The Nations that cried Disinformation

For craven politicians, eager political advocates, and deceptive intelligence leaders a crisis also presents an opportunity. We in times of health crisis must not just face the disaster that everyone is concerned with but additionally must guard against growing fear and disgust generated by those who desire to manipulate us. Isolation for public health forces some people to be alone in a heightened state of stress facing instinctual emotions that allow external powers and official groups to influence citizens. Many national governments during world history exploited dangers beyond their control to enact laws or intelligence operations and some even use existing dangers to manufacture greater panic by increasing the suffering to damage enemy nations beyond just the chaos of a natural disaster.

Whether it was the usurpation of governments by Western or Eastern powers after an energy crisis, terrorist attack, or Cold War, the use of calamity by government to enact policies that normally would never be regularly considered is instructive. One of the most potently affordable methods for a government to utilize against others is by generating misleading or damaging media reports. This disinformation allows intelligence groups using psychological warfare to infect the public with false information designed to alter facts and evidence. Hundreds of groups that include the FBI and CIA in the America, the FSB and SVR in Russia, MI5 and MI6 in the UK, or the MSS (Ministry of State Security) in China have constantly twisted international reporting of events to operational advantage.i One former leading East German intelligence disinformation specialist was quoted by the CIA to have stated “Our friends in Moscow call it ‘dezinformatsiya.’ Our enemies in America call it ‘active measures,’ and I dear friends call it ‘my favorite pastime’.”ii 

However, some agencies lack creativity by largely retelling Cold War tales that rely on the ignorance of modern audiences to support new operations with notable similarities. Innovations for tracking information online make such attempts increasingly difficult to completely hide due to open source data. Effective disinformation must possess tested methods but requires original ideas that cannot be dispelled with repeated examples of similar prior operations. In fact, the lack of creativity in some current narratives seemingly exists because of relying too often upon established methods and tired story lines for a new generation of consumers. Properly executed disinformation operations are similar to great works of art, there are some phenomenal artists but endless amounts of unoriginal poseurs.

As Russian and Chinese intelligence groups and proxies now attempt to rewrite the modern history of COVID-19 to blame their political enemies, it should come as no surprise for those aware of similar past attempts by Russia’s KGB intelligence group to blame the United States for the HIV virus epidemic in the nineteen eighties. Operation INFEKTION was the title given to a widespread intelligence operation designed to blame the United States for the AIDS outbreak and cause panic and doubt within the world population.iii The reasoning likely included weakening US ties to import countries to damage the economy of Russia’s Cold War nemesis, amplifying the hatred of targeted groups toward the American leadership, and supporting other propaganda efforts against Western democracies opposed to the Soviet Union.

This disinformation sickness crafted by the KGB was first spread within India and began to grow via a local newspaper titled “The Patriot.” Fueled by growing fears of the AIDS epidemic, the KGB recognized there was an opportunity to use this crisis to spread a disinformation campaign. The article titled “Aids may invade India” put blame for the epidemic on the United States and claimed Pentagon biological weapons testing was responsible for its release. The article included no evidentiary basis to make the claims and cannot link AIDS to America but it claims that only countries with US imports suffer from the disease. This too is not accurate but sounds convincing if someone is not aware of the facts and even the paper’s name “The Patriot” provides a genuine sounding platform. While it claims to be concerned with important issues to citizens, it merely was designed to amplify the fear or disgust of those reading it.

The disinformation story claimed the virus was stored at Fort Detrick in Maryland, where the United States had stored and studied biological agents that were used in the past by the CIA and its military.iv However, these agents that were eventually destroyed were older creations from prior decades and not anything close to virulence of AIDS. Yet in using a Cold War fact about the use and storage of biological weapons bolsters the false portions of the claim and renders them more palatable. According to the propaganda piece the United States had designed AIDS to kill minority groups and this detail was likely included to maximize domestic tensions that were roiling during the nineteen eighties. Using societal divisions is a tried and true way to increase already present conflicts and removes the need of creating an issue of controversy to exploit with the aid of a significant disinformation campaign. This can be followed with concealment of facts, using a “useful idiot” such as supporting experts, and such groundwork is followed by denials and waiting for the disinformation to infect populations while transmitting across the international media.v

Within two years, Operation INFEKTION’s disinformation sickness rapidly expanded from its original source in India and soon contaminated larger populations. During nineteen eighty-five the story was repeated ceaselessly in the media within Africa by Soviet proxies and the next year two East German scientists bolstered the claims without evidence. Another year brought the disinformation’s contagion to exponentially greater news sources as European and South American press echoed the story. Just four years later in nineteen eighty-seven KGB disinformation was being repeated by Dan Rather on CBS news to millions of Americans without any substantial evidence to prove the story. While the story had gone too far to be stopped, the tale’s effect was blunted when a faltering Soviet Union was demanded by the American leadership to admit it was a fabrication and apologize. Shockingly this produced a rare admission to President Ronald Reagan by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev that the KGB was responsible and would cease this action. However, it proved too late and today online we can observe some who still purport this lie in addition to other similar claims including the latest to emerge from Russia and China about the coronavirus.

