Influence Operations and the Intelligence/Policy Challenges

This conference report aim to assess influence operations, especially those conducted by Russia, in the context of changing relations between intelligence and policy and the emerging challenges for intelligence. Three key challenges were discussed in regard to influence operations. First, Identify – how to separate state sponsored disinformation from individual rumor mills. Second, Understand – how to understand influence operations, put it into a context for policy makers, and learn to understand the underlying factors and why it happens. Third, Counter – how to vaccinate civil servants and enhance the critical approach within media to create resilience against influence operations. The first part of this conference report lays out on how to identify and understand influence operations in the context of policy. The second part focus on who needs what to counter influence operations. The last part contains concluding themes. Dr. Gregory Treverton is the former chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, as well as former Director of the RAND Corporation’s Center for Global Risk and Security. Dr. Treverton is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies (CATS) at the Swedish Defence University