Deza - How it really works.
This is a really good article by Micheal Weiss on the use of "Deza" (disinformation) by RIS throughout history. This matter has become quite important especially after the events of 2016. A great deal of the public understanding of these issues can be traced back to the writings of John Barron (NOT Trump's non-existent publicist).The basic narrative underpinning Deza is the same every time.
1) RU lies
2) Fools believe RU lies.
3) RU lives happily ever after.
Unfortunately that is not how it works IRL.
After RU lies - it pays to have the lie trafficked. That part costs money, and it is usually money RU does not have. So after step 2 in the ideal deza cycle, the "other side" lies back, this sparks an arms race in lies. To win this arms race - RIS must seek out cheaper ways of trafficking its lies than the other side. The RIS ways need to be a factor of ten or so cheaper because RU is very low on actual resources. If the race goes against the RU's favor, then the RIS will go into "Stalingrad" mode. In this mode - it cannot be said who wins - because even if the RIS "prevails", the cost of "victory" is staggering.
The article offers up the historical example of General Ivan Agayants of the FCD's D Department. This is a spymaster of considerable stature and one must see him in the context of the USSR's disastrous WWII experience. Gen. Agayants grew up in a world where even a morsel of bread was hard to come by. To him the real challenge was how to traffic Soviet lies without running up a huge bill. It is natural that he came up with the scheme Micheal describes.
In my opinion, the choices made by Gen. Agayants reflect the reality of these operations. It is difficult in such an operation to maintain control over the situation for long periods of time. It is akin to starting a fire in the forest, yes the dead wood will burn but I don't think it is possible to make a fire burn selectively. One can even say that there is a physics about these types of jobs, they have to operate withing a very narrow region - the intention of the initiator cannot be exposed, and the actors in this farce should not wander off script. While the exposure of the initiator is not always bad, most spymasters loathe operations that wander out of the zone of control. While the exposure of the originator can be passed off as "necessary" measures put in place by the spymaster to communicate their nation's point of view, the uncontrolled behavior of perceived assets suggest incompetence. No spymaster wants to be thought of as being incompetent.
I feel that when it was clear to Gen. Agayants that the deza campaign was not going to move the needle vis-a-vis German participation in NATO, his zeal for an operation like this would have dropped. As the likelihood of exposure became higher, his actions would have become tempered by the thoughts of a CIA led riposte and when latent anti-semitism began to independently drive the phenomenon, he would have decided to wash his hands off the whole thing. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be known as the Soviet spymaster who reincubated Nazism? - right after WWII? at a time when the USSR was already facing nuclear attack by the United States?... I confess I don't know the man, but I doubt Gen. Agayants craved for such accolades.
The article wisely points out that the internet has lowered the cost of trafficking lies for the RIS but one must remember it has lowered the barrier for counter-lying as well. I think here lies the key to resolving the current crisis.
Some useful links to educate yourself
2) The KGB Today - by John Barron
3) KGB - The Secret Hand - by John Barron
4) Russian Disinformation Technology - by John Pollock
posted by maverick @ 5:35 AM
21 Comments:
a major problem with russian disinformation is that they start believing their own lies. constant denigration of US military gear and weapons for example. that is very dangerous. another problem of their lies is constant accusing of US troops in plots and schemes in the ukraine and syria. the ukraines have turned it against them naming their units and military points and objectives after american units and place names....... grin
there have been a number of claims of US troops "captured" by russian and assad syrian units. uh, no photos as of yet.....grin.
they believe this crap though.
it works in their relationship with India too. claims of US pilots captured while flying small planes over India. except uh, putin had ask for India to release them because they were his personnel....not American! giggle.....
and truthfully India loves arresting Americans.
for instance a mercenary American owned ship was seized for trying to come into an Indian port armed with guns and hoping to buy fuel and provisions. All the Americans were arrested and thrown into prison. except none of them were American, all were eastern european.....but it was an American owned ship.
Russian propaganda rings with India. India loves it because it suits their narrative.
No one should believe their own propaganda.
With the RIS, my main concern stems from the way the KGB handled intelligence during Able Archer. The GS CPSU was convinced the US would launch a sudden strike and the KGB kept feeding his delusions.
