On February 24, 2022, the European security order was ruptured. Vladimir Putin’s decision to order a full-scale invasion of Ukraine has made the dividing line between autocracies and democracies even clearer, but it has also increased the need to analyze and understand how authoritarian states are trying to influence democratic societies. This is all the more important since threats from autocracies such as Russia and China are not only military in nature, but cover a wide range of methods ranging from cyberattacks to economic coercion. Therefore, Stockholm Free World Forum and the U.S. Embassy organised a half-day conference about how autocracies are wielding influence through political, economic and technological means in the Baltic Sea region.
Speakers:
Konstantinas Andrijauskas
Associate Professor of Asian Studies and International Politics at Vilnius University
Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova
Director of the China Studies Centre at Rīga Stradiņš University
Lisa Bjurwald
Journalist, author
Erik Halkjaer
President of Reporters Without Borders Sweden
Gunnar Hökmark
President of Stockholm Free World Forum
Oscar Jonsson
Researcher at the Swedish Defence University
Merle Maigre
Senior Expert on Cyber Security at the Estonian e-Governance Academy
Patrik Oksanen
Senior fellow at Stockholm Free World Forum
Erik D. Ramanathan
U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Sweden
Björn Weigel
Investor, author
Anders Åslund
Senior fellow at Stockholm Free World Forum