Breaking Affiliations

Although Andrei does not know it yet, I am breaking affiliations with Kriegsphilosophie.

It was nice to write here when the going got tough.

The Death of Thomas Paine and Civic Duty

Dead is the age of pamphleteers. Hard data brings to mind visions of science fiction movies and the Utopian surveillance state which has - and this is a cliche - used Orwell's "1984" as a training manual as opposed to a warning. We do not have Huxley on the six o'clock anymore and Tupac is not around except in hologram form to remind us that slavery days are hardly an age past.

Here are some koans instead.

Q: Why has the fifth estate experienced mass surveillance through the centuries?
A: It's easy

Q: What do you call a non-Russian speaker who quotes Tolstoy and Dostoevsky?
A: Typical Blogspot user

Q: How many software updates does it take before you blame it on the compiler?
A: I don't know, it's still compiling


edit: If you're in Calgary, make sure you vote for your school trustee, councilor and mayor. I'm sure if Andrei was living here, he'd vote Mr. Naheed Nenshi as well. Nenshi has a strong Public Policy background from Harvard and was a professor of many years at Mount Royal University. His leadership was instrumental during the city flooding and may have been key in saving the town from a massive shutdown.

Media Crawling

http://pressthink.org/
http://www.onstrat.com/osint/
http://www.study4cyberpeace.com/
http://www.sebastian-kautz.com/
http://www.eurotreaties.com/maastrichtec.pdf

Spoof attacks, MITM and outdated certificates

On the subject of network ethics, we often want to ask how fraudulent digital fingerprints may manifest themselves over a particular domain. Whether you are using Chrome, Internet Explorer or Firefox, it is very easy to access the SSL certificates you have access to. As it turns out, the layer is not so secure.

The investigation started when I got onto campus this morning and decided to check the key chain on the Windows 7 machines in the library. A quick Google search turned up (using the keywords "fraudulent certificates") a few articles on spoofs, phishing and man in the middle (MITM) attacks over outdated certificate authorities. While some Tom can (and do) access information over web sockets between Alice and Bob's computers, we must keep in mind that most of these certificate authorities over SSL were instantiated in the 21st century. You can usually find certificates from Mozilla, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google. Other typical objects in the key chain usually come from international telecommunication networks, like Turkish and Dutch roots.

Typical adopters of web browsers will never give these objects much thought, they just kind of run in the background as artifacts of SOCKS routing. It is a matter of course that an attacker would use the path of least resistance and spoof or else forge a digital fingerprint for malicious means using what, prima facie, look like trusted certificates.

Although the latest documentation says that browser updates usually circumvent attacks on outdated or fraudulent authorities, it seems like it may not be the case after all. Attacks have been cited in 2011 onward by sources worldwide (a quick Google will turn up thousands of results). At the cost of bashing Microsoft (which is not the intent), the interesting case is that you usually do not find such digital fingerprints on even what figures like RMS call "spyware operating systems" (like Ubuntu). Indeed, a quick look at my home network does not turn up any fraudulent or else outdated certificate authorities.

Now, a colleague did make mention of some back-doors like this back when we were studying at the University of Calgary Health Sciences department, and it seems to have been patched, but IT in general here seems to allow for more than just MITM attacks - often unwittingly. Dangers of unauthenticated or non-secure SSL channels could be a 'black hat' digital signature, which implicates unknowing end users as perpetrators - not victims - of MITM or spoofs, and also allows prying eyes to look into your email. As an example, we trust our service providers to keep our banking information secured. I can say that my bank account information has been left as a starred item on Gmail since 2010 or so and there have been no worries. What does cause worry is when geographic metadata itself releases malicious digital fingerprints into cyberspace, particularly as a University student, and the next thing you know some police choppers are flying over an entire sub-net to investigate what is believed to be bad traffic.

Core/Operator Design Pattern

define Core:
     Collection of libraries constituting the [modular] components that compose the software/hardware abstraction layer. Size N for object(libraries) is "very large".

define Operator:
     A user-agent, real or simulated, that enacts the effect of maximizing symbolic links and symmetry at the operating system level through the use of software developer kits and formal logic.

0. (Core ^ Operator) is a unity
1. A unity defines new work closures in software life-cycles
   

Information and No Original Research

The nature of information, whether on the Internet or the "real world" has been very obviously well-characterized as "increasing without limit", denoted by our favourite function: the exponential. With the saturation of information versus the lack of interested academics, we can only get out of this slump of having no original research by generating new questions from preexisting data sets. There is a running joke in the programmers community: "grids, grids and more grids". Indeed, the mathematical structure of the grid and matrix are timeless. Euclid and the pre-Socratics solved very interested properties in maths using these kind of structures.

Rather than coming up with new programming languages and frameworks, give your Data Structures and Algorithms textbook some love and read the first three chapters or so. You'll find everything you need to solve interesting statistical problems to be pre-installed with your GNU/Linux minimal build or else your Windows/Apple machine.

Time Distortion and Learning in Virtual Realities

In the film The Matrix, Morpheus and other red-pillers tell us about how being plugged in longer than others seems to change our sense of reality, personalities and perceptions. Indeed, if you were to ask the regular net user since the inception of IRC and those  who have successfully run a business on the Internet, they might tell you "it's all about the timing". In a place where mathematical logic rules and propositions inherit their futures from the study of vector fields, we have to ask ourselves the point at which imagination and reality begin to break down. At the cost of sounding like a hipster, the plugging in process seems to change the time scale at which our minds manage to process and learn new information and the rate at which it acquires knowledge.

Just like the "slumdogs" in India managed to learn biotechnology in two weeks with one computer connected to the Internet, we now see a boundary re-emerging in which humans are melding with the neo-agora and decentralized economics: the boundary of choice. Perhaps this is what Captain Picard meant when he was discussing how economies worked in his future:

We... handle our money systems differently here.

Hashes per second versus Cryptocoin Output

If you look at a typical mining pool for cryptocurrencies, you will notice that most of them contain a "Hall of Fame" segment. Upon closer inspection, you may notice that some people clock in at some absurd number like 140954085 mhash/second and get x number of some cryptocoin (let's say it's 100 BTC). One row down, you may see some user who clocks in at 43948 mhash/second is getting 10 or 20 more BTC than the user getting x number of BTC. Statistically, this means that there is little to no correlation.

The race for building the "best miners" seems to have been a rat race instead of one to the finish line. Save your cash and read the documentation. The transmission protocols used in cryptocurrencies are based on the same ones used for your favourite BitTorrent client and relies on open connectivity to the network. Hash computations aren't going to solve any quicker when the original algorithm by Satoshi was meant to actually be a self-evolving blockchain.

ANDREI: MUSINGS - THE PIOUS ATHEISTS

"Our atheists are pious people. If in the so-called feudal times we held everything as a fief from God, in the liberal period the same feudal relation exists with man." - Max Stirner, "The Ego and its Own," 1844

     "'Good' without God." This is the present moralistic battlecry of the new wave of amateur-scientist, pseudo-intellectual atheists. Prominently described as "atheistkult" by detractors -- both religious and otherwise -- such individuals are fueled by an addiction to YouTube videos with poor production values, a library of atheist+ rhetoric masquerading as haphazard philosophy by Dawkins and Hitchens. These same individuals are known to parrot Nietzsche's most infamous saying that "God is dead." They readily, and perhaps even rightly, openly mock the idea that one need a deity to preserve some sort of moral code. However, paradoxically, they still play the game of the theists -- of the religious. Some even go as far as to claim moral superiority based solely on their more "intellectual" morality.

