Russian Information Warfare: You’re Focusing on the Wrong Thing

Over the past few days – and months – we’ve seen an enormous amount of frothing DERP about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 Elections. Again. After Comey’s testimony, the left predictably screeched that his testimony was damning – that the President tried to obstruct justice when he urged the former FBI Director to drop the investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The right – again inevitably – celebrated the fact that Comey confirmed Trump wasn’t personally under investigation and that the New York Times report about contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians was mostly incorrect.

I’m not going to rehash my take on Comey’s testimony. I did so amply the other day, so if you’re interested and haven’t read it yet, please do.

But as I continue to read the vast mental flatulence on both the right and the left, I have to wonder why it is that both sides are ignoring the elephant in the room: Russia’s sophisticated, complex information warfare – not just against the United States, but also our allies. While the right derps that it’s time to forget the Trump/Russia thing, and the left screeches about impeachment, the Russians are engaged in some of the most advanced information warfare I have ever seen, and neither side seems interested in talking about it.

It’s not about the Trump/Russia nexus. It’s about Russia and its assaults on us and our allies.

It is quite obvious Russia cannot match us in conventional warfare. It’s largest State Armaments Program, approved in 2010 and intended to modernize its military and spend billions of dollars on procurement of new armaments over a 10-year span, was stymied by declining oil prices (at the time the SAP was approved, the Russians counted on oil prices staying above $70 per barrel) and western sanctions, among other things. The new 10-year SAP (the Russians approve one every five years) should be much lower than what the Defense Ministry likely wants, given the poor economic forecasts and continued sanctions by both the EU and the United States. And while they spend a lot more for their national defense as a percentage of GDP than we do, their real defense spending is a bit over $50 billion, compared with roughly $660 billion America alone spends on its defense (not to mention the more than $254 billion spent by other NATO members last year).

So let’s not kid ourselves. Russia is no match for us, and no match for the rest of NATO when it comes to conventional strength.

But I think they’re light years ahead of the West when it comes to propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, and manipulation. They know and understand their enemy (that would be us, boys and girls), and they are particularly good at exploiting vulnerabilities to achieve their goals through soft power and propaganda.