Finally proof that Russia is invading Ukraine!

[touchring]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

Absolutely......

The cost of demobilizing a formal military organization port conflict has some big bills attached(healthcare/retraining/pensions).

The cost of demobilizing irregular proxy forces(possibly from BOTH sides) can be even more expensive as they represent more than just a cost centre but the potential for political interference and competition post conflict.

That's why you see the leadership of demobilized irregular proxy forces so often bought out and politically neutered or integrated by negotiation into the post conflict power structure at a level commensurate with their leverage for those that have it.

We are talking about demobilization, but will it happen?

It appears to me that the war may escalate - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29198497

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

What's interesting is some of the behavior coming from Russia.

If Russia is a victim in this as some forum members would have us believe, it's hard to reconcile certain behaviors of theirs such as:

Violating Swedish air space(Non NATO):

http://www.thelocal.se/20140919/russ...cial-democrats

Violating Finnish air space(non NATO):

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...-airspace.html

Kidnapping a fairly senior Estonian intelligence officer IN Estonia(coinciding with high level visits):

http://www.npr.org/2014/09/14/348351...-nato-mischief

-----

As far as escalation goes, it's certainly possible, maybe even probable(in regional/global aggregate, beyond just Ukraine).

A whole bunch of factors:

1)US inability and/or unwillingness to project power to maintain status quo as voids are created with US retrenchment

2)The competition for power in those voids leading to conflict

3)A trend towards sovereign power decentralization based on arbitrary colonial and/or increasingly irrelevant boundaries.

4)Risk factors to external destabilization/undue influence such as: economic, political, ethnic, geographic, topographic, etc.

-----

It's probably worth conducting some area studies on "at risk states".

Take Switzerland, I'd consider it highly resilient to US retrenchment. Switzerland seems to have survived the attempt by the US/UK/others in recent years to throw it under the bus regarding banking secrecy to squeeze out the capital held in its banks.

Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia, each possess a number of vulnerabilities and a need for additional resiliency from undue external influence.

We just hit the 25th Anniversary of the Singing Revolution.

Flashmob internet enabled poison pill tactics might be able to mitigate attempts at a Russian corporate takeover, but I suspect more will have to be done.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia, each possess a number of vulnerabilities and a need for additional resiliency from undue external influence.

We just hit the 25th Anniversary of the Singing Revolution.

Flashmob internet enabled poison pill tactics might be able to mitigate attempts at a Russian corporate takeover, but I suspect more will have to be done.

Lithuanian fishing boat just captured by Russians:

http://en.delfi.lt/lithuania/economy....d?id=65894796

It could very well be fault on the part of the Lithuanians.

But there's certainly been a lot of coincidental active acts on the part of Russia lately that are failing to successfully portray Russia as the victim in this mess.

-----
Time for a Counterattack on the Kremlin

September 12, 2014
http://20committee.com/2014/09/12/ti...n-the-kremlin/

For every news article produced in the West, there is one counter-proposal and one hilarious conspiracy produced by Moscow, which slows the information process and decision-making for the Western public and thereby the political base.

On the other hand, there is a concealment strategy as well. By raising the bar to “prove” important facts, the Russians are masquerading in every detail. No patches, no paintings and heavy use by proxies, some of them intelligence officers from the Federal Security Service (FSB) or Military Intelligence (GRU) posing as separatists. These steps produce ambiguity, and therefore the established media has difficulty checking facts out, and instead has to be careful in the wording describing the Kremlin’s actions and policy.

Thus, as in guerrilla warfare, the opposition wins by not losing. By overwhelming the Western public information system in terms of both quantity and demands on quality, the Kremlin is producing a counter-narrative powerful enough to reduce Western responses.

The Russians have proven through modern history to be exceptionally good at this stuff.

Much like the West has been able to "sell a sh!t sandwich" to their own voting public, the Russians have a pretty good history of success in disrupting the western democratic voter base.

[touchring]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

The lost of the Ukrainian war is the first clear defeat for the banksters since WWII.

The banksters either overestimated their own strength, or underestimated the strength of their adversaries, including ISIS. This is a bad move which should have never been made and undermines the balance of power between the East and West.

[Woodsman]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

...Much like the West has been able to "sell a sh!t sandwich" to their own voting public, the Russians have a pretty good history of success in disrupting the western democratic voter base.

What history is that, Lake? Can you point to specific operations? What are the instances where Russians had success in disrupting western democratic voters?

I recall the strange tale of Oswald LeWinter and Jay Lovestone, but that was western intelligence agencies undermining western democratic institutions. I first came across the curious Mr. Lewinter in the Gladio documentary we discussed weeks back. And Lovestone was Angleton's spy in the American labor movement.

