REBOOT — ‘Reds Under the Bed’ - Russia’s War on Everybody

Rebooting RadPod’s interview with author Keir Giles about the Russian-state’s ‘mayhem for the sake of it’ and how they are heading toward World War III

***This report was originally published on January 11, 2023. Rebooting due to the urgency of ramped up assault by Russia on Ukraine. Please upgrade to a paid member to access full content.***

“The pattern unfortunately that seems to underlie a lot of the most enthusiastic Russian propagandists is that they have been dealing with severely damaged personalities and personal failure for most of their lives. In fact, the overlap between the number of Russian propagandists who also turn out to be convicted sex offenders is absolutely startling. There are some deep-seated fundamental personality flaws that actually predispose people to being available to be made use of by Russia. And if you look back at the KGB handbooks for recruiting agents of influence, agents of subversion, or indeed propagandists, then you can see very clearly that Russia understood the misfits make the good targets - the people with a grudge, the people who feel they've been treated unfairly by the world because they've been consistent failures, and therefore seek revenge. And the revenge coming through so strongly in some of the verbal attacks that you hear from the trolls, from the so-called independent journalists, the ones pushing the Russian propaganda lines, because the bile and the vitriol and the hatred that they pour out when they're talking about people who criticize Russia, it's extremely personal. And it's plainly tapping deeply into their own personality defects.”-Keir Giles on RADICALIZED Truth Survives podcast, January 10, 2023

In exactly 84 seconds, author Keir Giles explains to me, Jim, and HiFi on our first episode of the new year exactly who and what we are fighting - the misfits, the sex offenders, the failures, and those seeking revenge on the world. They are agents of Russia, and they are always at war.

You may recall my recent post The Kremlin School of Bloggers where I revisit my 2019 Warfighting thread, where I parse in bite-size pieces the Handbook of Russian Information Warfare.

It was in doing that work that I became friends with Keir Giles, a brilliant Russia analyst whose latest book, Russia’s War On Everybody offers an incredible summation of our global fight.

Toying with a Trotsky line, he writes: “You may not be interested in Russia, but Russia is interested in you.”

To help others understand that we all are affected by Russia’s endless war on everybody, what follows are key and condensed transcripts of our interview with Keir, so you have ammunition for the people in your life who do not understand that they, too, are victims of Russian-state aggression. (Those who are not yet paid subscribers to my Substack, can listen to the interview here. Paid subscribers have access to all content and will be invited to our next Bette Dangerous ‘Speakeasy’ zoom salon this Sunday.)