Thread-topic: Why the West’s Diplomacy With Russia Keeps Failing - The Atlantic
I’ve only had this much fun and excitement three times before in my life: twice when we went to war against Iraq, when “the lights were all blinking red” so we knew the war was
coming, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, when I was just a kid. But I felt the excitement, especially when a classmate mistakenly announced we had already sunk a Soviet ship! To paraphrase Churchill: “Nothing
in life is so exhilarating as a potential nuclear war!
No need to fear the "opposition party" will get in the way. Their only complaint is
that Biden isn’t going to war fast enough, and afraid he might not, as can be seen on Fox, and the Trump channels, OAN and Newsmax, with Trump connected military officers all denouncing Biden
for his “weakness.” And boasting of how militarily aggressive Trump had been against Russia, including "twisting the arms” of the European to force them to spend more money on NATO! Finally, some honesty from Trumpites that Trump was a Hyper-Militarist, though
his so-called non-interventionist fans won’t notice.
Richard Engel was stomping his feet on MSNBC over Russia “waging information war,” and lying; sort of like he is alleged to have done over Syria.
But on the subject of Information War, if I may say a word in regard to the same in this article by Ann Applebaum below, since
my time as a Cold War neoconservative/conservative in the 1980s, like so many Americans, having moved there beginning with events in 1979, in collaborating with the Army-Air Force Center on Low-Intensity Conflict in the study of “political/ideological warfare”
particularly, and in other studies at the time at the U of M, having been introduced to the subject by an Israeli military officer teaching at the time at the U of Minn, I have retained an interest in “Psychological Warfare.”
Or as it would begin to be called in the 1990s under the influence of the “Bland Corporation,” "Information Warfare," as the two publications at the links below
show. Or as one could say, "Yes Virginia, the US is light years ahead of the Russians in Information Warfare, and have been developing that capability since the Russians were prostrate on their knees in the 1990s,” with the ultimate targets per the PNAC folks
being Russia and China (read their 1990s docs).
I was there, in the early 1990s, as a Sr. PsyOp NCO with the 349th PsyOP Research and Analysis Company (RAC), when our Commander returned from an Army conference and informed
us that rather than the end of the Cold War meaning a decline in our active (live) missions, our live mission's pace would increase. I know they did, but mostly for the tactical PsyOp units, not the “Strategic” as the RAC was considered, and a couple years
later, the RAC was deactivated, with our “assets,” personnel, given options to include, as most did, transferring to the tactical units. As I was in law school by then, I chose to go to a Legal Support Organization, a JAG unit, but my knowledge of PsyOps would
make it all apparent what we, the US, was doing to “condition the battlefield” for our upcoming planned wars beginning in 2001 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY2DKzastu8), which in following
the 1990s PNAC Plan (see video at link), ultimately targeted Russia and China (PNAC f***ing said so!).
With the wars beginning in the 1990s, but more so with the post-911 wars, and especially as a Guantanamo defense attorney, I had a “front row” seat, so to speak, in observing
US Information Operations, as had already been explained as “strategic theory” at the links below of how they were to be conducted. And from my own training as a Sr. PsyOp NCO, I saw this all unfold in front of my eyes as a direct participant in the “information
war shows” the Military Commissions' prosecutors always put on.
Since then, I’ve tried to understand and explain how the US could so quickly mutate into a country of the kind we, supposedly, always deplored; waging aggressive war, with agents
who torture, and treat its captives under so-called “legal operations” in open violation of the Geneva Conventions, exactly the way our one-time Fascist enemies did, with “martial law proceedings,” Military Commissions that is, disguised by Information War
methods as “legitimate courts.” The captivity and presecution/prosecution of Julian Assange is Ex. A for all this as he committed the unforgiveable crime as seen by any fascist style regime of “revealing the truth.” And therefore, he subverted our global “Information
War.” A crime under any fascist regime waging IW.