I recall operation CHAOS was intended to undermine western institutions of free speech and free association. I remember Project Resistance, which used college professors to spy on students opposing the Vietnam war. And of course everyone remembers COINTELPRO, where a mass political movement against racist apartheid laws was disrupted, its leaders and followers harassed, beaten and on occasion killed.

According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used four main methods during COINTELPRO:

Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.

Psychological warfare: The FBI and police used myriad "dirty tricks" to undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists. They used bad-jacketing to create suspicion about targeted activists, sometimes with lethal consequences.[44]

Legal harassment: The FBI and police abused the legal system to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, "investigative" interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters.[7]

Illegal force: The FBI conspired with local police departments to threaten dissidents; to conduct illegal break-ins in order to search dissident homes; and to commit vandalism, assaults, beatings and assassinations.[7][8][9][45] The object was to frighten or eliminate dissidents and disrupt their movements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO#Methods

I also recall the post-COINTELPRO operations against Greenpeace, The Merton Center, and the Christic Institute somewhat later. Then there's Mockingbird, leaving the distribution of shit sandwiches to favored "journalists" like Claire Sterling and undermining the work of independent historians like Alfred McCoy.

I just don't have a meaningful recollection of similar attempts by the Russians, but it seems we do a good enough job of our own. Maybe its one of those things where we can't talk about successes and so all everyone knows about are the failures?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

The Soviets expended massive resources to undermine the US, the West, and Western interests via disinformation and black propaganda.

Some examples include:

*Investing heavily in the US anti Vietnam War movement
*Investing heavily in the 1970's/1980's movement protesting NATO Pershing 2 and GLCM missiles.
*Paying for and/or planting articles and papers subversive to Western geopolitical objectives
*Myriad conspiracy theories relating to JFK assassination, J Edgar Hoover's sexual persuation, MLK assassination, etc.
*Probably the most relevant today is the story planted that the AIDS virus is a creation of the US/CIA that is causing 2nd order effects in West Africa today with the Ebola outbreak.

Others include:

*Disrupting relations between US/India by shaping Indian public opinion to think the US was calling for the Balkanization of India.
*Enhancing anti-Semitic posture via aggressive formation and direct support for ME terror groups.

This is supported by Soviet era defectors as well as the recovered KGB Mitrokhin Archives.

GRU defector Stanislov Lunev claimed that the GRU/KGB pretty much funded every group that they could funnel money to which opposed or undermined US/Western policy. With more funding going to these groups than the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.

During the 1980's the US took a far more aggressive stance on attempting to counter Soviet propaganda. The greatest lesson learned seems to have been that the truth is the most successful counter to disinformation. But failure to counter disinformation with the truth is a potentially very serious problem.

With the thawing of relations between the US and the Soviet Union in the late 80's, this centralized counter disinformation effort was shut down.

A fair bit of the Cold War effort by the Soviets appears to have had lasting effects on the West. A bit like a strategic low level dose of polonium in my opinion.

-----

As far as your post referencing COINTELPRO, I would say there was some absolutely logical reasoning behind the idea of countering Cold War era efforts by foreign powers to subvert and undermine the United States.

It's the execution that went terribly wrong.

In the US versus Soviet Cold War, the US effectively made the paradoxical decision of protecting its vulnerability(open and free society at high risk of subversion by the Soviets), by damaging the very thing that separates the "good guys" from the "bad guys".

There were some genuine reasons for the US to take an aggressive approach in clear-cut cases of Soviet subversion, but I think the vast majority of the effort was clearly counter productive. The 1980's efforts at responding with the truth seem to have been far more effective.

I think of "the truth" as like a light bulb. A light bulb that can bring light to the darkness of subversion.

But a light bulb that depends on a lens to focus the light.

A lens that can be optically perfect for a society/government with great credibility, or a lens that is opaque for a society/government lacking in credibility.

And I guess that's my position on Ukraine at the moment.

It would seem we have some forum members that seem to be leaning heavily(if not firmly in either camp) towards the US/West or Russia.

I reckon the US is less capable(and more importantly, less credible) to counter Russian disinformation and subversion.

I don't think I believe either side, and I find it hard to believe anyone who is adamantly supportive of either side in this. But I think I would be leaning just off centre away from Russia if I had to choose.

There's just way too much noise from both major players that have substantial experience in shaping US/western opinion.

[vt]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

Radicals on the left and right will defend every move of their wing. They will never criticize anything their "side" does. Of course this makes them easy to identify.

What is needed is a pragmatic, objective, and visionary center. This is what I hope we'll see soon with a New Majority Party that will supplant the right and left.

