGOs and nonprofits who are working to support local free press. They are helping local media stations to have a real voice outside of oligarch owned media. Do you find this situation also in Moscow or any other regions in Russia? In Russia there are legal associations or small NGO’s that support the press, but their ability to gain foreign backing is very limited. The legislative framework makes it difficult for them to gain this foreign support. Fifteen years ago there were about 2 or 3 big organizations such as Internews Network, who were partly financed by USAID and partly by European grants. It was the so-called network of Open Russia, financed by Khodorkovsky. -There is a British documentary maker, Adam Curtis, who puts forth the idea that nobody believes anything in contemporary Russia. Do you feel that that may be the case? It is difficult to define what is a belief - and what people watching TV should believe. Should they believe the reality of what they are watching on screen? News, for example, is actually interpreted by many people as filmic “I think many people do not find entertainment. I think many people do not find any connection between what they any connection between what watch on TV in Russia and their own they watch on TV in Russia and everyday life. For example, our research in their own everyday life.” Russian villages on media consumption shows that people in rural communities have never visited Moscow and do not know much of what is going on in the capital. At the same time, they are absolutely knowledgeable of the global agenda, they know about the crisis of immigrants in Germany, etc. Yet, at the same time they are absolutely unable to say who the governor of their own region is. There is a lack of connection to what they watch on TV and their own everyday life. So from this point of view, news for them, is similar to a report from the moon. -And does this disconnect exist in the Russian speaking satellite states as well? I think this disconnect exists more or less everywhere. Not only in Russia and post-Soviet states, but everywhere. News are thought of as a pragmatic tool for information, which helps people to make their decisions. In other words, news are considered to be a cognitive instrument. For example, one should know what the weather is today in order for him to decide what to wear today. Therefore, such rationalist interpretations of the nature of the news is seen by scholars as something that helps people to “…we can see from different media take an economic/political decision in their studies that people do not make everyday life. At the same time, we can see from political decisions according to their different media studies that people do not make rational analysis of candidates.” political decisions according to their rational analysis of candidates. In reality, they make decisions according to irrational and emotional perceptions of the candidates, deciding who would be the best option for them. Thus the top politicians are being chosen according to their character and charisma rather than their policy. Therefore, news are, in fact, a filmic entertainment.

-Is it difficult for you to talk about how the freedom of press works or does not? Or you taking a theoretical position around the subject? No it is not difficult for me personally. Firstly, because I am an academic, it means that I am not an activist, thus, an analysis is far more important for me than an action. My institutional analysis shows that you cannot change the situation by adopting a law, by making a revolution etc. etc. -Do you see changes occurring within this environment over the next half a decade? No. I think such fields and practices are much more long term. So they cannot be changed in five years. You cannot implement a democracy within five years. It would be a very simplistic view to say otherwise. Professor Ilya Kiriya, Thank you for joining us. Thank you.

Syria between Russia and the West Dr Alastair Reed International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, The Hague (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Dr Alastair Reed, to what extent do the positions of the West and Russia differ on Syria? Ultimately, they have the same objective, which is to defeat ISIS. Where they differ is the means of how to do it. Russia thinks they can prevent ISIS taking control by supporting the Assad’s government, bringing it back to power and regaining control. Whereas, the West believes that Assad’s government is partially responsible for why ISIS emerged in Syria in the first place. Moreover, the West sees that the Assad’s government does not align with liberal-democratic values, and therefore, according to the West, it should be replaced. So, the Russian and the Western approaches are fundamentally different not only regarding of how to fight ISIS, but also regarding the ultimate outcome of where they see Syria after ISIS. -Is there not a more complex set of actors within Syria needing to be negotiated with, besides the differences between Russia and the West? Yes. The situation in Syria is incredibly complex. It is not purely Russia and the West which have a stake in Syria. There are many different regional entities which have interests in Syria: Iran and Hezbollah are on the same side as Russia, backing the Assad regime. Turkey and Saudi Arabia also have a stake in Syria and share a similar view to the West. Then the Kurds, which, on the one hand, the West has largely been supporting, and have played a leading role in fighting ISIS. On the other, America and Turkey who are both NATO allies opposed to the Assad regime, are divided over support for the Kurdish forces. So it becomes a complicated web. -Walk me through the differing positions of Russia and the West on Iran, Hezbollah and on Turkey on the Kurds? So on the “pro Assad side” you have not only Russia, but also Iran and Hezbollah. Hezbollah has always been supported indirectly by Iran. One of the major problems for the West is to find an actor who is going to be a big enough not only to defeat ISIS, but also Assad. This has been a very difficult job. The “anti Assad side” of the coalition has been divided between the West and Turkey over support for the Kurds. The Kurds have been providing some of the strongest resistance against ISIS and against Assad. However, the Turkish government is very wary of the Kurdish forces in Syria because of their own internal issues about Kurdish groups fighting for autonomy and independence. -To what extent does a peaceful conclusion in Syria depend on relations between Russia and the West? The main question is that since ISIS has been largely “defeated” and since they are not controlling any territory - what happens next? Does the proxy conflict in Syria continue? Does this conflict take the focus off ISIS and could that allow a space for ISIS to continue to regroup and re-emerge? This is often the case when the initial part of a conflict ends, infighting then ensues. If you look at Afghanistan which had deep conflict against the Russians in the 1980s, 49