I suppose one could say the same thing about Trump and his crowd of enablers, but at least the press in our country is being openly critical. Not that Trump is listening, but at least we can all die in the nuclear holocaust thinking we did the right thing.
Dear Ralphy,
I was thinking about your points yesterday and a few things occurred to me. Things like this have been on my mind after Trump's latest dump on Hannity about BMD reliability.
I think everyone is proud of their country's achievements but the intensity of this pride varies. It is one thing from random people who know nothing to believe their country makes the best stuff, but for people of power to have this sense is very dangerous as you point out. When the elites begin to believe this kind of thing, then we enter a frightening hubris.
The Russians are more like the Indians or Chinese in that respect - a larger fraction of the elite share an intense sense of pride in their national achievements.
The common thread in these countries is that they all started from a position of deep technological inferiority.
India and China were gravely injured by the colonial period. It was a major achievement to get to get even the smallest thing done.
The Russians were the frozen backyard of Europe and Asia. Having survived the brutal civil war of the Red revolution, Russia found itself drowning in Stalinist purges, after that came Hitler's armies and gas chambers, and then the war to prevent the nuclear annihilation at the hands of the US, then came the collapse of the USSR and the depression. It has just been one thing after another - no rest for anyone. There is a reason why they drink so much vodka - though you may argue that most of these wounds were self-inflicted and there is really no reason for self-abuse.
I think if I were to rank order these countries by level of per capita desperation at the highest levels of society I would say Russia comes first, China second and India is a distant third.
Being a tropical country with very agricultural productivity issues, India's first real shocks came during the Bengal Famines. It was these famines that raised the level of desperation among the most powerful castes and drove them towards independence from Britain. When the Partition came, that was the second shock. The overwhelming viewpoint in India (among all the stakeholders) is "that cannot happen again". But compared to what Russia and China endured - India's suffering was negligible.
I think we are seeing an example of this kind of dangerous hubris in Trump's recent statements about the reliability of US Ballistic Missile Defense. Common people on the street in the US like to believe that US technology is the best in the world, and it can easily defend them against external threats.
The first part of that is largely true - the US has outspent everyone on R&D in weapons. The second part is not so true. It is hard to convey to non-physicists that there are hard limits on things like the accuracy of missiles or tracking algorithms. There hard limits make the claim of "easily defending against external threats" hard to sustain.
I think it goes w/o saying that Russia and China can out swarm our missile defenses. here is what wiki has to say about it.....
(Most common, but now deprecated:) U.S. National Missile Defense, the limited ground-based nationwide antimissile system in development since the 1990s. In 2002 this system was renamed to Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), to differentiate it from other missile defense programs, such as space-based, sea-based, laser, robotic, or high-altitude intercept programs. As of 2006, this system is operational with limited capability. It is designed to intercept a small number of nuclear-armed ICBMs in the mid-course phase, using interceptor missiles launched from within the United States in Alaska. They use non-nuclear kinetic warheads......end of quote.
so this system is not meant for russia or china although they make a big deal out of it. the system is meant for countries like noko. and in my opinion noko serves as russia and china's cats paw.
noko is yet again threatening to send a missile near Guam.
Dear Ralphy,
The problem is with the phrase " It is designed to intercept a small number of nuclear-armed"
This pharse is completely misleading - "designed to" does not mean "achieves spec-ed levels of P-Kill under combat conditions"
There are simply no guarantees on the actual P-Kill under combat conditions. What has been evaluated is under test conditions only. We have no idea whether the system will work under combat stress.
So quite frankly Trump is talking through his rear end again.
This is all being done for solely political reasons, his standing among his base is declining per latest polls. Making tough sounding big talk is appealing to his base. The base as a whole does not seem to have grasped that Trump is completely full of crap yet. A few have reached that realization but they are too embarrassed to admit it. The preferred route is to block all the "political stuff" on Facebook but no admission that that they totally fucked up on this Trump dude.
Because of this shame, the opinion leaders in this demographic are not able to inform their subaltern groups and the population at large is ignorant of the reality. The ultimate realization will come too late.
