Wars are fought in many ways. In trenches, behind the wheel of tank, at the trigger of an artillery piece, in the rear supporting the troops. But the war in the Ukraine also fights with guile and disguise, deceit, surprise and humor.
No intelligence, cold warriors, or secrecy but the unmistaken conviction of bringing the fight to the Russian regime. The team is led by a quirky former academic, a housewife, a gifted arty-farty guy, an editor, some journalists and a few volunteers. There is a cat-lady, a Thor of thunder, a bunch of nerds working out the quirks, and a few others.
‘The art is not to crack open the safe of Moscow’, one of them said, ‘but to put a smile on some of the crazy stuff coming out of Moscow or Beijing’. For example, the declaration of making Christmas a ‘foreign agent’. The group was shaking their heads in agreement. ‘Crazy’, one commented.
‘Paranoia holds court’, was the overwhelming verdict by the grinning crowd. Moscow is losing its marbles said another. ‘Imagine an eavesdropping Santa over the roofs in Russia’, evoked giggles like a class of mischievous schoolgirls.
Funding is scarce, however conviction matters. The intelligence agencies usually stay away from these schemes, many, despite of the professional budgets, claims of innovation and other more hairbrained schemes stick with the traditional approach to “disinformation” management.
But born out of the world of intelligence funding has been elusive. Many in business, government and academia have ‘neither the fortitude, lateral intelligent thinking nor lack the culture of outward thinking’.
‘It is amazing’, says the leader of the gang of misfits, ‘that none of big names, figure out the value but rather go with the usual run-of-the-mill solution that have a tendency to fail’. This war is fought in South America, in Asia, and in Europe. ‘No wonder the lackluster support for the Ukraine’, he added.
The research supports the assumptions. A Stamford research paper published in 2021 lambasted the amateurish efforts by the Department of Defense to get ahead the information curve with bots, false Facebook accounts. ‘Daily Amateur hour!’ the head of the IT added.
The group of misfits is proud of the success it had. ‘We had raging arguments about the comas, spelling mistakes and oddities of the language’. The war raged between the argument of getting ‘good English’ to the reader or the ‘so-what’ attitude of the youngsters. ‘Google likes it’, Cat Lady said, ‘Everybody else does not matter’. The misfits nod, grinning in agreement.
But the science is applied. It’s a bit of a ‘common secret sauce’, the quirky leader of the misfits told us. Science plays a vital role in the process.
‘Not everyone can afford a subscription to the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal’, the leader said, ‘I wish I can afford the fancy Washington Post. Jeff Bezos has not realized nobody reads the Washington Post. Everyone tweets on the move.’ Research gives them right. A majority of the ‘bro-voter’ for Donald Trump thumbed their way into the White House.
So has the misfit’s characterization of the war in the Ukraine. Putin and the Russians will realize the power of Santa eavesdropping over Moscow. Rising prices of Potatoes, Fish, Meat and Onions were pointed out by the misfits. Professional intelligence agents laughed at the argument. A couple of weeks later the narrative was picked up by the legacy media.
‘They just don’t have the intellectual fortitude to think out of the box’, one observer said. The same can be said about the Europeans. ‘We think the Americans are bad, the Europeans are not much better’.
In typical fashion European approach this in ‘…. orderly fashion. In linear fashion.’ he added. Followed by a classified approach with Germanic precision and rules and regulation. The budget for information warfare is in the miniscule millions, whereas the Kremlin raised 150 million USD for disinformation efforts. These efforts failed.
Many view the disinformation warfare as a technical exercise, but eventually it boils down to censorship. Instead of letting the argument win European officials, and to a certain decree US officials fighting the war over the coma with the Thesaurus and the Webster dictionary. ‘A fast way to lose the battle of the mind’, said the misfits.
