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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRussia Is Co-opting Angry Young Men
via The Atlantic
Fight clubs, neo-Nazi soccer hooligans, and motorcycle gangs serve as conduits for the Kremlins influence operations in Western countries
After the Kremlin accelerated its covert war against Western democracies in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine, Russias intelligence services dramatically ramped up their active measures (in Russian intelligence jargon, aktivnyye meropriyatiya or active measures refers to a broad range of covert influence and/or subversive operations) using radical-right and fringe groups. These groups serve as the perfect unwitting agents to accomplish Moscows twin goals of destabilizing Western societies and co-opting Western business and political elites.
By forging ties to radical groups on the far right, and sometimes on the far left, the Kremlin has developed convenient local surrogates that can amplify its talking points, even as Russian trolls reinforce the divisive narratives such groups spread online.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that the partnerships between the Kremlin and these groups are always marriages of convenience. Many are genuine partnerships based on a shared aversion to liberal democracy and a desire to undermine it.
Yes, disinformation and propaganda are the major battlefield tools for Putin's war on the west and 'liberal democracies' in general, and 'the main enemy' (America) in particular.
But they are not by any means the only tools.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is in denial, or naive beyond what's good for them.
When you look at those videos of the skinheads doing dumbshit, mean, scary, stupid skinhead things and think "What tools!" you are more accurate than you may realize.
And, in America at least, they are heavily-armed. Why? Oh, just because Putin's Russia has put a buttload of effort, money, and resources behind the NRA, that's all.
Purely coincidental, I'm sure.
Are you?
ominously,
Bright
Crutchez_CuiBono
(7,725 posts)Aristus
(66,275 posts)Where have we seen this before?
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Angry seems self-evident. As to stupid and violent, the violence is sort of self-evident as well. Why stupid? Because these angry, violent young men think that the best chance they have to better their lot in life is to throw in with the very people who have fucked them over. They had a poor education because conservatives starved schools of resources. From that bad start, they haven't developed marketable or profitable job skills, which puts them further behind. They get angry because they've been sold on the notion that they're entitled to an elevated status in society just by virtue of their skin color and family heritage. They have been carefully taught that others are inferior to them for the same reasons. Then they see some of those inferiors out-pacing them and being successful. Their anger builds into violence, ripe for Russian influence.