Mark Adomanis Forbes Contributor
by Mark Adomanis
US and European Russia analysts of a more hawkish bent have long declared the need for the West to more aggressively counter Kremlin propaganda. Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss are the latest to make such a case, but many other high profile experts, such as The Economist’s Ed Lucas and former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, have made similar pleas over the past several years.
People who subscribe to this school of thought are, quite obviously, not identical in their interpretations. It is fair to say, though, that the “propaganda hawks” generally think that, absent a large-scale and concerted effort on the part of the United States and its European partners, an increasingly sophisticated propaganda campaign from Moscow will disorient, divide, and ultimately weaken resistance to Russian foreign policy goals.
While remaining contemptuous of the goals of Russian propaganda, the hawks generally show great respect for its efficacy. Weiss and Pomerantsev, for example, state that “the Kremlin successfully erodes the integrity of investigative and political journalism” and that it has been able to successfully exacerbate a growing “lack of faith in traditional media.” Other analysts have been far more alarmist in their predictions, suggesting that the Kremlin’s shadowy web of political operatives and media handlers could mount a near-total takeover of public opinion.
I’ve long been skeptical of these claims. Why? Because, when judged by its actual output, there is every indication that Kremlin propaganda remains amateurish and ineffective. The latest evidence for this was provided just the other day, when Russia state television publicized a “satellite image” from a “foreign intelligence service” that purported to show a Ukrainian fighter jet shooting down MH-17.
It was clear from the very beginning that the story stunk to high heaven. The sourcing was poor verging on non-existent, there was not even the most basic explanation of how the Russians could have possibly gotten their hands on such a piece of evidence nor any explanation of how a photograph could have been taken at the exact moment that a missile had been launched.
Just as you would expect, the whole thing started to fall apart almost instantly.Here’s how the Telegraph summarized what happened next:
Russian and international bloggers quickly pointed to what they said were a mass of discrepancies with the supposed satellite image, including the fact the markings on the side of the Boeing were in the wrong place for a Malaysia Airlines jet, the clouds in the picture were identical to those in a Google Earth image from 2012, and the image was not consistent with the flight path of the jet.
Russia’s ”sophisticated campaign of disinformation,” in this case, essentially consisted of elementary use of Google Maps, Adobe Photoshop, and a word processor, and resulted in a story that had a useful half-life of roughly an hour. Hardly the output of a conspiracy that will fundamentally alter Western public opinion.
Propaganda is, of course, bad and it deserves to be countered. But there doesn’t seem to be any hard evidence that the Russians are comprehensively outmaneuvering a tired and diffident West in an information war. Indeed the latest “sensational” fake news story was refuted almost instantaneously by all of the much-maligned mainstream press outlets. Wariness is, as always, justified, but the evidence to date suggests that, for all of the outcry it has attracted and for all of the money spent on creating it, Russian propaganda remains crude and ineffective.
Published at http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2014/11/15/russian-propaganda-is-as-crude-and-ineffective-as-ever/
Filed under: Information operations, Russia, Ukraine