    Such individuals find themselves stuck playing the theists' game -- and losing. God is not dead to them -- God has only dropped its false skin mask. Its persona is gone, but the concept remains. A metaphysical dictation. A "right" or "wrong" that is objective. This is, of course, not a new thing. Objectivists for years have proposed an atheistic objective morality in the sense of a rationalization that will always rise to a "moral" act, done in one's "rational self-interest." 

     Of course, even amongst Objectivists there is never much agreement in supposed life-boat situations where a single outcome is the inherently moral one. Act as they might that they have found a perfect ethical system, the schisms within Ayn Rand's circles and the vitriol spat back and forth between newsletters of Objectivist-influenced thinkers should demonstrate that the system is every bit as subjective as any other system of morality. 

      Scientific attempts at hammering down morality are even less convincing than the logically rigged debates of metaethical philosophers. Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development, based on the work of developmental psychologist Piaget, offer only a window into one possible framework of reasoning. The inherent criticism is that Kohlberb gave justification for such reasoning after the fact; it is only "good" because he said it was. This criticism so too applies to the circular argumentation of moral universalists. No matter how rigged the game or invocations are based on boolean logic, "good" and "bad" are eternally subjective without an outside, prototypical force.

    It stands to say that this metaphysical, prototypical force is represented by some as God, by others as axiomatic ways of thinking. It does not, of course, take someone with a doctoral degree in philosophy to see that, if examined critically, the axiom is no more -- perhaps even less! -- convincing than the deity. It is an inherently losing game, then, to act as a moralist atheist -- or moralist, for that matter. A "moral" does not exist in a tangible, material fashion -- it is an idea, based on the subjective norms of the society and the values of the individual. What is "good" is what is pleasing, what is "evil" is what is not. This is an independent statement of what may or may not be harmful for society as a whole. To claim otherwise is to be as faithful as their Jehova-worshiping kin.

"Good" is a misnomer.

ANDREI: ACADEMIA - NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION IN THE 21st CENTURY

Individual Analysis: Nuclear Non-proliferation in the 21st Century

     At no point in history has humanity been closer to nuclear war than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the modern era, where the United States has attempted to ensure nuclear non-proliferation; the distant memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis remain terrifying enough for the nation to have decent support by its populace when it comes to pressuring other nations to not develop nuclear capabilities. Although the dreaded nuclear apocalypse has continued to be thankfully averted, there are important lessons in diplomacy that one can take from the most notorious situation. The most prominent today is Iran. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), a NGO (Non Governmental Agency) of the United Nations published a report in 2011 stating that they feared Iran was taking clear steps towards the development of nuclear weapons. Graham Allison in his article for Foreign Affairs entitled “The Cuban Missile Crisis at 50” gives a brief history of the namesake crisis, proposed solutions, along with making a potential “Kennedyesque” third solution to the Iranian situation. Iran, which claims to be developing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, has been repeatedly warned by both Israel and the United States about the potential for military strikes if they do not end their nuclear program. The reasoning given behind this is their potential for nuclear weapons. In realist terms, this would upset the balance of power, obstructing Israel as the regional hegemonic power. Outside of the commonly proposed airstrikes and simply leaving Iran alone, Allison states that the third solution he sees it would be a “carrot and the stick” approach, threatening a regime-changing attack should Iran attempt to muddle investigations into their nuclear program. To believe that a genuine Kennedyesque solution is possible with the individual actors today seems a stretch. One must take a look at the individual actors of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the crisis of today – Khrushchev and Netanyahu, Castro and Netanyahu, ending with Kennedy and Obama.

      Khrushchev, the Soviet leader during the Cuban Missile Crisis, knew that a nuclear war would be disastrous for both sides. In spite of Soviet rhetoric that socialists would easily emerge out of a nuclear catastrophe, Khrushchev himself was a Soviet reformer and considered a liberal among his own party (“Khruschev on Khruschev,” “Khruschev and Stalin,” “Averting the Apocalypse”). While Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, is also considered somewhat of a reformer in his nation, he is much more of a realist than Khrushchev the idealist – along with the fact that he is not the supreme leader of Iran, further complicating matters (Miner). Ahmadinejad has continuously expressed wishful thinking, along with his generals, that the United States would struggle to topple the Iranian regime; that reprisals from Iran would bring the western power to its knees (Nal). While military engagement with Iran would certainly be more costly than the engagement with Saddam's army in Iraq, it is hard to see how Iran imagines it would withstand the incredible air superiority of both the United States and Israel. Furthermore, one could assume that Iran, and by proxy Ahmadinejad, is sincere that it does not wish to pursue nuclear weapons and only nuclear power. If this was indeed true, then they would be an inevitable frustration-aggression response from Iranian leaders who may see the United States and Israel attempting to bully Iran into economic disparity. The oil will dry up, and Iran has claimed that nuclear energy is the only way to ensure its future. Both Khrushchev and Ahmadinejad lacked/lack the favor by the conservative hardliners within their party, however (“Krushchev on Krushchev,” Miner). Khrushchev was deposed soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis for his idealist, pro-western policies, and Ahmadinejad is constantly criticized by the Supreme Council for his domestic policies (“Senior Citizen Khrushchev,” Miner). It is, therefore, not a stretch to imagine that like his superficial Soviet counterpart, Ahmadinejad is playing a game of rhetoric which is often times mistranslated (either accidentally or intentionally) by the western media. For example, an infamous line by Khrushchev is “History is on our side. We will bury you.” However, this idiosyncratic line is a saying in Russian that one will simply outlast their opponent (“Khrushchev on Krushchev,” “Power and Peace”). It was not taken as such in the western media.” An infamous comment by Ahmadinejad is that Israel would be “wiped off the map,” but this too is a repeated mistranslation. According to Ahmadinejad himself during an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN,

     “So when we say ‘to be wiped’, we say for occupation to be wiped off from this world. For war-     seeking to (be) wiped off and eradicated, the killing of women and children to be eradicated. And we      propose the way. We propose the path. The path is to recognise the right of the Palestinians to self-     governance.”

     Ahmadinejad is also an idealist at home, but his rhetoric shows that he is a realist abroad.

In the Cuban Missile Crisis, as Allison writes, Castro was not a true actor. The United States knew he was essentially a rogue agent, and was quick to state that they would see any nuclear attack directed from Cuba as a proxy of the Soviet Union. He was cut out of the picture. Castro was an exemplar of wishful thinking; perhaps strengthened in his delusion by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion where forces trained and equipped by the United States were easily routed, Castro wished nuclear confrontation according to Allison. It is unfair, even superficially, to compare Netanyahu to a man like Castro, but for the purposes of comparison to the Cuban Missile Crisis it is nevertheless necessary. Netanyahu presents an interesting dilemma, as Israel is more than capable of acting independently. Having boasted that Israel could lead the United States “by the nose,” Netanyahu seems eager that military action is the only realistic response to a nuclear Iran (Pillar). Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear facility in an airstrike before, and while Iran has been careful to fortify their own through bunkering and scattering, this has not prevented Israel from taking action (Follath, Stark). Israel has been supplied bunker-busting bombs by the United States (Shanker). Israel may be partly responsible for a campaign of assassinations against Iranian nuclear scientists, striking Iran's knowledge at its core (Vick, Klein). Netanyahu's experience no doubt affects him on a drastic, individual level. A wounded combat veteran, he has been in the special forces in a variety of military operations, including the Suez Canal, the Yom Kippur War, the Six Day War, and more (Melman). It is little wonder, therefore, that despite his time with the United Nations he is widely seen as a realist. Dennis Ross notes that, during the Clinton administration, there was little idea that “Bibi” wanted anything to do with the pursuit of peace [with Palestine] (Beinart). The existence of Israel as an essentially independent actor greatly complicates the situation, and regardless of if the United States were to join in on an attack against Iran, the United States would be greatly affected.

