The Active Measures Newsletter Podcast

In June of 1953, civil disturbances hit East Germany--and the Eisenhower administration faced a choice: make good on the rhetoric of 'liberation' or adopt a more restrained approach.  According to host Jim Ludes, President Eisenhower and his team adopted the latter approach, restraint, seeking to exploit the uprisings for advantage in the Cold War without encouraging anyone to take needless r...

In this special edition of the podcast, host Mark Jacobson revisits the classic work of Edward Bernays whose 1928 book, Propaganda , argued that democracy required managed perception and was effective precisely because it bypasses conscious reasoning. Bernays wrote at a time when newspapers were the dominant form of communication, when radio and film were still nascent, but the clear implications...

It's been a dynamic year of growth for the Active Measures Newsletter Podcast.  With great guests and a ton of news, each week we've had more to talk about than time to do it.  So as the year winds down, hosts Mark Jacobson and Jim Ludes name their "final four"--the biggest stories from the Active Measures Newsletter in 2025.  Artificial Intelligence, Sabotage in Europe, America&rsq...

“They’re burning all the witches,” sang Taylor Swift on the album “reputation,” a lyric with meaning about modern-day witch hunts, cancel culture, and, in fact, disinformation. In this week’s episode of The Active Measures Newsletter Podcast, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson break down the recent attack on Taylor Swift’s actual reputation and the self-har...

The terminology we use to describe new phenomena matters.  On this week's podcast, defense intellectual Frank Hoffman reviews Chinese, Russian, European, and--to the extent there is any--American writings about 'cognitive warfare.' For the uninitiated--this runs the gamut from traditional tools of influence to novel technologies, including chemical and directed energy weapons that can "alter...

American social media is filled with high-strung posters, outrage-addicts, and partisan players.  It's a perfect avenue for amplifying division and most platforms let anyone play anonymously.  So it came as a shock to some this week when X turned on a new geolocation service and the overseas posting of active accounts--some with hundreds of thousands and even millions of followers--prove...

This week, Naomi O’Leary, European Correspondent for The Irish Times describes Russia’s hybrid warfare across Europe—from severed pigs heads dumped at French mosques to cases of arson in Poland and the United Kingdom.  “Russia is recruiting what they call ‘Telegram agents’ over this messaging app to do small-scale sabotage,” she says, “and the a...

Journalists at Sky News created an elegant experiment to assess whether content on X in the United Kingdom had political bias. From a database of 90,000 posts created by 21,690 accounts collected over two weeks in May of 2025, they were able to observe ". . . a clear imbalance of content promoted on the platform, with right-wing voices dominating and the algorithm pushing posts to new users that d...

This week, Politico's Marion Solletty (Editor-at-Large, France) and Laura Kayali (Defense Correspondent) join hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson to discuss the "Red Hands" trial in France, reports of ties to Russian intelligence, and the broader context in which France finds itself as a "hot-spot in Russia's hybrid war against Europe."  The hosts also examine Shakespeare for lessons about irre...

This week on the Active Measures Newsletter Podcast, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson speak with Poppy McPherson (Special Correspondent for Southeast Asia) and Karen Lema (Philippines Bureau Chief) of Reuters whose recent reporting showed Chinese government use of a local public relations firm in the Philippines to mount a pro-China/anti-U.S. influence campaign in the country. Mark and Jim also r...

In this special edition of the Active Measures Newsletter Podcast, host Mark Jacobson explores how the disinformation lessons of the past echo in the digital age. Drawing on Mark Twain’s reflections on Gutenberg’s printing press, Jacobson traces how revolutions in communication have spread both knowledge and deception, and asks whether artificial intelligence will bring...

This week on the Active Measures Newsletter Podcast, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson speak with Georgetown University's Renée DiResta about trends in technology, social media, and disinformation.  They also discuss some of the reporting in this week's newsletter, including the U.S. Army General using ChatGPT to make military decisions, Russia's continued use of information laundering...

This week, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson welcome Erol Yayboke of CSIS and FilterLabs. AI for a conversation about the potential of agentic artificial intelligence to contribute to effective and even ethical offensive information operations.  They also review some of the top stories in this week's newsletter, including reporting from Rolling Stone about the Macedonian national who runs pop...

This week, Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson welcome Stephen Clermont, Head of Polling at Change Research, for a discussion of the sustained appeal of conspiracy theories in the United States, today--all stemming from a collapse in public confidence for the major institutions in American public life.  First up, however, they discuss the optics and messaging of the gathering of uniformed U.S. milita...

One of the foundational concepts of political warfare--whoever is waging it--is to exploit existing issues.  In this special edition of the Active Measures Newsletter Podcast, host Jim Ludes shares episodes from the Cold War and America's long struggle with racism to see how adversaries use original sins against their targets.  The full podcast will return next week. See omnystudio.com/l...

This week, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson discuss the impact to American soft-power of late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel's suspension by ABC after Trump administration threats; the continued exploitation of Charlie Kirk's murder by hostile foreign powers; and the activities in Ukraine of an American neo-Nazi group with apparent Russian ties.  Then, they welcome Liam Karr, Africa Team Lead f...

Guest Charlie Edwards, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, tells hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson that Russia is engaged in the most sustained campaign of sabotage targeting Europe since the Second World War--and he's brought the receipts.  Aimed primarily at undermining Western confidence in governments and, thus, support for Ukraine's defense, Russian sabota...

This week, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson review reports of a U.S. influence campaign targeting the residents of Greenland; Texas stands up an effort to counter-Chinese influence; the Trump administration embraces the Department of War; while the prevalence of disinformation in AI chatbots grows. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson welcome RAND's Jonathan Welch for a discussion of DOD requirements to get the most out of generative AI for U.S. influence operations.  Also, fallout from the Trump-Putin meeting comes in many forms: from waltzing polar bears to Putin whispering about election fraud all while Russian malign influence campaigns targeting the west continue. See omnys...

This week, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson discuss China's use of Artificial Intelligence to create a so-called "propaganda engine," leveraging AI to monitor content and respond with narratives designed to either diminish or amplify messages.  They then turn to reporting on the soft power of international assistance and the binding power of international trade--two things the United States...

This week, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson discuss the use of mis- and disinformation in the recent clash between India and Pakistan with Sid Venkataramakrishnan of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. They also highlight recent RAND recommendations to the Department of Defense on the use of generative AI in influence operations; social media platforms cracking down on accounts spreading disinf...

This week, Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson discuss the Director of National Intelligence's efforts to pass-off disinformation about the 2016 Russian disinformation campaign, a fact that only served the purpose of those who want to undermine public-confidence in American elections and institutions. Then, they turn to pro-Russian TikTok accounts that are telling a fairy-tale about Russian occupation and...

This week, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson are joined by Aoife Gallagher, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, for a conversation about recent online incitement against migrants in Ireland manifesting in real-world violence and intriguing cross-border coordination between unlikely Irish partners. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the Active Measures Newsletter Podcast, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson discuss the re-writing of Russian history textbooks; the convergence of Russian and Chinese information operations; the latest on a Russia-aligned, AI-fueled campaign known as  "Operation Overload"; the use of AI for fact-checking; how to address misinformation without defaulting to censorship; and the age...

This week, Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson welcome Valentin Chatelet, a research associate at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, for an urgent discussion of the Pravda Network--a Russian information operation using an AI-powered network of websites to warp target populations' understanding of the war in Ukraine and other issues.  They also discuss a troubling example of America...