Long harness, but quickly learn
Here are PSV, PSB and PSO. Not long ago, these abbreviations were unknown to the general public, were used mainly by experts "in profile" and were even considered secret. However, there is nothing supernatural or secret about their decoding: psychological warfare (PSV), psychological struggle (PSB), and psychological operation (PSO). Just everything that can be observed in the past few months during the events in Ukraine.
CLOSE WITHOUT FIGHT
The arrival of NATO specialists in Ukraine in the field of organization and conduct of psychological operations was confirmed by 13 March 2014. Is this not an open intervention by the West and a blow to our national interests? How can Russia answer this?
Unfortunately, we can answer a little in this case, because after the reform of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the number of officers involved in planning and conducting psychological operations was significantly reduced, and their quality declined significantly. This is due to the fact that the senior officers were mostly fired into the reserve. People with a rich life and work experience. They were replaced by young, undoubtedly, talented officers, but without any real experience.
Life experience proves that the decision to reform a particular unit, even solving important or special, special tasks, is often taken by people who do not have competence in this matter. Until now, in the army, the overwhelming majority of the commanding fathers for some reason believe that the psychological struggle officer deals with psychological problems in a team, that is, performs the role of a full-time psychologist, prevents hazing or something like that.
All this is not true and only confirms the fact that the Russian military and political leadership should as soon as possible review the individual results of the reform. After all, in reality, the goals and objectives that are solved by experts in psychological operations are much more global and important. As Igor Panarin rightly writes in his book Media, Propaganda and Information Wars, an informational impact on an adversary is such a “direct and indirect effect on opinions, moods, feelings and ultimately on the behavior of the adversary in order to force him to act in the directions we are pleased with.” ". Win by force weapons - here a special mind is sometimes not required, only brute force and superiority in human strength and armament. But to convince the enemy of his rightness and make him surrender without a fight - this is a real aerobatics.
However, one should not confuse such different concepts as “propaganda” and “psychological impact”. Propaganda is, if you will, advertising, PR. You can often hear: "clumsy propaganda", "naive propaganda", "kondovaya propaganda" and more in the same spirit. Psychological influence is a much more delicate influence on the wishes and moods of the opponent. It is like the air we breathe. It is tasteless, colorless, odorless, but always and everywhere present. As any information bears in itself this or that shade of the relation to an event.
Those people who believe (and especially insist on it) are naive that unbiased coverage of events is possible, especially such as revolution, forcible change of power, terrorist act, etc. There are no naive high-tech pros. Therefore, if you hear from such people that they are engaged exclusively in providing a neutral information without analysis and comments, then you are dealing with information professionals.
At the same time, both propaganda and psychological influence are an integral part of the information confrontation.
We make Natiska
Today, specialists have the impression that, in terms of information, Russia is inferior to the onslaught of foreign media. Why are there foreign! In their own country, the Russian media "traditionally" divided into two camps. While some stand up to protect the interests of the Russian-speaking population and the interests of their country, other TV and radio channels use information filth for their own power and government, wishing it to lose in the information (and not only) war. Is it ok to want your country to lose? Is this democracy, pluralism? Is it for this that our great-grandfathers fought in the Great Patriotic War? Then the question arises: what is betrayal?
Maybe for some it may seem strange, but the information war against the Russian people never stopped. This is what the whole world says. storyfrom ancient Russia to today's period. This, if you will, is the struggle of civilizations, of Anglo-Saxon and Russian culture. So it was, it is and it will be so. Sometimes the passions calmed down a bit and seemed to dissolve in the daily bustle. Today, we are becoming living witnesses of the next round of history and information confrontation.
For the successful conduct of the psychological struggle requires an integrated and systematic approach. This should be done constantly, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week: to collect, process and analyze information both in Russian and in other languages. Therefore, in this area there are only professionals who have undergone many years of training, have excellent knowledge of foreign languages and the mentality of the population of the studied country (region), have a broad outlook and extensive life experience, as well as true patriots of their homeland.
Constant and hard work is needed. In the past, the defense minister was of the opinion that the armed forces do not need doctors, translators, lawyers and psychological warfare officers. Because if the need arises, you can quickly hire the appropriate civilian specialists. Now there is such a need in connection with the situation in Ukraine. And what? Where are these civilian specialists? Why did Russia miss the first informational strike? Why are we again in the role of catching up? Why for us it was a surprise? There are more questions than answers.
Exactly the same situation occurred during the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict in 2008. Psychological campaign specialists have one golden rule: the one who first gave information is right. The one who did not have time is always in the role of catching up and making excuses. Agree that the justifying party does not inspire confidence, because there is a feeling that once justified, it means that there was something.
