Introduction - A worrying trend in the media

Although I don't remember the end of the cold war very well (as I was very young) I do rememer some of the terrifying themes of nuclear apocalypse that used to pervade the culture of the late 1980s.

That sort of thing leaves a grave and inedible impression on a young mind and it used to be everywhere at the time.

People really believed that the world could end at any moment due to a nuclear war in the 1980s. - The Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s and a number of other "near misses" had illustrated how easily it could happen.

It was only after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that the world was able to breathe a collective sigh of relief and move beyond that kind of thinking - or so it seemed.

Though I generally try to avoid the mass media these days I still encounter its' influence peripherally and I'm starting to notice a worrying trend.

It seems to me that we are seeing huge amounts of stories that are being engineered to create ill feeling and fear towards Russia. I am no fan of Putin's regime but it seems to me that a lot of what is happening has a very distinctive propagandising theme to it.

Our military and political overlords seem to be engineering a resumption of the cold war.

The Mechanism

Problem + Solution Marketing

Due to the way our minds work we are much more likely to focus on problems and negative issues than on those that are positive.

This leaves us open to the "Problem+Solution" form of marketing. Advertisers have used this for years.

The basic idea is first to create a new problem (Russian Aggression/Hacking) in the mind of the consumer (us) and then sell us the solution (further militarisation).

It is classic marketing strategy and it works.

It is good to recycle

It is even more ingenius to recycle an old problem and make it into a new one.

That way you can reuse a lot of the old material you have and also rekindle past fears that may still exist in people's unconscious minds.

You will see evidence of this in the type of language and imagery that the media will use to describe the situation including "classic" cold war imagery of Soviet Flags and the like being flashed up when discussing Russia.

The narrative - Russia = Bad Guy

Every day we seem to see a new story about Russian Hacks or "Putin said this" or "Putin said that".

You don't need to be a genius to see that a lot of these stories involve a mixture of speculation, innuendo and deliberate misquoting/willful misunderstanding.

You see articles in various publications asking what action will be taken and how this can be tolerated.

Further we have our politicians ratcheting up the rhetoric based on these half truths and speculation. I have inserted some examples of this below:

Some examples of this:

Click on the thumbnail images above to go to the sources.

Incompetence + Manipulation = Plausible Deniablity

A more naive younger version of myself may have believed that this was pure incompetence.

Nowadays I believe that incompetence is often combined with actual willful manipulation as a means of shielding it and making it more believable.

It also helps with plausible deniability when you get dragged up in front of parliamentary watchdogs/public oversight bodies.

Why?

Supply and Demand - We are in the war business

The War on Terror seems to be petering out. There is only so long you can scare people with a nameless faceless bogeyman because people develop a tolerance to it. The military industrial complex needs a new "product" to sell us and sustain their growth.

Source: Wikipedia

Keep developing new products and stir up demand

No good business can rest on it's laurels - there must be constant evolution or you will get left behind and lose your market.

Great companies like Apple are always looking to the future. They didn't just develop the Ipod and leave it there. They created the Iphone, then the IPad and then the Apple Watch.

They are always thinking several steps ahead to ensure that they don't become irrelevant and lose market share.

Our militaries and the private corporations that depend on them are no different. They must ensure future demand for their services.

In the arms business too much peace can be very bad for business. It pays to stir up conflict.

Mirroring on the other side - business is business

Note - there may also be interests on the Russian side that favour such a war.

They are actually the second biggest arms dealer after the US.

I suspect there could even be collusion between business interests on both sides to push this agenda. I see both sides as being mirror images of each other and collusion would only make business sense.

Wars Are Good for Popularity

Wars have a tendency to make leaders more popular and can have benefits in terms of uniting the population against a single threat. If we take a look at some of our most well remembered leaders from history it is no coincidence that they are often war-time leaders.

May and Clinton : A win-win situation for the unpopular leaders

In the US it seems Hillary Clinton may well win the election despite not being very popular amongst voters (and even people in her own party).

On this side of the Atlantic we have a new (unelected) Prime Minister in the form of Theresa May.

Things are not going well for the economy here due to Brexit and coincidentally what is one of our biggest exports in the UK? It's actually weapons.

A new war, particularly a long term "cold war" lasting decades, would be a great way to sell more arms and create unity.

It would be excellent for UK/USA PLC (as people in the government sometimes refer to the economy).

It would also help to increase the popularity of these two leaders who are not really very well liked.

I think Theresa May and Hillary would love to emulate the effect the Falklands War had on the image of Margaret Thatcher.

So it makes perfect sense for them to position Russia as our new enemy. The "new bad guy" theme is just too perfect for our leaders to pass up.

A Two For One Deal

They can also package this up with terrorism and make it a "2 for 1 deal" in their marketing.

Get ready to see a gradual pushing of the idea that Russia is involved in international terrorism too. It is only a matter of time. We have seen this used before just prior to the Iraq war with the deliberate fabrication of links to terrorism.

I hope I am being overly cynical but past precedent just makes a lot of this stuff all the more obvious.

How can we fight this sort of thing? Technology = Hope

There is hope that we can overcome this kind of manipulation and I believe that hope comes from the ability of technology to connect people.

During the past Cold War there was no internet. People were isolated and could not easily communicate with each other.

This increases polarisation and misunderstandings between populations making it a lot easier to engage in dehumanisation.

This is the basis of tribalism.

Technology vs Tribalism

Today people in the UK/Europe and US can instantly communicate with those in Russia and any other part of the world. The internet, social networks and platforms like Steemit help us to see how similar we all are.

They also make a mockery of the "us vs them" black and white dualism that our leaders try to capitalise on.

Conclusions

I think you would have to be monumentally ignorant or naive to be blind to the anti-Russian rhetoric and scare-mongering that is going on in the media at the moment.

As long as we don't give in to fear and we continue communicating and building bridges with our fellow humans the impact of these kind of manipulations can be reduced.

We must use our brains and constantly look at the details and facts behind what is being said.

As the old saying goes "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance".

Thank you for Reading. Here is your reward for getting to the End:

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Are we being manipulated into a war with Russia?