Let's discuss the informational dimension of this war. Many complain about "propaganda" which distorts its image. Bad take. Propaganda affects public opinion which is only one aspect of what's happening. Let me introduce a better, more comprehensive term - *information warfare*🧵
Consider the following. Internet is full of videos & photos of Russian troops in Ukraine. They are mostly created by civilians who shoot Russian forces on their phones and then upload to the internet. For example here people take videos of Russian soldiers who occupied their town
Or here someone is taking a video of how Russian column is moving - probably from a gas station
Or here a Ukrainian driver took video of a Russian Military convoy which stopped in the field, commented where this all is happening and uploaded it to TikTok. There are tons of such videos and you can easily google thousands of them, if you want
But. There are *much* fewer videos of Ukrainian troops. That's understandable. If you aggregate them, you can track location&movement of enemy. Ofc Ukrainian army wants to have such data on Russians and doesn't want Russian to have data on them. Track the enemy but stay in shadow
Indeed. Huge asymmetry in online visual info creates a certain bias. It seems that Ukraine is flooded by huge amounts of Russian troops, but it's not quite obvious whom they are fighting with. Ukrainian army stays in shadow. That's perhaps why so many observers thought Russia won
How is this information asymmetry achieved? Well, first of all majority of Ukrainians are pro-Ukraine (see a crowd chanting "go home" to Russian soldiers). They know they can help their own by recording Russians. But not all of them are thoughtful or patriotic
There is a pro-Russian fifth column. And there are simply idiots who would upload whatever for likes and a dopamine boost not thinking about the consequences. These two groups would be enough to fill the internet with recordings of Ukrainian troops. And yet, there are few of them
Why? One could assume Western social media are censuring such videos. That might be true. But this asymmetry also exists on Telegram. Which has very, very little censorship at all (you can find whatever there) and it hardly collaborated with Ukrainians. Probably with Russians
Which means this asymmetry is not a result of platform policy. It is a result of such videos either 1) not being uploaded at all 2) or quickly deleted. How do they do that?
Alexey Chadaev, an apparatchik of Russian parliament argues that Ukrainians are tracking and deanonymizing whoever tries to upload videos with Ukrainian troops. They come to their home and explain they're quite wrong. Meanwhile, uploading videos with Russians is socially approved
Let's sum up. One shouldn't reduce information warfare to propaganda. It's not only about who's nice and who's bad. It's also about controlling the supply of *accurate* data such as visuals of troops. Thus you create an asymmetry: the enemy is transparent but you remain in shadow
In this context much of Western war analysis sounds somewhat misleading. If you think about it, that's quite an egocentric take below: Ukrainians work on social media to win "symbolic victories" = persuade us, Twitter users, that they're cool. Nope, that's much more than that
Apart from a certain egocentric perspective - "there's no more urgent business amidst of this war than to win my sympathy" - it's also a bad take for another reason. Ukraine is good in social media in comparison with whom? Apparently with their enemy, the Russians
So the underlying assumption of this argument is that Russia's *not* so good in social media. But that's just wrong. Russia's great and amazing in social media. It launched its own propaganda campaign which is absolutely victorious and achieved its goals brilliantly
What goal does Russia pursue in this information war? What kind of image does it want to convey? I believe that the logic behind the Russian propaganda campaign is based on a fundamental Machiavellian principle - it's much more necessary to be feared than loved
That makes total sense. Love is fragile. Love can evaporate for some minor reason - and does all the time. It can be easily broken by confrontation. Meanwhile, fear is robust. Fear is antifragile. It's much easier to disappoint a lover, than to reassure a scared person
Putin knows that and purposefully builds a scary image. Because it's robust, antifragile. If you demand new and new concessions based of love, you both lose love and don't get concessions. But if you do it based on fear, it gonna work as long as people believe you are scary
The lack of love wouldn't be a problem for Putin and wouldn't undermine his strategy. The real problem would be lack of fear. His policy is entirely based on presumed cowardice of opponent. If he's opposed, he'll back off. Because in reality he's very timid and cautious
When Putin talked with Macron over a Very Long Table many interpreted it as a humiliation of the President of France. Why? Cuz Putin is so scary. Nobody believed that such a masculine, virile leader is mortally afraid of covid. And yet, that's how he talks with his own generals
Macho image is vital for success of Putin's policies. Others give concessions simply because they're scared of such an unpredictable, dangerous, risky guy and what he may do. That's a result of a thorough media campaign that hides how safetyist and risk-avoidant Putin actually is
This rationale is obvious in details, too. Consider what a big focus they did on a Chechen contingent sent to Ukraine. We are sending big and scary highlanders, so now you absolutely need to surrender. Otherwise they're gonna hurt you very much. That's all a well-designed psyop
