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120-698: Vetrov was an engineer who had been assigned to evaluate information on NATO hardware and software gathered by the " Line X " technical intelligence operation for Directorate T, the Soviet Union directorate for scientific and technical intelligence collection from the West. He became increasingly disillusioned with the Soviet system and decided to work with the French at the end of the 1970s. Between early 1981 and early 1982, Vetrov gave almost 4,000 secret documents to

240-492: A 2016 interview, after being made the subject of a fake news website during the 2016 U.S. election cycle which falsely claimed that he supported Donald Trump . He said the worst thing the news media could do was spread disinformation. He said the act was a sin , comparing those who spread disinformation to individuals who engage in coprophilia . In a contribution to the 2014 book Military Ethics and Emerging Technologies , writers David Danks and Joseph H. Danks discuss

360-580: A 2023 research article published in New Media & Society , disinformation circulates on social media through deception campaigns implemented in multiple ways including: astroturfing , conspiracy theories , clickbait , culture wars , echo chambers , hoaxes, fake news , propaganda , pseudoscience , and rumors . Label: The instrumentalization of the term to delegitimize news media In order to distinguish between similar terms, including misinformation and malinformation, scholars collectively agree on

480-524: A confrontation between US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and countries such as Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Germany with Gates calling on the latter to contribute more and the latter believing the organization has overstepped its mandate in the conflict. In his final policy speech in Brussels on 10 June, Gates further criticized allied countries in suggesting their actions could cause

600-609: A form of disinformation, as they mislead the public about their true objectives and who their controllers are. Most recently, disinformation has been deliberately spread through social media in the form of " fake news ", disinformation masked as legitimate news articles and meant to mislead readers or viewers. Disinformation may include distribution of forged documents , manuscripts, and photographs, or spreading dangerous rumours and fabricated intelligence . Use of these tactics can lead to blowback , however, causing such unintended consequences such as defamation lawsuits or damage to

720-511: A higher frequency of cross-spectrum discussion. Other evidence has found that disinformation campaigns rarely succeed in altering the foreign policies of the targeted states. Research is also challenging because disinformation is meant to be difficult to detect and some social media companies have discouraged outside research efforts. For example, researchers found disinformation made "existing detection algorithms from traditional news media ineffective or not applicable...[because disinformation]

840-561: A major reform of France's military position, culminating with the return to full membership on 4 April 2009, which also included France rejoining the NATO Military Command Structure , while maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent. The 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea led to strong condemnation by all NATO members, and was one of the seven times that Article 4 , which calls for consultation among NATO members, has been invoked. Prior times included during

960-459: A munitions plant as a healthcare facility in order to avoid attack would be outside the bounds of acceptable use of disinformation during war. Research related to disinformation studies is increasing as an applied area of inquiry. The call to formally classify disinformation as a cybersecurity threat is made by advocates due to its increase in social networking sites. Despite the proliferation of social media websites, Facebook and Twitter showed

1080-631: A no-fly zone over Libya shortly afterwards, beginning with Opération Harmattan by the French Air Force on 19 March. On 20 March 2011, NATO states agreed on enforcing an arms embargo against Libya with Operation Unified Protector using ships from NATO Standing Maritime Group 1 and Standing Mine Countermeasures Group 1 , and additional ships and submarines from NATO members. They would "monitor, report and, if needed, interdict vessels suspected of carrying illegal arms or mercenaries ". On 24 March, NATO agreed to take control of

1200-759: A peaceful German reunification. A June 2016 Levada Center poll found that 68 percent of Russians think that deploying NATO troops in the Baltic states and Poland – former Eastern bloc countries bordering Russia – is a threat to Russia. In contrast, 65 percent of Poles surveyed in a 2017 Pew Research Center report identified Russia as a "major threat", with an average of 31 percent saying so across all NATO countries, and 67 percent of Poles surveyed in 2018 favour US forces being based in Poland. Of non- CIS Eastern European countries surveyed by Gallup in 2016, all but Serbia and Montenegro were more likely than not to view NATO as

1320-630: A private meeting on 19 July 1981, at the Ottawa Summit , French president François Mitterrand made President Ronald Reagan aware of Farewell and offered the intelligence to the United States. William Safire said Mitterrand described the man as belonging to a section that was evaluating the achievements of Soviet efforts to acquire NATO technology. Reagan expressed great interest in Mitterrand's revelations and thanked him for having

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1440-527: A protective alliance rather than a threat. A 2006 study in the journal Security Studies argued that NATO enlargement contributed to democratic consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe. China also opposes further expansion. Member states pay for NATO's three common funds (the civil and military budgets and the security investment programme) based on a cost-sharing formula that includes per capita gross national income and other factors. In 2023–2024,

1560-511: A quick-reaction force was deployed to the area. The Bosnian War began in 1992, as a result of the breakup of Yugoslavia . The deteriorating situation led to United Nations Security Council Resolution 816 on 9 October 1992, authorizing its member-states to enforce a previously declared no-fly zone under the United Nations Protection Force over central Bosnia and Herzegovina. NATO complied and started enforcing

