xii Preface and, understandably and perhaps appropriately, not openly discussed by the target. Disinformation campaigns can slip under the radar for some time, but their identification frequently brings suspicion rather than awareness. Similar tendencies have played out during the spy scares that intermit- tently arose in several countries throughout the modern age. When other members of a targeted society fail to identify the same evidence in the same ways, the stage is set for suspicions that the different opinions of domestic neighbors are signs not of different perspectives but of hostile and treacherous motives. According to this line of suspicion, the dubious neighbors do not disagree, nor are they misinformed, but rather they are hostile and in league with enemies. For a regime bent on sustaining itself and on fomenting chaos to distract its international neighbors, fueling that sort of psychosis in targeted societies is an ideal outcome. Writing this book represents an important opportunity to think carefully and to share reflections on a topic of immediate significance.
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