Dezinformatsiya: Russia's Weapon of Mass Destruction

The article I chose for the news item assignment was "A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories by Neil MacFarquhar. In the article he talks about Sweden's vigorous national debate currently underway, regarding whether it should enter into a military partnership with NATO. This is something that would certainly strengthen their states standing globally when strange rumors began to circulate amongst the populous. Some of the claims were quite alarming, such as "If Sweden, a non-NATO member, signed the deal, the alliance would stockpile secret nuclear weapons on Swedish soil; NATO could attack Russia from Sweden without government approval; NATO soldiers, immune from prosecution, could rape Swedish women without fear of criminal charges." (MacFarquhar) All were false, but since the disinformation had begun to spill into traditional news media the defense minister, Peter Hultqvist, found his hands full refuting the claims in town halls and speeches to promote the pact.

While they were never able to pin down the precise source of the rumors American and European intelligence points to Russia, noting that preventing a NATO expansion was why Vladimir V. Putin invaded Georgia in 2008. The article goes on to state the while historically he has been able to use his modernized military muscle with Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and now Syria; he lacks the economic ability to openly confront NATO, the EU or the United States so he has invested in "weaponized" information. This is not a new way of doing business for Russia, as they had done something similar during the Cold War during the AID's crisis when they spread the rumor of the CIA creating the disease. We are still today smarting from that assentation as it is still believed by people.

The article cites another more successful attempt at dezinformatsiya (Russian disinformation) more recently. "That summer, Russia Pumped out a dizzying array of theories about the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, blaming C.I.A. and, most outlandishly, Ukrainian fighter pilots who had mistaken the airliner for the Russian presidential aircraft." (MacFarquhar). The article goes into great detail and is quite interesting on all of the times historically, Russia has used this sort of tactic as well as pointing out how good it has gotten at it, permeating almost every level Western diplomacy from Brexit to terrorism and immigration. They strongly push the agenda that liberal democracy's inadequate, inefficient, and not democratic ultimately.

The article wraps up with Sweden still not having unraveled all of the havoc that the rumors have caused. Hopefully they people of Sweden will be able to see the forest through the trees and be able to continue with confidence. There is one very telling not very hopeful ending note however from Dmtry Kiselyev, Russia's most famous television anchor and director of the organization that runs Sputnik, one of the two propaganda machines that pumps out the news. "If we do propaganda, then you do propaganda, too," he said directing his message to Western journalists." (MacFarquhar)

The article made several parallels to the chapter in the book Introduction to Comparative Politics written by Mark Kesselman. While we won't be studying Sweden this semester, Russia is a player on our political board so to speak, so their behavior is of interest, as well as anyone joining an international organization such as NATO, would certainly be worthy of note on its own merit alone under the premise of globalizing the world of states portion of the book, since that focuses on as the author states "The globalized world of states then also emphasizes the interaction between the national and international levels in shaping the politics of all countries. The theme points in two directions: One focuses on a state's influence in affecting other states and the international economic and political arena; the other focuses on the impact of the international forces on the states activities within the country's borders." (Kesselman pg. 12). The fact that they are considering breaking their longstanding neutrality and joining NATO, may have far reaching political effects that would be of note. The Swedish were attempting to strengthen their states, through joining NATO. Russia's response was to try and keep them from doing so. It behooves them for the players on the board of national politics to remain weak.

Russia was mentioned in not only in the book and in class as a key player in our Historical events due to the Post WWII division between the USSR and the US which lasted a chilly 40 or so years between the late 1940's until 1989. This was not a war of actual shots fired but ones of words, and rumors and fear mongering. The article is remarkably similar to how business was done then. It would seem as if Putin would like to relive the good old days. (I will not take this particular moment to compare the similarities between Putin and Trump whose own rally cry seems to be let's go back to the 50's when things were so much better, but that would be what comparative politics were for I imagine.)

I learned quite a lot actually from this article. I knew about Russia's history with misinformation, and I knew that they may have occasionally bent the truth recently I wasn't aware their propaganda machine was rivaled only by North Korea. I was certainly unaware of how many hands they had in how many cookie jars. I was absolutely shocked that they had lied about the Malaysia flight and I would consider myself fairly kept up on current events. I would like to know, just as a matter of course why did I have to search for this deeply? I had to look up the authors name and then find recent articles to find the actual web address to list. I couldn't even search it by name on the front page of the New York Times, but it is in fact one of their articles? Why isn't this on the front page? The Russian's who run the propaganda machines are not secretive, so why don't more people know, and when they hear something bonkers, why do they believe that first? I for one will probably look at things a bit closer and where I may have originally thought that it is just a harmless dotty person, I may look for shadows of Russians attempting to over throw the government by accusing the president of being Kenyan.

Works Cited

MacFARQUHAR, NEIL. "Russia's Powerful Weapon to Hurt Rivals: Falsehoods." New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast) ed.Aug 29 2016. ProQuest. Web. 31 Aug.2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russiaswedendisinformation.htmlrref=colleon%2Fbyline%2Fneilmacfarquhar&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=steam&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection&_r0

Kesselman, Mark. Introduction to Comparative Politics. 7th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2016. Print.