[don]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

What is needed is a pragmatic, objective, and visionary center.

priceless, vt

[vt]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

There is no master. It's the united voice of the people rejecting the left and right.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166763/re...ependents.aspx

The left especially has tried to shout down or denigrate those that dissent from their dogma. Their day ended in 1989 in Eastern Europe. The Democrats and Republicans will also be replaced.

[Woodsman]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

Lake, first let me express my sincere gratitude at your willingness to engage here. It's a real treat for me to get your perspective and I can say with honesty that I count you among the leading stars of the iTulip frequent posters. Of course in this instance we largely disagree.

The Soviets expended massive resources to undermine the US, the West, and Western interests via disinformation and black propaganda.

Some examples include:

*Investing heavily in the US anti Vietnam War movement
*Investing heavily in the 1970's/1980's movement protesting NATO Pershing 2 and GLCM missiles.
*Paying for and/or planting articles and papers subversive to Western geopolitical objectives
*Myriad conspiracy theories relating to JFK assassination, J Edgar Hoover's sexual persuation, MLK assassination, etc.
*Probably the most relevant today is the story planted that the AIDS virus is a creation of the US/CIA that is causing 2nd order effects in West Africa today with the Ebola outbreak.

What you outline here is the standard right wing line used throughout the Cold War. It is itself black propaganda and disinformation and the wiki article you source does a good enough job of making that case. It makes references to the counter claims of people like Mark Lane who have suffered personal loss because of these lies. Such baseless accusations have been the foundation of a decades long slander against Americans (and everyone else, generally) who opposed the VietNam War and who sought a less bellicose approach toward the Sovs. To those who believe it or merely spread it around, these people are either dupes or traitors.

The approach has its roots in WWI under the Creel Committee and the subsequent work of Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and a young, ambitious John Edgar Hoover. Together they used the criminal acts of a tiny element of violent radicals to gin up mass fear and hysteria of an imminent Bolshevik revolution in America. Hoover reprised it during the Cold War and except for a brief holding action in the early 70s, it has remained more or less policy ever since. From the HUAC "communist peace offensive" hearings in the 50s to Johnson, Nixon and Reagan's obsession about Sovs in the antiwar/antinuke movement, the right wing seized on this slander and never gave it up despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Richard Helms, of all people, complained how Johnson would hound him endlessly for evidence to undermine the loyalty and patriotism of the antiwar movement. It existed largely in the paranoid imaginations of right wing fantasists and unhinged anticommunists, and all to the lasting benefit of cold-blooded Machiavellians dominating the commanding heights of the internal security and counterintelligence professions:

As Richard Helms, Director of Central Intelligence, stated in his November 15, 1967 cover letter to President Lyndon Johnson, "we found little or no information on the financing of the principal peace movement groups," "we could find no evidence of any contact between the most prominent peace movement leaders and foreign embassies, either in the U.S. or abroad," and "there is little information available about radical peace movement groups on U.S. college campuses" ... "Diversity is the most, striking single characteristic of the peace movement at home and abroad. Indeed it is this very diversity which makes it impossible to attach specific political or ideological labels to any significant section of the movement. Diversity means that there is no single focus in the movement."

Far from being useful idiots or traitors, the antiwar movement was a wide and varied coalition of people who simply wanted to end an illegal, immoral and illegitimate war that was sold to them under false pretenses. Unable to find evidence that fit into the simple moral narratives they crave, the Machiavellians invented one and it persists to this day. More from the Helms paper:

"Under the peace umbrella one finds pacifists and fighter[s], idealists and materialists , internationalists and isolationists, democrats and totalitarians, conservatives and revolutionaries, capitalists and socialists, patriots and subversives, lawyers and anarchists, Stalinists and Trotskyites, Muscovites and Pekingese, racists and universalists, zealots and nonbelievers , puritans and hippies, do-gooders and evildoers, nonviolent and very violent. One thing brings them all together: their opposition to US actions in Vietnam."

You offer as evidence the testimony of defectors and the Mitrokhin archives but the information proffered by Soviet defectors such as Stanislov Lunev is not subject to independent scrutiny and so must be taken on trust and with a mountain of salt. And far from being "recovered", it should be made clear that these so-called archives are not original files, photocopies or primary documents purloined by brave agents and hidden in microdots, but rather a series of hand written notes alleged to have been taken over the course of a 30 year effort by someone said to be a KGB archivist who volunteered them to the British. Now these may be genuine and factual, may be genuine but contain significant errors or fabrications, may be part of a Soviet disinformation campaign, or they may be a disinformation effort by MI6. No one can say for sure except for the FSB or MI6 and both expect us to take them at their word.

