Transparency as a weapon in the information war.

March 15, 2022

[Audio version here]

          In another brilliant move in the information war, the Biden administration released intelligence reports indicating that Russia has asked China for military and economic assistance. Although China and Russia denied the reports as disinformation, they know that the intelligence reports are accurate. Both nations must be unnerved by the ability of the U.S. to intercept and decode their encrypted communications in real-time. Who knew that in an information war, the strongest weapon would be transparency?

          For Russia, the disclosures are humiliating. They will erode the confidence of Putin’s subordinates, who are already dodging blame and launching recriminations for Putin’s miscalculations. Russia has reportedly asked for “meals ready to eat” (“MREs”), validating reports that Russian soldiers are running short on food rations and fuel. Russia has also asked for drones, apparently surprised that Ukraine has used drones supplied by Turkey to punish Russian ground troops. Moreover, Russia’s indiscriminate use of missiles to kill civilians forced Russia to ask China for additional missiles to kill more civilians. And the request for economic assistance from China is a cry for help for a crumbling economy.

          The U.S. has aggressively lobbied China to turn down Russia’s request. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Chinese counterparts in Rome for seven hours of “intense” discussions on Monday. Sullivan gave a preview of the meeting on Sunday when he said, “We have communicated to Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions.”

          China will temporize, holding out hope to Russia of support that will not come. China believes that if it can remain functionally neutral, it will be the big winner in Putin’s failed war on Ukraine. See NYTimes, China Sees at Least One Winner Emerging From Ukraine War: China. As Russia has based its global standing on its military, China has staked its future on economic prowess. A debilitating sanctions war with the U.S. is the last thing China wants to see. On Monday, after the meeting with Jake Sullivan, China issued a statement saying,

[The Chinese representative] pointed out that the situation today in Ukraine has reached a stage that the Chinese side does not want to see. China has always advocated respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries and abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

          Although the statement does not condemn Russia explicitly, neither does it repeat Putin’s lies for attacking Ukraine. And China’s call to adhere to the principles of the UN Charter must have infuriated Putin. By releasing intercepted intelligence, the U.S. has cut-off a lifeline for Putin. Biden and his advisors continue to act with a steady but firm hand during an unsettled time.

The MiG29 controversy.

          Like the no-fly zone, the controversy over the MiG29 transfer from Poland to Ukraine is more complicated than it appears. At root, the question is whether Putin would view the transfer of fighter aircraft as different than providing Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missiles. Some military pundits assure us there is no difference between Javelin missiles and MiG29 aircraft, so Putin shouldn’t care. The problem with that line of argument is that it assumes we can read Putin’s mind. As one analyst noted,

Providing weapons to the border, which the Ukrainians pick up and deliver, seems hard to interpret as direct involvement. With aircraft, which can involve training, maintenance, and also the logistics of who flies them from where and when, there are a lot of ways for things to go wrong.

          So, whatever side we take in the MiG29 issue, we should not fool ourselves that dropping weapons at the border is qualitatively the same as flying fighter aircraft from a NATO airbase into Ukraine. Putin may view flying MiG29s into Ukraine as “direct involvement,” which carries some risk of global escalation. I will let you assign a percentage to that risk, but it is not zero.

          Lawrence O’Donnell recently interviewed Alexander Vindman on MSNBC. Vindman is a national hero and an expert on Ukraine. Vindman advocated for the transfer of the MiG29s to Ukraine. Vindman advanced his argument for ten minutes while O’Donnell respectfully challenged Vindman’s premises and assumptions. It is an intelligent and illuminating interview. At several points, Vindman paused as he appeared to be re-thinking his positions under O’Donnell’s skillful interrogation.

          Although Vindman did not back down, he agreed that the U.S. needed to proceed cautiously. The exchange lasts ten minutes, but I recommend the following clip if you want to hear a fair exposition of both sides of the argument. It should be watched to the end to hear the complete exposition of the arguments: YouTube, Should Fighter Jets Be Supplied To Ukraine? Vindman And Lawrence Discuss

          This complicated issue cannot be reduced to chest-pounding and saber-rattling. If you think this is an easy issue, you don’t understand it—regardless of which side of the argument you support.

The right-wing has turned the Ukraine invasion into a conspiracy theory.

