PoliticalWarfare.org

Russian propaganda campaign starts to pay off as US relents on missile defense

Russian leader Vladimir Putin's pressure campaign against a US-built missile defense system for Europe is bearing fruit.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates' announcement today that the US might delay activation of the system showed the Kremlin that its old-style intransigence still works in pressuring the West. Gates' statement, according to the New York Times, was "clearly seeking to mollify Moscow."

This is a terrible move. The Bush Administration seems to have learned nothing from dealing with the Russians. Precedent shows that when Moscow succeeds in delaying a US decision, it will follow with a campaign to push harder to isolate the US from its European allies and ultimately cause Washington to cancel its program.

President Bush has set himself up to become another Jimmy Carter, who got the US into a similar fix in the late 1970s by delaying his decision to deploy the enhanced radiation warhead (ERW, often inaccurately called the "neutron bomb") to deter against a Soviet armored invasion of Western Europe. Carter's delays allowed the Soviets to mount a political warfare counteroffensive within NATO that pressured the president to cave.

The American political position in Eastern Europe is already weakened with the expected change in the government of Poland, which is less pro-American and less anti-Russian than the incumbent. This will give the Kremlin another wedge against the United States.

The US isn't helping things with its lame defense of the anti-missile system. While warning about the danger that a nuclear missile-armed Iran presents, the White House now says that the missile defense system, to be based on Poland and the Czech Republic, can be delayed until Iran does something that looks threatening.

At the same time, everyone knows the Bush Administration is being either disengenuous or naive by continuing to insist that the Russians pose no missile threat to Europe. Indeed, Bush has maneuvered himself into another corner; in order to "prove" that we don't think Russia threatens Europe, the administration now wants to invite the Kremlin to be part of our missile defense system.

Meanwhile, Moscow's threat to reprogram its ICBM force to target European cities still stands, and we pretend not to notice. Ditto for Russia's ongoing strategic nuclear missile modernization program that is proceeding apace, as we look the other way. 

Propaganda state

It's all smiles, moderation and good news in sunny Russia, now that the Putin regime is forcing radio stations to make sure that at least 50 percent of the news about the country is positive.

Russian News Service employees tell the New York Times that under the new guidelines, "opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy." Only "moderate" political views may be aired.

"Now, the implementation of the '50 percent positive' rule at the Russian News Service leaves an increasingly small number of news outlets that are not managed by the Kremlin, directly or through the state national gas company, Gazprom, a major owner of media assets," the New York Times reports.

The regime is also cracking down on the Internet.

Rather than apply official censorship as the Soviets did, the Putin regime is simply taking direct or indirect control or ownership of media organizations, firing the editors, and installing yes-men who offer bland fare.

This is an opportunity for the United States. Russia's free media days - when people were so saturated with independent and interesting content that few had a desire to turn to US-backed surrogate radios - are over. US-backed Radio Liberty and other stations are vital now. It's time to return them to their origins as surrogates for a free media inside Russia - on the radio waves and online.

Should US government hire Putin's propagandists?

Should the United States government continue to do business with a public relations firm that takes millions of dollars to flack for the Kremlin?

Ketchum, Inc., a global PR company, took $15 million from the Putin regime to orchestrate the July, 2006 "Group of Eight" meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, Kommersant reported earlier this year.

CBS and the Christian Science Monitor report that the Ketchum operation was part of what they call "Soviet-style propaganda." They also report that Ketchum has been a US government contractor - for civilian agencies and for the US Army.

People are now starting to wonder why the USA would ever want to buy the services of paid propagandists for a KGB colonel and his gangster regime.

'Silence of America'

"Now, with Russian President Vladimir Putin bullying his neighbors, manipulating the Russian media and throwing increasingly audacious anti-American tantrums, one would think US policymakers would have the sense at least to maintain relatively modest VOA operations in and around the Russian Federation," the Washington Post says in today's editorial.

"Yet President Bush's recently released 2008 budget proposal does just the opposite, cutting VOA programming for a range of post-Soviet states to finance programming expansion in other areas of the world."

Among the changes that the Post laments: cutting "the only direct contact Uzbeks have with the United States and the only unvarnished news in the region," and cutting broadcasts to Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

"The price of such programs is so low that federal financial constraints are hardly an excuse to kill them," the editors say.

What could the reason be, then? Might it have something to do with the fact that the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) member responsible for the former Soviet Union, D. Jeffrey Hirschberg, is a director of the pro-Kremlin US-Russia Business Council?