The war against China is largely facilitated by propaganda.
Jul 27, 2020We are indeed now in the thick of a Third World War. It has been started by US and UK, aided by minor Five Eyes allies Canada and Australia. They have chosen their preferred strategic fighting terrain – information warfare
We are indeed now in the thick of a Third World War. It has been started by US and UK, aided by minor Five Eyes allies Canada and Australia. They have chosen their preferred strategic fighting terrain – information warfare – because they know that on conventional military terrain they would be unable even to begin to prevail over Russia and China.
So it is a war confined to hostile rhetoric, sanctions and subversion. It is fought with words by people like Pompeo and his obedient British acolytes Starmer and Raab and a myriad of indoctrinated news editors . It features continued recycling of old discredited anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda myths like the Skripals and Uighur genocide .
The target audience is not Russian or Chinese people – our new warriors have long given up trying to influence the latter with their obvious lies. No, the target is us. As Orwell foretold in ‘1984‘ : in Oceania’s never- ending unwinnable war against Eurasia and Eastasia, the main theatre is propaganda aimed at we citizens of Oceania. We are the gullible recipients of fake narratives . Remember the inflammatory newsreels, the five minute hate sessions as Orwell described them. We are there now, in much of our MSM product.
Russia and China are patiently avoiding being goaded by this new kind of world war started by the West into similar retaliatory actions on their part. They know they enjoy superior strategic deterrence, and are quietly sitting tight on their deterrence assets. They choose the terrain on which they want to engage.
Thus, China humiliated India with stones and clubs in the Himalayas, and will find appropriate ways to humiliate US and allied navies‘ provocations in the South China Sea. Iran humiliated America in its telegraphed non-lethal missile attack on the US base in Iraq after the US had murdered Soleimani. Russia safely neutralised Ukraine’s foolish naval provocation at Kerch Bridge in Crimea, thereby sealing Poroshenko’s political demise.
Tony Kevin is a former Australian ambassador to Poland and Cambodia, an Emeritus Fellow at Australian National University, Canberra, and the author of ‘Return to Moscow’ (2017)