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Russia and these NATO countries being probed are like the two siblings in the back seat. Mom, he's touching me. Stop touching your brother. Mom, he's holding his finger right next to me. Dad eventually says, don't make me pull this car over and start a global thermonuclear war

▲ exceptione 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Not quite. Be careful, Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives. Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.

NATO and Europe did quite a lot to normalize relations with Russia. Russia was invited and became participant of the NATO program Partnership For Peace [0].

   The program contains 6 areas of cooperation, which aims to build relationships with partners through military-to-military cooperation on training, exercises, disaster planning and response, science and environmental issues, professionalization, policy planning, and relations with civilian government

Very nice, but the secret services that took over the empire did and does not fancy a rule-based, harmonious order based on mutual relations, human rights, freedom of press etc. As any autocracy or kleptocracy understands, that is very much a threat to their power, beacuse

  - Population will demand political influence.
  
  - Mindset. A criminal thinks in terms of I win, you lose. Might makes right. Complete opposite of what makes up the dna of the free world.

The imperative is on us to understand that message really well. It goes slowly unfortunately. It is hard for us to grok.

Notice how on our part, helped via tech oligarchs, there is an incessant bombardment to undermine support for those values. Kremlin troll factories are a thing, but the Chinese are speading up rapidly in the information sphere too. Especially youngsters are targeted.

The war has already begun, but we don´t want to see it. And that is dangerous.

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0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace

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mistermann 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Be careful, Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives.

You may also want to be careful (or not):

- all countries engage in these things

- how things are seem like how they seem, but this is very often not the case...and rather than consciousness raising warnings for such situations, it very often does the opposite

As always, I recommend a meta-perspective on geopolitical stories, it is much more fun than being a Normative, poorly constrained imagination actor like the vast majority of people.

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exceptione 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I certainly welcome critical thinking. How GOP got of the rails with the adventures of Bush Jr (War on Terror) is worthy of deep analysis. Backed by Russia, which might give you a pause.

Geopolitical affairs are indeed difficult to follow. It requires deep internal domain(s!) knowledge, which does not fit your average corporate media business model. The niche outlets that do have a capable editorial board are threatened by takeovers [1, 2] from the likes of Axel Springer [3]. 1 Billion USD for Politico. An idiotic sum for a buyer that small, Wikipedia might pique your interest [3]. That is not to say that Politico is useless now, but you can count on journalistic degradation over time.

But sweeping statements are not of help to get a sharper picture. Instead they risk promoting false equivalence and may turn participants(!) of democracies into passive nihilists. Which is precisely the aim of the foreign influence we are talking about.

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1. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/06/axel-springer-politico-...

2. https://countercurrents.org/2021/09/a-right-wing-german-news...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_SE#Criticism

	▲	mistermann 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Do you ever wonder why mainstream school curriculum doesn't include the discipline most suitable for navigating these waters: philosophy? And if you do now: do you wonder if this is 100% coincidence, or oversight? How often do you hear the idea even discussed, as compared to, say, how often we hear about "misinformation", and the need for more "critical thinking"? I am glad this situation has a substantial humorous aspect to it, otherwise I'd probably get stressed out about it.

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ImPostingOnHN 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> all countries engage in these things

The post you're responding to, already predicted and addressed this claim:

> Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.

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snapcaster 5 days ago | parent [-]

Right, but that quote is kind of dumb. It implies that disagreements or criticism of the US are coming from russian disinformation agents. You can see how that framing (even if true sometimes!) isn't productive to any kind of actual discussion right?

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ImPostingOnHN 4 days ago | parent [-]

> It implies that disagreements or criticism of the US are coming from russian disinformation agents

Does it? The post in question observed 2 things:

1. Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives.

2. Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.

Is your point of contention with the truthfulness of either of these observations, or with their proximity to each other?

	▲	snapcaster 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes obviously. it doesn't take much in the way of literacy to understand the point being made by putting those statements next to eachother. The point is to invalidate whatever criticism is being made of the imperium

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coupdejarnac 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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trehnert 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

These anti disinformation posts are quite peculiar. I'd advise anyone who wants to dig deeper to listen to West Point graduate Mearsheimer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

It takes one hour to listen. Take notes and verify the facts afterwards. No disinformation there, much less Russian.

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exceptione 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Mearsheimer has been debunked many a times and his theory just doesn´t hold up with reality. I am not going to debunk it, because I will repeat what other really respectable people have said about the subject.

Just one rebuttal, but there are many more to be found on the internet.

https://euideas.eui.eu/2022/07/11/john-mearsheimers-lecture-...

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_DeadFred_ 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Mearsheimer, who bases his theory on 'Putin never lies'. Sorry if that's your starting point then you're just promoting fantasy.

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mistermann 5 days ago | parent [-]

> who bases his theory on 'Putin never lies'.

Can you cite anything that he has actually said that even resembles this?

	▲	_DeadFred_ 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		It was one of his founding premises of all his discussions at the recent Russian escalation of the war started in 2014. I suggest you go watch those.

▲ wbl 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Except its always Russia instigating. We never sent someone to look at the spire of Saint Basil (the pathetic excuse offered for explaining the presence of GRU officers in Salisbury carrying out chemical warfare), or really struck at their weak points.

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dylan604 5 days ago | parent [-]

Are you actually saying the US has never engaged in propaganda within another country or attempted to influence the outcomes of their elections or influence their populace to rise up against their leaders?

You cannot be serious with that kind of belief

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wbl 5 days ago | parent [-]

But of a jump from that to spraying poison all over the place.

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dylan604 5 days ago | parent [-]

Not really sure what you're referring. The US has most definitely sprayed poison all over the place in South America with cocoa plant eradication efforts. Or Agent Orange in South East Asia.

If you mean poison as in disinformation, then you'd be wrong there as well. We literally "bombed" Iraq with pamphlets from airplanes encouraging them to rise up against Suddam and we'd be there to support them; we didn't.

	▲	Sabinus 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		No, the GP means literal poison. Neurotoxin, specifically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_...

▲ callc 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Humorous yet concerning that our governments act like children.