Russian interference: the origins and the aims

I have no idea when the Select Committee report on Russian interference will be published or what it will tell us but some fascinating stuff has emerged about Russia's long standing foreign policy objectives. A report in an Australian newspaper from 2017 claims to have uncovered a book, written in 1997, which they say has informed Putin's strategy towards the west. The book was called “Foundations of Geopolitics” and it was all about how Russia could reassert itself in the world.

A Russian political scientist named Aleksander Dugin and a serving Russian General named Nikolai Klokotov sat down and wrote the book together apparently and the Australian newspaper report claimed: 

"The book’s authors say Russia should encourage Britain to leave the European Union, and thus weaken it. That’s right. Russian strategists were openly arguing in favour of Brexit in 1997, when it was still just a glimmer in Nigel Farage’s eyes."

I checked the book and found an entry about it on Wikipedia which said:

"The book has had a large influence within the Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites and it has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military.  Its publication in 1997 was well-received in Russia and powerful Russian political figures subsequently took an interest in Dugin, a Russian Eurasianist, fascist and nationalist who has developed a close relationship with Russia's Academy of the General Staff."

It's a serious 600+ page work with real influence and Wikipedia summarise what the authors thought Russia's strategic objectives should be.  I pluck a few items, not entirely at random, from the list:

• The United Kingdom should be cut off from Europe
• France should be encouraged to form a "Franco-German bloc" with Germany. Both countries have a "firm anti-Atlanticist tradition"
• Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning"
• Georgia should be dismembered. Abkhazia and "United Ossetia" (which includes Georgia's South Ossetia) will be incorporated into Russia. Georgia's independent policies are unacceptable.
• Russia needs to create "geopolitical shocks" within Turkey. These can be achieved by employing Kurds, Armenians and other minorities
• Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics"

It does not take a genius to see the beginning of the actualisation of these 1997 aims in the real world.

I haven't read the book but a sober and extensive academic review of it in 2004 claims it actually says this about Britain:

"The integration of swaths of Western and Central European territory into a German sphere of dominance will be encouraged directly and abetted by Eurasia-Russia. The formation of a 'Franco-German bloc' especially is to be supported. 'In Germany and France,' Dugin asserts,'there is a firm anti-Atlanticist tradition'. Germany's influence likely will spread to the south--to Italy and Spain. Only Britain, 'an extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.' is to be cut off and shunned."

The election of Trump, Brexit and now Johnson's recent victory will all see the advancement of Russian objectives as set out in the book, and all at very modest cost.

Now someone (a parody Boris Johnson) has posted a clip on Twitter from a TV show in 1984 where a former KGB agent explained that the agency's spending was 15% on espionage and 85% on something called "ideological subversion or active measures" the aim of which was to "change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country",

This is the tweet and the clip:

A former KGB agent in 1984 explains how Russia undermines enemy countries by changing people's perception of reality. Good job they don't do that sort of thing these days, now that we have social media to make it even easier. pic.twitter.com/wiTNt5t8kb

— Parody Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson_MP) December 30, 2019

Fake news is perhaps not the random phenomenon that has grown up through social media as many people think but the result of deliberate manipulation by Russia in an effort to 'change the perception of reality' in the way the KGB agent described in 1984.

There is documented evidence of interference by Russia in 27 countries since 2004 according to USA Today HERE.  Their report mentions the UK twice but nothing specifically about Brexit. It seems barely credible to me that Russia has interfered almost everywhere, sometimes with little success, but has spectacularly achieved one of its central aims in the UK with no interference at all.  Does this seem at all likely?  Was Brexit just serendipity for Putin?

Remember back in 1997 when the book was first published in Russia UKIP fielded 194 candidates in that year's UK wide general election and secured 0.3% of the national vote; only one of its candidates (Farage in Salisbury) got over 5% of the vote and saved his deposit.  They were nothing, just an irritation.  By 2004 UKIP's support had increased dramatically. During the European Parliament elections, it came third, securing 2.6 million votes (16.1%) and winning twelve seats. This was "made possible through increased funding from major donors" according to Wikipedia.

What happened?  Something changed but I'm not sure we will ever know the whole story. We do know that UKIP, Aaron Banks and Farage had substantial contacts with Russia, the Russian ambassador and Trump during Brexit and the run up to Trump's 2016 victory. UKIP was the obvious vehicle for Putin to support - whether he did or not. There were no other potential candidates.  Putin had the motive and the money, UKIP was or should have been, the obvious means. Was it? We may never know.

Now Johnson is still withholding publication of the Russian report. I assume it will eventually see the light of day and it will be very interesting to see what it adds to this story.