The collapse of the "White Men" caste in the US is very reminiscent of the collapse of the Brahmin caste in India during the colonial period. The Brahmin's could not reach a viable compact with the British Indian government. The usual contract of loyalty in exchange for privilege was not actionable in a colonial setup where the British were keen to see themselves as the dominant race. Either way it played out the Brahmins lost status. To remedy this Brahmins went around stoking fires - a rebellion here, a revolt there, an economic crisis here, a governance crisis there... and so on. The fires eventually created the Indian Independence movement but that inferno proved uncontrollable. Between the creation of Pakistan (where Hindu Brahmins held no power) and India (where caste based reservations forced Brahmins to share power with others) - Hindu Brahmins effectively lost their status. Today most exist as shells of their former caste identifiers. A majority prefer not to bring the identifier up in polite conversation.
In the US - India's crisis of colonization has been replaced by the American crisis of excessive resource consumption. While the colonial logic was irrational, the physics of excessive resource consumption is fact based and rational. If you ask yourself the simple question of what is the average carbon footprint of a "White Man" - and compare that wiht the average for women or POC - you will see the mismatch I am speaking of. All those big pickup trucks create a lot of emissions.
It is not possible to change lifestyles rapidly. That means the retrograde trajectory of the "White Men" (self identifier) is irreversible. The older identifier will dissipate and be replaced with a different identifier that is much more empowering.
I think you are underestimating the effect of technology and the American pursuit of it.
Mav, you have brought up two things about which i had a lot of heated discussions with people few days ago. Loss of Brahmin status and nuclear war.
How genocidal have south Indian brahmins become in their thinking?
I mean not the young yahoos of hindutva but old retired ones from PSU's. They are advocating a nuclear exchange with pakistan so that India can de urbanise(which leads to kul kshayam as they put it) and kill all muslims in sub continent. They are utterly convined that hindus wont last for more than 30 yrs.
Add to it eugenics, importing russian/german sperms for baby making. If deep down they are utterly convinced they are 'degraded' aryans, how exactly do they expect to lead India out of this mess and stand up to anyone?
another angle to the russian agitprop:
once you're caught lying then nobody believes you no matter how emotionally satisfying the lie is.
thus it is with the russian use of fake news on US social media. they've poisoned a venue that they could have used to show the better side of russia. now, the social justice warriors, snow flakes, etc. hates their guts and wouldn't believe them if they said it's daylight at 12 noon.
however never doubt the propensity of stupidity in the human race. you can always lead them to where they want to go.
Dear Quantum Chaos,
You bring up a vital point. Brahmins are as prone to mood swings as the rest of the people.
In the past when everything was under tight civilian control, I was less concerned about the effects of toxic thinking. Whenever I interacted with the team, I got the definite sense that this sort of thinking had no quarter there. Dr. Sikka went on record in his interview to the press, stating that though he and his family had suffered during the partition, he bore no ill will towards anyone and that he did not wish for a nuclear holocaust. None of the leadership at the organization (to the best of my knowledge) ever expressed an interest in anything beyond the RC position of maintaining a visible deterrent. The core ideas put out in Weapons of Peace via DAE and DRDO sources are very clearly withing the RC-Kalam articulated vision of a "defensive capability" not a "genocidal intent".
On the Pakistani side too, this has been mirrored. The Kidwai clan speaks only of "weapons of last resort" and despite all the irresponsible nonsense on the internet, direct commentary by leading Islamist leaders inside Pakistan on nuclear weapons is completely absent. These people with their Ashraf bloodlines are the "Brahmins of Pakistan" in as much as they exist.
That said I fear there is another matter that bears some consideration.
In it's opening chapter "Document 19" written in the DAE spoke about a situation where India's population density would rise to levels where no known development paradigms were viable. As the DAE does not possess the domestic expertise to analyse such issues, I presume this wisdom was imported from long conversations with experts at NIAS. The DAE was merely using the point to make a case for expanding nuclear power generation - however I was intrigued by the core of the idea.