          There is nothing the right-wing cannot make worse by turning it into a conspiracy theory. Failed presidential candidate and former Democratic member of the House, Tulsi Gabbard, is promoting the theory that Russia was forced to invade Ukraine to capture “bio-labs” that were planning to release deadly diseases. See Talking Points Memo, Tulsi Gabbard Has Some Thoughts About Those ‘Biolabs’ That The Kremlin Is Fixated On. Predictably, the Kremlin is promoting Gabbard’s tweets.

Now, for some good news.

          For the last three weeks, this newsletter has been focused on Ukraine—perhaps too much. Jessica Craven at Chop Wood Carry Water published an edition of her blog over the weekend that celebrates victories over the last week that should make Democrats proud. I highly recommend her blog if you want an antidote to the coverage of Putin’s war on the Ukrainian people. See Jessica Craven, Chop Wood Carry Water, Extra! Extra!

          Thank you, Jessica, for keeping the home fires burning!

Corrections regarding no-fly zone.

          Because of my unfamiliarity with military equipment, I made two errors in yesterday’s newsletter. I incorrectly identified refueling tankers as “F-135” aircraft. They are KC-135 aircraft. And I referred to Russia’s anti-aircraft system as the S-300, which is a missile fired by the system, not the anti-aircraft system itself. I should have referred to the SA-10/20 surface-to-air systems located in Russia and Belarus.

Concluding Thoughts.

          Readers frequently tell me they yell at their televisions. Or rather, at the news commentators on their televisions. Today, I had one of those moments when I wanted to yell at my car radio. Instead, I typed my frustrations into my iPad. I share it with you because it reflects the frustrations I hear from readers every day about the “negative narrative“ slant of major media sources. I acknowledge that my rant is hyperbolic and unfair, in part, because the immediate objects of my ire became proxies for my frustration with dozens of news anchors. But as Stephen Colbert would say, my rant has the virtue of “truthiness.” With that throat-clearing out of the way, here is my rant:

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          I am sitting in my car in a parking lot, waiting as my eighteen-month-old granddaughter attends physical therapy for her disability. My eleven-month-old granddaughter is nearby, playing innocently at a park. More than anything in the world, I am focused on ensuring that they can inherit an earth unscarred by nuclear war. As I wait for my wife and granddaughter to return to the car, commentators on a cable news show are explaining that the real threat to Biden’s favorability ratings is not his handling of efforts to avoid nuclear war but the threat of rising inflation. One commentator brightly notes that inflation is a big deal because “My generation (millennials) has not experienced inflation.” True, but neither have they experienced nuclear war. Biden’s favorability ratings are irrelevant to one of those threats—a fact that seems to be beyond the limited worldview of the commentators.

          Who are these people? Where do the networks recruit incurious, uninformed commentators who can read words from a teleprompter but who seem not to understand the significance of the words they mouth? Who are the editors and producers who write stories for anchors to read but not comprehend? The events in Ukraine are not about Joe Biden’s favorability ratings. Discussing those ratings during a story about Biden’s efforts to avoid a catastrophic escalation of the war in Ukraine is stupendously, profoundly, offensively inane.

          There is a real world that exists outside of the D.C. beltway that does not involve telephone interviews of 1,200 respondents who are unable to block telemarketers and pollsters. Real people are dying. Real nuclear weapons are aimed at Ukraine, Europe, and America. Keeping those weapons on the ground and at a low level of readiness matters more than all of the polls that have ever been taken in the history of politics.

          Get a grip. Grow up. Do your job—at least the job you thought you would do when you decided to become a journalist and before you took a detour into being a high-priced entertainer. You may think that what matters to the success of your career is the Nielsen ratings for your brief appearance during a 24-hour news cycle desperate for content. Wrong. What matters is that you have a platform to educate and inform, to ask meaningful questions that rise above “gotcha” journalism. What matters is that you listen to the answers that guests give to your canned questions and then do the seemingly impossible—think about what they say and ask intelligent follow-up questions. If you need a refresher on how to interview a guest on a complicated topic, watch Lawrence O’Donnell’s interview with Alexander Vindman on the issue of the proposed transfer of MiG29s to Ukraine.

          Whether America survives this era of disinformation will be determined, in part, by whether you can be a journalist rather than an entertainer. Help us successfully navigate these difficult times, rather than making them more challenging by emphasizing shiny objects of little consequence.

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          If you are still reading, bless you! I promise not to burden you in the future with personal outbursts but—like you—I am sick of infotainmentpictotwits served up as news.

          Talk to you tomorrow!