Colonel Lunev, respectfully, would do and say anything his hosts demanded of him given his delicate situation. Since there's little independent confirmation of some of his more fantastical claims, we're going to have to disagree on the value of his testimony. Frankly, I'd be more open to considering it were not the good Colonel a darling of the far right wing. His every word is published under the banner of the Regnery publishing empire. Regnery is a crown jewel of the right wing disinformation machine now run by Salem Communications and is also the source of other chestnuts such as crack pipes on the White House Christmas tree and lesbian affairs in the White House basement. Hardly known for their commitment to objective scholarship, Regnery's specialty is one off red meat books delivered for uncritical consumption by credulous folks whose other concerns include Obama's secret Muslim past, the circumstances of his birth, and his dedication to socialism.

Lunev also aligned himself with Chris Ruddy's Newsmax outfit, another key element of the right wing disinformation machine. Curiously, Newsmax was founded by Ruddy with seed money from William Casey himself and the Newsmax advisory board is a who's who of right wing politico military intelligence types. Recall that it was Ruddy who made his bones peddling breathless articles about the "murder" of Vincent Foster and the "assassination" of Ron Brown. Finding useful information about Lunev beyond his ghostwritten books and articles is difficult as he remains under the watchful eyes of his sponsors even after all these years. Given the events of the day, I'm surprised the Colonel isn't experiencing a second wind. Surely a slot on the Fox News "analyst" bench awaits him if he's at all presentable.

As for the Mitrokhin papers, these have become part of the anticommunist dogma. The right wing looks to the Mitrokhin cache as a sort of anticommunist synoptic Gospels, with the Major as Matthew scribbling away revelations to be delivered unto the faithful. And such is their faith that questions as to how a KGB major could for years avoid the watchful eye of KGB/GRU counterintelligence or how professional standards for safeguarding information at this alleged KGB archive could be so lax as to permit it are tantamount to blasphemy.

I accept when you say "I don't think I believe either side, and I find it hard to believe anyone who is adamantly supportive of either side in this" and so would expect you to at least consider the possibility that the Mitrokhin materials are part of an elaborate KGB deception operation. Or that perhaps the source is MI6 itself and that they ran Mitrokhin as a operation against the Sovs. But you don't do that and seem to accept these claims as verified fact which they are most certainly not. I've been trained in Historiography and these items would be noted with a large degree of skepticism should any grad student attempt to use them as a sole and authoritative source. Yet everything we know about Mitrokhin's materials comes from MI6 and the court historian who works for it. It's depressing that the the burden of proof demanded of a graduate paper is more strenuous than that employed to make policy upsetting the lives and institutions of the country and the world.

During the 1980's the US took a far more aggressive stance on attempting to counter Soviet propaganda. The greatest lesson learned seems to have been that the truth is the most successful counter to disinformation. But failure to counter disinformation with the truth is a potentially very serious problem. With the thawing of relations between the US and the Soviet Union in the late 80's, this centralized counter disinformation effort was shut down. A fair bit of the Cold War effort by the Soviets appears to have had lasting effects on the West. A bit like a strategic low level dose of polonium in my opinion.

We agree that someone's been drinking vile poison for decades but disagree on who it is.

As far as your post referencing COINTELPRO, I would say there was some absolutely logical reasoning behind the idea of countering Cold War era efforts by foreign powers to subvert and undermine the United States. It's the execution that went terribly wrong. In the US versus Soviet Cold War, the US effectively made the paradoxical decision of protecting its vulnerability(open and free society at high risk of subversion by the Soviets), by damaging the very thing that separates the "good guys" from the "bad guys".

So we destroyed the village in order to save it. Yes, it's quite a dilemma but does anyone ever wonder why we seem to run into it so often?

Yet as the good offices of Mr. Helms informed President Johnson, there was nothing substantial to it. Efforts by foreign powers to subvert and undermine the United States is one thing and I have every confidence our professionals do an adequate job of protecting against penetration and disclosure. But's not what we're talking about here. The record of history leads us now to the conclusion that the most dangerous and effective agents of subversion against American values and institutions were men like Hoover who made and implemented the policy. This limited hangout characterizing COINTELPRO as a necessary, well meaning, but ultimately misguided effort to protect us from communist subversion has been worn threadbare over the decades and is by now completely transparent. We've had years of revelations and documentation but it seems nothing is enough for some to understand that like the Palmer Raids and Red Scare that preceded it, COINTELPRO's purpose was political control and repression of troublesome minorities. It was about squelching the legitimate demands of American citizens to bring about an end to a senseless war.