1680-922: A red line . However, there were no such plans to deploy missiles in Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry drafted a treaty that would forbid Ukraine or any former Soviet state from ever joining NATO. Secretary-General Stoltenberg replied that the decision is up to Ukraine and NATO members, adding "Russia has no veto, Russia has no say, and Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence to try to control their neighbors". NATO offered to improve communications with Russia and discuss missile placements and military exercises, as long as Russia withdrew troops from Ukraine's borders. Instead, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September 2022 after Russia proclaimed it had annexed

1800-511: A result, research shows that disinformation can be conceptualized as a program that encourages engagement in oppositional fantasies (i.e., culture wars ), through which disinformation circulates as rhetorical ammunition for never-ending arguments. As disinformation entangles with culture wars , identity-driven controversies constitute a vehicle through which disinformation disseminates on social media . This means that disinformation thrives, not despite raucous grudges but because of them. The reason

1920-516: A social media ecosystem, and "echoing" is when the audience disseminates disinformation argumentatively as their own opinions often by incorporating disinformation into a confrontational fantasy. Studies show four main methods of seeding disinformation online: Disinformation is amplified online due to malpractice concerning online advertising , especially the machine-to-machine interactions of real-time bidding systems. Online advertising technologies have been used to amplify disinformation due to

2040-744: A strategic re-evaluation of NATO's purpose, nature, tasks, and focus on the continent. In October 1990, East Germany became part of the Federal Republic of Germany and the alliance, and in November 1990, the alliance signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) in Paris with the Soviet Union. It mandated specific military reductions across the continent, which continued after

2160-492: A thin understanding of journalistic processes; and, has progressed more through the exigencies of grant funding than the development of theory and empirical findings." Alternative perspectives have been proposed: The research literature on how disinformation spreads is growing. Studies show that disinformation spread in social media can be classified into two broad stages: seeding and echoing. "Seeding," when malicious actors strategically insert deceptions, like fake news, into

2280-517: Is a broad consensus amongst scholars that there is a high degree of disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda online; however, it is unclear to what extent such disinformation has on political attitudes in the public and, therefore, political outcomes. This conventional wisdom has come mostly from investigative journalists, with a particular rise during the 2016 U.S. election: some of the earliest work came from Craig Silverman at Buzzfeed News. Cass Sunstein supported this in #Republic, arguing that

2400-442: Is implemented through attacks that "weaponize multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths , half-truths , and value judgements —to exploit and amplify culture wars and other identity-driven controversies." In contrast, misinformation refers to inaccuracies that stem from inadvertent error. Misinformation can be used to create disinformation when known misinformation

2520-492: Is intentionally written to mislead readers...[and] users' social engagements with fake news produce data that is big, incomplete, unstructured, and noisy." Facebook, the largest social media company, has been criticized by analytical journalists and scholars for preventing outside research of disinformation. Researchers have criticized the framing of disinformation as being limited to technology platforms, removed from its wider political context and inaccurately implying that

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2640-406: Is purposefully and intentionally disseminated. " Fake news " has sometimes been categorized as a type of disinformation, but scholars have advised not using these two terms interchangeably or using "fake news" altogether in academic writing since politicians have weaponized it to describe any unfavorable news coverage or information. The English word disinformation comes from the application of

2760-429: Is that controversies provide fertile ground for never-ending debates that solidify points of view. Scholars have pointed out that disinformation is not only a foreign threat as domestic purveyors of disinformation are also leveraging traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio stations, and television news media to disseminate false information. Current research suggests right-wing online political activists in

2880-531: Is the label often given to foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). Studies on disinformation are often concerned with the content of activity whereas the broader concept of FIMI is more concerned with the "behaviour of an actor" that is described through the military doctrine concept of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Disinformation is primarily carried out by government intelligence agencies , but has also been used by non-governmental organizations and businesses. Front groups are

3000-623: Is the unremarked story of "the Farewell dossier": how a CIA campaign of computer sabotage resulting in a huge explosion in Siberia — all engineered by a mild-mannered economist named Gus Weiss — helped us win the Cold War. Weiss worked down the hall from me [Safire] in the Nixon administration. In early 1974, he wrote a report on Soviet advances in technology through purchasing and copying that led

3120-532: The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine , several NATO countries sent ground troops, warships and fighter aircraft to reinforce the alliance's eastern flank, and multiple countries again invoked Article 4. In March 2022, NATO leaders met at Brussels for an extraordinary summit which also involved Group of Seven and European Union leaders. NATO member states agreed to establish four additional battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, and elements of

3240-744: The Army of the Republika Srpska , after the Srebrenica genocide . Further NATO air strikes helped bring the Yugoslav Wars to an end, resulting in the Dayton Agreement in November 1995. As part of this agreement, NATO deployed a UN-mandated peacekeeping force, under Operation Joint Endeavor , named IFOR . Almost 60,000 NATO troops were joined by forces from non-NATO countries in this peacekeeping mission. This transitioned into

3360-643: The Belgian Congo be excluded from the treaty. French Algeria was, however, covered until its independence on 3 July 1962. Twelve of these thirty-two are original members who joined in 1949, while the other twenty joined in one of ten enlargement rounds. The three Nordic countries which joined NATO as founding members, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway, chose to limit their participation in three areas: there would be no permanent peacetime bases, no nuclear warheads and no Allied military activity (unless invited) permitted on their territory. However, Denmark allows

