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Comment by exceptione

14 days ago

Not quite. Be careful, Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives. Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.

NATO and Europe did quite a lot to normalize relations with Russia. Russia was invited and became participant of the NATO program Partnership For Peace [0].

   The program contains 6 areas of cooperation, which aims to build relationships with partners through military-to-military cooperation on training, exercises, disaster planning and response, science and environmental issues, professionalization, policy planning, and relations with civilian government

Very nice, but the secret services that took over the empire did and does not fancy a rule-based, harmonious order based on mutual relations, human rights, freedom of press etc. As any autocracy or kleptocracy understands, that is very much a threat to their power, beacuse

  - Population will demand political influence.
  
  - Mindset. A criminal thinks in terms of I win, you lose. Might makes right. Complete opposite of what makes up the dna of the free world.

The imperative is on us to understand that message really well. It goes slowly unfortunately. It is hard for us to grok.

Notice how on our part, helped via tech oligarchs, there is an incessant bombardment to undermine support for those values. Kremlin troll factories are a thing, but the Chinese are speading up rapidly in the information sphere too. Especially youngsters are targeted.

The war has already begun, but we don´t want to see it. And that is dangerous.

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0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace

17 comments

exceptione

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mistermann  14 days ago

> Be careful, Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives.

You may also want to be careful (or not):

- all countries engage in these things

- how things are seem like how they seem, but this is very often not the case...and rather than consciousness raising warnings for such situations, it very often does the opposite

As always, I recommend a meta-perspective on geopolitical stories, it is much more fun than being a Normative, poorly constrained imagination actor like the vast majority of people.

  • exceptione  14 days ago

    I certainly welcome critical thinking. How GOP got of the rails with the adventures of Bush Jr (War on Terror) is worthy of deep analysis. Backed by Russia, which might give you a pause.

    Geopolitical affairs are indeed difficult to follow. It requires deep internal domain(s!) knowledge, which does not fit your average corporate media business model. The niche outlets that do have a capable editorial board are threatened by takeovers [1, 2] from the likes of Axel Springer [3]. 1 Billion USD for Politico. An idiotic sum for a buyer that small, Wikipedia might pique your interest [3]. That is not to say that Politico is useless now, but you can count on journalistic degradation over time.

    But sweeping statements are not of help to get a sharper picture. Instead they risk promoting false equivalence and may turn participants(!) of democracies into passive nihilists. Which is precisely the aim of the foreign influence we are talking about.

    ___

    1. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/06/axel-springer-politico-...

    2. https://countercurrents.org/2021/09/a-right-wing-german-news...

    3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_SE#Criticism

    • mistermann  14 days ago

      Do you ever wonder why mainstream school curriculum doesn't include the discipline most suitable for navigating these waters: philosophy?

      And if you do now: do you wonder if this is 100% coincidence, or oversight? How often do you hear the idea even discussed, as compared to, say, how often we hear about "misinformation", and the need for more "critical thinking"?

      I am glad this situation has a substantial humorous aspect to it, otherwise I'd probably get stressed out about it.

  • ImPostingOnHN  13 days ago

    > all countries engage in these things

    The post you're responding to, already predicted and addressed this claim:

    > Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.

    • mistermann  8 days ago

      This is a fine example of the finer grained details of the deceitfulness of the phenomenon.

      I am glad that I find the mess you people have made of the world funny.

    • snapcaster  13 days ago

      Right, but that quote is kind of dumb. It implies that disagreements or criticism of the US are coming from russian disinformation agents. You can see how that framing (even if true sometimes!) isn't productive to any kind of actual discussion right?

      4 replies →

trehnert  14 days ago

These anti disinformation posts are quite peculiar. I'd advise anyone who wants to dig deeper to listen to West Point graduate Mearsheimer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

It takes one hour to listen. Take notes and verify the facts afterwards. No disinformation there, much less Russian.