The Foreign Service Journal, May 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2023 17 Countering Russian Influence—OIG Report Released I n December 2022 the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released its “Countering Russian Influence Fund [CRIF] Report, ” determining that the State Department has complied with legislative requirements for the fund, including submitting annual reports on programs and activities, incorporating fund goals into strategic planning efforts, and incorporating CRIF-designated funds into annual budget processes. CRIF programs are intended to coun- ter malign Russian influence according to the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). From 2017 to 2022, Congress designated $1.5 billion to CRIF. New E.U. Platform Fights Russian Disinformation E uropean Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell announced on Feb. 7 that the E.U. is launching a new platform to coun- ter disinformation campaigns by Russia, China, and nonstate actors. The new Information Sharing and Analysis Center, housed in the European External Action Service (EEAS), coordi- nates with all 27 E.U. countries and the wider community of nongovernmental organizations to track information manip- ulation by foreign actors in real time. The European Union has been battling Russian attempts to manipulate and dis- tort information since the start of the war in Ukraine, when Kremlin-orchestrated propaganda first sought to blame the E.U. for a global food crisis. A first-of-its-kind report, “Foreign Information Manipulation and Interfer- enceThreats” was released by EEAS in February. The report found, in part, that Russia’s diplomatic channels are regularly used to enable foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) operations. Sophisticated impersonations of trusted organizations and individuals are increasingly being used, in particular by Russian actors targeting Ukraine; incidents have been detected in at least 30 languages. Where Are the Women? T he fourth edition of the “Women in Diplomacy Index, ” released in March by the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Acad- emy in the United Arab Emirates, found that just 20.54 percent of ambas- sadors and permanent representatives worldwide are women. The 2023 dataset tracks more than 12,000 ambassadorial appointments in 193 United Nations member states. The study found that Europe has the highest average of women in top diplo- matic posts, at 28 percent, with Finland Podcast of the Month: Coming in from the Cold P roduced by the Center for Naval Intelligence and hosted by Cold War historian Bill Rosenau, the podcast Coming in from the Cold explores mostly forgotten national security policy initia- tives, incidents, and events from the Cold War. Topics include Chernobyl, the invasion of Gre- nada, napalm, the Lavender Scare, and more, with experts on each topic joining to add context and detail. Episode 45 introduces National Security Archive senior analysts Peter Kornbluh and Bill Burr, who discuss the Moscow Signal and how that story parallels the Havana syndrome. The appearance of a particular site or podcast is for information only and does not constitute an endorsement. topping the list at 49.5 percent, while Bel- gium lags behind at a mere 11.5 percent. In the United States, 41 percent of these top jobs are held by women, up from just 33.1 percent in 2018, the first year the index was developed. Canada has the highest global rank- ing—51 percent of its top diplomat jobs are held by women.