How To Lose The Information War (russia, Fake News, And The Future Of Conflict)

By (author) Jankowicz, Nina; By (author) Jankowicz, Nina
Description
Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments’ responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.
Table of contents
Prologue - Fake News and the Russian Offensive 1. United States, 2016-Present, Playing Whack-a-Troll 2. Estonia: "Beta" Trolls 3. Georgia: Tanks and Television 4. Poland: When Vaccines Don''t Work 5. Czech Republic: Fighting Lies Means Fighting Opinion 6. Ukraine and the Netherlands: A Disaster 7. Beyond Whack-a-Troll
Review quote
A persuasive new book on disinformation as a geopolitical strategy.
Review quote
How to Lose the Information War is required reading to understand the shape of the 2020s. It’s a window into a reality we all kind of sensed, but lacked words or understanding to really process.
Review quote
[Nina Jankowicz''s] suggested tactics to help win the information war are thought provoking; it’s a complex and difficult path forward but one vital to preserve democracy and truth itself.
Review quote
[How to Lose the Information War] offers an excellent guide on the [information warfare] lessons that should have been learned from our European partners provides a pathway forward.
Review quote
If there is just one point to glean from Nina Jankowicz’s How to Lose the Information War, it is this: The threats that disinformation campaigns present democracies do not occur in a vacuum. The intentionally false or distorted information flowing out of places like Russia and China, and aimed at nations from North America to Africa to Europe, is part of a larger effort to prey upon divisions, especially within democratic societies. For that reason, whatever strategy a nation employs to counter bots, trolls, and outright lies must go together with a robust civic renewal effort. Otherwise, the Woodrow Wilson Center scholar writes, democracies will play a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.
Review quote
An important introduction to the topic [of Russian interference].
Review quote
An elegant, straightforward and fluent account of the most serious challenge that the liberal democratic order has had to face in at least two generations.
Review quote
Timely, exceptionally well organized and presented, How to Lose the Information War is an impressively formed and informative read… An extraordinary work of meticulous research.
Review quote
"As a journalist who has spent years covering the complex issue of information warfare I can confidently say that this book is a must-read for our age. This outstanding work forensically details and analyses the past decade-plus of Russia''s influence operations and their inexorable spread to the United States. The Kremlin’s threat is an urgent