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]