after the Russians were driven out, this led to infighting amongst the different factions, giving space for the Taliban to emerge. So it is really a question of will a similar development be the next phase of the Syrian conflict? -To what extent do you think resolving this issue will be stymied by mistrust and insecurity between Russia and the West? I think insecurity between Russia and the West plays a large part in it. The issue is that any resolution of the situation in Syria essentially requires the ability of all sides to work together to effectively defeat ISIS. Unfortunately, the relationship between the West and Russia is not solely about Syria. We have seen a deterioration in relationships between Russia and the West in other spheres. The risk is that the deterioration of the relationships, which have nothing to do with Syria or Iraq, will ultimately be played out in Syria. This could then create fractions and proxy wars or even just a shift of the focus off ISIS, creating a space for it to re-emerge. -From the Western perspective, the Islamic State and Russia are engaged in practices of hybrid warfare and practices of non-linear warfare. Can you talk about how Islamic State and Russian methodologies differ? When it comes to Islamic “When it comes to Islamic State, there is State, there is often a often a misperception that they are sort of misperception that they are sort of strategic genius. strategic genius. However, they are, in fact, However, they are, in fact, strategic plagiarists.” strategic plagiarists. Essentially, they have learnt from strategic playbooks written by many people, who have conducted similar warfare before them, and they have learned to adapt and apply already existing strategies. So it is no surprise that there are similarities between what Islamic State and Russia are doing. If you look back at any of the great thinkers on insurgency and warfare, communications have always been a key part of it. It is something integral to every operation you conduct and to your whole strategic effort. ISIS really understand this, as along with their military operations they have very ingrained propaganda operations. Propaganda has made the most of their military actions but also in scaring the population into submission. So to a large extent, this is what Russia’s doing with hybrid warfare - making sure their communication strategies are integrated completely with their military strategy. They both do not really see a difference between communication strategy and military strategy. It is two sides of one coin. -Dr Alastair Reed – thank you. My pleasure.

Russian Intervention in Syria Professor Konstantin Truevtsev Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)

-Professor Konstantin Truevtsev, could you, please, give an overview of the reasons for the Russian intervention in Syria? Contextually, 2015 saw five to six zones of conflict occurring simultaneously around the globe. There was the Middle-Eastern conflict, with Libya as an epicentre. Then the Ukraine crisis occurred, which led to a very dangerous conflict situation in Europe and a possible clash between NATO and Russia. There was also the revival of terror in Afghanistan and the threat to the entire region of Central Asia. Lastly, conflict was also developing within the Pacific between China and its neighbouring countries and between Japan, South and North Korea. All these conflicts were coinciding at the same time, while the most critical situation was in the Middle East. Russia’s decision to intervene in Syria was deemed successful because it led to a decline in conflict, not only in the Middle East, but also, to varying degrees, throughout the world. -So what was it about Syria that made the conflict there so powerful? I think, Syria was the most critical conflict in this period because a regime collapse in Syria could have been very dangerous. A non-existent governing system would have led to ISIS occupying the entire state. ISIS also had prospects to intervene in Saudi Arabia after their possible success in Syria. If they had succeeded, it would have been globally disastrous. -A British documentarian proposed that the West misunderstood what Russia wanted in Syria. Can you explain what Russia wanted in Syria?

“I think Russia wanted to prevent the victory of a terrorist state, because a case where ISIS runs Syria would pose a direct threat to Russia itself.”