The Church Committee report made it plain:

While the declared purposes of these programs were to protect the "national security" or prevent violence, Bureau witnesses admit that many of the targets were nonviolent and most had no connections with a foreign power. Indeed, nonviolent organizations and individuals were targeted because the Bureau believed they represented a "potential" for violence—and nonviolent citizens who were against the war in Vietnam were targeted because they gave "aid and comfort" to violent demonstrators by lending respectability to their cause.

The imprecision of the targeting is demonstrated by the inability of the Bureau to define the subjects of the programs. The Black Nationalist program, according to its supervisor, included "a great number of organizations that you might not today characterize as black nationalist but which were in fact primarily black." Thus, the nonviolent Southern Christian Leadership Conference was labeled as a Black Nationalist-"Hate Group."

As for "the 1980's efforts at responding with the truth," well Lake I've must say that you came within a hair's breadth of owing me a new keyboard as I nearly spit out my coffee in laughter at this quip. You strike me as a serious man and it seems quite unserious of you to equate the "public diplomacy" efforts of Reagan and Casey as anything close to what you and I might consider "truth." There's a quote attributed to that world-renown teller of truth, William J. Casey that's particularly relevant to our conversation:

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."

What I find most interesting about this dubious quotation is not that it might be factual. It very likely is not, but nevertheless it is brimming with truth about Casey and Reagan's policies and the perils of disinformation in a democracy, generally. This is especially true when considered in light of the curious tale of Wild Bill Casey and "The Terror Networks."

This 1981 book by the aforementioned Claire Sterling, a "friendly" journalist (read: asset), argued that the USSR was using terrorists as a proxy force against the west. Director Casey reportedly was so enthralled by Sterling's thesis he commissioned a special National Intelligence Estimate to detail Soviet support for terrorism. As it turned out the claims in book were themselves black propaganda created by CIA and then offered knowingly or innocently to the public by Sterling. The light bulb of truth during the Casey/Reagan era seems about as dim as those who ran the place. Once Casey was gently informed that the tale was a fabrication by Agency propaganda specialists, he refused to believe it! He went so far as creating a further analysis to drive the point home and ultimately convinced Reagan the threat was real. Once the Berlin Wall collapsed, files recovered from the Stasi shredders made it plain that the claims in Sterling's book and the estimates ginned up by Casey were false.

Not that any of it seems to matter. It's still a respectable opinion on the right to believe the collapse of the Soviet Union was itself a deception operation by the KGB and there are defectors on hand to serve as a source for such claims. National Review as late as 2004 was still reporting the Sterling/Casey canard as fact in response to Adam Curtis' excellent documentary, The Power of Nightmares.

Such was the effort at responding with the truth, but so it goes.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

There is no master. It's the united voice of the people rejecting the left and right.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166763/re...ependents.aspx

The left especially has tried to shout down or denigrate those that dissent from their dogma. Their day ended in 1989 in Eastern Europe. The Democrats and Republicans will also be replaced.

I would agree mostly.....

Although the problem ending in Eastern Europe in 1989 I wouldn't completely agree with.

I'd consider that successful in some places and an unfortunate temporary pause in others.

Since the underlying purpose of the thread relates to propaganda/messaging, should the question be:

How does propaganda/messaging mimic identification with the left, right, and independant(centre)?

Or does it?

If it were possible, I'd like to see an overlay of partisan propaganda/messaging and how it may(or may not) relate to trends in political spectrum identification.

Marketing/Advertising/Propaganda all work, otherwise all that money wouldn't be spent unless there was some return on investment(high or low return is what's debatable I reckon).

And while I'd like to think I am somewhat immune from some recognized forms of marketing/advertising/propaganda I try remind myself not to get arrogant about it, because I think the old adage of "if you don't know who the sucker in the room is, it's you" applies here as well.

But I wonder if like marketer/advertisers have had to evolve/adapt in their strategies, techniques, and tools.....then the same rules would apply to propagandists.

Are we possibly at a major inflection point where current conventional propaganda is losing it's effectiveness in certain markets/demographics?

When I think of the propaganda in the Ukraine, it feels like a DOS(denial of service) attack on perceptions.

More of a disruption/denial of finding the truth, than an attempt at shaping a version of the truth.

Which to me, is a cruder and less elegant/sophisticated form of propaganda in trying to deny the truth.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

Lake, first let me express my sincere gratitude at your willingness to engage here. It's a real treat for me to get your perspective and I can say with honesty that I count you among the leading stars of the iTulip frequent posters. Of course in this instance we largely disagree.

Right back at ya.

I'm a bit pushed for time over the next few days bar bits and pieces.

