The NATO Science & Technology Organization Collaboration Support Office decided not to publish any work where I contributed, even if already cleared and accepted for publication. The decision, that, so far, was kept secret, was communicated by the Executive Officer of the Human Factors & Medicine (HFM) Panel, Ltc Siebren Wolf, in an email addressed to Dr Bruce Forrester and copied to Dr Magnus Rosell and Der Valentina Dragos, all co-authors of the paper “Value Differences: A Starting Point for Influence”, that I presented, on behalf of the team, at the HFM-361-RSY Symposium on Mitigating and Responding to Cognitive Warfare, organized by the NATO STO, and held at the School of Naval Engineer in Madrid, Nov. 13-14, 2023. Dr Forrester had questioned the STO personnel about the lack of inclusion of the chapter in the volume, and was not responded truly until he insisted.
The article was cleared and was expected be included in the Proceedings of the HFM-361-RSY Symposium (Ref. STO-MP-HFM-361; dot: 10.14339/STO-MP-HFM-361, ISBN: ISBN 978-92-837-2521-3) that were released last April 2 (publication date: Mar. 4, 2024) in open access in the STO website at this link. What is beyond ‘bizarre’, is that the Technical Evaluation Report ($MP-HFM-361-TER.pdf) drafted by Paul Magnus Hjertvik Buvarp at p. 5 mentions the contribution and cites my name.
The unjustified and unfair decision affects all the authors and marks a concerning censorship attitude by the Alliance and its member states, at a time when fundamental human rights – including the freedom of thought, the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, and the freedom of the press – are under threat and should be defended firmly. This episode is a serious violation of fundamental human rights and contravenes the values of liberal-democracies. Europe is slowly sliding towards autocracy and censorship of dissenting, pacifist and anti-militarist opinions. From here to a new ‘crystal night’ it’s a small step. It must be stressed that NATO, apart from being a military alliance, is also a political organisation, with a Parliamentary Assembly which should ensure compliance with fundamental values of western powers of and core human rights protected under the main international instruments.
That said, regrettably this shadow decision will affect also the publication of the contribution titled “Legal Framework Supporting Human Security“, co-authored with David Hughes and included in pp. 19-22 of the STO Technical Report Human Security: Frameworks, Concepts, Actors and Challenges in Relevance to NATO (Ref. STO-TR-HFM-ET-201, Ac/323(), doi: 10.14339/STO-TR-HFM-ET-201, ISBN 978-92-837-2504-6). The collective volume was pre-released on Oct. 26, 2023 and it is not clear how a fact can be erased, or simply ignored, as well as the fact that the contribution on cognitive warfare was accepted and presented in the Madrid symposium, and cleared for publication.
Being a strong avocate of human rights – including the freedom of thought, the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, and the freedom of the press – all this contributions will be released in open access in the main academic platforms, never mind NATO’s censorship, for the sake of the dissemination of scientific research and the increase of knowledge. We all should stand up and fight for our rights, before it’s too late. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are just the tip of the iceberg of a worrying trend.
