Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 79

A New Russian Realpolitik: Putin’s Operationalization of Psychology and Propaganda
Russian propaganda production
is not new to the world. However, Putin
and his governmental and security
apparatus have re-engineered and
deliberately tailored the system to be
successful in the twenty-first century.
Speaking bluntly, General Breedlove,
former Supreme Allied Commander of
NATO, noted that Russian propaganda
“was the most amazing information
warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen”
(Gerber and Zavisca 2016, 80). Select
messaging, identity reinforcement, and
image manipulation by an entire host
of sophisticated propaganda methods
support Putin’s desired end state to
have Russian political and social values
esteemed higher than the West’s. Hostile
perceptions of the US “have taken
hold in Russia, where nearly 70% of the
respondents view [the] United States as
an enemy, and an additional 15% see
the United States as a rival” (Gerber
and Zavisca 2016, 85). Through official
statements, mass media, social media,
paid agents, and funded nongovernmental
organizations, the Russian security
apparatus has been able to slowly
infect areas that have traditionally been
outside Russia’s sphere of influence. At
the same time, the same systems have
turned inward. They have been used to
engineer a consolidated narrative, identity,
and image against the Russian people
who have seemingly willingly abdicated
their cognitive defense mindset
and stance to a new Russian leader for
the promise of stability, direction, and
resurgence. There is currently an entire
constellation of structured and funded
Russian “civil society” institutions and
media outlets (Helmus 2018). Hackers,
troll farms, Sputnik News, and Russia
Today are the modern Russian equivalents
of the T-34 tank; instead of penetrating
the physical battlefields, these
mediums force cognitive penetration,
allowing a manipulated narrative and
amplified differentiation within an entire
spectrum of target audiences.
Deliberately choosing to make
it a priority, the Russian government
allocated over $1.4 billion to international
and domestic propaganda
(Van Herpen 2016, 74). The influence
campaigns in the Soviet era and under
President Putin represent a “longterm,
indirect, and low-risk approach
to undermine and weaken an opponent
from within in order to promote
political objectives and alter the correlation
of power in Moscow’s favor in
order to win the clash of civilizations
with the West” (McCauley 2016). Putin
and his many controlled networks believe
that they can deliberately change
attitudes and ideas through the art of
persuasion. They understand that they
can effectively reinforce existing trends
and beliefs to solidify and differentiate
the realities of an intergroup process.
The current employment and widespread
usage of propaganda allow the
Russian leader to influence masses near
and abroad. This approach causes them
to believe that the Russian past “reflects
the happy future of present-day
Russia .... [The Russian people] don’t
expect a happy future to come in the
form of modernization or the form of
approaching the westernized world.
[With this], the future lies in the Soviet
past of Russia” (Van Herpen 2016, 77).
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