If a country tries to spread fake news about another country or a group of countries, like the EU, what does the other country gain?
In this example, what is the effect if the EU is being destabilized and its people lose faith in it? What does the aggressor gain in this scenario?
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As a simple example: suppose China is trying to become a bigger economic power. They want to sell more of their goods. Europe is competing with them on the sale of those goods, in part because Europe has successfully agreed to trade treaties that reduce transaction cost for doing business throughout the EU.
So I, Steve McChina, go on the internet and start promoting the idea that the EU is bad, based on a bunch of bullshit. I get voters in Europe to oppose those trade treaties and withdraw their countries from the EU. Transaction costs in the EU go up, the cost of doing business there goes up, and now I can compete better.
“United we stand, Divided we fall”. -Aesop
Disinformation can do a lot of things that can be entire papers worth of information.
Some examples are sowing division, losing faith in products, or getting populations to vote against certain things. Making an adversary weaker politically, economically or militarily is great.
A divided population that is stuck on infighting is going to be weaker than a unified population working against a common goal. If the population is less concerned on external issues and is more concerned about domestic issues, or believes it’s not worth it to respond to international ones then it helps the international adversaries.
Or in the case for the EU, getting a large, wealthy and powerful member to leave the union will weaken the union.
Losing faith in products. An example I can think of offhand is democratic military spending. Getting a voting population to think “We don’t need that crappy new fighter/ship/submarine/satellite.” Which instead of developing tech to counter it, or having to spend money to counter its deployment they can just kill the project in the voting stage.
Democratic populations are vulnerable to getting votes swayed as well. If a candidate is for policies that would benefit the other country they benefit from helping them get elected.
As a cumulative effect, misinformation takes up the available time and space that effort is used to influence the opinions of appropriate conversation including style of conversation. If the angle information is provided continues steadfastly enough it can create any popular opinion Including tolerance levels regarding the supply of your time and attention towards certain things… Making it Seem as if the populace is guiding the decision makers to tell us of certain types of events but in reality accomplishing the Opposite chain of command
Russian funded disinformation on the covid-19 vaccines is a good example. Many famous YouTube channels were offered money to promote alternative medicines, or discredit the Anglo vaccines. I cannot recall the company, which was based in the UK, and had a Russian partner who funded this dangerous campaign. It was shut down, after one of the YouTubers made a viral video explaining the offer, and background of the company.
In summary, Russia wins as the West scrambles in messy in-fighting due to disinformation.
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