Institute for Statecraft – Wikipedia

The Institute for Statecraft (“Institute for State Art”) is a British thought factory and Gongo founded in 2009, which according to its own statements “devotes itself to the renewal of the practice of public administration and the strengthening of national security”. ^[first]

The institute was founded in 2009 and is based in Fife, Scotland and the status of a non -profit organization. ^{[2] [3]} The main office (Head Office) is located in Two Temple Place, London, according to Lobbyfacts. ^[4]

The management of the Institute for Statecraft Christopher Donnelly and his deputy Daniel Lafayeedney, both founding members are responsible. ^[5] Donnelly is a special advisor to the House of Commons defense committee, was a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst from 1969 to 1972 and a member of the TA message service, for which he worked until 1990. From 1989 to 2003 he was a special consultant for NATO general secretaries for Eastern and Central Europe. ^[6] Dan Lafayeedney was SAS soldier in 1978, the director Stephen Dalziel worked in the military secret service. ^[7]

His main goals include the institute improving the methodology of public administration and efforts to prevent the emergence of a “national strategic deficit”.

While the impartiality and independence of state organizations are emphasized in the ethical charter of the organization, it is also pointed out that the institute also promotes certain political solutions for some problems. ^[8]

The Integrity Initiative (“Integrity Initiative”) was launched in 2015 by the Institute for StateCraft to act against propaganda, disinformation and fake news, whereby the focus is on combating Russian influence. ^[9]

For this purpose, expert groups were formed, which are primarily intended to analyze and discuss the problem of Russian disinformation. ^[ten]

At the beginning of 2019, after a cyber attack on the initiative’s website, their content was temporarily removed from the network. ^[11]

Western officials suspect a connection between the hacker group to the Russian state. The British Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Russian state media of publishing the Integrity Initiative documents at Hack to discredit the Institute for StateCraft. The state funding of the institute had the purpose of counteracting disinformation abroad and not in the United Kingdom. ^[2]

The Institute for StateCraft came under criticism, since according to Constanze, it briefly uses the same means of disinformation that wanted to fight it. ^[twelfth] The Integrity Initiative has spread articles on British domestic policy via the Twitter news service. ^[13] In December 2018, Foreign Minister Alan Duncan announced an investigation to discrediting the Labor Party and its party chairman Jeremy Corbyn to the British lower house. ^[13] The Labor MP Chris Williamson called for a parliamentary investigation, since in his view, “the” Faceration of the Labor Party and its Chairman Jeremy Corbyn “was on the Integrity Initiative agenda. ^[14] Communication scientist Thorsten Quandt recognizes a “wagon castle mentality” that arose in the EU for fear of Russian attempts to influence. He criticizes that the Institute for StateCraft is silent about the processes, sees the risk of betrayal of democratic guiding ideas and demands openness and a debate. ^[15]

In Spain, the institute is said to have successfully controlled a social media campaign against Pedro Baños in June 2018 so that the new Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez does not name it as a national intelligence officer. ^{[twelfth] [16]}

In a press release from the Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel, his head Joachim Krause competed in the initiative, but confirmed that the freelance institute employee Hannes Adomeit was “obvious” there. Krause called reports in left alternative media and Russian state media, in which the initiative is portrayed as an anti -Russian intelligence campaign, a conspiracy theory. The Institute for Statecraft Network internationally research institutions and persons to show independent analyzes through Russian disinformation policy, to improve the exchange among scientists and to present the results. This is a completely legitimate and worldwide scientific approach. ^[17]

In 2019, the Scottish foundation regulator (OSCR) found that the Institute for StateCraft did not meet its declared foundation goals, since Scottish foundations had to be politically neutral. After the investigation, the institute solved the connections to the Integrity Initiative, ended the payment of its trustees and accepted an increased control supervision. ^[18]

In the 2017/2018 financial year, the Institute received state financing of £ 296,500. For 2018/2019, an amount of almost two million pounds was planned from the state. These amounts are provided from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, a fund built in 2015 within Official Development Assistance. ^[19]

From 2016 to 2018, the British Ministry of Defense financed two projects of the institute with a total of £ 177,000. The institute receives further financial support from NATO, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense, the US State Department and Facebook. ^[20]

56.2682805 -3.3114327 Coordinates: 56 ° 16 ′ 5.8 ″ N , 3 ° 18 ′ 41.2 ″ IN