      The matter of the United States, currently led by President Obama, is a particularly interesting situation. Obama, at the individual level, differs greatly from his predecessor Bush. In terms of foreign policy, however, there is a massive overlap (Moughty). To say that he is capable of a Kennedyesque solution seems improbable. Obama has continued much of the Bush doctrine, though with a more strategic policy (Moughty). He is not motivated by the same neo-conservative idealism that so affected the Bush doctrine. His ambition is arguably less in terms of nation-building and “spreading democracy,” but a sort of hard-power play on eliminating what his administration see as threats to American interests. Considering his actions in nations such as Libya and Pakistan, it is not unreasonable to say that he may try to avoid a “boots on the ground” situation in Iran, instead relying on methods such as airstrikes, cruise missiles, and drones (Moughty). While the United States does not face an immediate military threat, a nuclear Iran still upsets the balance of power, and from a zero-sum game perspective it cannot be allowed. Nevertheless, Obama is motivated to delay what may be the inevitable showdown – with an election mere months away, with an economy in shambles, and with a stretched-thin military that is prepared more for unconventional warfare than the traditional conflict that would be Iran, the question may not be a matter of “if,” but how and/or when.

      To compare the Cuban Missile Crisis to the issue of a nuclear Iran seems to be a stretch. Iran is not yet a true nuclear power, and there is the possibility – however faint some may view it – that they are genuinely not pursuing weaponization. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was no genuine third party, and there was a great chance of nuclear mutually assured destruction. The complete opposite is currently the case in Iran. Perhaps a greater comparison would be a what-if scenario in the future. If Iran is allowed to become a nuclear power, and does pursue nuclear weapons, then Israel may be inevitably faced with a situation much more similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu, and Obama, all act as chemical elements in a volatile mix. Each bring with them their own biases, each hold different religions, each hold their own ambitions and motivations. War seems inevitable – but a different war seemed inevitable fifty years ago, as well.

Works Cited
Beinart, Peter. “How U.S. Jews Stymie Peace Talks.” The Daily Beast. 27 Sep. 2010. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.
Follath, Eric and Holger Stark. “The Story of Operation Orchard.” Der Spiegel. 11 Feb. 2009. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.
“Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” IAEA Board of Governors. 8 Nov. 2011.
“Khrushchev: Averting the Apocalypse.” Time. 21 Dec. 1970. Vol 95 Iss 25. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Sep. 2012.
“Khrushchev's Last Testament: Power and Peace.” Time. 6 May 1974. Vol 103 Iss 18. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Sep. 2012.
Khrushchev, Sergei. “Khrushchev on Khrushchev.” Time. 18 June 1990. Vol 135. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Sep. 2012.
Melman, Yossi. “More Than Six Decades On, Israel Memorializes Late Commander of British Army's Jewish Unit.” Haaretz. 18 Nov. 2010. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.
Miner, Michael. “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The Reformer.” PBS. 11 Apr. 2011. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.
Moughty, Sarah. “Top CIA Official: Obama Changed Virtually None of Bush's Controversial Programs.” PBS. 1 Sep. 2011. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.
Nal, Renee. “Another Iranian General Threatens U.S., Warns of World War III.” Gather. 24 Sep. 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.
Pillar, Paul. “Has Netanyahu Gone Too Far?” ConsortiumNews. 14 Sep. 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.
“Senior Citizen Khrushchev.” Time. 7 July 1967. Vol 90 Iss 1. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Sep. 2012.
Shanker, Thom. “U.S. Quietly Supplies Israel With Bunker-Busting Bombs.” The New York Times. 23 Sep. 2011. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.

Sheinman, Anna. “Ahmadinejad Interviewed By Piers Morgan on CNN.” The JC. 25 Sep. 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.
Thatcher, Ian. “Khrushchev and Stalin.” History Review. Mar 2009. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Sep. 2012.
Vick, Karl and Aaron Klein. “Who Assassinated an Iranian Nuclear Scientist? Israel Isn't Telling.” Time. 13 Jan. 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.

ANDREI: ACADEMIA - DURNOVO'S PREDICTION OF WORLD WAR I

     Peter Durnovo wrote to Tsar Nicholas II in February of 1914 a memorandum warning of the consequences of war, mere months before the onset of the first World War. Tensions were brewing. Franz Ferdinand had not yet been assassinated, but there was a deep sense of growing unrest. Only a decade earlier, Russia had experienced a failed revolution after the Russo-Japanese War (Steinberg). Durnovo, a reactionary determined to keep the status quo, recognized the risks of what a war would bring and how it would sever the last threads holding Imperial Russia together. He blasted the Triple Entente as having been meddled in by Britain, and that Russia had pragmatically gained nothing as a result – but could lose everything, as the battering ram of Britain. “To sum up, the Anglo-Russian accord has brought us nothing of practical value up to this time, while for the future, it threatens us with an inevitable armed clash with Germany.” Many of his warnings eerily came true, down to Russia's inadequacy to fight a war on the side of Britain, to how the socialists would rise up in the smoke, to the fall of Germany (Steinberg). There is one glaring error in Durnovo's memorandum: the mistaken belief that naval and imperial tensions between Britain and Germany would be the primary cause of a greater European war. While “the Great War” did occur, its origins and onset were not as Durnovo envisioned. To fully understand how Durnovo made this poor call, in the face of being so right on so much, one must examine not only why, but how he was wrong.

     Durnovo wrongly states that “The vital interests of Russia and Germany do not conflict.” History tells us a different story. Germany pursuing an aggressive policy for years, perhaps even making realistic plans 18 months in advance of the onset of World War I for military action (Sheffield). Kaiser Wilhelm II had deliberately decided against renewing a treaty with Russia years in the 1890s, and instead opted for the creation of a purely German alliance – this key factor had been the cause of the first entente, an alliance between Russia and France. Britain, fearing a powerful Germany, would later engage in mending relations with France and Russia, dividing the powers into those of the Central and the Entente. Durnovo neglects to bring up the fact that Germany, by proxy through its support of Austria-Hungary, was pursuing a more aggressive policy in the Balkans as well. Russia, through its alliance with Serbia, stood in the way (Steinberg).

     It would be Germany that played the part of aggressor, not Britain (Sheffield). While Durnovo was right that the growing imperialist ambitions, along with military buildup, would increase tension, his prediction was ultimately wrong. The entangled web of alliances, mutual defense, treaties, and severe foreign policy miscalculations would be the brush. The spark would be the assassination of Franz Ferdinand – not a war between Britain and Germany spilling over. The assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne was blamed squarely on Serbia. Russia, bound by alliance and treaty, announced the mobilization of its forces (Kubilius). Germany, which had written as essentially blank heck to Austria-Hungary, had perhaps not anticipated that Russia would go this far. Nevertheless, they had encouraged the concept of war, and readily declared war on Russia with the view that mobilization was an act of war. France, allied to Russia, would also be engaged at war – Germany would invade the neutral Belgium in order to reach Paris quickly (Sheffield). Britain, which was morally obligated to defend France per treaty, would also utilize a nearly century old treaty with Belgium to justify its involvement after Germany's invasion. Germany's rampant aggression directly conflicts with Durnovo's predictions, who had warned that Britain would play the part of antagonist, and would exploit Russia as a battering ram. “The main burden of the war will undoubtedly fall on us... The part of a battering ram, making a breach in the very thick of the German defense, will be ours, with many factors against us to which we shall have to devote great effort and attention.”

