Blaming Russia

[Silas Loom]

I’ve developed a detached interest in how prepared I am to blame Russia for various ills. I don’t think it’s in the same league as today’s right wing conspiracy theorists, or indeed yesterday’s McCarthyites, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Here’s some of the stuff that I believe, possibly without sufficient evidence, that Russia bears some responsibility for:

• Brexit, largely through covert funding of social media campaigns
• Trump 2016-present, ditto and perhaps through PACs
• Ransomware threat groups, through offering jurisdictional protection and maybe some tech transfer
• Publicising and mainstreaming other types of cyber exploit
• Amplifying UK communitarian tensions and racial hatred on at least Xitter, and possibly elsewhere, if only to develop and sustain the necessary bot and personnel ecosystem

There are probably quite a few other things that I’d be quite prepared to believe Putin has engineered on no more evidence than a Guardian article, or someone’s Substack if they seemed reasonably respectable. I’d probably need much more substantial evidence to blame Russia for the 2008 financial crisis, the pandemic, or Liz Truss.

Is Russophobia a rabbit hole? How far down it are we all?

 

[PTK]

I am more than a little scepitcal of all the things that you list.
My question is: what is the motive in each case?

 

[Silas Loom]

I am more than a little scepitcal of all the things that you list.
My question is: what is the motive in each case?

To destabilise and undermine the Western alliance that it views as a hostile threat.

 

[PTK]

To destabilise and undermine the Western alliance that it views as a hostile threat.

You think that Trump would not have got elected without Russian support?

 

[Silas Loom]

You think that Trump would not have got elected without Russian support?

Like Brexit, it was a close run thing where all success factors were critical.

 

[emanymton]

Is it possible that Russia helped pushed Trump just over the line in 2016? Maybe.

But I think to blame Russia for Trump is to ignore the much more significant factors that got him up to the line in the first place.

 

[PTK]

Like Brexit, it was a close run thing where all success factors were critical.

I think that to blame "Russia" is a little like a religious formulation. It is a claim that reassures those disappointed by the Brexit result.

 

[Silas Loom]

Is it possible that Russia helped pushed Trump just over the line in 2016. Maybe.

But I think to blame Russia for Trump is to ignore the much more significant factors that got him up to the line in the first place.

Oh, I think you can blame both.

 

[Yossarian]

Like Brexit, it was a close run thing where all success factors were critical.

Yep, Trump and his allies have retconned the Mueller Report as total exoneration from the "Russia hoax," but Mueller concluded that "the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" and 34 people were charged, including 26 Russians.

 

[PTK]

Yep, Trump and his allies have retconned the Mueller Report as total exoneration from the "Russia hoax," but Mueller concluded that "the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" and 34 people were charged, including 26 Russians.

I did not know that.
What occurs to me, is this.
It might make sense for the Russian state to interfere in the US Presidential Election, but why would the Trump campaign have anything to do with the Russians? Why would they think that they needed Russian help?

 

[Elpenor]

You’ve misspelt NATO in the thread title

 

[ska invita]

• Brexit, largely through covert funding of social media campaigns
• Trump 2016-present, ditto and perhaps through PACs
• Ransomware threat groups, through offering jurisdictional protection and maybe some tech transfer
• Publicising and mainstreaming other types of cyber exploit
• Amplifying UK communitarian tensions and racial hatred on at least Xitter, and possibly elsewhere, if only to develop and sustain the necessary bot and personnel ecosystem

I think theres evidence for Russian involvement in all these things. The extent of the impact is harder to judge.
Ransomware is rampant but supposeldy not done by Russian state actors, though its not hard to imagine that there is some covert connection.

Thing is how much does the US meddle in other countries? Is it more or less than Russia?\
Here's an example with very live consequences - how much did the US meddle in Ukrainian elections?

https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-ukraine-hypocrisy

"Washington’s conduct not only constituted meddling, it bordered on micromanagement"
<<<these are the very real roots of the current Ukraine war.

...how much is Russia just responding in kind? I think a lot, and even then on a smaller scale - the US has much bigger reach and a previous record that is pages long

 

[Silas Loom]

I think theres evidence for Russian involvement in all these things. The extent of the impact is harder to judge.
Ransomware is rampant but supposeldy not done by Russian state actors, though its not hard to imagine that there is some connection.

Thing is how much does the US meddle in other countries? Is it more or less than Russia?\
Here's an example with very live consequences - how much did the US meddle in Ukrainian elections?

https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-ukraine-hypocrisy

"Washington’s conduct not only constituted meddling, it bordered on micromanagement"
<<<these are the very real roots of the current Ukraine war.

...how much is Russia just responding in kind? I think a lot, and even then on a smaller scale - the US has much bigger reach

There’s a fair point buried in there, and certainly both the US and the UK have done their share of overseas meddling, but are you really happy with promoting analysis by the Randian wibbleheads at the Cato Institute?

 

[AnnaKarpik]

I thought the international rules-based order positively requires meddling, otherwise how could the US and their faithful hound (us) remain the good guys? Meddling, official silences and blindness, a scapegoat - all the better when the scapegoat goes in for the same shit.

 

[ska invita]

There’s a fair point buried in there, and certainly both the US and the UK have done their share of overseas meddling, but are you really happy with promoting analysis by the Randian wibbleheads at the Cato Institute?

Okay dispute the host of the article but its sighting facts in the public domain

 

[maomao]

I thought the international rules-based order positively requires meddling, otherwise how could the US and their faithful hound (us) remain the good guys? Meddling, official silences and blindness, a scapegoat - all the better when the scapegoat goes in for the same shit.