3480-1037: The Cold War , NATO operated as a check on the threat posed by the Soviet Union . The alliance remained in place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact , and has been involved in military operations in the Balkans , the Middle East , South Asia , and Africa . The organization's motto is animus in consulendo liber ( Latin for 'a mind unfettered in deliberation'). The organization's strategic concepts include deterrence . NATO's main headquarters are located in Brussels , Belgium, while NATO's military headquarters are near Mons , Belgium. The alliance has increased its NATO Response Force deployments in Eastern Europe, and

3600-728: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . During the crisis, NATO also deployed one of its international reaction forces, the ACE Mobile Force (Land) , to Albania as the Albania Force (AFOR), to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees from Kosovo. The campaign was and has been criticized over its civilian casualties , including the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade , and over whether it had legitimacy . The US,

3720-456: The Goražde safe area, resulting in the bombing of a Bosnian Serb military command outpost near Goražde by two US F-16 jets acting under NATO direction. In retaliation, Serbs took 150 U.N. personnel hostage on 14 April. On 16 April a British Sea Harrier was shot down over Goražde by Serb forces. In August 1995, a two-week NATO bombing campaign, Operation Deliberate Force , began against

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3840-732: The Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean from Somali pirates , and help strengthen the navies and coast guards of regional states. During the Libyan Civil War , violence between protesters and the Libyan government under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi escalated, and on 17 March 2011 led to the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 , which called for a ceasefire, and authorized military action to protect civilians. A coalition that included several NATO members began enforcing

3960-640: The Iraq War and Syrian Civil War . At the 2014 Wales summit , the leaders of NATO's member states formally committed for the first time to spend the equivalent of at least two percent of their gross domestic products on defence by 2024, which had previously been only an informal guideline. At the 2016 Warsaw summit , NATO countries agreed on the creation of NATO Enhanced Forward Presence , which deployed four multinational battalion-sized battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Before and during

4080-599: The NATO Response Force were activated for the first time in NATO's history. As of June 2022, NATO had deployed 40,000 troops along its 2,500-kilometre-long (1,550 mi) Eastern flank to deter Russian aggression. More than half of this number have been deployed in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, which five countries muster a considerable combined ex-NATO force of 259,000 troops. To supplement Bulgaria's Air Force, Spain sent Eurofighter Typhoons ,

4200-629: The North Atlantic Alliance , is an intergovernmental military alliance of 32 member states —30 European and 2 North American. Established in the aftermath of World War II , the organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty , signed in Washington, D.C. , on 4 April 1949. NATO is a collective security system: its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. During

4320-657: The North Atlantic Treaty to include member territory in Europe, North America, Turkey, and islands in the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer . Attacks on vessels, aircraft and other forces in the North Atlantic (again, north of the Tropic of Cancer) and the Mediterranean Sea may also provoke an Article 5 response. During the original treaty negotiations, the United States insisted that colonies such as

4440-554: The Northwestern Syria offensive , which involved Syrian and suspected Russian airstrikes on Turkish troops , and risked direct confrontation between Russia and a NATO member. The 32 NATO members are: NATO has thirty-two members, mostly in Europe with two in North America. NATO's "area of responsibility", within which attacks on member states are eligible for an Article 5 response, is defined under Article 6 of

4560-781: The Partnership for Peace and the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative in 1994, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in 1997, and the NATO–Russia Permanent Joint Council in 1998. At the 1999 Washington summit , Hungary , Poland , and the Czech Republic officially joined NATO, and the organization also issued new guidelines for membership with individualized " Membership Action Plans ". These plans governed

4680-626: The Syrian Civil War , after the downing of an unarmed Turkish F-4 reconnaissance jet , and after a mortar was fired at Turkey from Syria, and again in 2015 after threats by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to its territorial integrity. In 2008 the United Nations Secretary-General called on member-states to protect the ships of Operation Allied Provider  [ de ; no ; ru ; uk ] , which

4800-534: The Syrian civil war . In April 2012, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan considered invoking Article 5 of the NATO treaty to protect Turkish national security in a dispute over the Syrian Civil War. The alliance responded quickly, and a spokesperson said the alliance was "monitoring the situation very closely and will continue to do so" and "takes it very seriously protecting its members." After

4920-617: The U.S. Space Force to maintain Pituffik Space Base , in Greenland. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, France pursued a military strategy of independence from NATO under a policy dubbed "Gaullo-Mitterrandism". Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated the return of France to the integrated military command and the Defence Planning Committee in 2009, the latter being disbanded the following year. France remains

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5040-491: The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1199 on 23 September 1998 to demand a ceasefire. Negotiations under US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke broke down on 23 March 1999, and he handed the matter to NATO, which acted on protecting regional security and started a 78-day bombing campaign on 24 March 1999. Operation Allied Force targeted the military capabilities of what was then

5160-668: The Western Union . Talks for a wider military alliance, which could include North America, also began that month in the United States, where their foreign policy under the Truman Doctrine promoted international solidarity against actions they saw as communist aggression, such as the February 1948 coup d'état in Czechoslovakia . These talks resulted in the signature of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949 by

5280-717: The collapse of the Afghan government as the greatest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding. In August 2004, during the Iraq War , NATO formed the NATO Training Mission – Iraq , a training mission to assist the Iraqi security forces in conjunction with the US-led MNF-I . The NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-I) was established at the request of the Iraqi Interim Government under

