Alliance for Securing Democracy

Alliance for Securing Democracy Logo

Citing Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election, the Alliance for Securing Democracy claims that their organization "...will help ensure that our democracies are resistant to foreign interference in the future. Doing so will not only strengthen the resilience of our democracy, it will be a reaffirmation of the entire democratic experiment."

The Alliance for Securing Democracy describes itself as "a bipartisan, transatlantic initiative housed at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), [which] will develop comprehensive strategies to defend against, deter, and raise the costs on Russian and other state actors’ efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions. The Alliance will work to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin’s ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the United States and Europe."

The New York Times described the Alliance for Securing Democracy as "a bipartisan group created to focus attention on Russian interference in the West."

Mission

"The Alliance will forge partnerships across the Atlantic with political leaders, policymakers, like-minded institutions, and technical experts to address the urgent need to secure our democracies, create a common understanding of the techniques used to undermine democracies, and share lessons learned about effective defensive and deterrent strategies. Enlisting leading transatlantic experts on cyber security, disinformation, illicit finance, Russian influence operations, and other relevant areas, the Alliance will develop strategies for making democracies more resilient against future meddling and better able to counter Russian efforts to use the subversion of democracy as a weapon. The Alliance will bring together experts across these areas and work with the private sector and civil society to develop and employ strategies to strengthen and secure our democracies.

"Finally, it will analyze emerging technological and societal trends to identify areas of vulnerability to the eventual challenge from other state and nongovernmental actors who may attempt to replicate these tactics. By analyzing what Russia is doing today, the project will develop a shared playbook with recommendations for democratic leaders about how democracy can be better safeguarded tomorrow.

Supportive of Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster

The Alliance for Securing Democracy was cited in an article by Peter Baker dated Aug. 4, 2017 titled "Trump Defends McMaster Against Calls for His Firing" at the New York Times for making the claim that criticism surrounding Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster's purging of staff from President Donald Trump's National Security Council was driven by "Russian influence operations," but did not attempt to provide support for this claim.

"The #FireMcMaster hashtag was tweeted more than 50,000 times since Wednesday. Echoing the drumbeat were social media organs tied to the Russian government. According to the Alliance for Securing Democracy,...the top hashtag among 600 Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations at one point on Thursday was #FireMcMaster."

President Trump defended Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, his embattled national security adviser, on Friday in the face of a full-bore campaign by the nationalist wing of his political coalition accusing him of undermining the president’s agenda and calling for his dismissal.

General McMaster has angered the political right by pushing out several conservatives on the national security staff and cautioning against ripping up the nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by President Barack Obama without a strategy for what comes next. His future has been in doubt amid speculation that Mr. Trump might send him to Afghanistan.

But after two days of unrelenting attacks on General McMaster by conservative activists and news sites, complete with the Twitter hashtag #FireMcMaster, the president weighed in to quash such talk. “General McMaster and I are working very well together,” he said in a statement emailed to The New York Times. “He is a good man and very pro-Israel. I am grateful for the work he continues to do serving our country.”

A senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the president’s views, added that Mr. Trump has “total confidence” in his national security adviser.

The president’s intervention came at a time when his White House has been racked by turmoil and turnover. The abrupt departures of his chief of staff, press secretary and communications director, coupled with Mr. Trump’s own criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have left the president’s team deeply unsettled.

But the president seemed intent on calming the waters, at least momentarily. That does not mean General McMaster’s job is secure in the long run, but White House officials said no one should expect him to leave anytime soon, especially now that his position has been fortified by the arrival of John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who took over as chief of staff.

Mr. Trump and General McMaster have been something of an odd couple since the president tapped him in February after pushing out Michael T. Flynn, his first national security adviser, for not being forthright about a conversation with Russia’s ambassador. Mr. Trump did not know General McMaster before interviewing him and they have not always had good chemistry, according to White House officials. General McMaster is a serious, somber briefer who prefers an orderly process and does not respond particularly well to Mr. Trump’s looser style.

Some advisers to Mr. Trump had floated a scenario in which Mr. Trump might assign General McMaster to take over as commander in Afghanistan, presumably giving him a fourth star and replacing him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director. Speculation was fueled by an NBC News report that Mr. Trump last month broached firing Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the current commander in Afghanistan.

