Political Information War

I have been researching the parallels between political parties and governments in the use of Information Warfare techniques, finding far too many.

A Wall Street Journal published an Editorial Board piece two days ago that rang true with what evidence there is that political parties use the same information warfare techniques that the Russians and other governments use.  I'm not sure yet who learns from whom, but the manipulation of facts to fit a narrative lies at the heart of it.

Just for a minute, let's compare a BBC story on Russian disinformation in the case of two GRU agents who attempted to assassinate Sergei Skripal.  The BBC says the Russians have posted 30 stories that try to debunk the facts as the UK sees them, i.e. that these two killers came from Russia, planted the nerve agent, and escaped.  There are several variations, none very convincing when compared to the British story that was laid out well by the government.  They have lots of pictures, one of which the Russians seized upon because it had the same time line on two separate pictures.  It is odd, but hardly proof, as the Russians say, that the whole thing was made up to blame the Russians.  They focus on small things in hope of putting holes in any story, just as they did in the Ukraine when Russian soldiers were operating there.  Did we really believe they were volunteers on vacation?

The US Senate seems to have adopted the same sort of strategy to try to prevent a nominee to the Supreme Court from getting approval.  The Journal story names names and the sort of nonsense the "leaders of the party" came up with in their attempt to stop that nominee.  Some were easily refuted, like the one raised by the Gentlewoman from Hawaii, where he "must have known" about a future boss of his, Judge Kozinski, who was sexually harassing his employees.  It happened before the nominee got there.

The Russians omit relevant facts and substitute outright lies when it suits their purpose.  This aspect seems to have caught on outside their own realm.  The Journal ends with this:  "These Democrats may be U.S. Senators, but as conspiracy theorists this week they were hard to distinguish from the likes of Alex Jones."  Alex Jones was banned from almost every social media channel in the space of a few weeks, after operating for years on all of them.

What politicians fail to take into consideration is the similarity between methods - the idea that the Kamala Harris's of the world can proclaim a fact that she should have known wasn't true - and then later inferring that he should have corrected her - they confuse the work of the world's intelligence services who are enemies of the US, with their own political objectives.  Are we able to distinguish an attack by the GRU from one by any political party?  Maybe some can, but it is getting to be harder and harder, something our enemies take gleeful pleasure in.