At the Atlantic Council, discussing how to combat Russian disinformation

The Atlantic Council sponsored an innovative and badly needed #DisinfoWeek to pay serious attention to Russian disinformation and how to combat it.

The event, featuring speakers and experts from North America and Europe, wound up on Friday, June 30, with an off-the-record discussion about what to do next.

Dr. Waller was among the invited participants. Commenting on the generally piecemeal solutions that many participants proposed, he pressed for a strategic approach to the problem.

He stressed the need for conducting psychological profiles of problematic foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, to design campaigns to target their personal vulnerabilities.

He also shared some of his experiences as “the little kid” on President Ronald Reagan’s Active Measures Working Group to combat Soviet “active measures,” and how some of those experiences can be applied today.