But White House officials said it was just a thought expressed out loud and the president backed off after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended General Nicholson. The two agreed that the United States is losing the low-grade war in Afghanistan but said the fault was the poor strategy they inherited, not the commander in the field.

Politico Magazine reported that a frustrated Mr. Trump, torn between desire to win and skepticism about continued American military involvement in Afghanistan, rejected a new strategy proposed by General McMaster. General McMaster will probably meet with Mr. Trump during a vacation that began in Bedminster, N.J., on Friday to talk about Afghanistan.

Conservatives have been dubious about General McMaster since the start, but opened up a concerted assault on him this week after he pushed out Ezra Cohen-Watnick, his senior director for intelligence, the latest of at least four hard-liners to leave the National Security Council staff in recent weeks.

They seized on a conservative website’s report that General McMaster had renewed the security clearance of Mr. Obama’s last national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, amid questions about her handling of intelligence eavesdropping on Russians that overheard Trump associates. And they blamed him when The Washington Post obtained leaked transcripts of phone conversations between Mr. Trump and the leaders of Mexico and Australia.

“General McMaster has to be fired because he is the captain of the ship and he has allowed that ship to get out of control and he can no longer be trusted with that responsibility,” Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, an advocacy group, said in an interview.

Frank Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy, another group on the conservative right, said on a radio program on Friday that General McMaster was “insubordinate to his commander in chief” on matters including Syria and Islamic radicalism.

The ferocity of the attacks coming from the faction of the party allied with Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, had General McMaster’s associates convinced that it was no coincidence. At one point on Friday, Breitbart News, formerly run by Mr. Bannon, had close to a dozen headlines on its home page about General McMaster, like “McMaster ‘Deeply Hostile to Israel and to Trump.’”

The #FireMcMaster hashtag was tweeted more than 50,000 times since Wednesday. Echoing the drumbeat were social media organs tied to the Russian government. According to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan group created to focus attention on Russian interference in the West, the top hashtag among 600 Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations at one point on Thursday was #FireMcMaster.

White House officials defended General McMaster, saying that he has faithfully reflected the president’s views, not tried to impose his own. They noted that he was heavily involved in drafting a speech Mr. Trump gave in Warsaw describing Western civilization as at risk, an address applauded by nationalist supporters.

“General McMaster is a true public servant and a tremendous asset for the president and the administration,” Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said in an email. “He has created and oversees a very thorough and clear process for the agencies to work together to give the president credible options to advance the president’s priorities for America’s foreign policy.”

Mr. Kushner’s defense was important because he had protected Mr. Cohen-Watnick for months. But White House officials said Mr. Kushner acquiesced to the general’s decision to remove him several weeks ago.

As for Ms. Rice’s security clearance, General McMaster’s allies noted that he renewed such clearances for all former national security advisers and former presidents months ago. And they rejected the notion that he bore responsibility for the leak of transcripts of two conversations that occurred in January before he even took over the job.

“H. R. McMaster is just as concerned about the leak of classified documents and information as Mike Flynn was,” said Michael Anton, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

The campaign against General McMaster from the right comes even as some of his friends in the foreign policy establishment have expressed disappointment in the policies he has pursued in the White House. They initially hoped he would steer Mr. Trump in a more mainstream direction and have been unhappy that he has publicly defended the president’s “America First” approach.

Eliot A. Cohen, a former State Department counselor under President George W. Bush and a staunch critic of Mr. Trump, used words like “terrific” and “thoughtful” to describe General McMaster. “He’s infinitely better than Michael Flynn; he’s infinitely better than some of the crazies that you could have,” Mr. Cohen said. “But I believe he’s just going to have very limited success because of Trump.”

Hamilton 68

Hamilton 68 propaganda

Using "social network analytical techniques largely developed by J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan," The Alliance for Securing Democracy explains the Hamilton 68 project on Facebook, which purportedly "seeks to expose the effects of online influence networks and inform the public of themes and content being promoted to Americans through a near real-time look at Russian propaganda and disinformation efforts online:"

"In the Federalist Papers No. 68, Alexander Hamilton wrote of protecting America’s electoral process from foreign meddling. Today, we face foreign interference of a type Hamilton could scarcely have imagined. The Hamilton 68 dashboard, a project with the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, seeks to expose the effects of online influence networks and inform the public of themes and content being promoted to Americans through a near real-time look at Russian propaganda and disinformation efforts online."