5400-552: The "ABC" framework of understanding different modalities of online disinformation: In 2020, the Brookings Institution proposed amending this framework to include Distribution , defined by the "technical protocols that enable, constrain, and shape user behavior in a virtual space". Similarly, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace proposed adding Degree ("distribution of the content ... and

5520-563: The 1950s defined disinformation as "dissemination (in the press, on the radio, etc.) of false reports intended to mislead public opinion." Disinformation first made an appearance in dictionaries in 1985, specifically, Webster's New College Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary . In 1986, the term disinformation was not defined in Webster's New World Thesaurus or New Encyclopædia Britannica . After

5640-506: The 1950s from the Russian dezinformatsiya , and began to use similar strategies during the Cold War and in conflict with other nations. The New York Times reported in 2000 that during the CIA's effort to substitute Mohammed Reza Pahlavi for then- Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mossadegh , the CIA placed fictitious stories in the local newspaper. Reuters documented how, subsequent to

5760-506: The 1979 Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War , the CIA put false articles in newspapers of Islamic-majority countries, inaccurately stating that Soviet embassies had "invasion day celebrations". Reuters noted a former U.S. intelligence officer said they would attempt to gain the confidence of reporters and use them as secret agents , to affect a nation's politics by way of their local media. In October 1986,

5880-606: The 1990s, the organization extended its activities into political and humanitarian situations that had not formerly been NATO concerns. During the breakup of Yugoslavia , the organization conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 and later Yugoslavia in 1999 . Politically, the organization sought better relations with the newly autonomous Central and Eastern European states, and diplomatic forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbours were set up during this post-Cold War period, including

6000-468: The 2016 Presidential Elections, online fake news or disinformation probably did not cost Hillary Clinton the votes needed to secure the presidency. Research on this topic remains inconclusive, for example, misinformation appears not to significantly change political knowledge of those exposed to it. There seems to be a higher level of diversity of news sources that users are exposed to on Facebook and Twitter than conventional wisdom would dictate, as well as

6120-599: The Czech Republic officially joined, and NATO issued new guidelines for membership, with individualized " Membership Action Plans ". These plans governed the addition of new members: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, and North Macedonia in 2020. Finland and Sweden are the newest members, joining on 4 April 2023 and 7 March 2024 respectively, spurred on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine . Ukraine's relationship with NATO began with

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6240-501: The DST, including the complete list of 250 Line X officers stationed under legal cover in embassies around the world. As a consequence, Western nations undertook a mass expulsion of Soviet technology spies. Vetrov's story inspired the 1997 book Bonjour Farewell: La Vérité sur la Taupe Française du KGB by Serguei Kostine. It was adapted in the French film L'affaire Farewell (2009) starring Emir Kusturica and Guillaume Canet . Vetrov

6360-822: The English language within the lexicon of politics. By 2001, the term disinformation had come to be known as simply a more civil phrase for saying someone was lying . Stanley B. Cunningham wrote in his 2002 book The Idea of Propaganda that disinformation had become pervasively used as a synonym for propaganda . The Shorenstein Center at Harvard University defines disinformation research as an academic field that studies “the spread and impacts of misinformation, disinformation, and media manipulation,” including “how it spreads through online and offline channels, and why people are susceptible to believing bad information, and successful strategies for mitigating its impact” According to

6480-421: The ISAF mission throughout Afghanistan, and ISAF subsequently expanded the mission in four main stages over the whole of the country. On 31 July 2006, the ISAF additionally took over military operations in the south of Afghanistan from a US-led anti-terrorism coalition. Due to the intensity of the fighting in the south, in 2011 France allowed a squadron of Mirage 2000 fighter/attack aircraft to be moved into

6600-411: The Latin prefix dis- to information making the meaning "reversal or removal of information". The rarely used word had appeared with this usage in print at least as far back as 1887. Some consider it a loan translation of the Russian дезинформация , transliterated as dezinformatsiya , apparently derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department. Soviet planners in

6720-404: The NATO–Ukraine Action Plan in 2002. In 2010, under President Viktor Yanukovych , Ukraine re-affirmed its non-aligned status and renounced aspirations of joining NATO. During the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution , Russia occupied Crimea and supported armed separatists in eastern Ukraine . As a result, in December 2014 Ukraine's parliament voted to end its non-aligned status, and in 2019 it enshrined

6840-442: The Netherlands sent eight F-35 attack aircraft, and additional French and US attack aircraft would arrive soon as well. No military operations were conducted by NATO during the Cold War. Following the end of the Cold War, the first operations, Anchor Guard in 1990 and Ace Guard in 1991, were prompted by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait . Airborne early warning aircraft were sent to provide coverage of southeastern Turkey, and later

6960-411: The Soviet term became widely known in the 1980s, native speakers of English broadened the term as "any government communication (either overt or covert) containing intentionally false and misleading material, often combined selectively with true information, which seeks to mislead and manipulate either elites or a mass audience." By 1990, use of the term disinformation had fully established itself in