After considerable thinking I felt that the fact presented was undeniable, but this was just a sign that we would need to be inventive and seek new ways to ensure human survival. But to others this may have been a sign that population density has to be reduced below those levels if any level of political control is to be maintained.
For the longest time the internet was seen as the refuge of scoundrels and worthless idiots. It was to be ignored as real conversation was only had offline in private settings - a wedding, a religious ceremony, a pilgrimage, and so on. That no longer seems to be the case.
Now it seems to me that the blood thirst is growing and I am not sure who can control anything. Without a calming influence inside 7 RCR and a gang of idiots lighting fires across social media, I worry Brahmins (not just regional sub groups) as a whole are being pushed into legitimizing genocide.
Is this by design of some sub-group or merely the result of a misguided policy of repeatedly deflecting responsibility for past crimes? I cannot be certain. I confess there are some cults in India whose intentions I am quite suspicious off.
I sense that an awkward millenarism about "Kali Yuga" being brought to a close by divine forces is slowly drifting into view. The promise of mythology is that after such a closing event, the cycle will continue and new order will arise with all the garb of a "Satya Yuga". But people seem to forget that there is an entire "divine" night that follows the end of "Kali Yuga".
Dear Ralphy,
The technology already exists to fix this.
It has been used extensively in the Third World. Check out the work done by China in its "Green Wall" initiative. Check out the work done by true heroes like Yacouba Sawadogo in Burkina Faso who stopped the Sahara.
But will the "Great Whites" of the American Mid-West get off their couches and big screen TVs and spend their afternoons planting trees in the middle of the Arizona or New Mexico? Will the "Elites" of NYC/SF/LA - take their vacations in the Sahara and help turn it green? instead of living it up in air-conditioned cottages in the middle of the Pacific?
I doubt it.
The Americans of today seem incapable of such feats.
A few smart millenials and old hippies are slowly switching to alternative lifestyles which emphasize the core of the "tiny house" thinking. Smaller numbers are getting that their personal vehicle usage is unsustainable. Ever smaller numbers are comprehending the need to grow their own food locally so as to reduce the expenses associated with long distance transport of food.
A tiny fraction has grasped the power of solar panels. A vanishingly small fraction has grasped the need for earthships or net-zero living.
One in a hundred thousand people get that they could manage their own sewage better if they were to turn it into biogas locally.
Heck none of the pig farms in the country grasp that they are throwing money into the air by spraying pig excrement into the the sky. They could easily do what Chinese farmers on the Loess Plateau are doing and use the pig excrement as bio-gas and manure, but why the fuck would you do that? why would you do something those lower races have developed and made to work? right? cause we are so high and mighty.
Almost no one has realized that the four great deserts need to be brought back to life if we are to survive into the next century.
Tell me how we are not doomed by this hubris...
Mav,
This population density argument applies to Pakistan as well.No?Some paki types do claim the ownership of India on strentgh of being descendents of 'real' Pandavas.
As for millenarianism the ones I talked to echoed the view of Brihspati on BRF, i.e., doing a reset and cyclical view of life.Losing Indian cities, Romanticized rural life.
How hard has non authorship of modern world been on Brahmins as a whole? Sorry not being snarky Just that idea of dying in nuclear exchange because of somebodies inadequacies doesn't appeal to me.
Also these guys *were* talking depopulation, Not merely Muslims but 'cognitivly and physically challenged jatis' as well, as in we dont need so many service jatis in age of automation. except for peasantry in Punjab haryana(Jaat Saini Gujjar Ahirs Kambojas who form Indian army), thevars,marathas these guys dont intend to keep other "Hindus" as well.
Whats the scale of social engineering they are planning.?
Dear Quantum Chaos,
Yes it does. And those Mullahs are as brahminical as India's brahmins. There are people like this in every society even the US. They erect things like the Georgia Guidestones.
The core problem however is the same personal inadequacy or ability to think of sustainable development paradigms in a high population density space.
Depopulation is then offered up as the solution because they can't think of any other way to live at these levels of resource consumption.
I suspect the scale of this is global.
Dear Ralphy,
I was able to find the latest numbers from the American Biogas Council.
There are 2000 BG units in the US.
