Random Thoughts - The Collapse of The Russian Disinformation Machine (Patreon)

A know a lot of people found our organization through TikTok - welcome.

One of the first videos we made for TikTok to go viral was an opinion piece (we were trying to find our voice/place on the platform, and not convinced it was the right platform for us).

In that TikTok, I suggested that World War III had started in 2012. That the Russian military was at best a nuclear-armed regional power. Faced with an inability to fight a kinetic war on a global scale, Russia started World War III using asymmetrical warfare. Instead of kinetic war, they were fighting an information war.

I also went on to suggest that the United States was losing, badly. The evidence of this was COVID disinformation, QAnon, Trumpism (the dark aspects of it), and the January 6 Insurrection. 

I opened that TikTok with a stitch of the infamous sobbing woman, wailing, "President Trump, please save us!"

I called her a casualty of war.

I then went on to suggest that because Russia's military budget was smaller, they were investing heavily in disinformation warfare (and it is Russian doctrine). In contrast, the United States was still spending as if it was fighting a Cold War. Yes, strategy has changed, rapid response teams, are able to move to global hot spots, but there was still a massive investment into a potential epic tank war in Eastern Europe.

I accused the Trump Administration of not only ignoring this threat but helping it, by not prioritizing spending in this area. Not to create our own disinformation programs, but to counter the attack - a military-grade attack on the western world.

If the Russian disinformation machine could plunge the US into total distrust of every institution of democracy, they would break the government. A civil war would just be an added bonus.

About 14 months later, I would learn I was incredibly right and simultaneously incredibly wrong. 

The famous Primakov doctrine (which I hadn't read when I made the TikTok) called exactly for these efforts. The concept is you use disinformation 4 to 1 versus kinetic warfare. What I didn't see or realize is kinetic warfare in the information age collapses the Primakov doctrine.

It's one thing to spread disinformation about the deep state, empty hospitals, human destroying vaccines, non-existent caravans of murderous migrants, and biolabs. These are things that can't be easily proven or disproven by an ordinary citizen. It was always, "someone said, I know this person," and grifters who discovered they can make a lot of money pushing these claims. Part of the initial, decade-long success of the Primakov doctrine was fueled by greed and capitalism. Disinformation is big business!

Russia shifted to kinetic warfare while trying to control a narrative using the Primakov doctrine. I have argued that Ukraine was the testing ground for the Primakov doctrine starting in 2012-2013, and then applied to the United Kingdom and the United States starting in 2015. 

I would argue that Ukraine is again the testing ground for the kinetic phase of the doctrine, and it has failed - miserably.

We live on a planet where 6 billion people have access to a cell phone. Almost all of those phones have cameras. Most people have access to the Internet. Billions of people are on social media. The Black Lives Matter protests in the United States taught us that when police abuses happen, it is impossible to say "no it didn't" with multiple camera angles and views. The June 6, 2020 protest in Seattle is a tremendous example of this.  

We're seeing this exact same problem with the Primakov doctrine when you switch to kinetic warfare. You can no longer control the disinformation narrative. It is near impossible to bring new people into the circle, and hard to hold onto those who are "disinformation curious." Ordinary citizen can do their own research using publicly available information. We are watching the war in real-time at a micro level, with the same fidelity of information that generals had in the 1990s. In some cases, with even better information. 

We didn't bomb this target and kill those people! Lies!

But there is flight radar, NASA FIRMS, high-resolution satellite images, drone video, GoPro video, cell phone video, weather data, and geolocation because almost every inch of the planet is mapped. Radio communications streaming live on podcasting sites; This is the satellite pass three days earlier, here is the pass today. The event was live-streamed, we know it was this military unit because of the markings on this vehicle and the patch on this uniform. We're to the level we know the names of the people in the unit, and publicly available facial recognition software is connecting them to their social media profiles.

I haven't even mentioned how DNA has altered war crimes investigations.

When the content comes from multiple sources, providing additional proof points, you can keep saying, "no, didn't happen," but what is being provided is more tangible evidence than vaccine is bad, there are biolabs, deep state, stolen ballots - now prove it!

Anyone can look through the receipts and prove the event beyond a reasonable doubt. Bellingcat has a Twitter thread this morning that documents the killing of the infamous cyclist in Bucha - including a drone video that shows the very moment the person was killed, and the two armored personnel carriers that fired on him. Geolocated, with a date of before March 11. It is damning, it is bulletproof, and it's complete - because the Internet is forever, and archived. 

In what may be the biggest ironic twist of all, Russia's transition to kinetic warfare on this scale goes against the very doctrine that had them winning World War III - which I'll add again - started in 2012. The United States is very prepared for this type of warfare because defense spending didn't focus as much as it should on information warfare.

All of this is my random thoughts. I do not believe that increasing sanctions will have a material impact on Russia's will to continue to destroy Ukraine. On the contrary, much like Imperial Japan of the 1930s, I believe Russia could be pushed to a breaking point and expand its kinetic warfare in response to sanctions. Early in the war, they already stated they viewed international sanctions as acts of war.

I am not advocating for military engagement on Russian soil, that would be a catastrophe. I am no longer convinced of the "but nuclear weapons" argument against direct intervention in Ukraine. If that is the deterrent if that is all we have left as an excuse, then how would Russian troops in Poland, the Baltics, or Moldova be any different? Article 5?

But they have nuclear weapons. 

The Russian disinformation machine, which was the best military asset they had, is in complete disarray. The war misinformation is flailing, COVID disinformation has reduced to a trickle, there is little talk of election truthers, dangerous minorities overrunning the border, or other issues designed to tear at the fabric of North American society.

The trucker convoy in Canada raised almost $10 million - right up to February 24, when funding collapsed. The United States trucker convoy couldn't even raise $2 million and they didn't achieve one goal - that effort kicked off after the war in Ukraine started. Coincidence? I think not. Where disinformation in Canada was highly organized on social media right up to the Russian invasion, it splintered apart after the invasion. In the United States, the trucker convoy got far less social media attention.

Yes, kinetic warfare is limited to Ukraine and the edges of Russia today. But the directly involved parties include a growing list of nations on five continents. You can squint and say with mines drifting into Turkish and Romanian waters, and drones crashing in Poland and Croatia, the echoes of the kinetic war are already spreading outside of the region.

If the looming battle of Slovyansk goes as well as the battle of Kyiv, I believe a Russian response could include the termination of gas transmission to Western Europe. Especially if the scapegoat for the failure isn't their own abysmal military, but meddling NATO intervention in the form of aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.

Faced with a failure that would be impossible to cover up to their own people through disinformation, the only options left are economic, cyber, or kinetic. Shutting off natural gas would be catastrophic for the global economy. 

The Russian government has no intention of stopping in Ukraine - they've made that very clear. Vladimir Putin wants to restore the old Soviet empire and more. His justifications for invading Ukraine could be used to invade Alaska (not suggesting an Alaska invasion, just making the point).

We can make a stand in Kyiv today, leave Russian capability for kinetic warfare in ruins, with no ability to rebuild, and break the disinformation machine, or wait for continued escalation.

My final viewpoint, the biggest deterrent to NATO engagement in Ukraine isn't the fear of further escalation or nuclear detente, it's the looming United States midterm elections - which are swimming in the sea of the Primakov doctrine.