Stay Calm When the Unthinkable Happens
Dietmar Pichler helps us navigate Russian, and now, US, active measures, with his 4 W model
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“Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.”—Lesson 18, from Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny book.
The unthinkable is now arriving daily. The US is threatening neighboring democratic nations. As I wrote on Sunday, “How soon will the United States invade a genuine democracy, say, Costa Rica? One month? Two?
“In all of history, no democracy has ever made war on another democracy — but we should expect that soon.”
Today, an ICE agent murdered a 37-year-old woman in cold blood in Minneapolis. ICE has murdered before, but this time, it was caught on camera, in a city that’s being targeted with active measures in the form of racist propaganda — a city still wounded by the murder of George Floyd. A city, where paramilitary was dispatched to cause the very violent turmoil you now see.
We know the cruelty is the point, and we also know none of this is normal. We haven’t been normal since the ascent of Trump in the political arena, a Russian active measure to cause chaos.
Even organic, unstaged events will then be exploited by inorganic influence operations — disinformation gasoline poured on the fire.
I asked disinformation analyst from Vienna, Austria, Dietmar Pichler to help us navigate Russian intelligence operations, to help inoculate us from its effects and to be better predictors when we’re being manipulated. We can’t work from a place of constant sturm and panic.
As I have written many times, despair is the enemy of action.
Heidi: We are a decade into what I believe is a world war, and democracies are losing because its leaders won’t declare the war. Stephen Doughty, a Welsh Labour MP — Minister of State for the UK, Europe, and North America — recently testified on Russian disinformation that “this year, Russia alone plans to spend 30 million euros weekly on state propaganda.” We are talking about a weapon of mass destruction with little to no defense moves being made. How can we help my readers harden to these tactics?
Dietmar: The first thing we need to realize when we suspect we could face a Russian intelligence operation is that many of the suspicions that are usually part of the world of the “tinfoil hats” and seem paranoid from our Western perspective become realistic when we think about Russia. For instance, false flag operations. The Russians actually set up these kinds of staged events regularly. This includes even so called “crisis actors” that were, for instance, used during the covert invasion of Luhansk and Donetsk to demonize Ukraine. We need to understand that they have almost zero fear of reputation loss, because they can deny the whole act anyway. Additionally, the press and narrative within Russia are very much controlled, and independent media practically do not exist.
Something else we need to understand is that Russia can be proud of an active measure operation and deny it at the same time. This strategy comes into play when dissidents or oppositionists get poisoned, a clear warning and intimidation, but on the other hand it is denied for their target group, which denies everything Russia does on a regular basis and wants to create constant doubt about Russian crimes.
In general Russia wants to weaken our democratic resilience, split our society, divide and weaken us.
Any event that benefits this could possibly be supported or even initiated by Russia. Russian operations are not limited to the cyber world, and disinformation is not limited to social media.
Throwaway Agents
Russia recruits throwaway low-level agents to conduct small operations like sabotage or graffiti, but also so-called agents of influence, which are people who have influence in society and politics and serve as propaganda and lobbying tools.
The 4 W Model
Agents of influence can be identified by the 4 W model, developed by me:
What do they say
Who applauds and amplifies them
Which channels and events do they appear
Where does the money come from
Heidi: When you see a flyer on a signpost in a democratic nation announcing a political event, it could be anything — ‘down with imperialism’ or anti-western or even a peace rally — we know Russia runs both side of protests as they did in San Antonio, Texas, at a rally against/and for Muslim immigrants, and as they did in 2016, when they orchestrated both a pro/and anti-Trump rally, are their signs we can look for to see Russia’s invisible hand?
Dietmar: We need to distinguish between groups that are what we have called since the Cold War “useful idiots”, not being paid or directly benefiting but still serving the narrative, and real proxies connected to the Kremlin or other authoritarian regimes, which are supported, amplified, or financed. There are also non-existing fake movements that come directly from the KGB playbook. When we see such slogans, we cannot say for sure where they come from, but we do know who benefits from them, which should be a motivation to dig deeper.
Those who want to dig deeper can review the links below, and remember:
“Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist act comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book.
“Do not fall for it.”—Timothy Snyder, Lesson 18, On Tyranny
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Dietmar Pichler is a media literacy trainer and disinformation analyst from Vienna, Austria. He is Vice President of the Vienna-based NGO Vienna Goes Europe and the founder of the initiative Disinfo Resilience Network, which aims to connect experts from various fields to analyze, debunk, and expose disinformation and propaganda activities. The focus of his work is on foreign interference conducted by autocratic regimes, especially the Russian Federation.
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