This is a brilliant well researched piece. Thanks so much for sharing. So important to be aware of this stuff especially today. How will we ever know what’s true and what isn’t in the near future. A frightening thought.
Excellent summary of relatively recent cognitive warfare. Thanks! This issue goes back at least to the turn of the last century when Capitalists realised they needed to create a consumerist culture for their products and their profits. Propaganda, public relations, perception management, psychological operations, behavioural management, cognitive warfare... whatever you call it, it's the water we swim in, the air we breathe.
Trying to sift through the many layers of national (civilian and military) corporate and think tank produced bull crap is a full time job that most people can't sustain. The rule of thumb for me is...do I need this? Who benefits? Does this make me hate the 'other'? Are basic questions that usually help me figure things out.
I read your fantastic analysis earlier today, and just now I am quite certain I caught one in the wild, on Instagram! And looking through this lens, I saw the data trap laid for a very specific type of person that Trump would like to send to El Salvador. Thank you for your content!
Any discussion of the last century and propaganda which leaves out the Soviet Union entirely is clearly a white-wash. No talk of Moscow's efforts at reflexive control or active measures against other nations.
"RC is defined by Lefebvre as ‘a process by which one enemy transmits the reasons or bases for making decisions to another’, or as he put it in the title of one his books, ‘a Soviet concept of influencing an adversary’s decision-making process’.[6] Timothy Thomas defines it as ‘a means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to incline him to voluntarily make predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action’.[7] The core concept in these definitions is that an actor provides specific and predetermined information to another actor, with the explicit goal to control the decisions made by the receiver. In other words, controlling the decision-making process leading to the receiving actor making decisions that will lead to his defeat and/or enable the desired outcome for the transmitting actor."
"It’s been a busy time for those of us tracking Russian active measures. In the last few months, Putin has (as long expected) murdered his opponent, Alexei Navalny. Latvia’s representative to the European Union’s legislature, Tatjana Ždanoka, has been revealed to be a Russian asset for the past twenty years. The source for the Republican Party’s case against Hunter Biden turns out to have been a Russian spy. Our House of Representatives is still holding up a vote to arm Russia’s enemy, Ukraine. A growing consensus now agrees that Russia has infiltrated the GOP, which Rep. James Clyburn has charmingly renamed the “Groupies of Putin.”"
"Because this ad wasn’t about solidarity. It was a marketing stunt to promote a well-funded Russian media brand operating from abroad. The agency had taken images of genocide—perpetrated by Russian society—and repurposed them to drive revenue for a Russian enterprise. By doing so, they reinforced the deeply flawed idea that Russians are equal victims in this war, deserving of the same sympathy as Ukrainians.
"If that were true, why didn’t they show images of Russians suffering? Why didn’t they highlight Russian cities reduced to rubble by the war?
"This is rhetorical, of course. It’s not the first time the Ukrainian tragedy has been repackaged as a backdrop for Russia-centered products."
"From the perspective of Soviet intelligence, cultivating Trump didn’t require him to be a secret agent or ideologue. It only required that he be ambitious, flattered by attention, and willing to echo Kremlin-friendly narratives. In this context, Trump wasn’t the first of his kind—but potentially the most useful since Armand Hammer."
"In closing, the allegation that Trump was code-named “Krasnov” as a KGB recruit in 1987 remains unverified but not implausible. It is a claim with significant supporting context but lacking a definitive proof. The scenario fits a known pattern of Russian intelligence behavior and Trump’s own trajectory, which is why it’s taken seriously in many quarters. Yet the extraordinary nature of the claim – effectively that a U.S. president was a long-term covert asset of a hostile foreign power – demands rigorous evidence. As of now, we have a lot of smoke, intriguingly arranged in the shape of a fire, but we have not seen the fire itself. Further disclosure (declassified files, testimonies, or a statement from U.S. intelligence addressing this) would be needed to move this from the realm of allegation to accepted history. Until then, “Agent Krasnov” will remain a provocative theory and a topic of debate among journalists, historians, and the public."
"The newspapers used loud headlines and articles to portray kulaks (rich peasants who owned property) as a threat to socialism. Recently, I wrote about the kulaks and how the Soviets eliminated them."
After reading your post, I picked out just one dubious of many dubious comments. I'm definitely NOT a conservative of any type so pretty unlikely to be a Republican but you, and the US government, suggest that Smirnov was a Russian agent, yet, he holds dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship, and not unlikely a member of unit 8200 considering how they have infiltrated much of Western government, media and security.
When you can pick out even one dubious 'fact', it leaves many of the other 'facts' just as dubious.
This is a brilliant well researched piece. Thanks so much for sharing. So important to be aware of this stuff especially today. How will we ever know what’s true and what isn’t in the near future. A frightening thought.
so very true!
Excellent summary of relatively recent cognitive warfare. Thanks! This issue goes back at least to the turn of the last century when Capitalists realised they needed to create a consumerist culture for their products and their profits. Propaganda, public relations, perception management, psychological operations, behavioural management, cognitive warfare... whatever you call it, it's the water we swim in, the air we breathe.
