Deciphering the daily vomitus BS from Putin
Deciphering the daily vomitus BS from Putin
Rule # 1, don't bother
One of the headlines in today’s news, from a favorite source, the AP/ Associated Press reads: “Russian envoy says nuclear powers may clash over Ukraine.”
Russia today and the Soviets before them operated in influence via a strategy called, “Active Measures.” Russian methods now are generally applied via the so-called, “Gerasimov Doctrine.” There is little to no real difference outside of the digital tools now applied. These tools did succeed far more than expected during the 2016 elections here in the US and concurrently during the “Brexit” mess in the UK. They succeeded not because they were sophisticated and fluid but because they were mostly unopposed. In regard to US national security and protection from foreign influence campaigns, the US is still barely on the battlefield of influence and for this reason, mostly unarmed.
Putin and his henchmen are at their core, dishonest, manipulative and proudly immoral. Their public messaging and laughable foreign affairs statements are part of their system for influencing others to achieve their strategic goals. Fortunately, Russian influence efforts are clumsy, heavy-handed and more often than not, fear based. Truth rarely comes into play. In other words, Putin and pals threaten, in order to:
Undermine resistance.
Undermine the morale of the opposition.
To imply costs or resistance, outweigh the benefits of fighting Russia.
To build an unrealistic perspective of Russian competence in warfighting
To fracture alliances by putting fear into allied partners who could not resist Putinesque aggression on their own.
There are more reasons, but these should make my point.
As for all of these overt and implied threats since Feb 24th of 2021, Putin has failed to follow through on any of these threats against Ukraine, NATO and all of the other global support required, to sustain Ukraine’s heroic fight for their freedom. Putin most often, supports these threats in the war of influence, actually called, Narrative Warfare, via bullying with false threats.
Because Russia makes these threats regularly, it is of critical importance that American voters understand what these threats really mean. The bottom-line points to remember are:
Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, they are “fake threats.”
Our intelligence community keeps those charged with our security informed, should we believe that any of these public threats require more validation. To date, they have not.
The threat to American support for Ukraine is manifested mostly in right-wing media such as FOX, NEWSMAX, BRIETBART, Townhall, Gateway Pundit and elected officials, who repeat Putin’s propaganda.
Tucker Carlson of FOX regularly and overtly supports Putin propaganda for ratings and to enable Putin’s success against Ukraine. Yes, this is a bold statement but also, undeniably accurate.
Dropping or diminishing support for fellow freedom fighters like Ukraine also diminishes US national security.
Despite the amount of investment, we and our allies have offered to Ukraine, any honest expert will tell you that this investment is “pennies on the dollar” should we have to defeat Russia ourselves.
Defeating Russia is something we would have to do anyway after he was empowered by the last, un-American, subversive administration.
These fake news threats from Putin and henchmen are focused on building fear into audiences that are fully indoctrinated to support the far-right that has been supporting Putin in the Trump era. These audiences have also been conditioned to believe that we are ignoring our own nation by supporting Ukraine. This my friends, is utter BS, for those who can read and do so with credible sources.
What matters when we are tangentially at war is seeing it through to achieve its objectives. Supporting Ukraine is a key part of our national security. We’ve been under attack from Russia/ the Soviet Union for nearly a century. Putin’s Russia attacked our elections and put into power, an administration that supported Putin’s strategic objectives, far more than US objectives, discussed in our NSS, National Security Strategy. Ukraine is doing the fighting and dying, but they are also supporting NATO objectives, US objectives and the entire world’s stability and security objectives, by defeating Putin. They are doing this for, pennies-on-the-dollar, should we have had to do so ourselves.
Defeating Putin’s aggression also seriously hobbles Xi’s aggressive intentions for a variety of reasons discussed in-depth, in previous TAT articles. Yes, Ukraine’s victory pays dividends for the whole world, except for tyrants.
Summary
The bottom-line here is that as we watch Putin’s threats, we must remember that to date, they’ve been “fake news,” designed to frighten away support from Ukraine. The US and NATO, leading from the front, have done a remarkable job of pulling together and sustaining support for Ukraine’s needs. If we allow Putin, via influence operations against US and NATO citizens to frighten us from our moral duty, we also take a serious hit to US and European security.
Defeating Putin in Ukraine, as noted previously, also hobbles Xi’s worst instincts in Chinese aggression. Here at home, support for Ukraine is tragically, partisan, in some but not all respects. Far right influencers like Tucker Carlson and Hannity, skewer our US values on a near daily basis. This undermines our support for liberty. The new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy has often talked of reducing support and some of the worst of the MAGA crowd, called the “Freedom Caucus” want us to stop completely.
The America that I was raised in supports liberty. Americans, “rally to the sound of the guns,” when freedom is at stake. We cannot allow Putin or his propagandists like FOX and company to spread his divisive propaganda, especially his threats and lies about the war. I am making this statement boldy because we have suffered since 2015 under the very real threat that an administration that fawned over Putin and the Party that still amplifies Putinesque propaganda are hard at work. Their fake patriotism is our most significant threat. As bad as Putin is and how egregious his threats, Americans supporting him is worse.
The nation that I, my parents, uncles, son and other family members and innumerable brothers and sisters-in-arms served, doesn’t run from a fight for freedom from oppression. They embrace the hardship of doing what must be done and for the right reasons. Real American patriots do the same. The FOX, GOP and far-right MAGA horde spreading Putin’s fear via fake threats… need to do some soul-searching and then, go on a hunt for real American values.