     Durnovo either failed to include or intentionally omitted the potential idiocy of Russia's own decision making in his memorandum. The decision to mobilize the military in the face of Germany's blank check to Austria-Hungary was foolish, regardless if it was backed by treaty. Without Nicholas' decision to support Serbia, World War I almost certainly would not have happened – at least, not the way that it did. The alternative would have been to remain idle, abandoning Serbia to Austria. While this would have resulted in incredible criticism from Pan-Slavicists, it would have permitted Russia to at the very least have more time in building its forces. Even the most optimistic predictions stated that Russia would not be ready for war until 1917 (Sheffield).

     One explanation for Durnovo's insistence to the Tsar that better relations with Germany were preferable is Durnovo's belief that Britain was a natural ally of the socialist opposition within Russia. “Strange as it may seem, England, monarchistic and conservative to the marrow at home, has in her foreign relations always acted as the protector of the most demagogical tendencies, in variably encouraging all popular movements aiming at the weakening of the monarchical principle.” As a reactionary, Durnovo was doubtlessly terrified by the idea of the monarchy falling. It was only rational, then, that Russia should ally with Germany, to which it was ideologically closer. “It should not be forgotten that Russia and Germany are the representatives of the conservative principle in the civilized world, as opposed to the democratic principle, incarnated in England and, to an infinitely lesser degree, in France.” Whatever Durnovo's idealization of the German monarchy, it would be the conflict of Germany and Russia over Austria-Hungary and Serbia that was the first sign that war was now inevitable.

     Durnovo was wrong that war was an entirely British prospect. He was wrong that a war between Britain and Germany would pull its allies in – instead, the opposite happened. It is unlikely that even if Russia had heeded Durnovo's advice that war could have been avoided for too long. The end of monarchism may have been inevitable. Ultimately, Durnovo's warnings would not be heeded. While World War I did not start the way he had envisioned, the difficulties Russia would face both during and after the war came true. World War I would accelerate the end of the Russian Tsardom. The Socialists would be victorious in Russia, and monarchism would come to a crashing end. Durnovo would not live to see the end of the monarchy, dying in 1915 – not long after his warnings.

Sources cited:

Durnovo, Peter. “Memorandum to Tsar Nicholas II.” Course Material; Provided Reading.

Kubilius, Kerry. “Russia's Position in WWI.” Web. [http://suite101.com/article/russias_position_in_wwi-a71574], accessed October 30th, 2012.

Sheffield, Gary. “The Origins of World War One.” Web. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_01.shtml], accessed October 30th, 2012.

Steinberg, John, Anthony Heywood, David McDonald. “Could Russia Have Avoided War in 1914?” Web. [http://russiasgreatwar.org/media/international/avoided.shtml], accessed October 30th, 2012.

ANDREI: ACADEMIA - LENIN'S "TAX IN KIND"

     Vladimir Lenin found himself in yet another precarious position in the last days of the Russian Civil War. The economy was in ruins; the policy of “War Communism”, which practiced the redistribution of peasant-farmer's grains for the industrial workers and the military, had been a complete disaster, only deepening the hunger that years of war had forced Russians into. Something new had to be done. Whether out of Marxist theory or pure pragmatism, Lenin proposed a “strategic retreat” – a new policy of “tax in kind” would be the lead into his idea of state capitalism. Lenin sought to reconcile state capitalism under his “New Economic Policy” with Bolshevik ideology, and also to utilize a controlled capitalism in order to rebuild the Russian economy.

     Many Soviet citizens feared that Lenin's undertakings were a move away from Bolshevik ideals, and Lenin needed a propaganda element in order to win Bolshevik support. He would utilize his own writings and argumentation to bolster support of the NEP, while simultaneously taking harsh authoritarian measures. Lenin argued that under atypical Marxist history, there is a linear progression of time. Russia could not simply skip from the beginning stages of capitalism all the way to communism. Lenin asks, rhetorically, “Can the Soviet state and the dictatorship of the proletariat be combined with state capitalism? Are they compatible?” and he answers his own question with a resounding “yes.” Lenin further argues that there must be a dictatorship of the proletariat to guide capitalism, avoiding any further ills beyond the revival of the “petty bourgeoisie.” Lenin writes, “Capitalism is a bane compared with socialism. Capitalism is a boon compared with medievalism.” He appeals to the ideological and intellectual senses of the communists, that capitalism must be used in order to build Russia. “Those who compare state capitalism only with socialism commit a host of mistakes.” He cautions in an October 1921 publication, furthermore, that “We must not count on going straight to communism.” Lenin warns in this same publication that the Communists risk being their own worst enemies with “communist conceit” with the belief that all problems could be issued by empty idealism. It was not just other Communists that were proving an issue, but resistant peasants. Lenin could not risk this undermining of Soviet recovery, and he directed Agitprop, the Department for Agitation and Propaganda, to undermine culture and religion in order to bolster support for Bolsheviks as a supplement to the New Economic Policy (Brovkin). This attack would not be limited to merely words, and the GRU secret police also took a dual role of monitoring Russians, and to silence dissent (Brovkin).

     Lenin hammers out the details of his economic scheme, after his attempts at gaining ideological temperance by his comrades. Put another way, he tries to argue the beneficial effects of a controlled capitalism for Soviet Russia beyond ideological rectification. Lenin explains the first element of the transition from War Communism to state-capitalism – that of a new and incredibly lower tax. “The correct policy of the proletariat exercising its dictator ship in a small-peasant country is to obtain grain in exchange for the manufactured goods the peasant needs...The tax in kind is a transition to this policy.” Lenin points to the successes of Western European capitalism as the most civilized, and recommends its adoptions with key changes. Namely, profiteering would not be illegal, but the state-capitalist system would be so closely monitored that those who pilfer private capital would be subject to particularly harsh punishments. The peasant farmers would also be allowed to sell their food on an open market, as well as employing others and expanding their farms. A greater degree of private commerce would be allowed, and small factories would be denationalized (Simkin). Lenin also recommends massive, large-scale state-run initiatives for manufacture and industry, all closely regulated, as to not become overpowered by “the anarchy of petty bourgeois relations.”

     Lenin eloquently attempted to make the case for concessions to capitalism, alienating many of his allies but at the same time hoping to save Soviet Russia from collapse. He expended massive effort, both in terms of propaganda to support his ideas as well as their implementation. Ultimately, Lenin's New Economic Policy would prove decently successful at restoring the Russian economy, but only to the level it had been in the first World War. Nevertheless, his successor Josef Stalin would quickly get rid of Lenin's concessions to capitalism and implement his own ideas – the first Five-Year Plan (Simkin). With Lenin's death, so too died the brief taste of a greater economic freedom and recovery.

Sources cited:

Brovkin, Vladimir. “Russia After Lenin.” eBook. [http://www.revalvaatio.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/brovkin-russia_after_lenin_politics_culture_society_1921-1929.pdf], accessed 6 Nov. 2012.

Lenin, Vladimir. “The Tax In Kind.” 21 Apr. 1921. Course material; provided reading.

Lenin, Vladimir. “The New Economic Policy.” 17 Oct. 1921. Web. [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/17.htm], accessed 6 Nov. 2012.

Simkin, John. “New Economic Policy.” Web. [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSnep.htm], accessed 6 Nov. 2012.

