On May 19, 2021 I read an
article from Politico about the current Pentagon weighs keeping Trump-era
change to ‘psychological operations’ (See: https://politi.co/2S8fS8q). The
article leads with:
“In the final months of the Trump administration, then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper quietly moved to let the military run influence campaigns — often called “psyops” — more quickly and with less time for input from the State Department.
The policy change, which eight people described to POLITICO, highlights tension between military leaders and diplomats about how the U.S. handles gray-area operations that fall short of all-out war.
And now, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is weighing whether to maintain the change in policy, according to a senior defense official.”
This kind of BS has been going on for years. The beltway battle for influence supremacy keeps on between DOD, the Department of State and who else knows what other government agencies.
Meanwhile, in a land far away, there is a different approach which seems to be far more effective.
Another article from May 17, 2021 proclaims:
“Psy-ops in high places Putin’s new science adviser to Russia’s National Security Council is a military intelligence agent accused of spreading disinformation about the coronavirus” (See: https://bit.ly/3oz1Hp7 which is also a photo source).
The site “The Real Russia Today” claims that Russia’s Military Unit 55111 is the focal point for Russian disinformation campaigns and that one of their deputy commanders, A.G. Starunshky is highly placed in the Science Council of the Russian National Security Council.
The article stated that “In July 2020, citing sources in the U.S. government, The Associated Press and The New York Times both reported that Starunsky was a GRU officer involved in disinformation campaigns, including the dissemination of fake stories in English about the coronavirus. American journalists linked Starunsky to the website inforos.ru, which allegedly answers to the GRU.”
On October 8, 2019 The NY Times ran “Top Secret Unit Seeks to Destabilize Europe, Security Officials Say” (see: https://nyti.ms/3oMlW2R, which is also a photo source).
Frankly it doesn’t matter what 55111 does or doesn’t do. I think the point is that Mr. Putin is a former MI guy (like Marines, there are probably no former MI guys) and as such recognizes the power of information as an offensive and defensive tool.
The continuing internecine battles within the US Federal government indicates, that the US hasn’t grasped the importance of this position.
As always, reader comments invited.
2 comments:
We are absolutely losing the disinformation war. I see links to RT disinformation stories embedded across much of the media I read. I hear those talking points quoted by people at the gym. Effective military operations are often kneecapped by risk averse pols. As the Politico article pointed out, the risks of a disinformation campaign going astray are not the same as with a combat operation. On the other hand, I think the US government is currently conducting a psyops campaign against China evidenced by the sudden spate of articles conjecturing about coronavirus having escaped from the Wuhan lab. While there is certainly disagreement about its origins in the scientific community, the preponderance of opinions does not lead in that direction.
Mr. Deitz,
Love the blog! Fascinating articles and insights, as always. Thanks.
BTW, I wanted to pass the below article along. It is a fascinating read.
https://medium.com/dfrlab/how-u-s-election-disinfo-fueled-foreign-policy-falsehoods-across-the-middle-east-1d53f4f47734
Use the article if you want, no attribution to me necessary.
On another note, I am now an FA30 (IO) officer in the Army Reserves, all because I took your class at AMU a few years ago. Also deploying to support OIR in 2022.
Just wanted to pass this along with a sincere thank you.
-Richard
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