Putin is a KGB agent. They don't fight, they do special operations. An important part of which are carefully-designed psyops in order to persuade you that resistance is useless and you should submit. Or we hurt you. That's a mythos which works only as long as you believe in it
Ukraine doesn't believe in this mythos anymore. No belief = no power. Feb 24 Putin promised to "denazify" Ukraine and invaded. Next day Feb 25 Russian Foreign Ministry started complaining that Kyiv "rejected our offer to start negotiations and suggested discussing it tomorrow"
So, according to Russian official source, Russia tried to accelerate negotiotions asap *NEXT DAY* after the invasion. Meanwhile Ukrainians decided to postpone them. Because it wasn't planned as a war. It was planned as a Special Operation, built on a psyop. Which didn't work out
When you deal with an enemy who fights with psyops:
1. Don't believe 2. Don't give concessions 3. Increase pressure
He's timid, safetyist, risk averse. He's mortally scared and looking for ways out. He'd do or give anything for physical survival
Keep that in mind
End of 🧵
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Many are trying to explain his success with some accidental factors such as his “personal charisma”, Cuomo's weakness etc
Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors here. A longue durée shift, and a very profound one
1. Public outrage does not work anymore
If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and rarely raises his voice. I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American political space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage
Outrage, anger, righteous indignation have all been the primary drivers of American politics for quite a while
For a while, this tactics worked
Indeed, when everyone around is polite, and soft (and insincere), freaking out was a smart thing to do. It could help you get noticed
People don’t really understand causal links. We pretend we do (“X results in Y”). But we actually don’t. Most explanations (= descriptions of causal structures) are fake.
There may be no connection between X and Y at all. The cause is just misattributed.
Or, perhaps, X does indeed result in Y. but only under a certain (and unknown!) set of conditions that remains totally and utterly opaque to us. So, X->Y is only a part of the equation
And so on
I like to think of a hypothetical Stone Age farmer who started farming, and it worked amazingly, and his entire community adopted his lifestyle, and many generations followed it and prospered and multiplied, until all suddenly wiped out in a new ice age
1. Normative Islamophobia that used to define the public discourse being the most acceptable form of racial & ethnic bigotry in the West, is receding. It is not so much dying as rather - failing to replicate. It is not that the old people change their views as that the young do not absorb their prejudice any longer.
In fact, I incline to think it has been failing to replicate for a while, it is just that we have not been paying attention
Again, the change of vibe does not happen at once. The Muslim scare may still find (some) audience among the more rigid elderly, who are not going to change their views. But for the youth, it is starting to sound as archaic as the Catholic scare of know nothings
Out of date
2. What is particularly interesting regarding Mamdani's victory, is his support base. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that its core is comprised of the young (and predominantly white) middle classes, with a nearly equal representation of men and women
What does Musk vs Trump affair teach us about the general patterns of human history? Well, first of all it shows that the ancient historians were right. They grasped something about nature of politics that our contemporaries simply can’t.
Let me give you an example. The Arab conquest of Spain
According to a popular medieval/early modern interpretation, its primary cause was the lust of Visigoth king Roderic. Aroused by the beautiful daughter of his vassal and ally, count Julian, he took advantage of her
Disgruntled, humiliated Julian allied himself with the Arabs and opens them the gates of Spain.
Entire kingdom lost, all because the head of state caused a personal injury to someone important.
One thing you need to understand about wars is that very few engage into the long, protracted warfare on purpose. Almost every war of attrition was planned and designed as a short victorious blitzkrieg
And then everything went wrong
Consider the Russian war in Ukraine. It was not planned as a war. It was not thought of as a war. It was planned as a (swift!) regime change allowing to score a few points in the Russian domestic politics. And then everything went wrong
It would not be an exaggeration to say that planning a short victorious war optimised for the purposes of domestic politics is how you *usually* end up in a deadlock. That is the most common scenario of how it happens, practically speaking
Global politics are usually framed in terms of kindergarten discourse (“good guys” vs “bad guys”) with an implication that you must provide “good guys” with boundless and unconditional support
BUT
Unconditional support is extremely corrupting, and turns the best of the best into the really nasty guys, and relatively fast
Part of the reason is that neither “bad” nor “good” guys are in fact homogenous, and present a spectrum of opinions and personalities. Which means that all of your designated “good guys” include a fair share of really, really nasty guys, almost by definition.
Purely good movements do not really exist
That is a major reason why limitless, unconditional, unquestioning support causes such a profound corrupting effect upon the very best movement. First, because that movement is not all
that purely good as you imagine (neither movement is),