I’ve since been much more “wokened” to the reality that the US always contained within its so-called “National Security Apparatus” and their “amplifiers” in media, etc., a large
faction with a “fascist worldview,” meaning one based upon the political theory of Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes, just like the fascists had. But if you make no effort to understand “political theory,” you can’t understand that, speaking from my time when
I was not aware of that,
except for what Allan Bloom would tout, drawing upon Leo Strauss, making me and everyone else who read his odious “conservative” book susceptible to reading more
of the Straussian’s favorable presentation of what were the “tyrannical ideas” of Athen’s friends of Sparta.
In my defense, as a “liberal,” I’d been well aware of so much of what we had done but the Church Committee made it “appear” to most people’s perceptions that the “slate
had been wiped clean” of the many crimes committed by the CIA, DOD, et al., and with events of 1979, I, and many other Americans, were easily led to believe that we were "once again on the side of the Angels, and it was only the USSR and the Muslims who did
bad things in the world, like “terrorism,” a theme pushed by both the USA and its partner Israel, under the leadership of the “Democratic Fascist” Menachem Begin and his co-conspirators, the Netanyahu’s, at the InfoOp Jonathan Institute.
To better understand this as the U.S. Perpetual War unfolded, I even formally continued my study of Hannah Arendt’s political thought, who had written of “Lying in Politics”
during the Vietnam War, in gettin a M.A. at The New School in 2018, which led me to the study of what Edmund Husserl called his research, the “Science of Consciousness.” All of which is only by way of introduction to my qualifications to see this Anne Applebaum/The
Atlantic article for what it actually is: a “Cognitive Campaign,” in the U.S. Cognitive War, as part of her long running “fascist cognitive campaign," as begun by PNAC,
to incite war against Russia.
This might have worked on me 35 years ago, but the situation has changed since then, and I/we’ve learned more of the US predilection for war, as has the Mideast, and obviously,
Russia and China. With the latter two becoming so alarmed by what they were seeing beginning in 2003 that they put aside long-standing enmities in defense against the “common enemy, “ us. A wild guess is that their intelligence and political analysts were
also paying attention to the US aggressive designs for the world, which Dick Cheney revealed, and broadcast. Not as an apologist for either of their governments, but when a country comes under attack by another, they often become more authoritarian (see U.S.
2001, 1951, 1941, 1917, 1861), and can claim to have good reason to take defensive measures against an aggressive military power, with an ideology like American Exceptionalism.
But the paper at the link below explains our “American Way of Information War” pretty well, in a short summary, keeping in mind it projects on to our “adversaries” any hint of “offensive”
IW with the US only ever acting in “defense.”
"The Department must coordinate and synchronize influence activities with informing activities, primarily public affairs, which release information that becomes immediately available to all public audiences including
adversaries and potential adversaries. The credibility and legitimacy of the United States must be preserved."
That last sentence doesn’t add “truthfully.”
So to Anne Applebaum’s article below, but particularly these lines:
"Tragically, the Western leaders and diplomats who are right now trying to stave off a Russian invasion of Ukraine
still think they live in a world where rules matter, where diplomatic protocol is useful, where polite speech is valued. All of them think that when they go to Russia, they are talking to people whose minds can be changed by argument or debate. They think
the Russian elite cares about things like its “reputation.” It does not,”
read that as identical to what Russians can truthfully say about the United States, with only a couple
word changes as Russia sits encircled on all sides by the US military. With there no longer a need of “proximity” to constitute “encirclement,” when we have missiles within minutes of them, which are far more capable of inflicting death and destruction than
if we still had the same Army Divisions in Europe as we did in Cold War W I. Nor do we need those divisions to occupy the country as we learned the same lessons as the Soviets on the undesirabiliy of military occupation, like ours in Iraq, when that’s not
necessary to coerce favorable terms for resource extraction, such as we’re pursuing in the Arctic in competition with Russia, as our DOD pubs openly acknowledge.
So pardon me for writing so much, if you’ve read this far, but this is to do my bit in enhancing "cognitive
warfare awareness,” and “monitoring,” as explained below, as anything Anne Applebaum writes must be seen as “cognitive warfare,” against the US, to entice us into a self-destructive war, in my opinion. Though
she sees this as just the proper tactic to be used to establish US military domination, as she in effect said at a CUNY speaking event in 2018 which I attended, when she effectively said how the US must become more like the fascist regimes Orwell had warned
of.