The international rules based order should be applied through the UN. It's the US continually breaking it, with regards to Israel, but also over Iraq, that has made it worthless. I'm not fan of Putin but the idea that there are rules that Russia should follow when the US doesn't even pay them lip service is ridiculous.

 

[ska invita]

with regards to Israel, but also over Iraq,.

to pick two out of several hundred examples

 

[The39thStep]

Nobody messes with the Western Alliance

 

[PTK]

Nobody messes with the Western Alliance

Some would claim that all sides are backed by "the Russians".

 

[The39thStep]

Some would claim that all sides are backed by "the Russians".

I'm a neither Moscow or Washington sort of guy. These days you can add Beijing to that.

 

[Pickman's model]

I’ve developed a detached interest in how prepared I am to blame Russia for various ills. I don’t think it’s in the same league as today’s right wing conspiracy theorists, or indeed yesterday’s McCarthyites, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Here’s some of the stuff that I believe, possibly without sufficient evidence, that Russia bears some responsibility for:

• Brexit, largely through covert funding of social media campaigns
• Trump 2016-present, ditto and perhaps through PACs
• Ransomware threat groups, through offering jurisdictional protection and maybe some tech transfer
• Publicising and mainstreaming other types of cyber exploit
• Amplifying UK communitarian tensions and racial hatred on at least Xitter, and possibly elsewhere, if only to develop and sustain the necessary bot and personnel ecosystem

There are probably quite a few other things that I’d be quite prepared to believe Putin has engineered on no more evidence than a Guardian article, or someone’s Substack if they seemed reasonably respectable. I’d probably need much more substantial evidence to blame Russia for the 2008 financial crisis, the pandemic, or Liz Truss.

Is Russophobia a rabbit hole? How far down it are we all?

I note no Ukraine war on the list

 

[maomao]

I'm a neither Moscow or Washington sort of guy. These days you can add Beijing to that.

Agree with the sentiment but the phrase aggravates my ptsd.

 

[PTK]

I'm a neither Moscow or Washington sort of guy. These days you can add Beijing to that.

"Neither Washington nor Moscow" is a slogan from the time of the Cold War. It is a sign of the degeneration of politics in the past few decades that some people today seem to think that there is a left-wing case for supporting Moscow. Of course, it is even more absurd for left-wingers to support Washington.

I was a Moscow kind of guy, then a Beijing kind of guy, when I was young, during the Cold War, and before I became a Trotsky kind of guy.

 

[Pickman's model]

I’ve developed a detached interest in how prepared I am to blame Russia for various ills. I don’t think it’s in the same league as today’s right wing conspiracy theorists, or indeed yesterday’s McCarthyites, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Here’s some of the stuff that I believe, possibly without sufficient evidence, that Russia bears some responsibility for:

• Brexit, largely through covert funding of social media campaigns
• Trump 2016-present, ditto and perhaps through PACs
• Ransomware threat groups, through offering jurisdictional protection and maybe some tech transfer
• Publicising and mainstreaming other types of cyber exploit
• Amplifying UK communitarian tensions and racial hatred on at least Xitter, and possibly elsewhere, if only to develop and sustain the necessary bot and personnel ecosystem

There are probably quite a few other things that I’d be quite prepared to believe Putin has engineered on no more evidence than a Guardian article, or someone’s Substack if they seemed reasonably respectable. I’d probably need much more substantial evidence to blame Russia for the 2008 financial crisis, the pandemic, or Liz Truss.

Is Russophobia a rabbit hole? How far down it are we all?

If you bothered reading around the subject in books like eg active measures you might have rather more to offer on the subject than you do here. The simple thing is that there are levels of conflict below war and the russians and Chinese are actually rather good at them in comparison to the United States and Britain.

 

[The39thStep]

Agree with the sentiment but the phrase aggravates my ptsd.

Post Traumatic Skegness Disorder?

 

[TopCat]

There’s a fair point buried in there, and certainly both the US and the UK have done their share of overseas meddling, but are you really happy with promoting analysis by the Randian wibbleheads at the Cato Institute?

Did you disagree with the analysis, and if so what bits and why?

 

[Silas Loom]

Did you disagree with the analysis, and if so what bits and why?

Yes. Almost all of it. False equivalence and underlying assumptions about legitimate geographic spheres of influence.

Are you a fan of the Koch-funded Cato Institute too, now?

 

[andysays]

I’ve developed a detached interest in how prepared I am to blame Russia for various ills. I don’t think it’s in the same league as today’s right wing conspiracy theorists, or indeed yesterday’s McCarthyites, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Here’s some of the stuff that I believe, possibly without sufficient evidence, that Russia bears some responsibility for:

• Brexit, largely through covert funding of social media campaigns
• Trump 2016-present, ditto and perhaps through PACs
• Ransomware threat groups, through offering jurisdictional protection and maybe some tech transfer
• Publicising and mainstreaming other types of cyber exploit
• Amplifying UK communitarian tensions and racial hatred on at least Xitter, and possibly elsewhere, if only to develop and sustain the necessary bot and personnel ecosystem

There are probably quite a few other things that I’d be quite prepared to believe Putin has engineered on no more evidence than a Guardian article, or someone’s Substack if they seemed reasonably respectable. I’d probably need much more substantial evidence to blame Russia for the 2008 financial crisis, the pandemic, or Liz Truss.

Is Russophobia a rabbit hole? How far down it are we all?

 

[ska invita]

Yes. Almost all of it. False equivalence and underlying assumptions about legitimate geographic spheres of influence.
Are you a fan of the Koch-funded Cato Institute too, now?

 

[Silas Loom]

It’s odd that this thread has mainly attracted the Putin stans, but I suppose it’s their job.