Russia is not the right-wing utopia that it is sometimes portrayed as. Neither is the United States the global capitol of degeneracy and evil.
However, the stories that people tell each other about different nations, and what they believe, matters a great deal. Stories are always simplifications, but they are the simplifications that people use to form their thoughts, shape their decisions, and frame their emotions.
Here’s the first one, from Novorussian propagandists:
In the video, President Poroshenko appeals to the audience by basically saying that his Ukrainians will get pensions and kindergarten, but the people that his country is constantly trying to get to sign ceasefires are going to get nothing.
A recent ad from the American army instead focuses on the individual, and the status that comes from service:
From 2011, a similar theme with a lite Hans Zimmer-style backing music:
These campaigns have often been criticized for focusing on you-you-you — they make a personal appeal that time in the service will benefit the soldier’s career. This is the opposite of what contemporary corporate motivation copy emphasizes — what leading corporations have found is that service to abstract goodness tends to attract higher quality candidates (at least according to the most fashionable management theories) than those motivated by personal gain.
So while Google tells recruits that they will change the world if they come to work for them, or organize the world’s information, the Army sells people on a mediocre benefits package with heavy obligations, a benefits package much worse than the one that Google or any other corporate employer above the mid-level offers.
When there is reference to a mission in American military propaganda, it’s usually towards some abstract sense of goodness that does not map with the American national interest. A combination of seven ad agencies at Interpublic have the Army contract, and the underlying concept of ‘Army Strong’ has remained consistent since around 2006.
By comparison, Novorussian propagandists are mostly volunteers, with inferior technical skills, but a more compelling message. There are certainly many American professionals working to support the Poroshenko government, but they must be having a lot of difficulty with coming up with a compelling pitch, because the government finds itself in an insupportable position.
They have a large budget, but the fundamental product is a piece of shit.
This is not really an accurate comparison, but intended to be a vague one: US communications firms helped with the overthrow of Ukraine, just as they did in Egypt and Libya, along with US technology companies lending their platforms and technical expertise in consultation.
They can bring greater flash, create facile taglines, and get people to tweet support for something, but they can’t bring forth the kind of motivation that results from an enemy invading your territory and shelling your town, nor can they call forth an authentic sense of justice, or a a sense of outrage that can lead people to volunteer for a dangerous war.
The other big difficulty that consulting Americans must have is that it’s generally a terrible idea to bring in foreigners to try to move a culture that is entirely foreign to them. The Novorussians know how to speak to their own people. The Americans don’t even know how to speak to the Ukrainians who are in their own camp, and most probably have no language skills and must go through interpreters.
Americans barely even know how to speak to other Americans anymore without sending one faction or the other into rage spasms.
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t even know enough about anything to realize how badly US foreign policy is collapsing by any metric right now. What the general thinking public enjoys is participating in these hashtag campaigns, like the ones decrying Boko Haram or praising the Maidan protesters, without actually considering that there are real people whose lives are being affected by the reckless destabilization campaigns.
The problem is similar with the inability of the pro-war American factions to raise the kind of support that they were once able to: they have burned their credibility on a series of counter-productive interventions which has made it impossible for the state to use conscription to meet its political goals. It is also becoming impossible for it to put its volunteer military into real danger, also, because of a lack of public support for the danger.
Knowing this lack of resolve, the rivals the US has can chip away at its territory and influence with something close to impunity, alternatively convincing credulous think tankers that they are ‘moderate rebels’ of one kind or another to receive foreign aid and weapons besides in return for pretending to fight.
Agreed. You can really see the failure of the Ukrainian propaganda efforts in their use of propaganda trucks which are widely reviled. The anti-war stats go above 70%, even in Ukrainian strongholds like Lvov. The whole country is crumbling, and the Americans think that more propaganda and media manipulation qualifies as a reasonable solution.
The last paragraph is a major stretch though. Who chips away at American influence with impunity? Not Iran, no Hezbollah, not any European nation. No one. Sure Iran, Russia, China, and Brazil are growing away from American influence but by no means is that called chipping away with impunity.
The great strength of America is its ability to convince people of things that aren’t true, even the people of foreign nations. It would be more true to say that they are constantly chipping away at everyone else’s influence and population. The only country that could be said to chip in turn is Israel.
PS. Novorossiyans suffer from the typical Russian problem: Abysmal public relations skills. They’re getting better, but you can tell they in no way compare to American expertise. This applies also to the Russian state and successful Russian corporations. They simply suck at using media to spread positive messages.
I keep killing my comment by trying to copy paste a quote, so this is the third time I’ve attempted to write a reply.
Egypt being knocked away counts as ‘impunity.’ Sarkozy, nicknamed L’Americain, just made a blistering anti-US speech. Merkel has been responding to domestic pressure especially since the Snowden releases. Hezbollah is a classic case, in that they blew up those barracks and caused Reagan to withdraw almost immediately. Since then, the US has not intervened directly in Lebanon in the same way, and Israel has been dissuaded from going far into their territory.
Russia has a big problem in that their language has not been a common language in a long time. English is a common international language, but as our countries weaken, we might expect the linguistic picture to change along with it.
With regards to Hezbollah, there is no impunity there. There are semi-regular tit for tat strikes between them and the IDF. Israel has been dissuaded from moving in largely because Hezbollah can actually fight, and actually win, as we saw in the previous invasion of Lebanon, but again they pay a high price for their infractions. Hezbollah being a private army with a large social infrastructure, they are unusual in their status. Certainly not a rival.