"A proper defence requires at the very least an awareness that a cognitive warfare campaign is underway. It requires the ability to observe and orient before decision-makers can decide to act. Technology solutions can provide the
means to answer some key questions: Is there a campaign going on? Where did it originate? Who is waging it? What might be its aims? Our research indicates that there are patterns of such campaigns that repeat and can be classified. They may even provide “signatures”
unique to specific actors that can help to identify them.
"A particularly useful technology solution may be a cognitive warfare monitoring and alert system. Such a system could help to identify cognitive warfare campaigns as they arise, and to track them as they progress. It could include
a dashboard that integrates data from a wide range of social media, broadcast media, social messaging, and social networking sites. This would display geographic and social network maps that show the development of suspected campaigns over time."
At the strategic level, the fundamental objectives of the
psychological battle are to increase the fighting spirit of friendly
populations, weaken domestic and international support to the
enemy’s war effort, and persuade the government of the enemy side
to cease hostilities on terms acceptable to the friendly side.
p. 227:
Deception and Propaganda. Adversaries have also employed propaganda
and deception in an attempt to undermine U.S. domestic and
international support for U.S. military involvements. The principal
aims of this strategic propaganda have been to convince U.S. and
foreign audiences that (1) the adversary was fighting a “just” war; (2)
the U.S. could not win, as the adversary would never give up; and (3)
the U.S. methods of warfare and war objectives were “unjust.”
Read "Adversaries have also employed propaganda
and deception,” to mean, “The U.S. has also employed propaganda
and deception, dwarfing the so-called adversaries . . . “
Note: I was there, as a Sr. PsyOp NCO, in the 349th PsyOp Research and Analysis Company, in the early 1990s when our Commander returned from
a conference and informed us that rather than diminishing PsyOp activities/missions, the end of the Cold War meant we would have more active, “live,”
missions.
p. 244:
"The Internet is
potentially a potent tool for inflammatory rumor, as well as “black”
and “gray” propaganda, in that the actual affiliation of the provider
of information can be masked easily and any visual “news” materials
that are put on the Web can be transformed so as to make faked
events appear true."
From p. 245 (Emphasis added):
"Finally, the expanding options for reaching audiences in countries
and groups that could becomefuture U.S. adversaries make it important
that the United States begin its psychological conditioning in
peacetime. The United States needs to advertise its military prowess
and commitment to defending U.S. interests prior to the outbreak of
hostilities. Shows of force, exercises, firepower demonstrations, and
the like should be used both (1) to deter the potential adversary from
attacking U.S. interests and (2) to begin to soften the fighting will of
the potential adversary’s armed forces in the event conflict does
occur.
One reason for the low morale large numbers of Iraqi officers and
enlisted personnel suffered prior to the start of hostilities in the Gulf
War was the widespread awareness among the Iraqi military that U.S.
aircraft, tanks, and other weapons were far superior to their own
obsolete military equipment. Many Iraqis were convinced that the
technological superiority of U.S. weapons foreordained Iraq’s defeat
in any military contest with the United States. The subsequent
Coalition air campaign strongly reinforced the Iraqi view that resistance
Why the West’s Diplomacy With Russia Keeps Failing
American and European leaders’ profound lack of imagination has brought the world to the brink of war.
By
Associated Press
Oh, how I envy Liz Truss her opportunity! Oh, how I regret her utter failure to make use of it! For those who have never heard of her, Truss is the lightweight British foreign secretary who went to Moscow this week to tell
her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, that his country should not invade Ukraine. This trip was not a success. At a glacial press conference he likened their conversation to “the mute” speaking with “the deaf”; later, he leaked the fact that she had confused
some Russian regions with Ukrainian regions, to add a little insult to the general injury.