A couple quick points:

I am well aware the US is no innocent in post WWII foreign policy.

But whereas you may believe I'm leaning far too much towards a US-centric narrative, it's worth having a look at this thread to see what narrative the majority of folks here seem to be supporting.

Some balance is often needed.

Something I've been going over recently is an understanding of Russia's recently introduced New Generation Warfare(which is simply a modification of old school Soviet holistic approach to subversion, disinformation, political warfare, and special operations to adapt to new media and dramatically reduced value of conventional military forces due to post Cold War drawdown).

Maybe you might deem these sources to be less US biased:

http://www.naa.mil.lv/~/media/NAA/AZ...2002-2014.ashx

http://www.eastviewpress.com/Files/M..._No.4_2013.pdf

Russian developed(and implemented) special warfare doctrine.

Special notice to highlights:

The phases of new-generation war can be schematized as (Tchekinov & Bogdanov,
2013, pp. 15-22):


First Phase: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup).


Second Phase: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated
measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies by leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions.

Third Phase: intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers, with the
objective of making them abandon their service duties.


Fourth Phase: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population,
boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion.


Fifth Phase: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of
blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed
opposition units.


Sixth Phase: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions. All types, forms, methods, and forces, including special
operations forces, space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic, and secret service
intelligence, and industrial espionage.


Seventh Phase: combination of targeted information operation, electronic warfare operation, aerospace operation, continuous airforce harassment, combined with the use of highprecision weapons launched from various platforms (long-range artillery, and weapons based
on new physical principles, including microwaves, radiation, non-lethal biological weapons).


Eighth Phase: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy
units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units
have survived and transmit their coordinates to the attacker's missile and artillery units; fire
barrages to annihilate the defender's resisting army units by effective advanced weapons; airdrop operations to surround points of resistance; and territory mopping-up operations by
ground troops.

-----

This is the Russian developed doctrine. And it has been executed with great success, currently sitting around Phase 6-7.

It would be pretty tough to call Russian created doctrine currently being executed by Russia as a disinformation campaign.

I'm not trying to paint the Russians as "THE bad guy", but there seems to be an excessive focus on US behavior in all of this.

For those who see Ukraine as the US somehow getting it's comeuppance from Russia, it's worth noting that there's a fair bit of evidence to suggest the Russians were conducting operations to influence regional neighbours well before the fall of the Ukrainian government.

Which brings into legitimate question the motives and justification of Russia in some respects.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

Last one...gotta run.

Here's a decent Vice article that's easy to digest which references the Russian NGW doctrine paper by the Latvians:

https://news.vice.com/article/russia...di-mind-tricks

And here's another Vice article that brings raises the reasonable questions about self-determination(internal and externally provoked), destabilization, and legitimate use of force/intervention becoming nebulous/opaque:

https://news.vice.com/article/fifth-...lution-rainbow

Although I'm still waiting on a SINGLE article by someone who has the stones to say "I really don't understand what's happening in the Ukraine, but I'm trying."

Because I bet the vast majority of folks have neither the appropriate unbiased perspective, nor the discretionary time to invest in pursuing a reasonably accurate version of the truth.

Closing thought:

Maybe if any of the numerous sides in Ukraine were telling the truth from a position of credibility we could hear it?

Until then, we seem to be getting a poor signal to noise ratio combined with intentional jamming.

[sutro]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

Right back at ya.

I'm a bit pushed for time over the next few days bar bits and pieces.

A couple quick points:

I am well aware the US is no innocent in post WWII foreign policy.

But whereas you may believe I'm leaning far too much towards a US-centric narrative, it's worth having a look at this thread to see what narrative the majority of folks here seem to be supporting.

Some balance is often needed.

Something I've been going over recently is an understanding of Russia's recently introduced New Generation Warfare(which is simply a modification of old school Soviet holistic approach to subversion, disinformation, political warfare, and special operations to adapt to new media and dramatically reduced value of conventional military forces due to post Cold War drawdown).

Maybe you might deem these sources to be less US biased:

http://www.naa.mil.lv/~/media/NAA/AZ...2002-2014.ashx

http://www.eastviewpress.com/Files/M..._No.4_2013.pdf

Russian developed(and implemented) special warfare doctrine.

Special notice to highlights:

The phases of new-generation war can be schematized as (Tchekinov & Bogdanov,
2013, pp. 15-22):


First Phase: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup).


Second Phase: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated
measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies by leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions.

Third Phase: intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers, with the
objective of making them abandon their service duties.


Fourth Phase: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population,
boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion.


Fifth Phase: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of
blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed
opposition units.


