When I need perspective, I often find myself b****ing to @mountainrunner, who is archivally fluent in the history of shadow war machinery.
He reminded me today of 1961 debate over the Freedom Academy, which was meant to level the playing field agst Soviet political warfare
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He reminded me today of 1961 debate over the Freedom Academy, which was meant to level the playing field agst Soviet political warfare
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It's too hard to fight the Kremlin, people argued, because the threat is too complex.
But this was then, as now, a hollow argument. The simplest thing you can do is teach people how Kremlin influence and infiltration worked, and what it's ambitions were.
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But this was then, as now, a hollow argument. The simplest thing you can do is teach people how Kremlin influence and infiltration worked, and what it's ambitions were.
/2
Promoters of the Freedom Academy argued that we were leaving untrained, uneducated amateurs to confront primary lines of influence from the Kremlin -- and that this was both foolish and unjust.
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We needed to educate these "amateurs," they argued. To build a fabric of deterrence against political warfare by understanding how it actually works.
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The aims of the enemy were often misunderstood, they argued, because that was intentional. The Kremlin wanted us to hope for change, and get stuck in our churn, instead of seeing what they did clearly, or bringing the fight to them.
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Sometimes I get really annoyed that @mountainrunner is right -- nothing new here. Maybe some new tools and a few more electrons.
We know how to do this and win this. We're just easy to convince, apparently, that this idea is too provocative.
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We know how to do this and win this. We're just easy to convince, apparently, that this idea is too provocative.
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