Lavrov has done this many times before. He was vile to the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, last year. He has been unpleasant at international conferences and rude to journalists. His behavior is not
an accident. Lavrov, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, uses aggression and sarcasm as tools to demonstrate his scorn for his interlocutor, to frame negotiations as useless even before they begin, to create dread and apathy. The point is to put other diplomats
on the defensive, or else to cause them to give up in disgust.
But the fact that Lavrov is disrespectful and disagreeable is old news. So is the fact that Putin lectures foreign leaders for hours and hours on his personal and political grievances. He did that the first time he met President
Barack Obama, more than a decade ago; he did exactly the same thing last week to French President Emmanuel Macron. Truss should have known all of this. Instead of offering empty language about rules and values, she could have started the press conference like
this:
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the press. I am delighted to join you after meeting my Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. This time, we have not bothered to discuss treaties he
won’t respect and promises he won’t keep. We have told him, instead, that an invasion of Ukraine will carry very, very high costs—higher than he has ever imagined. We are now planning to cut off Russian gas exports completely—Europe will find its energy supplies
somewhere else. We are now preparing to assist the Ukrainian resistance, for a decade if need be. We are quadrupling our support for the Russian opposition, and for Russian media too. We want to make sure that Russians will start hearing the truth about this
invasion, and as loudly as possible. And if you want to do regime change in Ukraine, we’ll get to work on regime change in Russia.
Truss, or Borrell before her, could have added just a touch of personal insult, in the style of Lavrov himself, and wondered out loud just how it is that Lavrov’s official salary pays for the lavish properties that his family
makes use of in London. She could have listed the names of the
many other Russian public servants who send their children to schools in Paris or Lugano. She could have announced that these children are now, all of them, on their way home, along with their parents: No more American School in Switzerland! No more pied-à-terres
in Knightsbridge! No more Mediterranean yachts!
Of course Truss—like Borrell, like Macron, like the German chancellor who is headed for Moscow this week—would never say anything like this, not even in private. Tragically, the Western leaders and diplomats who are right
now trying to stave off a Russian invasion of Ukraine still think they live in a world where rules matter, where diplomatic protocol is useful, where polite speech is valued. All of them think that when they go to Russia, they are talking to people whose minds
can be changed by argument or debate. They think the Russian elite cares about things like its “reputation.” It does not.
In fact, when talking to the new breed of autocrats, whether in Russia, China, Venezuela, or Iran, we are now dealing with something very different: people who aren’t interested in treaties and documents, people who only
respect hard power. Russia is in violation of
the Budapest Memorandum, signed in 1994, guaranteeing Ukrainian security. Do you ever hear Putin talk about that? Of course not. He isn’t concerned about his untrustworthy reputation either: Lying keeps opponents on their toes. Nor does Lavrov mind if he
is hated, because hatred gives him an aura of power.
Their intentions are different from ours too. Putin’s goal is not a flourishing, peaceful, prosperous Russia, but
a Russia where he remains in charge. Lavrov’s goal is to maintain his position in the murky world of the Russian elite and, of course, to keep his money. What we mean by “interests” and what they mean by “interests” are not the same. When they listen to
our diplomats, they don’t hear anything that really threatens their position, their power, their personal fortunes.
Despite all of our talk, no one has ever seriously tried to end, rather than simply limit, Russian money laundering in the West, or Russian political or financial influence in the West. No one has taken seriously the idea
that Germans should now make themselves independent of Russian gas, or that France should ban political parties that accept Russian money, or that the U.K. and the U.S. should stop Russian oligarchs from buying property in London or Miami. No one has suggested
that the proper response to Putin’s information war on our political system would be an information war on his.
Now we are on the brink of what could be a catastrophic conflict. American, British, and European embassies in Ukraine are evacuating; citizens have been warned to leave. But this terrible moment represents not just a failure
of diplomacy; it also reflects a failure of the Western imagination, a generation-long refusal, on the part of diplomats, politicians, journalists, and intellectuals, to understand what kind of state Russia was becoming and to prepare accordingly. We have
refused to see the representatives of this state for what they are. We have refused to speak to them in a way that might have mattered. Now it might be too late.
