1/ From a @jjmacnab tweet. Her take on Russian influence operations. BQ My take on Russian propaganda is very different from most. My theory is that they started egging on extremists years ago to turn on govt, police, and
2/ each other and only then moved on to electoral issues in 2015. EQ I think she is correct. I will expand. There had been since at least the 1990s, exchanges between Russian intelligence and the Christian Right, though these guys may have been unwitting, and the racist right.
3/ They may have been unwitting, but I'm not that certain. For example, white supremacists were going to Europe to meet Russian nationalists. All the Russian nationalists worked for RS intelligence. But, I think the first real Russian influence operation came in late 2008 when
4/ Igor Panarin, under the cover of an international relations professor, advanced the theory that the USA would break up into six parts due to a financial crisis. Part of this was his own analysis. Part of this was reflecting back what was circulating underground in the USA.
5/ The theory is not as important as the reception. The Wall Street Journal published an article on him. It noted that Panarin believed that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation would lead to a civil war. The US would breakup into six parts. Essentially,
6/ Panarin was repackaging the civil war wetdream novel (first published as a short article in the Wash Post around time of Waco) by William S. Lind, seminal writer on Fourth Generation Warfare. Panarin was also picking up on Gary North's writings pre-Tea Party on breaking up
7/ United States. The WSJ correctly identified him as a former KGB, former FAPSI, and a specialist in information warfare. The first time he pops up in my records is 2000, when he is identified as an information warfare officer (COL) with FAPSI in a US Army article, "The Russian
8/ View of Information Warfare." Thus, Panarin's "theory" was a ruse. From the WSJ he then made his way through the Tea Party movement. Mother Jones wrote an article in Nov 2009 on how the Tea Party in TX had flocked to Panarin and promoted his work. Thus, RS intelligence
9/ had proof of concept of who was receptive to what kind of messages, who might promote those messages, and points of contact on the ground. So, @jjmacnab is certainly correct that RS influence operations began pre-Twitter, pre-social media. RS Intel certainly had a network
10/ of Americans--Christian Right interested in stopping gay rights and abortion, white supremacists wanting their own white homeland, Tea Partiers thinking their own government was a tyrannical despot, and the Patriot militia ready to resist the NWO. RS Intel support for Jade
11/ Helm conspiracy theory was not pulled out of their ass. The fact that it was held in TX where RS Intel probably had contacts in the Tea Party, Christian Right, and militia made it easy to pull off. Add in Alex Jones being a stooge on RT and you already have a HUMINT network
12/ for information warfare using "reflexive control" or RC. The US Army article characterized RC as ”RC is defined as a means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to incline him to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the
13/ initiator of the action. There are scientific and mathematical components as well as varied military and technical uses of RC. Komov has noted that the goals of RC are to distract; overload; paralyze; exhaust; deceive; divide; pacify; deter; provoke; suggest;
14/ or pressure an opponent with information." EQ The 2000 Army article is at fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/Russ…