7080-422: The Substance and Process of Anti-U.S. Disinformation and Propaganda Campaigns (1986); Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986–87 (1987); and Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1987–88 (1989). According to a report by Reuters , the United States ran a propaganda campaign to spread disinformation about the Sinovac Chinese COVID-19 vaccine, including using fake social media accounts to spread

7200-419: The UK, and most other NATO countries opposed efforts to require the UN Security Council to approve NATO military strikes, such as the action against Serbia in 1999, while France and some others claimed that the alliance needed UN approval. The US/UK side claimed that this would undermine the authority of the alliance, and they noted that Russia and China would have exercised their Security Council vetoes to block

7320-400: The US and Japan, Weiss counselled against deportation. The dossier, under the name of Farewell, reached the CIA in August 1981. It demonstrated that the Soviets had spent years carrying out their espionage of research and development activities. While Vetrov was recruited by the French, the Western counter-reaction came from the US. Safire was writing a series of hardline columns denouncing

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7440-432: The United Kingdom, and the United States. Four new members joined during the Cold War: Greece (1952), Turkey (1952), West Germany (1955) and Spain (1982). Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union , many former Warsaw Pact and post-Soviet states sought membership. In 1990, the territory of the former East Germany was added with the reunification of Germany . At the 1999 Washington summit , Hungary, Poland, and

7560-440: The United States and Germany were the biggest contributors with 16.2% each. Member states pay for and maintain their own troops and equipment. They contribute to NATO operations and missions by committing troops and equipment on a voluntary basis. Since 2006, the goal has been for each country to spend at least 2 percent of its gross domestic product on its own defence; in 2014, a NATO declaration said that countries not meeting

7680-485: The United States and its NATO allies had put an end to the technology spying operation, which had destroyed the capacity of the USSR to capture technology when Moscow was caught between a defective economy on one hand and a US President determined to prevail and end the Cold War on the other. NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO / ˈ n eɪ t oʊ / NAY -toh ; French : Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord , OTAN ), also called

7800-461: The United States may be more likely to use disinformation as a strategy and tactic. Governments have responded with a wide range of policies to address concerns about the potential threats that disinformation poses to democracy, however, there is little agreement in elite policy discourse or academic literature as to what it means for disinformation to threaten democracy, and how different policies might help to counter its negative implications. There

7920-413: The Western Union's military structures and plans, including their agreements on standardizing equipment and agreements on stationing foreign military forces in European countries. In 1952, the post of Secretary General of NATO was established as the organization's chief civilian. That year also saw the first major NATO maritime exercises , Exercise Mainbrace and the accession of Greece and Turkey to

8040-506: The alliance also mounted Operation Essential Harvest , a mission disarming ethnic Albanian militias in the Republic of Macedonia. As of 2023 , around 4,500 KFOR soldiers, representing 27 countries, continue to operate in the area. The September 11 attacks in the United States caused NATO to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter for the first time in the organization's history. The Article states that an attack on any member shall be considered to be an attack on all. The invocation

8160-401: The alliance on 7 March 2024. In addition, NATO recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina , Georgia , and Ukraine as aspiring members. Enlargement has led to tensions with non-member Russia , one of the 18 additional countries participating in NATO's Partnership for Peace programme. Another nineteen countries are involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes with NATO. The Treaty of Dunkirk

8280-495: The area, to Kandahar , in order to reinforce the alliance's efforts. During its 2012 Chicago Summit , NATO endorsed a plan to end the Afghanistan war and to remove the NATO-led ISAF Forces by the end of December 2014. ISAF was disestablished in December 2014 and replaced by the follow-on training Resolute Support Mission . On 14 April 2021, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan by 1 May. Soon after

8400-413: The arrest in New York of the spy Dieter Gerhardt , a South African naval officer who had been passing secrets to the Soviets for 20 years. His handler, Vitaly Shlykov , was arrested and subsequently imprisoned in Switzerland while attempting to meet with Gerhardt's wife, Ruth, who was acting as his courier. According to Reed, another result was that the United States and its NATO allies later "rolled up

8520-762: The audiences it reaches") and Effect ("how much of a threat a given case poses"). Whether and to what degree disinformation and propaganda overlap is subject to debate. Some (like U.S. Department of State ) define propaganda as the use of non-rational arguments to either advance or undermine a political ideal, and use disinformation as an alternative name for undermining propaganda. While others consider them to be separate concepts altogether. One popular distinction holds that disinformation also describes politically motivated messaging designed explicitly to engender public cynicism, uncertainty, apathy, distrust, and paranoia, all of which disincentivize citizen engagement and mobilization for social or political change. Disinformation

8640-409: The average American adult saw fake news stories, "with just over half of those who recalled seeing them believing them"; and 4) people are more likely to "believe stories that favor their preferred candidate, especially if they have ideologically segregated social media networks." Correspondingly, whilst there is wide agreement that the digital spread and uptake of disinformation during the 2016 election

8760-546: The ban on 12 April 1993 with Operation Deny Flight . From June 1993 until October 1996, Operation Sharp Guard added maritime enforcement of the arms embargo and economic sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . On 28 February 1994, NATO took its first wartime action by shooting down four Bosnian Serb aircraft violating the no-fly zone. On 10 and 11 April 1994, the United Nations Protection Force called in air strikes to protect

