Monday, July 19, 2021

Tino Chrupalla, June 23, 2021, Moscow Security Conference

Moscow Security Conference, June 23, 2021*

Right honorable Herr Defense Minister General Schoigu. Right honorable Herr Colonel General Fomin. Right honorable Herr Ilnitskiy. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear friends.

Fascinated, I listened in 2001 to President Vladimir Putin’s famous speech in the Berlin Reichstag. In his speech, the Russian president sketched his “policy of the out-stretched hand”, which could have paved the way for a friendly relationship and future cooperation. People in Germany were electrified.

Both peoples, Russian and German, had enough of confrontation, war and partition. A peaceful future based on mutual respect appeared near at hand. Russia and Germany should finally again be joined in their common history. It unfortunately came out otherwise. Europe today is again partitioned. And many countries, like my own country, are internally divided. Confrontation, conflicts, propaganda and mis-information again determine our lives following the East-West conflict.

How strong foreign powers can intervene in a country’s discourse, we see exactly with the discussion of the German-Russian energy project, Nordstream 2. Angst will again be stirred up, false information disseminated, sanctions threatened and pronounced. Climate and energy policy  decisions of worldwide importance are prevented with ideological and moral arguments. It is apparently not about the sovereignty of German decisions. And for the ostensible leaders of opinion, it is also quite clearly not about the continuous supply of inexpensive energy; since that would be to the good of the German fiscal management and our economy.

No, we allow ourselves to be put under moral pressure and shall act against our own national interests and requirements. The result is that an undistorted exchange of opinion is prevented. Targeted dis-information and manipulation will be used by our partners to enforce their own strategic interests. The mental pressure is increased on political and economic and also private actors.

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, in conflicts and wars such psychological operations apply as legitimate instruments for the demoralization of military opponents and populations.

In the war known in this country as the “Great Patriotic War”, the German side initiated a leaflet propaganda campaign to induce soldiers to desert and to demoralize the Russian population.

After the Second World War, the psychological warfare of the Allies (especially from the side of the Americans) then affected the Germans. The “re-education” had sustained effects upon our national identity and culture.

The subsequent Cold War was in turn shaped by an embittered struggle of competing ideologies. Mass media as well as cultural and educational institutions contributed to the spreading of the ideological messages of the parties in the conflict and thereby demonstrated their ostensible moral superiority. Who from this then proceeded to that the time following 1990 contributed to a detente and de-ideologization, he was disillusioned. We can all of us still clearly recall the war of aggression, counter to international law, against Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. Just a decade after the end of the Cold War, we saw tensions in the Balkans and the western allies’ air attacks on Serbia. As was later exposed, western governments had legitimated their attacks by means of targeted dis-information.

Next example: The Iraq War in 2003. Both parties employed journalists and media as an active part of their war strategy. The Iraqi side sought with shocking pictures of wounded civilians and children to provoke outrage in the western public. The U.S.A. in turn let journalists report directly from the front. By means of such “neutral” reporting, the idea was to propagate the war as a “crusade for freedom”. The accusations against the Iraqi leadership, which served the legitimization of the operation, subsequently proved to be false and misleading.

Yet what arrives in the 21st Century? Today, in an age of digital networking, gigantic quantities of information are without delay available worldwide. A manipulation and a thereto associated influencing of the cognitive and emotional levels on such a scale were previously not possible.

And we still have not reached an end to the information technology possibilities: Deep fakes and precisely deployable bot armies in the future put before us new, complex challenges. Add to this that anyone on the internet can research and publish his own theories and opinions. Many people besides will thereby be led astray to form a judgment based on half-truths and questionable sources. Thus is targeted dis-information accompanied by flawed data.

New also is the geo-political realm which determines present-day events. Previously, two great ideologies stood opposed. In the multi-polar world of the present, we have a multiplicity of value systems and interests which find themselves in competition with one another. Thus, new dynamics develop. The struggle of two ideologies was resolved by a competitive struggle for political and economic superiority and influence. The complexity of the cyber- and information-space (CIR) is heightened by hybrid threats from without and within.

New also is the that in the digital age there is no longer a formal declaration of war for the conduct of information technology and psychological warfare. Secret services, NGOs and media play the “game of shadows” and deploy targeted information and dis-information. Generally, there where trust between people and states shall be knowingly prevented, information warfare is an integral component of the political strategy.

Yet how in the future do we deal with this new reality? How do we prevent an intentional spreading of false or manipulative information? We ought not deceive ourselves: To break through the circulation of dis-information is difficult. Difficult times lie ahead of us. Yet we also know that restrictions and bans on communications are no recipe for success against the information technology challenges.

How does Germany now defend against hybrid threats in cyber-space? In 2011, the Federal Republic of Germany created a cyber defense center. Uncommonly for Germany, here work together the German armed forces, the police and all secret services. In this center, 500 specialists are committed to Germany’s information security. One of the officials’ most important duties is the ascertainment of security gaps in the German administration’s information network.

At the midpoint stand, for example, the following threat scenarios:

- attacks on strategic targets outside of cyber-space, such as manipulation of elections and economic espionage 

- attacks on critical infrastructure

- so-called cyber-conflict dynamics such as disinformation and propaganda

The cyber defense center increasingly includes civil start-ups in its strategy. Thus shall disruptive innovations be made useful for the state.

Ladies and gentlemen, I now speak to you today not only as deputy chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland delegation in the German Bundestag, but also as the chief of Germany’s largest opposition party. I can therefore also report to you how it is when the freedom of information of a political opponent is restricted.

My party has standpoints and convictions which shall serve the welfare of our country. Pragmatically and free of ideology, we strive for a foreign policy in the German interest. For example, we stand for openness and good relations with Russia and China. We thereby do not correspond to the current government line in Germany. As a consequence, there is therefore an attempt to silence us. Our public presentations [Aussendarstellungen] will be hindered or falsified. The media true to the government offer us no platform in the political competition. And even our alternative information channels on the internet are blocked and in part deleted. How shall the German citizens still at all be able to form an objective opinion?

Ultimately, each needs to decide for himself which information he believes or not. It is interesting to observe that many people in Germany, especially in the territory of the former DDR, have remained unmoved by the anti-Russian propaganda of the last ten years. In many States, many people remember the values which make up a society: Respect for cultural and social values, respect for the values of belief and nature.

Knowledge is power, as is said. It is true. Manipulation functions best in regards disorderly minds with little sense of self-esteem. This recognition is even so interesting as the fact that we can achieve more in common than we can when we work against one another. Nevertheless, the prerequisite for that is that each can take his legitimate place at the table. I believe that interests can only then be balanced when they are openly and freely articulated.

Many thanks. Спасибо.

 

*[trans: tem; from German translation of speech delivered in Russian; https://afdbundestag.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/afd_btf_chrupalla.pdf]