Strategic Foresight Institute 2012 Speakers Series with Dr. Lada L. Roslycky

By Walter Derzko

The Strategic Foresight Institute (SFI) kicked off its 2012 Speakers Series at St. Vladimir Institute in Toronto on February 2 with Dr. Lada L. Roslycky from Kyiv, Ukraine. The goal of the Speakers Series is to highlight geostrategic topics, which will play an important role in the next 6-12 months and may not be on everyone’s radar screen yet.

Dr. Roslycky’s topic in Toronto was the focus of her recently completed dissertation: National Security, the Political Criminal Nexus and Separatism in the post-Soviet States in the Black Sea Region, with a special focus on the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine.

Dr. Roslycky gained her PhD in International Relations from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Groningen in The Kingdom of the Netherlands. She was a Harvard Black Sea Security Program fellow and has lived and worked in the security sector in Kyiv, including NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division as part of the Young Professionals Program. Earlier, she studied at the University of Western Ontario and gained her LLM in International Law from the University of Amsterdam.

During her presentation, Dr. Roslycky clearly illustrated the manner in which political-criminal relations in the post-Soviet States have negatively influenced their democratic transitions, particularly through the threat of separatism. Her areas of expertise include security, soft power, psychological operations and Euro-Atlantic integration.

After an introduction by Walter Derzko, SFI Executive Director, Dr. Roslycky outlined the essence of “soft power”. Psychological warfare uses soft power - the power of attraction - as a weapon. It lures citizens into believing or doing things they would otherwise not do. It does so by changing the way they view themselves, each other, and the world around them. Great States use it to gain territorial power by manipulating human perceptions; even to the extent of strategically promoting ethnic “frozen” conflicts and war. Yet, to date, the legitimacy of such policies and the linkages between soft power and national security have remained relatively unknown. Dr. Roslycky creates the first framework for the empirical analysis of soft power warfare. Soft power wars are fought inside human hearts and minds, and are intricately interlinked with the most pivotal and intangible components of national security. Markedly, Roslycky showed in her presentation that informal foreign policies aimed at the acquisition of power are not restricted to the realm of legitimacy.

Dr. Roslycky introduced the concept of the “political-criminal nexus” - the relationship between organized crime and the State - as a social structure through which States transform transnational organized crime into a foreign policy instrument. In a clear step-by-step analysis, the audience was shown how Russia’s strategy of deterring Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration was effectuated by a hostile soft power strategy aimed at promoting pro-Russian separatism in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The hearts and minds of the Crimean population were targeted to influence each component of Ukraine’s soft power security. Moreover, this hostile strategy was supported by a Russia-centred, post-Soviet political-criminal nexus made up of intelligence services, government executives and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Roslycky’s research provides new and unique insight into Russian-Ukrainian relations. It shows that knowing the character of a State’s political-criminal nexus facilitates the understanding of its identity and behaviour.

In Ukraine, the Mafia and State have a separate but equal bond of mutuality: the Mafia is an instrument of the State as the State is the instrument of the Mafia. Russian “soft power” aggression against Ukraine includes: cultural (ethnic, linguistic, religious); territorial and collective memory.  The key actors of the Post-Soviet Political-Criminal Nexus in Crimea include:  Russian Community of Choice and Sevastopol-Crimea-Russia group (which includes over 100 NGOs under them); Moscow State University, the FSB (successor to the KGB), the GRU (Russian military intelligence), other foreign intelligence services, former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, Russian State Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin, and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC).

To address how Ukrainian and Russian perceptions are modified by the Russian “fifth column” operating within Ukraine, Dr. Roslycky offered a number of examples at the end of her presentation: use of NGOs to promote anti-Western/anti-NATO and anti-democratic sentiment; casting Crimean territoriality into doubt; use of language/education as a political instrument – book and school burning; publishing of “free” anti-State newspapers; (forced) dispersal of passports; renaming of streets, towns and cultural centres; hanging Russian Flags, plaques and writing Nazi graffiti on Ukrainian buildings; separatist calls from Russian politicians; use of religion as political instrument – promotion of ROC and Tatar tensions; and modification of shared common memory.

In conclusion, Dr. Roslycky offered suggestions on what can be done to counter this soft power influence and threat: 1. Be aware of local soft power security, security threats, actors and relevant objects; 2. Consider the roles of the political-criminal nexus; 3. Legal use of the Palermo Treaty and the use of Western sanctions against the Ukrainian regime; and 4. Promotion of “counter” soft power operations and tactics aimed at peacemaking and common interests, instead of calling for a bloody revolution.

The presentation-talk was followed by a lively discussion, and questions and answers session that focused on what can be done next.

For the very first time, this SFI 2012 Speakers Series event was broadcast live and recorded over the Internet so that anyone in the Diaspora was able to listen and participate in the debate. Online guests from Buffalo, Montreal, Vancouver, Norway, The Netherlands and Ukraine watched this historic event.  The presentation is available for viewing from an online archive by link: http://bit.ly/AtZDMf

Anyone wishing to read further about transnational crime in the Black Sea Region can download Dr. Roslycky’s paper: http://www.harvard-bssp.org/static/files/327/Organized_Crime_in_Black_Sea.pdf

Dr. Lada Roslycky’s book The Soft Side of Dark Power will be published later this year, and a Russian version of the book is currently being translated.

The next speaker will be Vasyl Kujbida, former Mayor of Lviv who will be speaking in March or early April.  Date: TBA

For information on future speakers, contact Walter Derzko at wderzko@pathcom.com

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Walter Derzko and Dr. Lada L. Roslycky