Trying to sift through the many layers of national (civilian and military) corporate and think tank produced bull crap is a full time job that most people can't sustain. The rule of thumb for me is...do I need this? Who benefits? Does this make me hate the 'other'? Are basic questions that usually help me figure things out.
glad you liked it!
I read your fantastic analysis earlier today, and just now I am quite certain I caught one in the wild, on Instagram! And looking through this lens, I saw the data trap laid for a very specific type of person that Trump would like to send to El Salvador. Thank you for your content!
Thank you for reading!
Any discussion of the last century and propaganda which leaves out the Soviet Union entirely is clearly a white-wash. No talk of Moscow's efforts at reflexive control or active measures against other nations.
"RC is defined by Lefebvre as ‘a process by which one enemy transmits the reasons or bases for making decisions to another’, or as he put it in the title of one his books, ‘a Soviet concept of influencing an adversary’s decision-making process’.[6] Timothy Thomas defines it as ‘a means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to incline him to voluntarily make predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action’.[7] The core concept in these definitions is that an actor provides specific and predetermined information to another actor, with the explicit goal to control the decisions made by the receiver. In other words, controlling the decision-making process leading to the receiving actor making decisions that will lead to his defeat and/or enable the desired outcome for the transmitting actor."
https://nadinabbott.substack.com/p/reflexive-control
"It’s been a busy time for those of us tracking Russian active measures. In the last few months, Putin has (as long expected) murdered his opponent, Alexei Navalny. Latvia’s representative to the European Union’s legislature, Tatjana Ždanoka, has been revealed to be a Russian asset for the past twenty years. The source for the Republican Party’s case against Hunter Biden turns out to have been a Russian spy. Our House of Representatives is still holding up a vote to arm Russia’s enemy, Ukraine. A growing consensus now agrees that Russia has infiltrated the GOP, which Rep. James Clyburn has charmingly renamed the “Groupies of Putin.”"
https://prendergastc.substack.com/p/a-century-of-russian-disinformation-212
"Because this ad wasn’t about solidarity. It was a marketing stunt to promote a well-funded Russian media brand operating from abroad. The agency had taken images of genocide—perpetrated by Russian society—and repurposed them to drive revenue for a Russian enterprise. By doing so, they reinforced the deeply flawed idea that Russians are equal victims in this war, deserving of the same sympathy as Ukrainians.
"If that were true, why didn’t they show images of Russians suffering? Why didn’t they highlight Russian cities reduced to rubble by the war?
"This is rhetorical, of course. It’s not the first time the Ukrainian tragedy has been repackaged as a backdrop for Russia-centered products."
https://maksymeristavi.substack.com/p/russian-colonialism-101-5-whitewashing
"From the perspective of Soviet intelligence, cultivating Trump didn’t require him to be a secret agent or ideologue. It only required that he be ambitious, flattered by attention, and willing to echo Kremlin-friendly narratives. In this context, Trump wasn’t the first of his kind—but potentially the most useful since Armand Hammer."
https://michaeldsellers.substack.com/p/trump-and-the-kgb-a-deeper-look-at
"In closing, the allegation that Trump was code-named “Krasnov” as a KGB recruit in 1987 remains unverified but not implausible. It is a claim with significant supporting context but lacking a definitive proof. The scenario fits a known pattern of Russian intelligence behavior and Trump’s own trajectory, which is why it’s taken seriously in many quarters. Yet the extraordinary nature of the claim – effectively that a U.S. president was a long-term covert asset of a hostile foreign power – demands rigorous evidence. As of now, we have a lot of smoke, intriguingly arranged in the shape of a fire, but we have not seen the fire itself. Further disclosure (declassified files, testimonies, or a statement from U.S. intelligence addressing this) would be needed to move this from the realm of allegation to accepted history. Until then, “Agent Krasnov” will remain a provocative theory and a topic of debate among journalists, historians, and the public."
https://morningtruth.substack.com/p/trump-krasnov-and-the-kgb-the-wildest
"The newspapers used loud headlines and articles to portray kulaks (rich peasants who owned property) as a threat to socialism. Recently, I wrote about the kulaks and how the Soviets eliminated them."
https://warcoffee.substack.com/p/headlines-from-history-soviet-propaganda
After reading your post, I picked out just one dubious of many dubious comments. I'm definitely NOT a conservative of any type so pretty unlikely to be a Republican but you, and the US government, suggest that Smirnov was a Russian agent, yet, he holds dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship, and not unlikely a member of unit 8200 considering how they have infiltrated much of Western government, media and security.
When you can pick out even one dubious 'fact', it leaves many of the other 'facts' just as dubious.
It already sounds like you have a clear idea of what you don't want to believe.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-distortions-of-the-putin-apologists-glenn-greenwald-hasan-piker
https://sashaingber.substack.com/p/the-americans-helping-russias-influence
https://yoursukrainian.substack.com/p/why-russian-disinformation-is-so