Saturday, January 31, 2015

How Russia Uses Deception "Maskirovka" To Outfox Its Enemies


Lucy Ash, BBC News: How Russia outfoxes its enemies

WNU Editor: Lucy Ash focuses on the Russian military's use of deception .... but it also plays a critical part in Russian foreign policy and in state media .... especially now when Moscow is facing the western world by itself. But the real masters at "maskirovka" .... without question .... are the people who work in this building.

10 comments:

phill said...

The Whitehouse can do all the lying they want doesn't mean there master's at deception.

B.Poster said...

With all due respect while the US government like most governments can and does lie on occasion, especially POTUS, I think it inaccurate to say that it is "without question" they are the masters at deception.

The US government and the White House especially are largely populated by incompetent boobs who are to stupid to recognize they are stupid on many occasions.

Furthermore the US faces more media scrutiny than any other country on earth. A significant portion of this is hostile coverage. Essentially the US lives under a very large and much of the time very hostile microscope. These things especially apply with regards to foreign policy.

This type of scrutiny makes deception especially in the areas of foreign policy very difficult if not impossible to pull off on any consistent level. In contrast, Russia does not seem to face this kind of scrutiny.

This is not defend the US government. In fact, quite the contrary. The US government is inhabited by a combination of incompetent boobs, left wing hacks, and self serving weasels. Most of the whole lot of them should be ousted.


phill said...

Saying all the US government is a stretch but I will agree the white is full of incompetent boobs, left wing hacks and self serving weasels.

And I think we can both agree the US military has the strongest and advanced forces the world has ever had the privilege to admire.

B.Poster said...

As for Iraqi WMD discussed in the article, it is clear the intelligence was faulty. Of course I've known for some time that the CIA is largely incompetent Unfortunately nothing was done to correct the problem after the Iraq War fiasco.

Where the deception came in was in the various "Bush lied, kids died" slogans done to damage POTUS politically and by extension the United States. Then careers and income became contingent upon the no WMD argument in Iraq so serious efforts to find out if these had been transferred elsewhere were abandoned and the long and short of it is we still have an intelligence agency that is largely incompetent and filled with left wing political hacks that hasn't been reformed which virtually guarantees future errors of this magnitude will occur.

If I were POTUS or any other top official, I would be VERY hesitant to rely upon any information from US Intel service.

phill said...

Glad to hear you aren't a liberal comrade.

B.Poster said...

Phil,

You are correct that to say "all" or to imply "all" is a stretch. That should not have been used.

As for the strength of the US military, in terms of conventional forces, this is probably correct. At least this is the conventional wisdom. The US is much less opaque about its capabilities than other countries tend to be. As such, we may not really know for certain. Even if the US wanted to keep secrets, doing so is problematic at best. See my post above. This can be an advantage but it can also be a disadvantage.

Since certain strategies and tactics that are available to adversaries and potential adversaries are not going to be available to the US, this would likely tend to negate potential conventional military advantage the US likely has. Also, Russia holds an edge in nuclear weapons. This, especially the Russian edge in tactical nuclear weapons, would likely tend to further negate any advantages the US may have perhaps even shifting the edge to Russia. Also, Russia appears to be the best in the world at cyber warfare. In the event of a cyber attack, might all of this high tech equipment be yielded blind, deaf, dumb, and useless? I pray we never have to find out.

In any event, I'd tend to agree with you regarding US conventional military capabilities. We seem to be in 100% agreement regarding the White House.

phill said...

I tend to not worry about Russia's nuclear arsenal because in that hypothetical scenario the world loses.

What does worry me are country's like Pakistan or north Korea witch extremists can either take or buy.

As for cyber warfare the US is just as good as China or Russia. Remember we had a virus installed in one of Iran's nuclear material plants. And the only reason it didn't work was some idiot leaked it to the media.

Rodger Ramster said...

my vote for the most devious and deceptive is not the US. Maybe the Japanese?

James said...

"Since certain strategies and tactics that are available to adversaries and potential adversaries are not going to be available to the US, this would likely tend to negate potential conventional military advantage the US likely has. Also, Russia holds an edge in nuclear weapons. This, especially the Russian edge in tactical nuclear weapons, would likely tend to further negate any advantages the US may have perhaps even shifting the edge to Russia. Also, Russia appears to be the best in the world at cyber warfare. In the event of a cyber attack, might all of this high tech equipment be yielded blind, deaf, dumb, and useless? I pray we never have to find out."
This cannot be emphasized too much! This also goes a long way to explain the peculiar blindness that exists in the upper reaches of our government and a large segment of our society.

Dale Moguls I said...

i think the editor meant that the occupant of the white house is a muslim brotherhood plant, and have gotten away with the deception brilliantly.