ANDREI: ACADEMIA - STALIN AND THE SHAKHTY AFFAIR

What were, and how did Stalin utilize, the threats mentioned in “The Tasks of Business Execuives”?

       Josef Stalin spoke at the “First All-Union Conference of Leading Personnel of Socialist Industry” on February 4th, 1931, about the need for rapid industrialization, how earlier programs had not met their quotas, and the conditions needed for fulfillment. The talk, entitled “The Tasks of Business Executives,” was filled with self-praise and minor self-criticism. When it comes to the ability to utilize Soviet power, however, Stalin states “Unfortunately, not everything is in order here.” Stalin was determined at any cost to proceed with industrialization, and he was ready and willing to use the secret police to be rid of those that stood in his way – whether the threat was real or imagined. Two particular incidents are mentioned that, according to him, are examples of bourgeois counterrevolutionary activity by the intelligentsia as a direct result of class struggle. He accuses those that were in charge of economic planning and engineering of lacking “revolutionary vigilance.” These incidents are the Shakhty Affair and Trial, as well as the Industrial Party Trial – show trials that would precede the Moscow Trials and purges of the late 1930s.

       The Shakhty Affair occurred in 1928, an incident that – according to Stalin – was a “counter-revolutionary group of bourgeois experts carried on their work for five years, receiving instructions from the anti-Soviet organisations of international capital.” Stalin spoke as though the affair “came out of the blue,” a complete surprise for the Bolsheviks, who were then still in the final years of the NEP (Stalin, “Work”). The namesake of the affair is the Shakhty coal mines, and accused engineers within of engaging in both sabotage and treason. The accusations read like a list of White Army heresies, from the singing of the tsarist anthem, to rude treatment of workers, to intentional delays and siding with foreigners (Kuromiya 15). These engineers, for their alleged sabotage, would come to be known as “wreckers.” On a purely objective basis, it is unclear whether or not the affair was a setup by Stalin against his critics; much like the assassination of Sergei Kirov, Stalin would use the incident as a political pretext in achieving his own goals (Kuromiya 15). In “The Tasks of Business Executives,” Stalin gives a damning indictment of centrism. “We, too, in the centre, are also to blame. About ten years ago a slogan was issued: 'Since Communists do not yet properly understand the technique of production, since they have yet to learn the art of management, let the old technicians and engineers — the experts — carry on production...'” Stalin states that in allowing others to lead the way, with true Bolsheviks only “signing the papers” rather than becoming experts, the Bolsheviks had left themselves vulnerable. “Some of the old engineers and technicians, working without supervision, rather easily go over to wrecking activities, especially as they are constantly being besieged by "offers" from our enemies abroad.” The Shakhty Affair marked the essentially official shift from the class-conciliatory NEP, to class warfare against what Stalin saw as a bourgeois intelligentsia. Five engineers were sentenced to death, with another fourty-four sent to prison (“Shakhty Trial”).
       The next stage of Stalin's persecution came with the Industrial Party – in essence, a continuation of the Shakhty Trial, and a precursor to the Moscow Trials. The “wreckers” as they had been called were accused of trying form an anti-Soviet union, or “Industrial Party” (Graham 163). The defendants were accused of plotting a coup, guided by foreign capitalist powers. The prosecution alleged that the wreckers moved beyond simple sabotage, which encompassed the majority of earlier allegations, to concealed wrecking. Essentially, the wreckers were now scapegoats for economic woes (“Industrial Party”). Although this had been expressed earlier to a lesser extent in the Shakhty Trial, with workers who had apparently not been producing as much enduring the accusation of co-conspiracy, this was a step beyond. The wreckers had been accused of shifting from such minimalist, small means to maximal destruction, something that was only capable of happening under the old policies. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia lists the accusations. “The members of the organization held a number of responsible positions in Vesenkha (Supreme Council on the National Economy) and Gosplan (State Planning Committee)... created disproportions among the different branches of the national economy, “froze” capital funds, and disrupted the supply process... The ultimate aim of the anti-Soviet underground was the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR and the restoration of capitalism.”
       According to Stalin, the old intelligentsia must not only be converted – but instead, in the place of these bourgeois intelligentsia, a strong Bolshevik intelligentsia must rise. No more of Bolsheviks simply signing away the papers – they must become experts, themselves. Stalin had tamed whatever threat that Soviet economists and engineers may have offered to his regime, while simultaneously discrediting moderates in the Bolshevik Party with the accusation that they had been partially responsible for allowing the situation to unfold. Against individuals like Bukharin, it was doubly effective as some of them had been engaged in technocratic discussion – absent Marxist ideology – with some of the accused wreckers (Graham 165). A new era was beginning. Gone was Lenin's New Economic Policy of state-capitalism, and to replace it was forced collectivization. Equally as important, this new class war would also include Stalin's “cultural revolution,” during which Marxist science was a staple of academic thought so that incidents like the Shakhty Affair and Industrial Party Trial could be avoided in the future.
Sources cited:
Graham, Loren. “Science in Russia and the Soviet Union.” Print. [http://books.google.com/books?id=m_wPpj64GqMC&pg=PA163&lpg=PA163&dq=General+counsel+of+technocratic+party+russia&source=web&ots=nKYC6bXk2Q&sig=1M8sh3W3wtRhZzI9_PkKSiDded8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=false], preview accessed 15 Nov. 2012.

“Industrial Party.” Web. [http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Industrial+Party+Trial], accessed 15 Nov. 2012.

Kuromiya, Hiraki. “Stalin's Industrial Revolution: Politics and Workers, 1928-1931.” [http://books.google.com/books?id=cyJNElP75EwC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=shakhty+affair&source=bl&ots=bm1wQgtQgf&sig=YUymqG_DNLhSNCJtfYK34M5dMSY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SMikUMu_KZP29gSFqoGYBg&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=shakhty%20affair&f=false], preview accessed 15 Nov. 2012.

“Shakhty Trial.” Web. [http://www.answers.com/topic/shakhty-trial], accessed 15 Nov. 2012.

Stalin, Josef. “The Tasks of Business Executives.” 4 Feb. 1931. Web. 2008. [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1931/02/04.htm], accessed 15 Nov. 2012.

Stalin, Josef. “The Work of the April Joint Plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission.” 13 Apr. 1928. Web. 2008. [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1928/04/13.htm], accessed 15 Nov. 2012.

ANDREI: ACADEMIA - THREE DIRECTIONS: THE IDEOLOGICAL POWER VACUUM IN RUSSIAN POLITICS

       The aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse left an ideological vacuum in Russia. The move was at first towards the west – an unreceptive and unenthusiastic host. It did not take long for such a move to fail. The difference in important systems of thought in Russian foreign policy can be readily examined by their approach to the West. Tsygankov labels these systems as follows: the Westernists, pushing for closer relations and the adoption of values with and of the West – though their definition of “West” differs; the Civilizationists, who wish for a nationalist and Stalinist state in Russia, or a Eurasian union completely independent from the West; lastly, the Statists, who take elements from both preceding systems while pushing for a very realist balance of power and desire a multipolar world (62).

