Document:Speaking notes for meetings in Israel

Institute for Statecraft wants to build a relationship with the Israeli government

 speaking notes  by Dan Kaszeta dated June 2018

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Subjects: Israel, Institute for Statecraft, muslims, Russia, reservists
Example of: Integrity Initiative/Leak/5
Source: 'Anonymous' (Link)

some minor edits for clarity.

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Speaking notes for meetings in Israel

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Private – In Confidence

June 2018

Introduction

• Dan: Director of The Institute for Statecraft

• Not an expert on all of these issues. I represent a team of people who are experts in these issues and I have brought you some of the papers they have written as examples of our work.

• I am here to make the contacts for The Institute and to build a relationship with you if you see common interests.

What makes The Institute for Statecraft special

• We are completely independent

• A not for profit organisation

• Not just a “think tank” offering yet another discussion forum but also a “do tank”

• Our approach is broad and cross-disciplinary

• We have good contacts in government in UK and other governments (Argentina, Baltic States, Lithuania, etc.)

• We use creative thinking to identify and implement alternative solutions

• We address controversial issues of vital importance which other organisations are unwilling to tackle

• We are NOT lobbyists, but when we think it important, we do advocate specific policy choices, spreading good practice and promoting reform in the face of complacency or vested interest

• We invest in the creation of a new generation to follow (“pass the torch”)

N.B. The Institute doesn’t fit easily into a pigeon-hole for me to explain in 2 words what it is and what it does.

We set up The Institute, firstly, to study and understand how the world really is and how it works, as opposed to how people think it works. Secondly, having identified the resulting problems, we work to help fix them. Let me explain;

As we see it:

o The speed of change across the world is overtaking the capacity of the institutions to adapt and stay fit for purpose. Our major institutions in European countries are becoming obsolete. This includes our armed forces.

o Governments are becoming more and more impotent and our populations are losing faith in democracy. There is a gap developing between the needs of the people and what governments can provide. The world is going through a crisis of governance

o Other countries are recognising this and are increasingly exploiting our vulnerabilities

o Instability is increasing everywhere. We need new thinking and new tools to tackle this instability, and we need to reform our institutions to reduce their vulnerabilities

o So, in addition to studying the problem, we work with institutions on long term engagements, to help them to reform or to find a working solution to a specific problem. (Examples: army, prisons, Muslim communities)

Some of the major programmes we are currently running:

• The Integrity Initiative, tracking, exposing and countering Russian malign influence and disinformation

• Our programmes to identify and address the real causes of radicalisation of Muslim communities

• Our work to improve the effectiveness of our armed forces for all forms of modern warfare

• Our work with the El Salvador, UK and Argentine governments to help them solve their gang insurgency problem, working specifically on rehabilitation in prisons and reinsertion in society

• Our programme to develop discernment education for children of 9 and upwards, to keep them safe on-line and to protect them from disinformation and radicalisation

I have brought a few papers to illustrate our work on some of these programmes

• Tracking, exposing and countering malign influence and disinformation.

We started this programme in 2015, when people thought us paranoid. Now the problem is understood, we are working to set up a “network of national networks” (“clusters”) of people in all European countries who understand the problem and are willing to tackle it We focus mainly on Russia, but also look closely at Daesh, and are now also looking at China.

These papers explain the programme (give the relevant papers). Of course we are interested to know if there might be interest to have such a cluster in Israel

• Addressing the Radicalisation of Muslim Communities

We have to be very careful here to keep our different projects separate.

We have a programme exploring the fundamental cause of radicalisation, ie the Muslim mindset, and how we tackle that in our Muslim communities in the UK and elsewhere.

This paper, written by our senior expert – himself a devout Muslim – explains what I mean by that. When you read it, you will understand just how sensitive the issue is, which is why governments prefer to ignore the issue and waste their money on worthy but worthless programmes.

We also have a programme called Shared Outcomes, where we engage directly with the various UK Muslim communities, using adventurous training laid on by the Army to teach young people leadership, Life skills, other skills and encouraging them to undertake the national Duke of Edinburgh Award challenge, which you may have heard of.

This helps to build trust and confidence in the Communities and to integrate their young people into the main stream of British Society. But we keep this programme completely separate from the one I have just described, and make no mention of deradicalisation. This is a social integration programme. If it were badged counter-radicalisation, no one would participate in it.

You can find this programme well described on the Shared Outcomes website.

• Much of our work to improve the effectiveness of our armed forces for all forms of modern warfare is, of course, very sensitive as we feed it into the highest levels of MOD and the armed forces.

What we seek to do is to help the Forces become more competent to fight modern war with all kinds of weapons, and to do so on the budget the state provides. To that end we have supported the creation of special Army reserve units (e.g. 77 Bde and SGMI – Specialist Group Military Intelligence) with which we now have a close, informal relationship. These bring in, as reservists with a special status, individuals who are very senior civilian experts in some relevant area, such as Hedge Fund managers, senior bankers, Heads of PA companies, etc. I.e. people whom the Army could never afford to hire, but who donate their time and expertise as patriots.

With these colleagues, we run seminars and prepare studies to help the forces find new ways to fight today’s war.

These papers describe our understanding of modern warfare; how we need to prepare for it, and; how the Russians will fight it beyond the stages of infowar into classic kinetic warfare. I also include a concept paper looking at an alternative way to structure our navies for modern war at low cost. You might find this of particular interest.

My reason for coming to meet you today was, of course, to explore whether you would be interested to engage with our experts to exchange views on these issues

If you are, I will put you in touch with my colleagues when I get back. You might be interested to exchange views on email, or to join some of our seminars in the UK and elsewhere, where we tackle these various issues.

Of course, we would like to know where you see things as we do, and where you have a different view. We are convinced that there could be mutual value in collaboration on many of these issues.