I think Russia wanted to prevent the victory of a terrorist state, because a case where ISIS runs Syria would pose a direct threat to Russia itself. At the same time, Russia was interested in keeping domestic stability within Syria and, therefore, in Russia’s view, the current ruling Syrian regime was the only option. -Does Russia now face any terrorist threat from Islamic extremism at all? And if so where would that come from? If we are speaking about ISIS as a cancer, the main inflammation has been removed but the metastases are present elsewhere, including inside Russia, Europe, the United States and most parts of the world. However, fighting metastases is quite another type of struggle to fighting the main body of ISIS.

-How do Russia’s intervention in Syria and the defeat of ISIS impact emotional relationships between Russia and the West and the leaders of these countries? There was a misunderstanding and mistrust between Russia and the West around the events in Syria. I believe this misunderstanding has been present since the US invasion in Iraq. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda operated without any reliance on a state. They considered the system of states to be corrupt and therefore Middle Eastern states were as much enemies to their organisations as the Western crusades or the Zionists. Therefore, it was misguided for America to be frightened of an alliance between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, because, in fact, they were enemies. America’s invasion in Iraq was a mistake and the void left by Hussein’s government made it possible for ISIS to take hold. “There was a misunderstanding and mistrust between Russia and the West around the events in Syria.”

-Do you have any particular hopes for trust building between Russia and the West at the upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin? It is clear that Americans are feeling quite uncomfortable in Syria and, as Trump stated, they are thinking of an honourable withdrawal. Russia definitely could help them with this. I think it’s one of the most important items to be discussed. -Professor Konstantin Truevtsev, thank you very much for the interview. Thank you too.

Information about the Contributors Simon Koschut is a Visiting Professor in International Relations and European Integration at the Otto Suhr Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. His research interests include Security Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, and International Relations theory, in particular regional security governance, social and normative dynamics of international politics, the affective underpinnings of power and language, and transatlantic relations. His work has appeared in journals such as Review of International Studies, International Studies Review, Millennium, and Cooperation and Conflict. Currently, he leads a DFG research network on the emotional underpinnings of power and hierarchies in world politics and is a spokesperson of the DVPW theme group "Norm Research in IR“. Simon Koschut has held visiting positions at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, San Fransisco State University, and Freie Universität Berlin. In 2015, he won the Best Paper Award of the German International Relations Section. Tereza Capelos is a Senior Lecturer in Political Psychology and Deputy Director at the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS) at the School of Government and Society at the University of Birmingham (UoB), and co-editor of the Palgrave Series in Political Psychology. Her research focuses on the affective, cognitive and motivational determinants of political judgments and behaviors in the context of crises and tensions. She is co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Global Political Psychology (2014) and has published articles and book chapters on the role of emotions and values on legal, illegal and violent political behaviours and the formation and updating of institutional and leader reputations. She is a specialist in experimental design, public opinion surveys and media content analysis, directs two MSc programmes (Political Psychology of IR and Global Cooperation and Security) at UoB, is co-convenor of the ECPR Political Psychology Standing Group, founder and director (2011-2015) of the International Society of Political Psychology Summer Academy, and has served as vice president for the International Society of Political Psychology. Daria B.Kazarinova is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Comparative, People’s Friendship University of Russia (RUDN – University). Her publications include: (with Dutkiewicz P.) Fear as Politics, Polis. Political Studies. 2017; EU, Russia and the ‘Inglorious End’ of Catalan Self-Determination http://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/catalonia-civil-confrontation; Evropeysky soyuz y Rossiya: politicheskoye y sotsiokulyurnoye izmereniye (European Union and Russia: Political and Sociocultural Dimension) RUDN, 2008; The Anti-Americanism and the Spirit of European Unity // Special issue of the Review of European and Russian Affairs : The European Union Foreign and Security Policy: New Approaches on Transatlantic Relations (2007); Evropeiskaya integratsiya: politiko-institutsionalnoye i sotsiokulturnoye iazmereniya (European Integration: Political-Institutional and Sociocultural Dimensions) RTV-Media, 2006. Andrey Pavlov is Professor at Saint Petersburg State University and the chair of Strategic and Arms Control Studies Masters Program. His research interests include nuclear arms control, nuclear strategy, World War I military strategy, Russian national security policy. He is codirector of the Academic Network for European Security Studies and the “Nuclear Russia” project that includes researches from Russian academic institutions who are writing on different aspects of Russia’s nuclear strategy and policy. David Betz is Professor of War in the Modern World at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. obtained his BA and MA at Carleton and his PhD at Glasgow. He joined the Department of War Studies immediately after completing his PhD in 2002. His main research interests are insurgency and counterinsurgency, information warfare and cyberwar, propaganda, civil-military relations and strategy, and especially fortifications both historic and contemporary. He is Head of the Insurgency Research Group, Deputy Director of the King’s Centre for Strategic Communications and was the academic director of the War Studies Online MA for its first five years.

