BISC founder-director Edward Lucas spoke at Oxford University’s Europeanist Society on October 29 on lessons from the Baltic states for European security.

Speaking at Brasenose College, Lucas told an audience of about 50 Oxford students and faculty members that Russia does not need to defeat European countries militarily if it can win through cognitive warfare.

Russia spreads FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), which corrodes public morale, weakens allied cohesion and chills trade and investment.

Lucas compared and contrasted the Russian and Chinese approaches to cognitive warfare. Before founding BISC, he edited the China Influence Monitor, published by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and Coda Story.

He praised Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for their security culture, and their vigilance, resilience and deterrence.

“The Baltic states see things we don’t see, understand things we don’t understand and do things we don’t do.”

After the talk Lucas joined members of the Oxford Lithuanian Society for dinner at Lincoln College and drinks in an Oxford pub.

Lucas grew up in Oxford, where his father, the late JR Lucas, taught philosophy. Some of his father’s academic library was donated to Vilnius University.