Sixth Phase: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions. All types, forms, methods, and forces, including special
operations forces, space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic, and secret service
intelligence, and industrial espionage.


Seventh Phase: combination of targeted information operation, electronic warfare operation, aerospace operation, continuous airforce harassment, combined with the use of highprecision weapons launched from various platforms (long-range artillery, and weapons based
on new physical principles, including microwaves, radiation, non-lethal biological weapons).


Eighth Phase: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy
units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units
have survived and transmit their coordinates to the attacker's missile and artillery units; fire
barrages to annihilate the defender's resisting army units by effective advanced weapons; airdrop operations to surround points of resistance; and territory mopping-up operations by
ground troops.

-----

This is the Russian developed doctrine. And it has been executed with great success, currently sitting around Phase 6-7.

It would be pretty tough to call Russian created doctrine currently being executed by Russia as a disinformation campaign.

I'm not trying to paint the Russians as "THE bad guy", but there seems to be an excessive focus on US behavior in all of this.

For those who see Ukraine as the US somehow getting it's comeuppance from Russia, it's worth noting that there's a fair bit of evidence to suggest the Russians were conducting operations to influence regional neighbours well before the fall of the Ukrainian government.

Which brings into legitimate question the motives and justification of Russia in some respects.

Didn't the US try to do any of this in Iraq?

[gwynedd1]

Re: Ukraine's economic Quagmire

Right back at ya.

I'm a bit pushed for time over the next few days bar bits and pieces.

A couple quick points:

I am well aware the US is no innocent in post WWII foreign policy.

But whereas you may believe I'm leaning far too much towards a US-centric narrative, it's worth having a look at this thread to see what narrative the majority of folks here seem to be supporting.

Some balance is often needed.

Something I've been going over recently is an understanding of Russia's recently introduced New Generation Warfare(which is simply a modification of old school Soviet holistic approach to subversion, disinformation, political warfare, and special operations to adapt to new media and dramatically reduced value of conventional military forces due to post Cold War drawdown).

Maybe you might deem these sources to be less US biased:

http://www.naa.mil.lv/~/media/NAA/AZ...2002-2014.ashx

http://www.eastviewpress.com/Files/M..._No.4_2013.pdf

Russian developed(and implemented) special warfare doctrine.

Special notice to highlights:

The phases of new-generation war can be schematized as (Tchekinov & Bogdanov,
2013, pp. 15-22):


First Phase: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup).


Second Phase: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated
measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies by leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions.

Third Phase: intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers, with the
objective of making them abandon their service duties.


Fourth Phase: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population,
boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion.


Fifth Phase: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of
blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed
opposition units.


Sixth Phase: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions. All types, forms, methods, and forces, including special
operations forces, space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic, and secret service
intelligence, and industrial espionage.


Seventh Phase: combination of targeted information operation, electronic warfare operation, aerospace operation, continuous airforce harassment, combined with the use of highprecision weapons launched from various platforms (long-range artillery, and weapons based
on new physical principles, including microwaves, radiation, non-lethal biological weapons).


Eighth Phase: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy
units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units
have survived and transmit their coordinates to the attacker's missile and artillery units; fire
barrages to annihilate the defender's resisting army units by effective advanced weapons; airdrop operations to surround points of resistance; and territory mopping-up operations by
ground troops.

-----

Oh brother. Here we go again. Russia is caught hitting with the hockey stick and sits in the penalty box.

‘Divide et Impera’ was attributed as far back as Philip of Macedon.


Is that not the same doctrine followed in Iraq by the US? Tell me how it deviated?

This is the Russian developed doctrine. And it has been executed with great success, currently sitting around Phase 6-7.

Each country cuts grass to mow lawn.

It would be pretty tough to call Russian created doctrine currently being executed by Russia as a disinformation campaign.

It would be pretty tough to call it uniquely Russian doctrine.

I'm not trying to paint the Russians as "THE bad guy", but there seems to be an excessive focus on US behavior in all of this.

Like someone with a bucket of paint not trying to paint anything blue. You are trying to paint Russia as the bad guy, and one of the problems I have with American politics is this tendency to say its raining wizz. I am defending post Soviet Russia as excessively demonized, and I am not pretending I am not. I don't give it much credit for its moral stance, just its weakness. One reason is Russians are often rather nice, often too nice so it makes it easy for despotic government. That bad reputation of the French is the same force that makes their government fear them.

For those who see Ukraine as the US somehow getting it's comeuppance from Russia, it's worth noting that there's a fair bit of evidence to suggest the Russians were conducting operations to influence regional neighbours well before the fall of the Ukrainian government.