Beatrice Heuser is Chair in International Relations at the University of Glasgow. Previously to that, she was in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and University of Reading. She has also taught at French and German universities (most recently Sciences Po’ Paris). 1997-1998 Professor Heuser worked at NATO HQ in Brussels. Degrees from the Universities of London (BA, MA), Oxford (DPhil), Marburg (Habilitation). Her most prominent publications include The Evolution of Strategy (2010), Reading Clausewitz (2002), Strategy before Clausewitz (2017), with Eitan Shamir (eds) Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies: National Styles and Strategic Cultures (2017) and works on nuclear strategy, NATO. Prokhor Tebin graduated in 2010 from the Moscow State University with a degree in International Relations. In 2012 he obtained a PhD degree in Political Sciences from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO). His interests include issues related to the US and Russia’s Navies, National Security Strategy of the US and Russia, balance of power and conventional deterrence between Russia and NATO. Tebin is an Expert at the Valdai Discussion Club and the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC). Currently, Tebin works at Ilyushin which is part of the Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation. Previously, he worked at a Russian Consultancy and a Londonheadquartered business intelligence company. He is the author of numerous articles and papers. Anastasia Malygina is an Associate Professor at St. Petersburg State University where she teaches courses on disarmament and non-proliferation, and military innovations for the students of Strategic and Arms Control Studies Master’s Program. During February-April 2016, she was a visiting scholar at the Center for Non-proliferation Studies (USA). She was a participant of some US-Russia Track II diplomacy events and an observer to the Conference of the State Parties of OPCW in 2017 and the Preparatory Committee for the NPT Review Conference in 2018. Dmitry Stefanovich graduated from the National Research Nuclear University "MEPhI" (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) in 2009 with a degree in International Science and Technology cooperation. Currently he is an independent expert in military-political affairs. His main areas of study are relations between strategic stability and disruptive technologies, as well as regional security dynamics. He is an author of papers published by Russian International Affairs Council (as a nonresident expert), Eurasia Expert portal and The Diplomat magazine. His main publications are: ‘Russian Nukes: Facts vs. Fiction. A closer look at what systems Russia actually has in place and in the pipeline’. https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/russian-nukes-facts-vs-fiction/; ‘Strategic Stabilization: A Window of Opportunities for Russia and the U.S.’ http://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/strategic-stabilization-a-window-ofopportunities-for-russia-and-the-u-s/; ‘Nuclear-Cybernetic Systems http://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/nuclearcybernetic-systems-/ Nikolai V. Petrov is Professor of the School of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (Moscow, Russia). His publications include: (co-ed., with Maria Lipman) The State of Russia: What Comes Next (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); (co-ed., with Maria Lipman) Russia-2025: Scenarios for the Russian Future (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); (with Martha Olcott) Russia’s Energy Regions: the Interaction of Government, Business, and Society (Washington, DC, 2010); (co-ed. with Michael McFaul and Andrei Ryabov) Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Russian Post-Communist Political Reform (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004). In 1994-1995, he served as Chief Analyst in the Regional Division of the Analytical Department; Administration of the President of Russian Federation. In 2003-2012 he was Scholar-in-Residence at Carnegie Moscow Center, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Marina M. Lebedeva is Professor of International Relations and the Head of World Politics Department at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO – University). Her publications include: Mirovaja politika (World Politics) (Aspekt Press, 2003, 2006, 2007; Knorus, 2011, 2013, 2016); Tehnologija vedenija mezhdunarodnyh peregovorov (Conducting International Negotiations) (Aspekt Press, 2016); with M. Kharkevich and P. Kasatkin, Global’noe upravlenie (Global Governance) (MGIMO, 2013); (Ed.) Publichnaja diplomatija: Teorija i Praktika (Public Diplomacy: Theory and Practice) (Aspekt Press, 2017); with K. Borishpolets, N. Ivanova and M. Chepurina, Central’naja Azija. Social’no-gumanitarnoe izmerenie (Central Asia: Social and Humanitarian Dimensions) (Aspekt Press, 2016). Nicholas J. Wheeler is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation, and Security at the University of Birmingham. His publications include: (with Ken Booth) The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation, and Trust in World Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). His new book, Trusting Enemies: Interpersonal Relationships in International Conflict was published by Oxford University Press in March 2018. He is co-editor with Professor Christian Reus-Smit and Professor Evelyn Goh of the prestigious Cambridge Series in International Relations. Mikhail Mironyuk is Associate Professor of the School of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” and the 1st Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. His publications include: (with Andrei Melville et al.) Political Atlas of the Modern World : An Experiment in Multidimensional Statistical Analysis of the Political Systems of Modern States (Malden : Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), (with Andrei Melville and Dennis Stukal) Trajectories of Regime Transformation and Types of Stateness in Post-communist Countries (in: Perspectives on European Politics and Society. 2013. Vol. 14. No. 4); (with Andrei Melville) “Bad Enough Governance”: State Capacity and Quality of Institutions in Post-Soviet Autocracies (in: PostSoviet Affairs, 2016). Reinhard Wolf is a Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. His current research focuses on the role of status, respect and emotions in international relations. Recent publications include “Political Emotions as Public Processes. Analyzing Transnational Ressentiments in Discourses”, in: Maéva Clément und Eric Sangar (eds.): Researching Emotions in International Relations: Methodological Perspectives on the Emotional Turn, Cham 2018, S. 231–254, and “Donald Trump's Status-Driven Foreign Policy”, in: Survival 59: 5 (October–November 2017), 99–116. His more pertinent publication include Status and Emotions in Russian Foreign Policy, special double-issue Communist and Post-Communist Studies 47:3-4 (September-December 2014) (co-edited with Regina Heller and Tuomas Forsberg). Vitaly Kabernik is an expert in the field of international security and a researcher of new forms of conflict focusing on its information aspects, employment of soft power and public diplomacy. His main affiliation is the Center of Military and Political Studies at MGIMO University. He is also a Fellow Expert at Carnegie Endowment for World Peace, Russian International Affairs Council and PIR-Center. His new book, coedited with Ofer Fridman and James C Pearce, Hybrid Conflicts and Information Warfare: New Labels, Old Politics is forthcoming with Lynne Rienner Publishers later this year. Hanna Smith is Director of Strategic Planning and Responses at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Before that she was a Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki, Aleksanteri Institute and the Finnish Centre of Excellence on Russian Studies 2003-2017. She is an expert on Russian and former Soviet Union area foreign, security and domestic politics. Her research interests include also security studies, regional cooperation, Nordic cooperation and international institutions. Dr Smith headed the Finnish Foreign Ministry funded project on ‘Russian Foreign Policy’ in 2004-05 and has been part of either as a principle investigator or as the head of the project in three