Psychological struggle is absolutely unthinkable without linguistic support. The main thing is not a picture, but a signature to it. During the events of August 2008, CNN showed the same footage as the Russian television channel ORT, but for the English-speaking audience it was explained that it was Russian troops who entered Tbilisi. Thus, a frank and blatant lie was given to the foreign spectator, on the basis of which he made completely wrong conclusions.
During the aggravation of events around the status of Crimea, Western channels constantly showed how the Russian military strolled around the Crimea with automatic weapons at the ready, wrote in blogs about Ukrainian girls raped by Russian soldiers and in every way frightened the public with ultimatums and threats allegedly received from Russia. Such informational nonsense with us causes a grin, but ordinary citizens of Ukraine, unfortunately, willingly believe in any nonsense, because they are under pressure from the flow of information, which is broadcast by one-sided local media, which, in turn, obediently dance to the US tune. At the same time in Ukraine, Russian channels are being disconnected from broadcasting. Here is a pluralism of opinions in American.
REVOLUTION, NOT REVOLUTION
If we turn to the recent history of Russia, we can easily recall that the Chechen militants in the English-language media were called only rebels and partisans. There is nothing new under the sun. Today the linguistic juggling of terms begins with the expectation that "People are shaving." Let us leave aside the causes (corruption, indecision of power, low standard of living of the population), which led to the regrettable final of the Ukrainian state. Let us consider targeted informational stuffing into the international information space with the goal of changing the public consciousness. And in recent months the opinion has been stubbornly imposed on society that a revolution occurred in Ukraine, not an armed coup d'état.
According to the accepted terminology, “revolution is a revolution in the life of society, which leads to the elimination of the previous social and political system and the establishment of a new government.” The seizure of power is not yet a revolution. There is no talk here about any change in the political formation (there was capitalism, it became socialism, for example). Even the actors are the same as they were once at the mercy of the times of the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko.
Legitimacy is another term for clarification. Let us again turn to the dictionary: “legitimacy is the consent of the people with the government when it voluntarily recognizes the right to make binding decisions”. If the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Crimea supported their own government, therefore, it was legitimate and acted in the interests of its people, which was confirmed in a referendum on March 16 of March 2014. Whoever, no matter what, says it, no matter how much he shouts that “never and for no reason” does not recognize the very fact of its holding.
This is true and vice versa. In Kiev, several thousand people, well trained, trained to clash with the forces of law and order took part in the coup d'état. Yes, of course, it cannot be denied that in addition to the militants of the ultra-right forces, there were naive citizens who acted as extras. However, their cumulative total did not exceed 0,01% of the total population of Ukraine. It's not even the tail that turns the dog, but something even smaller. Therefore, there is nothing strange in the fact that the “government of national trust,” allegedly approved by the protesters, cannot be called legitimate.
The Western media may, from day to day, arbitrarily long call the new government legitimate, this will not change the situation. Or change? And then it is worth remembering the words of the Reich Minister of propaganda of the “thousand-year-old” German Reich Joseph Goebbels: “If you utter a large enough lie and repeat it, then people will believe in it ... If a person says a hundred times that he is a pig, on the hundred and first he grunts. " It turns out that the countries of Western Europe and the United States work strictly "according to Goebbels."
When it comes to shooting on Independence Square in Kiev, foreign media “forget” to mention the armed radicals shouting fascist slogans. At the same time, the selection of spectacular frames (albeit without comments) was focused solely on the protesters. Where, it is asked, shots of the burning and wounded militiamen? This is called “we just give news, conclusions you do yourself. " Strictly as Dr. Goebbels taught.
Events in Ukraine once again highlighted the problem of double standards. Everyone knows about the precedent of Kosovo, so I will not talk about it. However, few people today recall that when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine withdrew from the USSR in a notification order, without any referendums, as in Estonia, for example. In the same way, by the way, the United States did in its time, notifying the UK of its independence.
Who will tell the truth, bring it to a dubious western man in the street and a disoriented Ukrainian citizen? I think the answer is obvious. Today, history is entrusted to Russia with the mission of standing up for universal human values, defending its legitimate interests and the interests of Russian Orthodox culture. Russia did not start this information war, but the historical mission was entrusted to it again - to give a fitting rebuff to the information aggressors. And in the field of information confrontation Russia can work no less beautifully and convincingly than the United States or NATO. Russian harness for a long time, but quickly learn.
Information