     Westernists have their roots in the “New Thinking” of Gorbachev. Gorbachev followed a pattern of liberalism blinded by idealism. His policy of reform was ultimately painted with a negative legacy – to readily gave in to withdrawals and concessions, all with the futile goal of western acceptance (50). With Gorbachev's vast efforts at decreasing military tension between the Soviet Union and the West, there was a genuine hope for turning attention towards domestic affairs – perhaps even with the assistance of the West. Gorbachev, however, found himself essentially used by Western powers; in pushing for liberalism, he essentially gave up the power that would have acted as his rock (51). Although its roots were within Gorbachev's New Thinking, Kozryev's liberal Westernists viewed Gorbachev's failure as a systemic one (56). Gorbachev was buying oats for a dead horse; no amount of concessions and reforms could save the utopian Soviet Union from extinction. Based in part on liberalist ideas such as Fukiyama's “the end of history”, the liberalist Westernists saw Russia's future as becoming entwined with the West, both economically and politically (56). For the first few years after the Soviet Union, they were the dominant force. Alternatively, the Social Democrats – also considered Westernisers – held to Gorbachev's teachings. The Social Democrats viewed pure the liberal Westernists focus as undermining Russia's potential for social democracy – there was too much of a focus on the US, rather than the European powers and perhaps the world as a whole (64). Nevertheless, in 1993, westernization as a whole was on the way out (67). Like before, the West essentially turned its attention away from Russia; the aid it did give was not up to expectations (67). In spite of liberalist Westernists pushing for closer relations with the West, rather than their own neighboring former Soviet republics, the West forgot about Russia. Despite attempts at integrating with western organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the failure on the West's part to helpfully engage a ready and willing Russia had left Russia to its fate, and a rapidly decaying moral and economic fabric offered itself as fertile breeding grounds for nationalism, much like the Weimar Republic of Germany had. Today, Westernists remain a critical voice of the other systems (205). They criticize Civilizationists and Statists of being too focused on narrow-minded balancing with the US, rather than focusing on non-western powers like China (206).

     The Civilizationists are the old guard. Much like the Westernists, Tsygankov places the Civilizationists in two groups – the National Communists, and the Hard-line Eurasianists. He uses Gennadi Zyuganov to represent the National Communist ideology, which is based in the neo-nationalism that arose in the ashes of the Soviet Union (61, 63). Coupling nationalism with communism, they wish a restoration of Soviet Russia – socialism in one country. National Communists, particularly Zyuganov who remains the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. They are dramatically opposed to westernization, going as far to accuse Westernists of being traitors, as they see the influence as merely undermining Russian influence in the world (63). The second group of Civilizationists are the Hard-line Eurasianists. The Eurasianists wish to stand opposed to the US' interests, which they view as inherently incompatible with Russia (63). The Eurasianists hold very real geopolitical ambitions – that of a “Greater Russia”, but their influence is little (63). The Eurasianists flirt with fascism, especially individuals like Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and they have been used as examples of radical bogeymen (Laparenok). The Civilizationists radically oppose integration with western organizations, as well as western influence, seeing themselves as either independent or having farm ore in common with the East.

The dominant influence in Russia, however, belongs to the Statists. The Statists are viewed by many to be the pragmatists, rather than the ideologues of the Westernists and the Civilizationists, though they take lessons from both camps (64) The Statists view Russia as unique, with its own objective national interests independent of the rest of the world. With the rejection of westernism came Kozyrev's removal, and the installation of Primakov, as foreign minister under Boris Yeltsin in 1995 (65). Under Primakov, Yeltsin's administration turned from idealism, to realism – to securing its own interests (96). While Russia did not retreat into isolationism, it simultaneously pursued a more international foreign policy rather than simply ignoring non-western powers as the Westerinizers had (97). The Statist method also incorporated certain terminology and concepts from the Civilizationists, such as Russia as a sovereign power with roots in Eurasia, without playing into imperialist dogma (97). The Statists opposed what they perceived to be encroachment by the West on their power, especially with regards to NATO expansion (Tsygnakov 94). If the Statist way of thinking could be summed up in one word, it would be realism – contrasting the different strains of idealism of both the Civilizationists and the Westernists. There is a sort of middle ground in the Statist approach to the West; instead of the anti-hedgemon, Russia simply “is” in the Statist worldview (95). It does not bend to American whims, nor does it necessarily oppose them for the sake of being contrarian. One key element of Primakov's ideas that differed from both was the reintegration of former Soviet territories, something that was incredibly draining on Russia's health (121). Primakov would soon abandon this policy of a closer-knit CIS. One may argue that Putin's continuation policies of “Great Power Pragmatism” are a direct continuation of Statism's “Great Power Balancing” – yet with pragmatic and adaptive shifts. Statism has been the dominant weltanschauung behind Russian foreign policy for more than a decade, regardless of brief Westernist-Statist hybridization post 9-11. Putin wishes for Russia to have a strong, independent, and paternalistic state, and he has readily pursued aggressive foreign policy to achieve this end. There is no settling for the status of a “middle” power in Putin's world – Russia must be a great power. The West may be engaged, but western democratization may be nothing more at times than a sham for cloaked imperialism

     While to come extent any labeling of diverse thought into neatly packaged constructs is a gross oversimplification, it does provide a useful method of making complicated ideas more understandable. The Westernists wait, seeing the impending conflict between China and Russia as their new chance as Russia retains and builds its status as a great power. One cannot help but believe that there may still be some resentment on the part of the liberals for the failure of the US to seize the moment in which it could have allied itself further with Russia. The Social Democrats had looked to Western Europe longingly, though now face the sight of watching forces ebb and flow within the financially tumultuous European Union. The Civilizationists remain the nationalistic bogeymen, with much of their talk of Russia as a Great Power readily co-opted by the Statists. They no longer hold the sway they once did as being the “anti-Westernists”, though now they present themselves as an alternative to what they claim is the corrupt Statist methodology of Putin. The Statists continue to dominate, though perhaps not in the same ways that the Primakovites had hoped. The differing approaches to the West will continue to be how the systems of thought differentiate between themselves.

Works Cited

Laparenok, Leonid. “Vladimir Zhirinovsky.” Russiapedia, by Russia Today. Web. <http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/politics-and-society/vladimir-zhirinovsky/>. 19 Nov. 2012.

Tsygankov, Andrei P. Russia's Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity in National Identity. 2nd ed. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010. Print.

ANDREI: ACADEMIA - CHANGES IN THE WIND; THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE OF RUSSIA

Changes in the Wind

Russia, regardless of the ideology in vogue at the time, has always operated on a pragmatic level. Even in the Soviet era, western analysts – and foreign Communists – were blindsided by the deals struck with the Anti-Comintern force of Nazi Germany, regardless of the cold, harsh logic behind the decision. This was not a decision based upon ideology, or backwardness, or barbarity, but a situation – an event. The West had pursued a policy of appeasement towards Germany, and Russia saw their enemies moving toward them. Space had to be made, and time had to be bought. This example is one of many. A factor that should be calculated into the analysis of Russian foreign policy is its unpredictability in the face of specific events that makes the nation feel threatened, where Russia will act with what it deems most pragmatic, given the situation. Russian foreign policy in the post-Soviet era has been largely reactionary to perceived threats by the United States, particularly through NATO, and terrorism. Two particular time periods deserve examination in post-Soviet Russia: the early to late 90s, during which the dominant force shifted from Westernism to Statism, and Putin's radical shift back and forth between Statism as well as Westernism in the face of Chechen terrorism and US policies.

