Thank you, AG Garland and the US Justice Dept., for charging Russian influence operators.

At least, DOJ is doing their job! Where the hell is the ODNI, the Pentagon, and Homeland Security?

TAT readers,

I will try to be back on Friday with a new essay, but today’s announcement from AG Garland regarding Russian/ far-right influence operations against American citizens, demands some explaining. Now this is a topic that could hardly be more in my wheelhouse professionally. I have explained this repeatedly via previous essays which are linked at the bottom of this one. Much of my writing on this topic is as much intended for our failed national security influence professionals, as it is for our fellow citizens who have been in lay terms, “brainwashed.” In my profession, this is called losing at Narrative Warfare.

To be blunt, after the end of the Cold War, the US and NATO, largely ignored the profession of ethical influence in support of our NSS/ National Security Strategy. Yes, if you do the math, we’ve been consistently losing on the cognitive battlefield for nearly four decades… and losing very badly. My time in uniform gave me a very close look at just how poor our influence community is and insists on remaining.

They are using concepts that are at least, two generations behind our adversaries, with new made-up names in order to keep their lucrative and fraudulent contracts with the government, largely DoD. Nepotism is the key to defense contracting and those are precisely the same alleged experts that have failed us for these losing decades. Sure, we have the most powerful military on Earth, but we are utter failures at influence and that means that we can neither prevent conflicts nor have success during and after a conflict. Vietnam, the Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. are just the major failures.

As it pertains to the DOJ charges today, there is and has been for decades, complex approaches to undermining democracy by first the Soviets during the Cold War with Active Measures, and then by Russia using the same strategy with a new name today, the Gerasimov Doctrine. Their intent is social division in order to weaken democracy. It worked well for them in 2016 and has continued to work since, now that FOX news has conditioned the so-called “right” to believe that American values are God, guns and Trump. Project 2025 and the 2024 GOP Platform are actually the ideology of the MAGA/ Trump, GOP. As noted in the charging statement from DOJ, this is a well-funded effort by the Russian state working in conjunction, with right-wing media. This is the tip of the iceberg.

Russia is largely the core of the two decade-long wave, of global far-right ideology. The themes in Russia mirror those in the US, Europe, India, and the US, etc. These things don’t align for no reason, they align by design. White Christian Nationalism, gender issues, authoritarian governance etc. are universal far-right themes. If you see a culture war in the US, you can almost certainly find the same in Russia and the nations in their orbit such as China and Iran. The only differences are that in Iran and Russia’s other big friend, India, they replace the word Christian, with Shia and Hindu nationalism.

In the military we say that we are good at “killing people and breaking things” but where the hell are we in peace? Yes, it’s a rhetorical question. We are not even on the influence field of battle. When we do attempt to do something, it is and has been, with few exceptions, robust and awkward failures. It is true that in highly classified arenas, we are far better but that is not how to protect democracy abroad and build patriotic resilience at home. This is precisely why many of those charged today have had so much success in completely brainwashing, most of what remains of the GOP. Yes, there has been some impact on the other side of the aisle but nowhere close to the Trumpian/ MAGA/ Russian beliefs that underpin today’s GOP.

Since I have written in depth on all of this and more, I will post the links below to the most important of my writing regarding this topic. The reason I write on this topic is because I believe our inability to cognitively protect American voters from pervasive propaganda, is the single most dangerous threat to our constitutional republic, in my lifetime. Yes, this includes the Cold War.

If we cannot protect who we are, based on our actual, historical national values, then we lose our identity as a democracy. At this point, there is no hope. MAGA for example now believes that God, guns and Trump are our values and completely ignore our constitution. This nearly cost us our nation during the Trump/ Putin administration. In November, this threat again rears its ugly head. We must act now; to rebuild our national identity and the entire national security community has no clue and willfully refuses to learn.

For example, the new National Center for Narrative Intelligence, at Ole’ Miss, is a very expensive and fraudulent entity paid for with our tax dollars. In government terminology, this is called a “boondoggle.” They are fraudulent because they sold their bid by falsely claiming they can analyze narrative with technology. They don’t know a damn thing about Narrative, let alone, Narrative Warfare.

For four decades, global democracy has slid downhill precipitously. US citizens have lost their resilience to foreign and domestic influence operations. Without resilience built on our true national values and historical actions against fascist, communists, terrorists etc., we run the risk of losing another election to a fascist with a traitorous relationship with ours and NATO’s worst enemy. Not one thing of substance has emanated for my former community in that timeframe. It has cost us billions to buy failure.

I and only a tiny handful of true operators understand just how dangerous our decades of nepotistic fraud, have been to our national security. We are ignored. In fact, if you read anything I wrote from 2015 forward on this topic, you would have seen the same charges as AG Garland made today. I only know of two people within the national security community that understand and have operated with narrative successfully, outside of myself. There are also, a handful of mostly retired operators in influence from other parts of the community, that need to be heard as well. We all have documented successes, albeit highly classified. The rest of the community… not so much and this is being very kind to them.

This is the end of my mini rant. If so, much were not at stake this election, it would be different. Someone though must fix all that is broken, or we will simply experience the same and related threats again, the next election. I hope you will have a chance to read some of the background links.

A little of those essays include parts of my book, Modern Day Minutemen and Women, The Art of Influence: Narrative Strategy from the Athina Press. It is meant for university level, undergraduate and grad school pursuits in National Security but is helpful also, in educating voters as to just how vulnerable our national security community has left us. Both the “professors’ copies” and “student copies” are available now, via Barnes and Noble and for discounts, via the esteemed folks at the Athina Press. Due to the hardback or professor’s copy being especially nice, I highly recommend the student’s copy for casual readers, due to the expense being far less.

Thwe don’t get our national security and research community on the right track, our nation will remain at severe risk from foreign and domestic malign influence. In the case AG Garland announced today, it is a combination of both foreign, Russian in this case and domestic, far-right media, working together. To call this a double-edged sword, would be to severely discount the threats. We must fix this acute vulnerability…now! So long as the existing network of senior leaders, nepotistic contractors and alleged experts are in charge, I can confidently say that “we can’t get there from here.”

Background reading:

Without factoring "brainwashing" into the equation for 2024, we're doomed to another far-right, extremist administration, no matter what pollsters say. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• Without factoring "brainwashing" into the equation for 2024, we're doomed to another far-right, extremist administration, no matter what pollsters say. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• Conned, the conversion of the GOP conservatives into right-wing extremists (truthaboutthreats.com)

• GOP voters will support Trump... no matter what. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• J'Accuse our National Security community for influence, of putting our Republic, at significant risk. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• Arrogance, waste fraud and abuse and cronyism in national defense contracting, are putting our republic at severe risk. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• Combat ineffective, the rusted, broken hulk of US Influence Operations (truthaboutthreats.com)

  

  Combat ineffective, the rusted, broken-down hulk of US Influence Operations (truthaboutthreats.com)

• On the battlefield of influence, the US is unarmed (truthaboutthreats.com)

• The US National Security Community has left us a critical vulnerability in US national security. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• The US always fights the "last war," instead of the one we're in. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• The US National Security community is incapable of managing mis/ disinformation threats (truthaboutthreats.com)

• A Five Point Strategy to Oppose Russian Narrative Warfare (truthaboutthreats.com)

• We can't protect ourselves from mis/ disinformation, until we understand influence (truthaboutthreats.com)

I will try my best to find time for another short essay this week but can’t promise.

Cheers,

Paul