“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting” – Sun Tzu – Chinese Military Strategist (500 B.C.)
Do things seem a little unstable recently? No, I’m not talking about COVID19. I’m talking about everything else.
There seem to be tensions and divisions in almost every area of our society (western democracies: USA, UK, France, Australia etc). Between the police and the public. Between races. Between generations (Millennials VS Baby Boomers), between the sexes, between political ideologies, between doctors and their patients, between students and teachers, between the media and the public, between employees and employers.
Now there are plenty of good reasons why these divisions may be occurring. Filter bubbles also play a huge role in why all of these divisions have widened across every single section of our society. But what if another force was at play? What if an outside force was intentionally destabilising your country from the shadows?
What if much of the chaos you’ve seen inside your own country wasn’t an accident, but instead encouraged by outside forces?
You might believe that we live in a state of global peace. That wars between major countries are a thing of the past. That all the countries of the world are working together as a team to create a brighter future for all of us. Sorry. I’m afraid the world isn’t that nice.
There are some countries out there, in particular the CCP in China and The Government Of Russia, who likely want to see your country fail. If you live in a western democratic country, these countries are competitors, not allies. (Not the Chinese or Russian people, only the governments in charge — an important distinction).
These competitors are, at this very moment, trying destabilise your country from the inside using The Hidden Art Of Ideological Subversion.
What Is Ideological Subversion?
If you want to attack a country, you don’t need missiles. Instead, you can destabilise the country from the inside without ever firing a single shot.
According to former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov, Ideological subversion happens in 4 key stages:
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Demoralisation (Takes 15-20 years) – Enough time to educate one generation to form negative opinions about their own country.
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Destabilisation (Takes 3-5 years) –
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Crisis (Takes around 6 weeks)
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Normalisation
The foreign enemy will try to create as many conflicts within the society as possible. Law enforcement VS Citizens. Teachers VS students. Men Vs Women. Media institutions VS citizens. Every possible line that can be drawn to divide people will be encouraged by this foreign enemy.
Of course, a foreign enemy cannot destabilise a previously stable country all by itself. When a powerful opponent throws a punch at you, you don’t try to block the punch directly. Instead, you use the power of this opponent against them, and push them further in the direction they’re already travelling.
If you want to destabilise a country, you wait until the country destabilises itself, and then you further encourage more destabilisation in the same direction. For example, if there’s already unrest and conflict between law enforcement and the police inside a country (Black Lives Matter), you can do your absolute best to make these tensions more extreme, more violent and more disruptive.
If a controversial figure starts running for president (Donald Trump), it’s in the interest of the enemy country for that candidate to win. Not because of the candidate’s policies or politics, but simply because it will further destabilise the target country.
Wait for the country to start heading towards destabilisation and then nudge it further in that direction.
How To Attack A Country Without Firing A Shot
“The highest art of warfare is not to fight at all, but to subvert anything of value in the country of your enemy until such time that the perception of reality of your enemy is screwed up to such an extent that he does not perceive you as an enemy. You then can take your enemy without a single shot being fired.” – Yuri Bezmenov, former Russian KGB agent.
There are a number of ways you can covertly destabilise a country from the inside.
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Sleeper Agents
Sleeper agents are those who live inside the target country for a long period of time; it could be 5 years, 10 years, even 20 years. After a long period of integrating with the culture and building a reputation for themselves, they will all begin to act at once.
They will become leaders of various grassroots movements inside the target country, encouraging violent protests and criminal behaviour.
Just recently, a Chinese spy was discovered inside the British Parliament. The spy, Christine Lee, ran a law firm with offices in London and Birmingham, and had already made donations to British politicians in an attempt to make the UK government more pro-China.
While this might seem like some kind of James Bond fantasy, it is in fact completely real. There are likely foreign sleeper agents living inside your country, attempting to influence the ideology of the general public as well as the political leaders.
2. Social Media.
Most western democracies have a completely free and open internet. Anybody, no matter where they are in the world, can set up a Twitter account completely anonymously. This gives foreign powers a simple method of influencing the minds of the population inside another country.
Social media is the perfect tool to commit ideological subversion. With targeted operations, using both real people as well as bots, public opinion can be purposefully shifted in one particular direction.
Since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA, Russia has conducted multiple social media operations with the goal of encouraging further divisions between the races inside the US.
Fake social media personas were created across Facebook, Twitter, as well as various other platforms. These fake personas would first attempt to build a following, and then spread messages stoking racial tensions as well as inciting and justifying violence.
Confirmed to be a fake social media persona created by Russia’s Internet Research Agency
During the 2016 US presidential election, Russia also attempted to swing the vote in favour of Donald Trump. Over 50,000 Twitter accounts were linked to Russian bots and were responsible for more then 3.8 million tweets. Why? Probably to cause further instability inside the US. After all, no matter what you think of Donald Trump, his presidency certainly increased tension and instability inside the US – which is the goal of ideological subversion.
Tiktok gives the Chinese Communist Party a clear and easy route into the minds of populations around the world. While the app is owned by the company Bytedance, they are required by law to answer to the the CCP.
This essentially means that the CCP has the ability to control the algorithms inside of Tiktok. Which kind of content does the algorithm promote, and which does it supress? It seems likely that any content that contains anti-CCP views will be supressed, while content that contains pro-CCP views will be promoted.
The CCP could theoretically adjust Tiktok’s algorithms to influence the population of the United States. They could promote: anti-American content, content inciting protests and violence and content promoting harmful ideologies. The power a small adjustment in algorithms on Tiktok could have on a country should not be underestimated.
And all of this could be done without us knowing. After all, we have no access to the algorithms used in Tiktok.
Of course, it’s not only China and Russia, America itself has been spreading it’s soft power around the world for decades. Through movies, TV shows and music (especially Hollywood), America has spread its culture and ideology across the entire world, influencing every country exposed to it.
But ideological subversion doesn’t only happen in America. This form of warfare is practised throughout the entire world. Many believe the CCP is attempting to influence Indian society, and it’s well-known that they’re trying to subvert Taiwan.
Many others believe that Russia encouraged the UK to leave the EU.
So what can you do about this?
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Look out for signs of foreign bots on social media.
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When you see Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts or Instagram accounts making posts that seem to be sewing further division, encouraging violence or speaking negatively about your country and the ideology it’s founded upon, consider that these posts may have been created by agents working for foreign governments.
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When you watch events unfold inside your country, bare in mind that foreign forces may be attempting to make these events more violent and more destabilising.
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If you feel negatively about your own country, take a moment to reconsider why you feel this way, and if it’s possible that foreign forces encouraged you to feel this way.
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Take a moment to consider why, in our culture right now, so much focus is put on the past sins of western countries like The United States (slavery) and The UK (Colonialism), and so little focus is placed on the equally bloody and horrific past sins of Russia and China.
Ideological subversion is the new normal. And understanding it is a crucial aspect of making sense of the modern media landscape