Methodology

According to J.M. Berger, Non-Resident Fellow, Alliance for Securing Democracy, "Accounts were selected for their clear connection to Russian influence, but not all of the accounts are directly controlled by Russia." The author warns:

"Not all content in this network is “created” by Russia. A significant amount—probably a majority—of content is created by third parties and then amplified by the network because it is relevant to Russian messaging themes.

"Not all content amplified by this network is pro-Russian. The network frequently mobilizes to criticize or attack individuals or news reports that it wishes to discredit.

"Because of the two points above, we emphasize it is NOT CORRECT to describe sites linked by this network as Russian propaganda sites. We are not claiming that content producers linked by this network are Russian propaganda sites. Rather, content linked by this network is RELEVANT to Russian messaging themes.

Advisory Council

The following list is the Advisory Council of the Alliance for Securing Democracy as of August 7 2017:

• Mike Chertoff was U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009. There, he worked to strengthen U.S. borders, provide intelligence analysis, and protect infrastructure. He increased the Department’s focus on preparedness ahead of disasters, and implemented enhanced security at airports and borders. Following Hurricane Katrina, Chertoff helped to transform FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) into an effective organization. He also served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals Judge from 2003–05. He co-founded the Chertoff Group, a risk-management and security consulting company, and works as senior of counsel at the Washington, DC law firm Covington & Burling.

• Toomas Hendrik Ilves was elected president of the Republic of Estonia in 2006 and in 2011. During his presidency, Ilves was appointed to serve in several high positions in the field of information and communication technology in the European Union. He previously served as minister of foreign affairs and as the ambassador of the Republic of Estonia to the United States and Canada in Washington. Ilves was also a member of the Estonian Parliament, as well as a member of the European Parliament, where he was vice president of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He now co-chairs the World Economic Forum working group The Global Futures Council on Blockchain Technology. He is currently a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

• David J. Kramer joined Florida International University’s Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs as a senior fellow in the Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy in May 2017. Before moving to Miami, Kramer had worked in Washington, DC for 24 years, most recently as senior director for Human Rights and Democracy with The McCain Institute for International Leadership. Before that, he served for four years as president of Freedom House. Prior to that, he was a senior transatlantic fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. Kramer served eight years in the U.S. Department of State during the George W. Bush administration, including as assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs; professional staff member in the Secretary’s Office of Policy Planning; and senior advisor to the undersecretary for Global Affairs. Kramer is a member of the board of directors of the Halifax International Security Forum and a member of the advisory council for the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s Human Freedom Project.

• William Kristol is the editor at large of the influential political journal, The Weekly Standard. Before starting that magazine in 1995, Kristol served in government, first as chief of staff to Secretary of Education William J. Bennett during the Reagan administration, and then as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle in the George H. W. Bush administration. Kristol has also served on the board of the Project for the New American Century (1997–2005) and the Foreign Policy Initiative (2009–17). Before coming to Washington in 1985, Kristol taught government at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.

Advisory Board members Bill Kristol & Mike Morell (Screenshot from Securing Democracy Website)

• Michael Morell was acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency in 2011 and again from 2012 to 2013, and had previously served as deputy director and director for Intelligence at the Agency. In his over thirty years at the CIA, Morell played a central role in the United States’ fight against terrorism, its initiatives to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and its efforts to respond to trends that are altering the international landscape — including the Arab Spring, the rise of China, and the cyber threat. He was one of the leaders in the search for Osama bin Laden and participated in the deliberations that led to the raid that killed bin Laden in May 2011. He has been with Beacon Global Strategies as a senior counselor since November 2013.

• Michael McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House from 2009 to 2012, and then as U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012–14. He is currently professor of political science, director, and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post.

• Mike Rogers is a former member of Congress, officer in the Army, and FBI special agent. In the U.S. House he chaired the Intelligence Committee, becoming a leader on cybersecurity and national security policy, and overseeing the 17 intelligence agencies’ $70 billion budget. Today Mike is a CNN national security commentator, and hosts and produces CNN’s "Declassified." He serves as Chief Security Adviser to AT&T, sits on the board of IronNet Cybersecurity and MITRE Corporation, and advises Next Century Corporation and Trident Capital. He is Distinguished Fellow and Trustee at Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, and a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard University.