8880-529: The beleaguered president -- détente notwithstanding -- to place restrictions on the export of computers and software to the U.S.S.R. The CIA mounted a counter-intelligence operation that transferred modified hardware and software designs over to the Soviets. They instigated an operation of disinformation and faulty technology transfer. Thomas C. Reed alleged this was the cause of a trans-Siberian pipeline disaster in 1982. Information from Vetrov also led to

9000-488: The chief of the French service, Yves Bonnet . The details of the operation were declassified in 1996. First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Fidel Castro wrote in a 2007 article that the campaign of countermeasures based on Farewell's dossier was an economic war; that although there were no deaths in the gas pipeline explosion, the Soviet economy was significantly damaged; and that between 1984 and 1985,

9120-505: The code-name. Between early 1981 and early 1982, Farewell supplied the DST with about four thousand secret documents, including a list of Soviet organizations in scientific collection and summary reports from Directorate T on the goals, achievements, and unfulfilled objectives of the program. He revealed the names of more than 200 Line X officers stationed in 10 KGB residences in the West, along with more than 100 leads to Line X recruitments. In

9240-629: The collapse of the Warsaw Pact in February 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union that December, which removed the de facto main adversaries of NATO. This began a drawdown of military spending and equipment in Europe. The CFE treaty allowed signatories to remove 52,000 pieces of conventional armaments in the following sixteen years, and allowed military spending by NATO's European members to decline by 28 percent from 1990 to 2015. In 1990, several Western leaders gave assurances to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand further east, as revealed by memoranda of private conversations. In

9360-590: The combined militaries of all NATO members include around 3.5 million soldiers and personnel. All member states together cover an area of 25.07 million km (9.68 million sq. mi.) with a population of about 973 million people. Their combined military spending as of 2022 constituted around 55 percent of the global nominal total . Moreover, members have agreed to reach or maintain the target defence spending of at least two percent of their GDP by 2024. NATO formed with twelve founding members and has added new members ten times, most recently when Sweden joined

9480-478: The country's southeast . Georgia was promised "future membership" during the 2008 summit in Bucharest, but US president Barack Obama said in 2014 that the country was not "currently on a path" to membership. Russia continued to politically oppose further expansion, seeing it as inconsistent with informal understandings between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and European and US negotiators that allowed for

9600-402: The definitions for each term as follows: (1) disinformation is the strategic dissemination of false information with the intention to cause public harm; (2) misinformation represents the unintentional spread of false information; and (3) malinformation is factual information disseminated with the intention to cause harm, these terms are abbreviated 'DMMI'. In 2019, Camille François devised

9720-481: The demise of NATO. The German foreign ministry pointed to "a considerable [German] contribution to NATO and NATO-led operations" and to the fact that this engagement was highly valued by President Obama. While the mission was extended into September, Norway that day (10 June) announced it would begin scaling down contributions and complete withdrawal by 1 August. Earlier that week it was reported Danish air fighters were running out of bombs. The following week,

9840-399: The dis-informer's reputation. Russian disinformation campaigns have occurred in many countries. For example, disinformation campaigns led by Yevgeny Prigozhin have been reported in several African countries. Russia , however, denies that it uses disinformation to influence public opinion. The United States Intelligence Community appropriated use of the term disinformation in

9960-643: The disinformation that the Sinovac vaccine contained pork-derived ingredients and was therefore haram under Islamic law . Reuters said the ChinaAngVirus disinformation campaign was designed to "counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines" and was prompted by the "[fear] that China’s COVID diplomacy and propaganda could draw other Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia and Malaysia, closer to Beijing". The campaign

10080-465: The disinformation was performed out of a motivation of good faith and acceptable according to the rules of war . By this test, the tactic during World War II of putting fake inflatable tanks in visible locations on the Pacific Islands in order to falsely present the impression that there were larger military forces present would be considered as ethically permissible. Conversely, disguising

10200-449: The entire Line X collection network, both in the US and overseas." Weiss said "the heart of Soviet technology collection crumbled and would not recover". Eventually, Vetrov's defection led to his death. "Vetrov fell into a tragic episode with a woman and a fellow KGB officer in a Moscow park. In circumstances that are not clear, he stabbed and killed the officer and then stabbed but did not kill

10320-406: The ethical implications in using disinformation as a tactic during information warfare . They note there has been a significant degree of philosophical debate over the issue as related to the ethics of war and use of the technique. The writers describe a position whereby the use of disinformation is occasionally allowed, but not in all situations. Typically the ethical test to consider is whether

10440-570: The financial backing being given to Moscow by Germany and Britain for the Trans-Siberian Pipeline , a major natural gas pipeline from Siberia to Europe. That project would give control of European energy supplies to the Communists, as well as generate US$ 8 billion a year to support Soviet computer and satellite research. Intelligence shortcomings, as we see, have a thousand fathers; secret intelligence triumphs are orphans. Here

10560-618: The first time in NATO's history that it took charge of a mission outside the north Atlantic area. ISAF was initially charged with securing Kabul and surrounding areas from the Taliban , al Qaeda and factional warlords, so as to allow for the establishment of the Afghan Transitional Administration headed by Hamid Karzai . In October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the expansion of

