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My part is ‘published’ within a wider blog running since Jan 2022. I was the military advisor to a macro level propaganda expert - I will send you a link. Be warned it is a long, sometimes meandering complex read. Standby.

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@caroline I should contextualize before i get out of my swim lane. My analysis over the last year was how we were ‘reading war’ using Putins incursion into ukraine. I looked at how tactical operations were represented in the media and how we ‘read’ them - only in English although i looked at other languages as a stalking horse. I was interested in the signature the incursion into ukraine created and tried to match that with tactical military ground truth. The long and short of it yes Putin ‘invaded’ Ukraine but I could not see (read) where the military objective was the one we were told by Washington, London, the WSJ, NYT, WashPost etc; ie a blitzkrieg to take all of ukraine that failed because of poor Russian military performance and the brave wolverines of Ukraine. I think Putin deliberately managed the military signature to create the dread of a land war of annihilation in Europe but that not his geo strategic aim. I think 2014 in ukraine, 2016 election, SMO 2022, US election 2024 are all part of a nested information warfare operation we are falling for. I can discuss why i think that but i can only make hypothesis on why Putin would do it. That’s above my pay grade. My guesses are around the price of oil, helping europ break away from US word-action dissonance????who knows.

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Can you tell me more about this/have you published this anywhere yet? I’m interested particularly in how you analyzed how we are ‘reading’ war vs how they’re represented in media, and also what you used to establish tactical ground truth. It sounds very interesting and I would love to hear more about it!

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The 2016 information operation around election monitoring is the information operation. And it’s ongoing, beyond short term objectives as you say, because it is predictable that we would want to discuss and discuss it. The SMO in Ukraine is the most recent tactical action in the inverted information warfare campaign. A kinetic operation designed as a distraction and or to create massive amounts of abstract energy for us to talk and talk about for some geo strategic reason that’s beyond my pay grade.

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Of course they are. Like we do. I think I detect sarcasm in your written word so to elaborate we are playing into his hands by talking about it, getting quotes in the NYT, etc. there is good tangible data on the real ineffectiveness of the Russian 2016 campaign. We are making it seem effective with our choirs and echo chambers.

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We actually don’t really know what the effects of wide-ranging, long-term disinformation campaigns are. The few studies that have looked at the impact of the 2016 campaign measured mere exposure to content, which is not hypothesized to be a causal pathway for behavior change, so it’s not surprising that they found no effects. Furthermore, they only looked at a few very narrow short-term outcomes, which isn’t consistent with Russia’s information warfare doctrine — they’re focused on long-term societal and cultural change, not short-term individual change. Furthermore, regarding the content in this video and in my article: Anytime anyone is spreading disinformation to cause confusion during a crisis or disaster — especially a country with a history of also often launching attacks on critical infrastructure to maximize impact — it’s worthy of being discussed because the very nature of the situation is such that even minimal impact can be the difference between life and death. Remember, we just charged 11 Russians linked to the FSB for launching cyber attacks on hospital systems, which are known to increase death rates at affected hospitals. To say that Russia’s activities — which are typically hybrid events involving cyber, information, and sometimes other types of warfare and deception — have no impact is a gross mischaracterization. Why do you think Russia continues to invest so much in this style of warfare? (Because it works).

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Hmmm. I think you and your choir talking about the Russian disinformation campaigns is actual Russian misinformation campaign. Classic Russian reflexive control. The means is the message.

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Of course Steve, Russia would not be guilty of any disinformation campaigns right?

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We enhance what is pathetic as an mis or dis information campaign but our own ‘discussion’ about it.

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