• Kori Schake has served in various policy roles including at the White House for the National Security Council, at the Department of Defense for the Office of the Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff, and at the State Department for the Policy Planning Staff. During the 2008 presidential election, she was senior policy advisor on the McCain–Palin campaign. She is now a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is the editor, with Jim Mattis, of the book Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military. She teaches at Stanford, is a contributing editor covering national security and international affairs at The Atlantic, columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, and a contributor to War on the Rocks.

• Julianne Smith served as the deputy national security advisor to the U.S. vice president from 2012 to 2013, acting national security advisor to the vice president in 2013, and principal director for European and NATO policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. Smith is currently senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

• Admiral James Stavridis, U.S. Navy (Ret.) served as commander of European Command and as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe from 2009 to 2013. He commanded U.S. Southern Command in Miami from 2006–09 and commanded Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, conducting combat operations in the Arabian Gulf in support of both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom from 2002–04. He was a strategic and long-range planner on the staffs of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has also served as the executive assistant to the secretary of the navy and as senior military assistant to the secretary of defense. He is now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and chairman of the U.S. Naval Institute board of directors.

• Jake Sullivan served in the Obama administration as national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden and director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State, as well as deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He was the senior policy advisor on Secretary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. He is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Martin R. Flug visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School.

• Nicole Wong served as deputy U.S. chief technology officer in the Obama administration, where she focused on internet, privacy, and innovation policy. Prior to her time in government, Nicole was Google’s vice president and deputy general counsel, and Twitter’s legal director for products. She frequently speaks on issues related to law and technology. Nicole chairs the board of Friends of Global Voices, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting citizen and online media projects globally. She also sits on the boards of WITNESS, an organization supporting the use of video to advance human rights, and the Mozilla Foundation, which promotes open internet. Nicole currently serves as an advisor to the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard Business School Digital Initiative, the Democratic National Committee Cybersecurity advisory board, Refactor Capital, and the Albright Stonebridge Group.

Staff

The following list is the Staff of the Alliance for Securing Democracy as of August 7 2017:

• Laura Rosenberger is the director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Before she joined GMF, she was foreign policy advisor for Hillary for America, where she coordinated development of the campaign’s national security policies, messaging, and strategy. Prior to that, she served in a range of positions at the State Department and the White House’s National Security Council (NSC). As chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and as later, then-Deputy National Security Advisor Blinken’s senior advisor, she counseled on the full range of national security policy. In her role at the NSC, she also managed the interagency Deputies Committee, the U.S. government’s senior-level interagency decision-making forum on our country’s most pressing national security issues. Laura also has extensive background in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Northeast Asia. She served as NSC director for China and Korea, managing and coordinating U.S. policy on China and the Korean Peninsula, and in a variety of positions focused on the Asia-Pacific region at the Department of State, including managing U.S.–China relations and addressing North Korea’s nuclear programs. She also served as special assistant to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, advising him on Asia-Pacific affairs and on nonproliferation and arms control issues. Laura first joined the State Department as a presidential management fellow.

• Jamie Fly is a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. He served as counselor for Foreign and National Security Affairs to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) from 2013–17, serving as his foreign policy advisor during his presidential campaign. Prior to joining Senator Rubio’s staff in February 2013, he served as the executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) from its founding in early 2009. Prior to joining FPI, Fly served in the Bush administration at the National Security Council (2008–09) and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005–08). He was director for Counterproliferation Strategy at the National Security Council, where his portfolio included the Iranian nuclear program, Syria, missile defense, chemical weapons, proliferation finance, and other counterproliferation issues. In the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he was an assistant for Transnational Threats Policy, where he helped to develop U.S. strategy related to the proliferation of missiles as well as nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. For his work in the Department of Defense, he was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Fly received a B.A. in international studies and political science from American University and an M.A. in German and European studies from Georgetown University.

Other Staff

• Kelsey Glover, Public Relations Manager
• J.M. Berger, Non-Resident Fellow, Alliance for Securing Democracy