10680-661: The goal of NATO membership in the Constitution . At the June 2021 Brussels Summit , NATO leaders affirmed that Ukraine would eventually join the Alliance, and supported Ukraine's right to self-determination without interference. In late 2021, there was another massive Russian military buildup near Ukraine's borders. On 30 November, Russian president Putin said Ukraine joining NATO, and the deployment of missile defense systems or long-range missiles in Ukraine, would be crossing

10800-572: The goal would "aim to move towards the 2 percent guideline within a decade". In July 2022, NATO estimated that 11 members would meet the target in 2023. On 14 February 2024, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that 18 member states would meet the 2% target in 2024. On 17 June 2024, prior to the 2024 Washington summit , Stoltenberg updated that figure and announced that a record 23 of 32 NATO member states were meeting their defense spending targets of 2% of their country's GDP. NATO added that defense spending for European member states and Canada

10920-936: The head of the Royal Navy said the country's operations in the conflict were not sustainable. By the end of the mission in October 2011, after the death of Colonel Gaddafi, NATO planes had flown about 9,500 strike sorties against pro-Gaddafi targets. A report from the organization Human Rights Watch in May 2012 identified at least 72 civilians killed in the campaign. Following a coup d'état attempt in October 2013, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan requested technical advice and trainers from NATO to assist with ongoing security issues. Use of Article 5 has been threatened multiple times and four out of seven official Article 4 consultations have been called due to spillover in Turkey from

11040-522: The influence of Russian disinformation on Twitter during the 2016 US presidential campaign found that exposure to disinformation was (1) concentrated among a tiny group of users, (2) primarily among Republicans, and (3) eclipsed by exposure to legitimate political news media and politicians. Finally, they find "no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior." As such, despite its mass dissemination during

11160-452: The internet would become rife with echo chambers and informational cascades of misinformation leading to a highly polarized and ill-informed society. Research after the 2016 election found: (1) for 14 percent of Americans social media was their "most important" source of election news; 2) known false news stories "favoring Trump were shared a total of 30 million times on Facebook, while those favoring Clinton were shared 8 million times"; 3)

11280-530: The material sent to the United States government. It was passed through Vice President Bush and then to William Casey , his Director of Central Intelligence . Casey called in Gus W. Weiss , then working with Thomas C. Reed on the staff of the National Security Council . After studying the list of hundreds of Soviet agents and purchasers (including one cosmonaut) assigned to this penetration in

11400-448: The media landscape was otherwise well-functioning. "The field possesses a simplistic understanding of the effects of media technologies; overemphasizes platforms and underemphasizes politics; focuses too much on the United States and Anglocentric analysis; has a shallow understanding of political culture and culture in general; lacks analysis of race, class, gender, and sexuality as well as status, inequality, social structure, and power; has

11520-600: The member states of the Western Union plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. Canadian diplomat Lester B. Pearson was a key author and drafter of the treaty. The North Atlantic Treaty was largely dormant until the Korean War initiated the establishment of NATO to implement it with an integrated military structure. This included the formation of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in 1951, which adopted many of

11640-469: The most activity in terms of active disinformation campaigns. Techniques reported on included the use of bots to amplify hate speech, the illegal harvesting of data, and paid trolls to harass and threaten journalists. Whereas disinformation research focuses primarily on how actors orchestrate deceptions on social media, primarily via fake news , new research investigates how people take what started as deceptions and circulate them as their personal views. As

11760-520: The no-fly zone from the initial coalition, while command of targeting ground units remained with the coalition's forces. NATO began officially enforcing the UN resolution on 27 March 2011 with assistance from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. By June, reports of divisions within the alliance surfaced as only eight of the 28 member states were participating in combat operations, resulting in

11880-560: The only NATO member outside the Nuclear Planning Group and, unlike the United States and the United Kingdom, will not commit its nuclear-armed submarines to the alliance. NATO was established on 4 April 1949 by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty (Washington Treaty). The 12 founding members of the alliance were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,

12000-636: The organization. Following the London and Paris Conferences , West Germany was permitted to rearm militarily, as they joined NATO in May 1955, which was, in turn, a major factor in the creation of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact , delineating the two opposing sides of the Cold War . The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 marked a height in Cold War tensions, when 400,000 US troops were stationed in Europe. Doubts over

12120-502: The provisions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546 . The aim of NTM-I was to assist in the development of Iraqi security forces training structures and institutions so that Iraq can build an effective and sustainable capability that addresses the needs of the country. NTM-I was not a combat mission but is a distinct mission, under the political control of the North Atlantic Council . Its operational emphasis

12240-590: The security of shipping in general, which began on 4 October 2001. The alliance showed unity: on 16 April 2003, NATO agreed to take command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which included troops from 42 countries. The decision came at the request of Germany and the Netherlands, the two countries leading ISAF at the time of the agreement, and all nineteen NATO ambassadors approved it unanimously. The handover of control to NATO took place on 11 August, and marked

12360-525: The shooting down of a Turkish military jet by Syria in June 2012 and Syrian forces shelling Turkish cities in October 2012 resulting in two Article 4 consultations, NATO approved Operation Active Fence . In the past decade the conflict has only escalated. In response to the 2015 Suruç bombing , which Turkey attributed to ISIS , and other security issues along its southern border, Turkey called for an emergency meeting . The latest consultation happened in February 2020, as part of increasing tensions due to

