FP This Week: Social media as a weapon of war

Plus, join a special live Twitter Spaces conversation this Wednesday. [Foreign Policy This Week]( March 06, 2023 | [View in browser]( To access all the benefits of an FP subscription, [sign in]( or [subscribe](. Thanks for reading. When you think of open-source intelligence (OSINT)—intelligence gathered from publicly available materials—you probably think of journalists using it to expose wrongdoing in war. Think Bellingcat’s investigation of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria or its exposé of the Russian-backed separatists who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. In Ukraine though, these techniques have been reverse-engineered. In his recent [report]( Jack Hewson writes that OSINT is being used “not to retrospectively expose atrocities and malfeasance but to proactively kill enemy forces … on the battlefield itself.” Hewson gained extraordinary access to a private company that is tracking Russian soldiers in real time through social media and news reports and feeding that information to Ukrainian intelligence to act on. Don’t miss this forensic look inside the [weaponization of social media]( it’s another way in which Russia’s war in Ukraine is breaking all the rules.—The Editors --------------------------------------------------------------- New and Noteworthy - [The U.N. High Seas Treaty:]( In a historic breakthrough, United Nations members have finalized a landmark treaty designed to safeguard marine life in the international waters that lie outside of any country’s jurisdiction. After nearly two decades of diplomatic wrangling and then an intense two-week-long sprint, more than 190 countries reached the agreement on Saturday night in New York. Read today’s [Morning Brief]( for more on this topic. - [Explaining America’s Trade Policy:]( U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai counters critics who say the United States is fostering unfair competition over semiconductors and clean energy. Watch the conversation in full on [FP Live]( or read a condensed transcript [here](. - [Economic Watch:]( According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. inflation rates only rose by half a percentage point in January. After periods of inflation, most economists expect a recession in the near future. But will it be a hard-landing recession with many job losses or a less painful soft landing? On this week’s episode, hosts Cameron Abadi and Adam Tooze discuss how plausible a soft-landing scenario may be. Follow the podcast on [Apple](, [Spotify](, or wherever you listen. --------------------------------------------------------------- [HowTheLightGetsIn Festival]( The world’s largest philosophy and music festival, taking place in the United Kingdom from May 26-29 in the idyllic booktown of Hay-on-Wye, boasts an unparalleled gathering of the world’s leading thinkers across politics, science, philosophy, and the arts. From Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners to political activists, expect to see Fiona Hill, Shashi Tharoor, Slavoj Zizek, Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, Brian Greene, Esther Freud, Gillian Tett, Malcolm Rifkind, and Lisa Randall among a wealth of cutting-edge speakers. Following the theme Error and Renaissance, the festival will identify the fundamental errors that we have made in our theories, the organization of society, and world affairs—all while looking to new forms of thought and action to build afresh. FP readers get a 20 percent discount on [festival tickets]( with the exclusive promo code FOREIGNPOLICY23. Explore the program [here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Exercise Your Mind]( Last week, British Labour leader Keir Starmer hired Sue Gray as his chief of staff, enraging allies of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Why is Gray a controversial hire? - She was chief investigator of the so-called Partygate scandal. - She once had a romantic relationship with Starmer. - She used to be a member of the British Communist Party. - She leaked confidential audio recordings of Johnson’s cabinet meetings. You can find the answer to this question at the end of this email. [Click here]( to take the rest of our weekly news quiz. --------------------------------------------------------------- [How Ukraine Learned to Fight]( Russia’s full-scale war started a year ago. Ukraine’s military started slashing its Soviet roots long before. For years, it was an open secret in the Pentagon that corruption was rampant in Ukraine’s military. It only got worse under pro-Russian billionaire president Viktor Yanukovych, who held office from 2010 to 2014. But no one knew how bad the rot really was until an urgent call came from Kyiv in the days after Russia seized and illegally annexed Crimea in March 2014. “The transitional government came to us and said, ‘Can you give us MREs [Meals, Ready-to-Eat]; can you give us blankets?’” said Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Obama administration. “The larders were bare. It was shocking to us that the level of corruption extended so far that they were depriving their troops of basic things like blankets and MREs.” Ukrainian babushkas made warm meals for destitute troops. Some soldiers didn’t even have uniforms. The Ukrainian military had been deliberately hollowed out by a series of leaders including Yanukovych, who had abandoned a lavish state-bought mansion in the Kyiv suburbs as protesters seized control of the Ukrainian capital in February 2014—and as the Kremlin ordered troops onto the Crimean Peninsula. [Read in full on Foreign Policy](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Most Popular on FP - [China’s Ukraine Peace Plan Is Actually About Taiwan]( by Craig Singleton - [U.S. Foreign Policy Must Consider the Global South]( by Aude Darnal - [Putin Has Assembled an Axis of Autocrats Against Ukraine]( by Justin Daniels - [When Pop Stars Make for Secret Weapons]( by Syrus Jin - [Why Israel’s Establishment Is Revolting]( by David E. Rosenberg --------------------------------------------------------------- From Our Partners [Heat of the Moment: Why Saving Forests Involves Rethinking Jobs]( On the latest episode of FP’s climate podcast Heat of the Moment, we headed to Ghana, a place that is fast losing one of the world’s most vital weapons against the climate crisis: trees. According to Global Forest Watch, Ghana lost 20 percent of its forest cover from 2002 to 2021. Among those responsible: illegal miners. Follow the podcast on [Apple](, [Spotify](, or wherever you listen. For our final episode this season, we are hosting a special live Twitter Spaces conversation with Katharine Wilkinson, one of the world’s foremost activists on climate change and a leader of the [All We Can Save Project](. The free live Twitter Spaces event takes place Wednesday, March 8, at 3 p.m. Join the conversation [here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Are you interested in learning more about FP Analytics’ cutting-edge research services, hosting an FP Virtual Dialogue event, or building a podcast with FP Studios? [Explore partnership opportunities]( Answer: 1.) She was chief investigator of the so-called Partygate scandal. Johnson’s legacy will be defined by three political failures: Brexit, COVID-19, and Partygate, FP’s Cameron Abadi and Adam Tooze [predicted]( last January on Ones and Tooze. Photo 1: Alexander Nemenov via Getty Images Photo 2: Paula Bronstein for Foreign Policy --------------------------------------------------------------- In-depth geopolitical coverage you won't read anywhere else. When you [subscribe to FP]( you'll gain access to daily analysis and reporting on ForeignPolicy.com and in the mobile app, leading foreign policy experts on FP Live, our 50 year print archive and subscriber-only comments sections. [See what you can do with an FP subscription.]( FOLLOW FP ON This email was sent to {EMAIL} because you are subscribed to the FP This Week newsletter. Want a friend to receive this newsletter? [Forward it]( now. Want to receive other FP newsletters? [Manage]( your FP newsletter preferences. [unsubscribe]( | [privacy policy]( | [contact us]( | [partner with FP]( Foreign Policy magazine is a division of Graham Holdings Company. All contents © 2023 Graham Digital Holding Company. All rights reserved. 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