Chinese FOREIGN Ministry Spokesman Zhao LIJIAN Was Among the First Officials Spreading Disinformation

Taking a page from the Operation INFEKTION, Russian and Chinese state media have begun a seeming modern version of the old story. According to the New York Times “China is pushing a new theory about the origins of the coronavirus: It is an American disease that might have been introduced by members of the United States Army who visited Wuhan in October.” Strikingly this military story line has a strong resemblance to the INFEKTION narrative that includes nefarious activity by the American military deploying a disease or being the source. The internet rumors also lacked basic evidence and were bolstered with the help of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “whose spokesman accused American officials of not coming clean about what they knew about the disease.”vi vii Russia soon joined the budding chorus of Chinese proxies in blaming their political enemies with additional false reports.viii ix x These claims are laughable because the Chinese government itself has minimized, suppressed, and covered up vitals details which led to a global pandemic. Another notable simultaneous Russian decision amid the crisis was flooding global oil markets to further increase economic stress against the largest current producer of oil, the United States.

Neither are the Chinese or Russian governments alone, there are several uninformed and biased international media and public sources repeating the latest foreign disinformation or adding various other examples to benefit their own favored sources or position. From the dangerously misinformed who believe the virus is a hoax to those seeking to blame a single leader for the crisis despite that America’s present woeful lack of preparation is the fault of many leaders past and present. These ideas share a profound blindness to the current situation and the path that rendered every nation outside China suffering from the effects of its government’s constant media suppression. Arguing the emotional details of unproven accusations seeking to assign blame elsewhere from the absolutely deserving is merely aiding the rampant this disinformation campaign’s authors with further confusion.

The Chinese people who are forced to earn a living operating markets in unsanitary conditions that lack indoor facilities selling a mix of domesticated animals and wild game that number over a hundred species in horrendously cramped spaces are victims.xi Every sick Chinese citizen is a victim similar to all other citizens of every nation affected by China’s Communist authoritarian government covering up the signs of an outbreak and permitting huge public events that bolstered transmission rates.xii The Chinese independent press and medical professionals who were silenced, those whose doors in China were welded closed and arrested, and the elderly who died by the thousands were victims.xiii The leadership of China victimized them.

The United States and Europe do not have time for petty social grievances or politicizing the current situation despite that some leading politicians and media outlets seem unable to refrain from doing so. I assure them they will have time to unintentionally assist enemy intelligence group narratives later, should they survive. The coming days and weeks shall determine if the governments of the world are nearly as impressive as they believe. Another rare opportunity triggered by a crisis is the brief period which allows the public to observe who their political and social leaders really are.
Sincerely,
C.A.A. Savastano

References:
i. 70 countries have now experienced organized disinformation campaigns, September 26, 2019, MIT Technology Review, technologyreview.com
ii. Thomas Boghardt, December 2009, Studies in Intelligence, Volume 53, Number 4, Operation INFEKTION, Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation Campaign, Central Intelligence Agency, cia.gov
iii. Operation InfeKtion, November 25, 2018, How Russia Perfected the Art of War, The New York Times, nytimes.com
iv. Douglas Selvage and Christopher Nehring, July 22, 2019, Operation “Denver”: KGB and Stasi Disinformation regarding AIDS, The Wilson Center, wilsoncenter.org
v. Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb, June 2012, Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference, Institute for National Strategic Studies, ndupress.ndu.edu
vi. Steven Lee Myers, March 13, 2020, China Spins Tale That the U.S. Army Started the Coronavirus Epidemic, The New York Times, nytimes.com
vii. Yonden Lhatoo, March 17, 2020, Why is China peddling a coronavirus conspiracy theory?, South China Morning Post, scmp.com
viii. Russia Accused of spreading coronavirus disinformation, March 21, 2020, Sky News, news.sky.com
ix. Tanner Brown, March 15, 2020, Inside China’s campaign to blame the U.S. for the coronavirus pandemic, Market Watch, marketwatch.com
x. Barbara Wesel, March 20, 2020, Is Russia running a coronavirus disinformation campaign?, Deutsche Welle, dw.com
xi. Aylin Woodward, January 22, 2016, Both the new coronavirus and SARS outbreaks likely started in Chinese wet markets. Photos show what the markets look like., Business Insider, buisnessinsider.com
xii. James Kynge, Sun Yu, and Tom Hancock, February 6, 2020, Coronavirus: the cost of China’s health cover-up, Financial Times, ft.com
xiii. Documentary Captures Extreme Distress in Wuhan, China, During the Coronavirus Epidemic, The Passionate Eye, CBC News Network, cbc.ca

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