Which brings into legitimate question the motives and justification of Russia in some respects.

The motivation is the right to exist IMHO.

Russia never pretended to be the world's saviors. The Soviet empire did and not caring how it got there practically destroyed the world. And when Russia was keeping Ukraine in its orbit it managed to do it without ripping apart Ukraine. The US puppets recklessly used heavy weapons, and you can even see those loyal to Kiev wondering why they used grad rockets to remove "terrorists" which is like using a daisy cutter in a hostage crisis. Russians are the grim survivors of the vast Eurasian continent virtually full of banditry to their south. You are talking about Mongols, Tartars and Turks. In the US smallpox did us that favor, and when it didn't, the US version of Stalin is on our $20.


http://www.history.com/topics/native...trail-of-tears

At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears

Where did Stalin get his inspiration? Sort of blends right into to Soviet ethnic relocation doesn't it? And we will not even get into the fact that for 20 years it was the Russian civilization that was the main targets of Soviet wrath which was the realization of fears of the Russian empire. Stalin just figured out it was the Russians that were easiest to rule and reclaimed the tarnished image of the Great Russian from his early indigenization policy.

Thesis for the Twelfth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks),
Approved by the Central Committee of the Party

March 24, 1923

Great-Russian chauvinist spirit, which is becoming stronger and stronger owing to the N.E.P. In practice they find expression in an arrogantly disdainful and heartlessly bureaucratic attitude on the part of Russian Soviet officials towards the needs and requirements of the national republics. The multi-national Soviet state can become really durable, and the co-operation of the peoples within it really fraternal, only if these survivals are vigorously and irrevocably eradicated from the practice of our state institutions. Hence, the first immediate task of our Party is vigorously to combat the survivals of Great-Russian chauvinism.

Funny too how the seeds of post "Russian aggression" is a vast over simplification.

This heritage consists, lastly, in the survivals of nationalism among a number of nations which have borne the heavy yoke of national oppression and have not yet managed to rid their minds of old national grievances. These survivals find practical expression in a certain national aloofness and the absence of full confidence of the formerly oppressed peoples in measures proceeding from the Russians. However, in some of the republics which consist of several nationalities, this defensive nationalism often becomes converted into aggressive nationalism, into blatant chauvinism on the part of a strong nationality directed against the weak nationalities of these republics. Georgian chauvinism (in Georgia) directed against the Armenians, Ossetians, Ajarians and Abkhazians; Azerbaijanian chauvinism (in Azerbaijan) directed against the Armenians; Uzbek chauvinism (in Bukhara and Khorezm) directed against the Turkme-nians and Kirghiz—all these forms of chauvinism, which, moreover, are fostered by the conditions of the N.E.P. and by competition, are a grave evil which threatens to convert some of the national republics into arenas of squabbling and bickering. Needless to say, all these phenomena hinder the actual union of the peoples into a single union state. In so far as the survivals of nationalism are a distinctive form of defence against Great-Russian chauvinism, the surest means of overcoming them lies in a vigorous struggle against Great-Russian chauvinism. In so far, however, as these survivals become converted into local chauvinism directed against the weak national groups in individual republics, it is the duty of Party members to wage a direct struggle against these survivals. Thus, the third immediate task of our Party is to combat nationalist survivals and, primarily, the chauvinist forms of these survivals.

Looks to me Georgia is the historical bully anytime its free to do so like in 2008. The Soviet empire, just like the Russians today are as much as a stabilizing force just as much as the "evil white majority" in the United States which is ironically along the same path. I could just see a fragmented and divided US nostalgic for a dominant majority.




The average American needs their combination of arrogance and ignorance ruthlessly pounded into submission. We are not too bright because we never look past 5 minutes ago. We are not spreading hope and change. We are using propaganda. We are destabilizing. We are spying on friend and foe. We are spying on ourselves. Disease and a lack of TV have done a good deal to spare our image before then.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/op...nger.html?_r=0

IN 1954, the American government committed one of the most reprehensible acts in its history when it authorized the C.I.A. to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Guatemala, President Jacobo Arbenz. It did so secretly but later rationalized the coup on the ground that the country was about to fall into communist hands.
Guatemalan society has only recently recovered from the suffering that this intervention caused, including brutal military dictatorships and a genocidal civil war against its Indian population, which led to the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people. Only in the 1980s, when a peace process commenced, did democratic governance resume. But a silence about the Arbenz era continued.

200,000 people? Can you give me an oops?

If Russia loses control of its buffer zones they have Tartars to recall. They have Polish occupations of Moscow. They have Napoleon. They have Nazi Germany. What's our excuse especially for being so called saviors of the world?