“In war, truth is the first casualty”, according to the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus. So disinformation has a long history. The Chinese General and philosopher Sun Tzu warned 2,500 years ago: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
To know yourself and know your enemy is not only a question of gathering intelligence. It is first of all a question of having the capacity to analyse the intelligence so you get an understanding of yourself and your enemy. Of course, to mobilise your own people it is common to demonize your enemy by exposing how evil he is, how he deliberately kills women and children and so on. To encourage your own people, you might tell them that the enemy is coward, ill-prepared, with obsolete weapons and low morale among the troops, and hence that victory is secure - and perhaps even that it will soon be achieved (even if that is quite stupid as deception may result when it turns out not to be true). But basing the political and military planning on this false picture of the enemy is the secure road to hell.
As the NATO countries have defined the Ukraine-Russia war as their own war, it is thus not surprising that the media coverage in the West exposes the evil acts of the Russians and encourages their populations to believe that Russia can be defeated, militarily and economically. This is all normal. However, what is astonishing is that the advice the governments get from their military, political and economic specialists is based on the same distorted picture of the enemy. I naively believed that the political leaders of the NATO countries behind closed doors got a more realistic picture of the situation from their own military analysts, and that despite their rhetoric they were acting based on sober information and some serious thinking. Now it turns out that this is not the case. The information they are getting from their “specialists” is the same disinformation that the media are spreading, and the advice they get is consequently useless at best. It turns out they are fooling themselves with their own disinformation. That is scaring.
It has become clear during the more than two years of war in Ukraine, not only that NATO does not understand Russia. It is worse. It doesn’t want to. It doesn’t understand the motives behind Russia’s intervention, it doesn’t understand the role of President Putin and what motivates him, it doesn’t understand the sentiments and thinking of the Russian people, it doesn’t understand the Russian military and it doesn’t understand the Russian economy at all. That is the secure road to wrong decisions, huge casualties and in the end, defeat.
What is surprising is that apparently there is no learning. The same specialists that have provided information and advice which has proved to be absolutely wrong, are trusted again and again. Both by the media and by the Governments. Perhaps is shouldn’t surprise. There is a saying in Spanish that “Man is the only animal that stumbles twice over the same stone”. And we could add: not only twice, but again and again. It is tempting to say that if this had been a private company all these specialists and advisers would have been mercilessly fired. But that is not necessarily true: just take a look at what has been happening in the private company Boeing over the last decades. They don’t learn either.
This self-deceiving activity has been going on mainly in three areas: militarily ('Russia is about to be defeated'), economically ('the Russian economy is in shambles') and politically ('Russia is falling apart'). How can any serious analysis and decision-making be carried out this way? No surprise that the NATO countries’ policy has been a disaster. For the Ukrainian nationalists and in the end for themselves.
In March 2023, 4 of the Abrams tanks delivered by the US to Ukraine were destroyed. Photo of the third tank, which was hit by a Bullseye Shot from a Russian T-72 tank on March 6. No need to worry though. The US has 5,500 of them.
If we start with the military, there is in an article in “Responsible Statecraft” a not very flattering compilation of predictions made by the NATO specialist community concerning the outcome of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2023. It is really a NATO who-is-who list: Lloyd Austin, Jens Stoltenberg, Jake Sullivan, David Petraeus, Ben Hodges, Edward Luttwak, Richard Hooker and so on. Let us just quote two of them: Paul Massaro, senior policy adviser, the 'Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe': 'Full Ukrainian victory is coming. Sooner than you think.', and Former Chief of the British General Staff, General Richard Dannatt: 'After Kyiv's successful counteroffensive, Vladimir Putin may be swept out of the Kremlin.' They not only proved to be wrong, they proved to be completely wrong. These same people are still around making dissertations in NATO think tanks, providing specialist information and comments in the media, and advising NATO governments. Generally undisputed. As the article drily states: “Analysts should separate what they might want to happen with what — from a more objective point of view — is more likely to actually happen.” They don’t.
Concerning the economy, it is not any better. Since 2014, the West has systematically underestimated the Russian economy. They thought that the sanctions against Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 would be devastating. “The Russian economy is in tatters”, said ex-president Barak Obama in his State of the Union Address in January 2015. This must have been what his advisers told him, I guess. But he was wrong. John McCain said that “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country”. He was wrong too.
Undaunted, Biden continues along the same lines as Obama. He told in March 2022 an enthusiastic US press: 'The (Russian) economy is on track to be cut in half in the coming years. (…) It will soon not even rank among the top 20 in the world (Applause).' His Secretary of Treasury, Janet Yellen, stated in December 2023: 'Over nearly two years, our sanctions have significantly weakened the Russian economy and undermined the Kremlin’s war effort.' Really? Try Googling 'Future of Russia’s economy', and you will get headlines as: 'Russia's GDP boost from military spending belies wider economic woes', 'Russian economic ‘resilience’ is not what it seems', 'Russia’s economy ‘in for very tough times’ ', 'How Putin Cannibalizes Russian Economy to Survive Personally', 'Why the Russian Economy’s Luck is Running Out', 'Putin may seem confident – but Russia's future is bleak'. 'Putin Will Leave Russia in Ruins', 'Russia Is Burning Up Its Future'. And so on. I wonder if that is what the US and EU advisers are telling their masters, or whether they off-record get a more sober assessment. I fear not.
Biden promised in March 2022 that the Russian GDP would be cut in half. After a minor recession in 2022, it continued growing in purchasing power terms. Data for 2000-2022 are from World Bank database. 2022 and 2023 are from Rosstat. 2024 is an IMF projection.
It could be argued that the NATO leaders lately have started doubting at least part of their own narrative. You would then expect them to search for a way out of the mess in Ukraine. It seems not to be the case. In stead, they are planning to get even further involved. French President Macron, Poland, the Baltic countries and Finland, have announced that they may send troops to Ukraine, which means they are willing to go to war with Russia. These countries should learn from their own history. After Hitler Germany had occupied almost all of Europe and finally attacked the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries and Finland enthusiastically joined Hitler’s troops. We know how that ended for them. After Napoleon Bonaparte had conquered most of Europa he also invaded Russia and even took Moscow. Like Charles XII of Sweden before him, Napoleon's army was destroyed, and in the end it was the Russian Tsar Alexander I who marched into Paris with his troops (together with the rest of the anti-French coalition). Taking into account his outgrown ego, I guess Macron would like to get revenge for Napoleon’s defeat, and Finland and the Baltic Countries for their humiliating defeat in World War II.
Only a fool underestimates his enemy (as Russia did at the beginning of the Ukraine war). That is what Sun Tzu told us. However, that is exactly what NATO has been doing since 2014 and continues to do. Will they ever learn? Before it is too late?