12480-618: The smaller SFOR , which started with 32,000 troops initially and ran from December 1996 until December 2004, when operations were then passed onto the European Union Force Althea . Following the lead of its member states, NATO began to award a service medal, the NATO Medal , for these operations. In an effort to stop Slobodan Milošević 's Serbian-led crackdown on KLA separatists and Albanian civilians in Kosovo ,

12600-512: The strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion – doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO's military structure in 1966. In 1982, the newly democratic Spain joined the alliance. The Revolutions of 1989 in Europe led to

12720-537: The strike on Yugoslavia , and could do the same in future conflicts where NATO intervention was required, thus nullifying the entire potency and purpose of the organization. Recognizing the post-Cold War military environment, NATO adopted the Alliance Strategic Concept during its Washington summit in April 1999 that emphasized conflict prevention and crisis management. Milošević finally accepted

12840-674: The subsequent addition of new alliance members. Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty , requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11 attacks , after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF . The organization has operated a range of additional roles since then, including sending trainers to Iraq , assisting in counter-piracy operations . The election of French president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 led to

12960-551: The term gained increased currency in the U.S. when it was revealed that two months previously, the Reagan Administration had engaged in a disinformation campaign against then-leader of Libya , Muammar Gaddafi . White House representative Larry Speakes said reports of a planned attack on Libya as first broken by The Wall Street Journal on August 25, 1986, were "authoritative", and other newspapers including The Washington Post then wrote articles saying this

13080-511: The terms of an international peace plan on 3 June 1999, ending the Kosovo War . On 11 June, Milošević further accepted UN resolution 1244 , under the mandate of which NATO then helped establish the KFOR peacekeeping force. Nearly one million refugees had fled Kosovo, and part of KFOR's mandate was to protect the humanitarian missions, in addition to deterring violence. In August–September 2001,

13200-470: The withdrawal of NATO troops started, the Taliban launched an offensive against the Afghan government , quickly advancing in front of collapsing Afghan Armed Forces . By 15 August 2021, Taliban militants controlled the vast majority of Afghanistan and had encircled the capital city of Kabul . Some politicians in NATO member states have described the chaotic withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan and

13320-516: The woman. He was arrested, and, in the ensuing investigation, his espionage activities were discovered; he was eventually executed in 1985. CIA had enough intelligence to institute protective countermeasures." By 1985 Mitterrand came to suspect that Vetrov had been a CIA plant set up to test him after his election in 1981 to see if the material would be handed over to the Americans or kept by the French. Acting on this mistaken belief, Mitterrand fired

13440-497: Was a 52-year-old engineer assigned to evaluate the intelligence on capitalist hardware and software collected by spies ("Line X") for Directorate T. He became disillusioned, and at the end of 1980 volunteered his services to France for ideological reasons. French intelligence gave him the codename "Farewell" — an English word so that the KGB would assume he worked for the CIA if they learned of

13560-555: Was also described as "payback for Beijing's efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic". The campaign primarily targeted people in the Philippines and used a social media hashtag for "China is the virus" in Tagalog . The campaign ran from 2020 to mid-2021. The primary contractor for the U.S. military on the project was General Dynamics IT , which received $ 493 million for its role. Pope Francis condemned disinformation in

13680-483: Was confirmed on 4 October 2001 when NATO determined that the attacks were indeed eligible under the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty. The eight official actions taken by NATO in response to the attacks included Operation Eagle Assist and Operation Active Endeavour , a naval operation in the Mediterranean Sea designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction, and to enhance

13800-574: Was distributing aid as part of the World Food Programme mission in Somalia. The North Atlantic Council and other countries, including Russia, China and South Korea, formed Operation Ocean Shield . The operation sought to dissuade and interrupt pirate attacks, protect vessels, and to increase the general level of security in the region. Beginning on 17 August 2009, NATO deployed warships in an operation to protect maritime traffic in

13920-513: Was factual. U.S. State Department representative Bernard Kalb resigned from his position in protest over the disinformation campaign, and said: "Faith in the word of America is the pulse beat of our democracy." The executive branch of the Reagan administration kept watch on disinformation campaigns through three yearly publications by the Department of State: Active Measures: A Report on

14040-488: Was massive and very likely facilitated by foreign agents, there is an ongoing debate on whether all this had any actual effect on the election. For example, a double blind randomized-control experiment by researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE), found that exposure to online fake news about either Trump or Clinton had no significant effect on intentions to vote for those candidates. Researchers who examined

14160-568: Was on training and mentoring. The activities of the mission were coordinated with Iraqi authorities and the US-led Deputy Commanding General Advising and Training, who was also dual-hatted as the Commander of NTM-I. The mission officially concluded on 17 December 2011. Turkey invoked the first Article 4 meetings in 2003 at the start of the Iraq War . Turkey also invoked this article twice in 2012 during

14280-550: Was signed by France and the United Kingdom on 4 March 1947, during the aftermath of World War II and the start of the Cold War , as a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance in the event of possible attacks by Germany or the Soviet Union . In March 1948, this alliance was expanded in the Treaty of Brussels to include the Benelux countries, forming the Brussels Treaty Organization, commonly known as

14400-424: Was up 18% in the past year alone. Disinformation Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic deceptions and media manipulation tactics to advance political, military, or commercial goals. Disinformation

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