Bombs and Dollars quoted by Public Diplomacy Council

Michael Blatt, bombsdollars.com

Earlier Sumantra noted how Russia has taken to tweeting images of Command and Conquer, a computer game, along with allegations about Ukraine. In more serious discourse, the Public Diplomacy Council has quoted Sumantra and I [sic] from our essay, “’New Cold War’ And Policies To Confront Russia.”

In particularly, the council, a nonprofit organization committed to the importance of the academic study that was founded in 1988 as the Public Diplomacy Foundation, quoted our recommendation that the West does a better job responding to Kremlin propaganda. If it were all just Command and Conquer tweets, it might be easier to manage (though one worries a certain U.S. presidential candidate might start talking about the need to seize Iraq’s Tiberium). Unfortunately, the problem is bigger than that, and the Kremlin has useful idiots in much of the populist far-right.

The “leave Syria to Russia” crowd certainly buys into their arguments. It’s time to identify Western activists and “useful idiots,” along with active Russian agents, who spread propaganda on Facebook and Twitter and comments boards and forums. Reach out to misinformed masses who innocently buy into these narratives, with structured and semi structured interviews and surveys, to find out what’s bothering them, and why they believe Kremlin more than their own government or news sources from their country.

See the post here where we were quoted, and read our full essay here.