reports by Committee for the Future, Parliament of Finland (2007, 2011, 2014). Her latest project “Russia and the Hybrid Warfare: Definitions, Capabilities, Scope and Possible Responses” funded by the Finnish Prime Minister’s office’s research mechanism. She has published numerous articles and chapters in different books, academic journals and newspapers in the field of Russian foreign policy, military affairs and domestic politics. She also edited “Haasteiden Venäjä (Challenges of Russia)”, Ministry of Defence, Finland (2008), and with Pami Aalto and Helge Blakkisrud, The New Northern Dimension of the European Neighbourhood, (2009). She is frequent lecturer at the Finnish Defence University, University of Helsinki and University of Eastern Finland on different aspect on Russian foreign and security policy. Ilya Kiriya is Professor and the Chair of the School of Media, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Communication, Media and Design at National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. His main academic interest is political economy of media and relationship between power and media in post-soviet Russia. His recent works are Impact of International sanctions on Russian Media Economy (Russian politics) and Journalism in the Crossfire. Media coverage of the war in Ukraine in 2014 (Journalism studies). Alastair Reed is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) and Leiden University, in the Netherlands. His main research interests are foreign fighters, radicalization, terrorist and insurgent strategy, propaganda and strategic communications. His current area of focus is on understanding and responding to terrorist propaganda, for which he set-up and leads the Counter-Terrorism Strategic Communications project (@CTSC_Project) - a collaborative research project that has brought together top researchers in the field from across the world (see https://icct.nl/topic/counter-terrorism-strategic-communications-ctsc/). He is also an Associate Fellow at the Kings’ Centre for Strategic Communications (KCSC) at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Konstantin Truevtsev is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. Previously to that he was an Assistant Professor (20012015) and Deputy Dean (1999-2001) of the Department of Political Science at the National Research University Higher School of Economics; and Chief of the Section of Arab Countries at the Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences (1985-1993). He holds a PhD in Philosophy

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