The seemingly sudden end to radical Westernism in Russia was accelerated by changes in both administration and sudden entanglements, and not merely a slow erosion (64). Russia, initially intoxicated by radical Westernism, was met with a barrage of issues that threatened its power. United Nations intervention in the Balkans was dramatically opposed by parliament, and NATO's swallowing up of former Soviet bloc members allowed for mobilization against the Westernists in Russia – a trend that would continue (66). To chalk this up to some sort of formula of a combination of inescapable economic backwardness and a distinct separation from the West is a gross oversimplification and borderline ignorant of the facts on the ground. Russia, under westernization, had gone as far as abandoning its traditional “shatter zone” with the complete disregard of some former territories and former Soviet Republics. Russia felt threatened – and one is most unpredictable when backed into a corner, especially in a relative democracy. Kozyrev, Boris Yeltisn's foreign minister, had been the most important driving force behind westernization. With nationalist victories in the 1993 and 1995 elections, Yeltsin made the conscious decision to wildly modify his policy by removing Koryzev and appointing Primakov, who signaled the abandonment of Westernism and the adoption of Statism (65). The appointment was a cold calculation against the growing nationalist power in Russia. Still, even Primakov was not yet opposed so much to NATO expansion and instead pushed for a more multipolar world. To say that relations merely “worsened” with the West with NATO's airstrikes in the Balkans in 1999 is an understatement. NATO's rampant expansionism set the stage for Russia in the 21st century (103). For better or worse, Russia found itself poised once more as a counterbalance to the West, though not on the bipolar level of the Cold War, and Statist Russia quickly allied itself with nonwestern powers in an attempt at ensuring a power balance.

Much of Russia's foreign policy has been reactionary to how the United States acts. The Chechen War in 1999 has had a lasting effect on Russia, beyond the obvious tension. Much like how Americans united around Bush in the aftermath of 9-11, so too did Russians around Putin, who was a greatly unpopular prime minister (103). Putin was quite friendly to western interests in the aftermath of 9-11, sharing with them a mutual concern regarding terrorism. Russia had been plagued with terrorism since 1999, and Putin saw this as more of a threat to Russian security than conventional warfare between states (105). Another event in the United States' continuation of the war on terror ultimately put the two powers at odds, once more – the invasion of Iraq. The United States had acted unilaterally, completing going over the head of the United Nations unlike the earlier airstrikes at the turn of the century (143). This boiled into three separate fears: a US policy of regime change, internal revolutions, and radicalization of Muslims through a perceived clash of civilizations. Russia perceives the continued expansion of NATO as a threat of a military bloc right on its border. Russia also blames the “colored revolutions” as being orchestrated by the United States, and took steps to expunge “foreign agents” from Russia, including even the Peace Corps.

Russia is no longer quite as bound by ideology as it once had been, particularly under the Soviet era. Russia operates in an incredibly pragmatic manner, twisting and turning to worm its way through the obstacles that it finds itself within. These often result in longterm policy changes, as a direct result of experience, drastically changing the political landscape of the country. “Persistent factors” are not so persistent; reducing Russian foreign policy to a formula will often leave an analyst surprised and dumbfounded. Russia's attempts at westernization were derailed by sharp, painful situations, and terrorism's influence on the country is third only perhaps to Israel and the United States. It is important to keep an eye on Russia's approach to foreign policy in the brewing turmoil within the Middle East, especially given their feelings of being “duped” by the United Nations with regards to Libya – and now they stand flatly opposing interventionism in Syria.

Works Cited

Tsygankov, Andrei P. Russia's Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity in National Identity. 2nd ed. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010. Print.

ANDREI: ACADEMIA - RUSSIA AND THE MEDIA AS AN INFORMATION WAR TOOL

Russia and the Media as an Information War Tool

      Carl von Clausewitz, an early 19^th century Prussian general, once said that war is an extension of politics.¹ In the modern era, the line between the two has been inexplicably blurred. The internet age has brought with it new and changed forms of warfare; in particular, information warfare is of new importance. Information warfare (IW) is a blanket term that can include different methods ranging from cyber-attacks against internet infrastructure, to espionage of poorly guarded sensitive material, to spreading a certain view through the media. It may also be known as information or psychological operations.² For the purposes of this paper, IW explicitly refers to the propaganda element. No longer are the generals of information warfare solely censoring productions and jamming radio signals from abroad to attempt to control the image that their populace receives. The propaganda of revolutionary foreign policy has evolved. Russia openly views information warfare as a critical component of soft power, and has underlined the importance of using the media as a tool of “soft propaganda” for controlling the information environment; its most recent and seemingly innocuous weapon is its state-owned international news outlet, RT – formerly known as Russia Today. To understand this new use of media as a weapon, the theory behind RT must be examined, along with the outlet's status, its content and critique, along with the rebuttal of its defenders.

      Russian Professor Aleksandr Selivanov, writing in Voyenno-Promyshlennyy Kuryer, states that the purpose of IW is “to form a stratum of people with transformed values in society who actually become carriers of a different culture and of the tasks and goals of other states on the territory of one’s own country.”  He further states that territory can even be seized through the use of IW by “‘nontraditional occupation’ as the possibility of controlling territory and making use of its resources without the victor’s physical presence on the territory of the vanquished.”³ According to Timothy Thomas, an analyst whose works are published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College, Russia's strategy is using IW as a replacement for the loss of ideology.⁴ Whereas rudimentary IW was a tactic of revolutionary foreign policy in the Soviet past, it is now an entity unto itself – applicable at both foreign and domestic fronts. Russia portrays its IW practices as a method of self-defense.⁵ There are two fronts of IW – domestic and foreign. On the domestic front, there is a fear of foreign agents. Professor Igor Panarin – a Russian political scientist analyst regularly cited by Russian media for his expertise in IW – accuses the West, particularly through military intelligence operations, of installing anti-government agents in the more liberal media such as Novaya Gazeta and Radio Echo, forcing the Russian government's hand in creating state-run media.⁶ Despite the conspiracy-theory level of Panarin's claims, the idea that the West is playing information warfare is taken seriously by the Russian media. Defenders of Russia's IW practices regularly quote US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who said,

"We are in an information war and we are losing that war. Al Jazeera is winning, the Chinese have opened a global multi-language television network, the Russians have opened up an English-language network. I’ve seen it in a few countries, and it is quite instructive.^7"

Walter Isaacson, Chairman of the U.S. Government's Broadcasting Board of Governors – which runs state-owned outlets including Voice of America, requested higher funding because “We can't allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies.” He explicitly mentioned channels such as RT.⁸ This motif of self-defensive soft power has continued. According to RT, the modern information war was started by the United States. Unlike many other international media outlets, RT's coverage is not merely limited to its home nation and the near-abroad. In fact, RT has had a shift from covering mostly Russian news to covering western news with a Russian perspective, or hiring “alternative media”. When interviewed by The New York Times, Aleksei Makarkin, an analyst at the Institute of Political Technology, stated that “The Americans have a view of Russia and they show it to us. Russians have a point of view about America, too, and we want to show it to you.”⁹

      RT is certainly capable. RT now rivals Al Jazeera in Britain as the most popular foreign English news channel.¹⁰¹¹ Pew Research shows that RT is the top source for news videos on YouTube.¹² American viewers doubled in 2012 from 2011; in some regions of the US, such as New York, viewership nearly tripled, and Nielsen Media Research surveys indicate that audiences tend to prefer watching RT as compared to other international news channels. ¹³ There is evidence of a continued push for utilizing state-owned media as part of the information war. RT's funding has generally increased every year. In US dollars, RT's budget has gone from 80 million in 2007, 120 million in 2008, 380 million in 2011, to 300 million in 2012 – a slight decrease.¹⁴ Recently, President Putin refused to allow Russia's Finance Ministry to slash funding for state-run media, notably including “Rossikyskaya Gazeta” and RT; simultaneously, funding for non state-run news organizations such as ITAR-TASS was drastically cut – ITAR-TASS alone had its funding cut by nearly 40%.¹⁵ Furthermore, RT is no longer a single channel, as it has been expanded to Spanish and Arabic broadcasts, bringing RT to three global channels.¹⁶ RT's performance has been chalked up to a combination of its young staff, its provocative image, and its “alternative” take. Heidi Brown, writing for Forbes, states that RT uses sex appeal of attractive, young anchors as a method of the Kremlin “using charm... to appeal to a diverse and skeptical audience.” ¹⁷