There are 2.1 M farms, 125 M homes and 5.6M office bldgs in the US.
This is pathetic. We are currently venting more Methane into the air while importing natural gas from Canada.
Our current estimated biogas production capability is 0.5 TCF and our net import of NG today is 0.7 TCF per year.
This is ridiculous.
Why are we wasting a resource like this.
not as cost effective that's why. a lot of infrastructure must be built to gather relatively small supplies compared to drilling into the earth and tapping massive quantities. it is true once the infrastructure built it is a sunk cost not repeated unlike drilling into the earth's crust but still a major capital expense to be reckoned with.
I think this view is not based on current information.
IMHO it reflects a intellectual and physical laziness to do what everyone acknowledges needs to be done.
This laziness is project as technically informed skepticism of whether this will work. The big complaints one hears are:
1) low plant loading factor (mostly due to inadequately trained personnel and poor GT maintenance. But why bother learning how Dutch and German farmers get 90% PLF when ignorance is instantaneous.)
2) price of carbon too low to sustain high ROI on resulting energy, feedstock and . (the price of carbon is low because KSA is trying to squelch competitors - where is the "nationalism" then - a black man kneels and it's about nationalism but when push comes to shove, people cover themselves in cheap Saudi oil. An oh yeah - vote for the dude who wants to depress Carbon prices even more and reduce renewable energy credits. That will work out fine.)
3) the capital costs are too high (really? that didn't stop the farmer from buying yet another shitty combine to keep up with the Joneses or that craptastic tractor that has way too much HP on the engine coz Bob-down-the-road offered him a "good deal" on APR or that Big Ass Truck that has the carbon footprint of a village of 10000 people in Bangladesh).
4) Biogas Huh? What?... (yeah dude, its called the internet - just look it up!)
I don't know how people can tell me with a straight face that things like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sINnoKBda8&t=25s or this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTJ4KFO50oc
are not a great idea that should take priority over buying other useless crap around the farm.
People build shit like this http://mcmansionhell.com/ and charge homebuyers $1000 for a tap, but don't put in one of these (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz9coiYiUvI)....
That's a culture problem boss.
No point dressing it up as technical mumbo jumbo.
And to top it off -on twitter these losers make fun of poor Africans who have found ways of living in harmony with their environment!
it'e not laziness if other methods are more cost effective.
Yeah sitting on ones ass watching a big screen TV from Rent-a-Center is real cost effective too.
"Yeah sitting on ones ass watching a big screen TV from Rent-a-Center is real cost effective too."
this statement illustrates how the Islamists come to despise the culture that they emmigrate to for refuge and economic betterment.
because if a well educated Hindu despises our culture, we have little chance with a billion Muslims.
I am just agreeing with Trump supporters who say that the US needs a kick in the ass!
There are people in the US who are doing the right thing. The rest of the country that is sitting on their rear needs to get up and give them a hand.
Take the *American* Biogas council for instance. They could use a big hand, even if you don't own a farm or can't set up a home biogas solution due to local building codes, at least give them publicity to your relatives who have the ability to do that. You will be doing a good deed - you would be saving your friends a bundle of money and you'd be ensuring that our methane emissions go down.
Then there are those *American* solar power companies. They are offering to put panels up on your roof on the basis of a lease. It is no money out of pocket - all you have to do is sign on the dotted line. The people who install the panels are American, some of these companies also make the panels in the US. People don't even have to get off your ass - they will actually come to your house and put the entire thing in front of you to sign. Just give them a call!
Did I mention the *American* companies putting up windmills? Again even if you don't have farm on which to put up the windmills, at least go ahead and give them a like or retweet or just bring them up in a conversation with some of your relatives that do have a farm. Here is a link to their website (https://www.awea.org/wind-energy-facts-at-a-glance)
The Purtians, the Settlers who moved out West, and Pioneers who went into Indian country - didn't sit their asses in front of a big screen TV. The Irish, the Chinese, the Blacks, that worked their fingers to the bone on the railroads, mines and farms didn't make this country great by sitting on their asses watching big-screen-TVs.
If they had - nothing would have gotten done.
Tell me about culture again.
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