Thread by @HistorianBlood

#Armchairgeneral - re-examining the information war.

Using the Prague Spring of August 1968 as a template for events in #Ukraine
Image: BBC

During the night Russian forces invaded Czechoslovakia and Red Army armoured forces entered Prague. The Russian pretext was the counter-revolution had to be stopped to prevent a massive breach in the Warsaw Pact. Echoes of NATO and #Ukraine
Image: BBC

The Soviets targeted media outlets - television and radio - and skirmishes erupted - people were killed. However, retaining control of the TV and Radio, the Czechs could send out stories and images of the invasion - in effect choreographing their victimhood.
Images: Czech TV

Masses of civilians, especially students, confronted the Red Army in the streets of Prague.
Image:tresbohemes.com The Guardian

A story emerged that young Red Army soldiers had not been told they were being sent to suppress the Czech people. Echoes of the young recruits on training exercises in Putin’s war.
Images: Czech TV

The Americans were not prepared to interfere, accepting the region was USSR sphere of influence. It was later discovered, under the umbrella of 1968, the Soviets set about another anti-Semitic pogrom. Symbolism was scrawled on tanks as in Putin’s War.
Images: Czech TV

Why this thread? I

First, it reveals how little has changed in Russian #securitywarfare but also how the Great Powers happily compromise spheres of influence over dogma.

Second, the demise of analogue data - books n’ stuff - for the digital ecology has removed the functioning knowledge of the past. Consequentially, before the first critical days of Putin’s illegal war, we should have been drawing parallels with events like 1968 and not WW2.

Third, it exposes the folly of digitalisation when people can no longer recall/remember the past. By losing history and historians, the digital environment enforces forgetting and removes the ability of wider society to respond properly to events.

We no longer know how to confront threat. Cold War age, the bomb was the common experience of everyone. Putin understands that the west thought the bomb was extinct - and has frightened billions of people.

Lets think about this. Who will Putin bully if the world is gone and he is alone in a bunker?

Conclusion. While Twitter and social media is good fun and great people, it is a black hole of memory. In future times, we should re-examine the terrain of social media and ask whether it assisted #Ukraine or unintentionally assisted Putin’s War.

Hope this thread provokes thoughts and of interest to leading scholars in the info war.
@warmatters @andrewhoskins @guyyeomans @irgarner

#Ukraine