Neither would the Germans nor the French be a real rivals, although they’d like to be. Sure, there are occasional measures to move out from under the Americans oppressive thumb. But why is this a surprise? The Americans are running Europe off a cliff by antagonizing Russia, knowing that the Europeans will almost exclusively be footing the bill. The real question is why it took so long for their European vassals to move out of American influence, and they’re still doing it at a snails pace with every opportunity to make an about turn.
My disagreement is mostly semantic, but partially substantial. America only has a few rivals per say. Everyone else is either a nobody or under their thumb. And foreign nations act against America not necessarily because they know the weakness of the USA, not at all. In many cases they do it because they must, because that is the only chance they have for survival. Germany is making very, very small turns away from American foreign policy in the Ukraine because the American policy is suicide, not necessarily because they’re engaged in a power grab.
The reality is that American power reign supreme courtesy of their overwhelming information advantage, and their only rivals are countries that are more or less immune to that advantage, like Russia and China.
That’s my two cents. I still consider the Americans quite strong, courtesy of their enormous soft power, even if their hard power tools have deteriorated.
During the London blitz my mother as a 7 year old girl referred to the Nazis as “the Nasties” – it kept the family amused and spirits up as they crouched under the large dining table.
I’ve grown up to have a dim view of Nazis – they are nasty and do very nasty things. Such as the “Odessa massacre” of 2 May 2014 – that was a precipitant to the Novorussian resistance/federalisation and later separatist movement.
When serving politicians in Kiev make numerous calls and claims to eliminate “beatles”, “slaves”, “subhumans”, “terrorists”, “Muscovites” – the ethnic Russian population – and create a “pure Ukrainian state” of ethnic and linguistic Ukrainians = pure unadulterated Nazi philosophy. Then those eastern Ukrainians with Russian cultural heritage people have a right to defend themselves.
When groups of paramilitary thugs like “Right Sector” flying their Swastikas and Wolfsangel flags and badges, and the neo-Nazi party “Svoboda” – make up important parts of the Ukrainian military and government – then the Ukrainian junta regime loses my sympathy entirely.
I don’t support genocidal nasties. I find myself having deep sympathy for the Novorussians.
I am sickened and fed up with my mainstream Western media. Like probably millions of other Westerners with brains that think – they’ve lost me for good. I will search to find out the real truth.
I used to detest Putin. I have cautious respect for him, even admiration at times.
The Western Oligarchy is very nasty. Where is a Roosevelt, Eisenhower or a Kennedy today? I now wonder if the Nazis have really won WW-II and the Cold War?
Great. Now the Russians hate us for supporting Ukraine, and the Ukrainians hate us for not supporting them *enough*. Did you notice that Novorossiya uses the Confederate flag, minus the stars?
Kerry: Mr. President, since you vetoed the latest Keystone bill, Texas and Oklahoma have declared independence, and several other states are considering it.
Obama: How racist of them! Chuck, how soon can you get the army down there to crush those terrorists?
Hagel: We don’t have an army, remember? We scrapped it to pay for Obamacare.
Obama: Oh, right.
“Now the Russians hate us for supporting Ukraine, and the Ukrainians hate us for not supporting them *enough*. ”
I don’t want to sound like Limbaugh, but it’s true: Liberals almost always do this. James Burnham noticed it as far back as 1964, and the libs were only getting started. See Korea, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iran, pretty much anything in the Carter Administration, etc. It’s one of the signatures of the soft left in power.
Incidentally, both the hard left and the hard right tend to support their friends, no matter how repulsive they may be. At the very least, this makes them more predictable, and therefore easier to deal with.
Why do that if the soft left also wants to maintain the legitimacy of its own government? Or is it move important for BlueGov to damage RedGov than it is to preserve the US’ international reputation?
“Or is it move important for BlueGov to damage RedGov than it is to preserve the US’ international reputation?”
That’s certainly a possibility, especially in cases like Vietnam and Iraq, but I don’t think that you can rule out the effects of soft left ideology, As Burnham put it, “The Liberal cannot strike firmly against those to the left of him, because he feels that in some way he is hurting himself”. Or possibly, being primarily verbalists like lawyers and professors and suchlike, they simply don’t understand the proper use of force. To be honest, I don’t know why they act this way. But I’ve seen it all my life, and they keep doing it.
Excellent piece. I have to largely agree with Laurel concerning information advantages. American memes or American-made memes predominate in most of the world, especially among the power-holding classes. This is only untrue in places like Russia, Iran and China. Non-American memeplexes exist among the lower classes the world over, but they are usually not very good, or hopelessly downstream from American memes. No word on whether American memetic dominance came before or after military dominance.
Hollywood was already dominant when the US was still, relatively, a military non-entity, but was an ascending economic power.
“Why do that if the soft left also wants to maintain the legitimacy of its own government?”
Because the soft left assumes the legitimacy of its own government. Of course it’s legitimate, it’s the government! We won the election, didn’t we?
From http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/02/is_obama_like_gorbachev_98554.html :
“Yet [Obama and Gorbachev] do have one major thing in common, and that is the belief that, regardless of what the ruler does, the polity he rules must necessarily continue. This is perhaps the most essential, if seldom acknowledged, insight of the post-modern “liberal” mind: that if you take the pillars away, the roof will continue to hover in the air.”
“Neither is the United States the global capitol of degeneracy and evil.”
I beg to differ. If not the United States, then whom?