      As aforementioned, RT's coverage is self-admittedly aimed at giving a “Russian perspective” of events in the West – or, more accurately, RT has a hard agenda of representing the state view in a positive light. There are two sorts of coverage that RT provides, much like other cable media outlets: talk shows, and regular news. Talk shows featured on RT are of particular interest, as RT has shown willingness to be the soapbox for dissident voices in the West – not merely Russian critics. Anti-war Marine veteran, libertarian activist, and self-proclaimed anarchist Adam Kokesh was featured in a show entitled “Adam versus the Man” on the English RT, regularly criticizing the US government.¹⁸ His show also interviewed anarchist philosopher Stefan Molyneux, a Canadian and host of the popular, online, anti-government podcast Freedomain Radio.¹⁹ Adam Kokesh and others also regularly interviewed Alex Jones, founder of InfoWars.com, an online platform for anti-government conspiracy theories. ²⁰ Recently, Julian Assange, founder of the Wikileaks organization was even given a show, although Assange openly stated that he believed that would not have been the case had Russian documents been part of Wikileaks.²¹ RT's regular operations, from advertisement to news, have also come under fire as an example of being propaganda, right down to its slogan of “Question more.” RT correpsondant William Dunbar resigned in protest, claiming that RT was intentionally censoring the Georgian side of events in their coverage of the 2008 South Ossetian War.²² RT placed ads superimposing US President Barack Obama and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's face together with the question of “Who poses the greater nuclear threat?” in Britain, and these ads were quickly banned in American airports.²³ The Southern Poverty Law Center criticized RT as pushing conspiracy theories and white supremacy in its 2010 intelligence report by Sonia Scherr, which also accuses the channel of making the United States “look bad,” and that it gives the false impression that many of these individuals are taken seriously in mainstream political discourse.²⁴ Cliff Kincaid of the conservative media-watchdog group Accuracy in Media called Kokesh a “Russian agent of influence and a member of the Moscow-funded 'resistance' to the U.S. Government on American soil...KGB TV,” and he cites former KGB agent Preobrazhensky's conspiracy theory that RT is nothing more than “propaganda... managed by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.” Kincaid goes further, blasting those who appear on the program as “playing into Moscow's hands.” Preobazhensky further states that RT is “a part of the Russian industry of misinformation and manipulation.” ²⁵

      It would be a mistake to label RT as simply old-school propaganda. According to James Painter, writing for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, RT and other channels like it represent a new wave of “soft-propaganda” but the staffers within instead view themselves “counter-hegemonic” media. While there is a bias, Painter says, Western media is hardly free of such a bias, even in corporate media such as FOX News. Painter goes on to say,

If there is evidence of a soft or hard agenda in a station’s coverage, it can of course be debated if this is a result of a conscious agenda, or rather as a product of an unconscious ‘attitudinal’ set of values... [this can be] seen as another example of a more general trend observed in different parts of the world, namely the growing phenomenon of ‘news with views’. The abundance of new 24x7 channels and news web sites makes it more possible to choose a source of information which confirms a news consumer’s particular point of view. Fox News is the classic example of this, but there are plenty of others. ²⁶

Glenn Greenwald, writing for Salon.com, shot back at critics of RT by answering criticism with criticism.

Let’s examine the unstated premises at work here. There is apparently a rule that says it’s perfectly OK for a journalist to work for a media outlet owned and controlled by a weapons manufacturer (GE/NBC/MSNBC), or by the U.S. and British governments (BBC/Stars & Stripes/Voice of America), or by Rupert Murdoch and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal (Wall St. Journal/Fox News), or by a banking corporation with long-standing ties to right-wing governments (Politico), or by for-profit corporations whose profits depend upon staying in the good graces of the U.S. government (Kaplan/The Washington Post), or by loyalists to one of the two major political parties (National Review/TPM/countless others), but it’s an intrinsic violation of journalistic integrity to work for a media outlet owned by the Russian government. Where did that rule come from?

Greenwald further argues is that there is a hypocritical view of RT by those in the West, for doing – what he argues – the West does in Russia. Josh Kucera, a journalist specializing in Russian affairs, states that “RT covers the US like US media covers Russia – emphasizing decline, interviewing marginal dissidents.”²⁷ RT itself has come out in self-defense, stating that while they are state-funded, they are editorially independent. The media outlet further goes on to say that it readily embraces its role in in what it claims is an information war declared by the US.²⁸ The editor in chief of RT adds, in response to criticism over supposedly negative reporting on America, that they are merely applying the same standards Western reporters use in covering Russia.²⁹ Adam Kokesh stated in much plainer language, revealing his reasoning behind dissident use of the network as a soapbox,

Truth is the best propaganda. I love it! I really love the concept of that. It's funny: People say we're hiding shit as a network. No, no—we put the fact that this is propaganda right out front. We're putting out the truth that no one else wants to say. I mean, if you want to put it in the worst possible abstract, it's the Russian government, which is a competing protection racket against the other governments of the world, going against the United States and calling them on their bullshit.³⁰

      It is obvious that RT has a bias, if not indirect control by the Kremlin. What RT is not, however, is “Pravda 2.0.” No permeating ideology is attached to RT, and it has been used as a platform for adversarial journalism – the only string attached is that the information is anti-hegemonic, typically painting Russia's rival states in a very negative light. The Kremlin obviously finds RT useful, having tended to increase funding almost every fiscal year, but the individuals attached to RT are anything but “useful idiots” as displayed by Kokesh's frank statement on his lack of love for the Russian government. Nevertheless, state-run media will continue to be an important part of soft power and revolutionary diplomacy. There is, and has been for some time, a raging war for the hearts and minds of citizens. The use of the media as part of information warfare is not unique to Russia – Russia did not start it, but Russia has certainly been more apt about it. RT has been confronted with relatively few incidents of outright misreporting, no more than average. The critics themselves of RT have often been ideologically biased; Kincaid even attempted to make the case that RT was “extreme left propaganda” due to their interviewing of Americans on the far left, despite the fact that the Kremlin as of today is anything but liberal. RT is more than just a vanity project, and RT is not merely a tool of the Kremlin, but neither is it purely objective. Then again – there may not be such a thing. One may state that all media is propaganda – RT does not claim otherwise.

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2 L. Scott Johnson, “Toward a Functional Model of Information Warfare.” Central Intelligence Agency.

3 Timothy Thomas, “Russian Information Warfare Theory: The Consequences of August 2008.” pp 5. The Foreign Military Studies Office.

4 Timothy Thomas, “Russian Information Warfare Theory: The Consequences of August 2008.” pp 4. The Foreign Military Studies Office.

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7 Kirit Radia. “Sec. Of State Hillary Clinton: Al Jazeera is 'Real News', U.S. Losing 'Information War.' ABC News.

8 “It's Official: RT is the Enemy.” RT. 19 Oct. 2010.

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25 Cliff Kincaid. “KGB TV to Air Show Hosted by Anti-War Marine Vet.” 5 Apr. 2011.

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29 Andrew Kramer. “Russian Cable Station Plays to U.S.” The New York Times. 22 Aug. 2010.

30 David Weigel. “Pravda Will Set You Free: Russian's Answer to FOX News and MSNBC.” Slate. 27 June 2011.