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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   15262 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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No, they don’t. Do you know anything about American reluctance to enter the World Wars?

I’d like to see you apply any of these standards to Putin’s Russia. You have a remarkable blind spot for anything you think pisses off your domestic enemies.

Do you know anything about American reluctance to enter the World Wars?

Obviously they don't follow the pattern he lays out here (Americans didn't lose those wars) but doesn't American reluctance to enter those wars support the "psy-opping people to get them to go to war" theory? This seems particularly true in WW1 where England (in addition to stirring up a lot of anti-German propaganda) passed the Zimmerman Note (which was authentic) to the US to get them to join the war in such a way as to conceal the fact that they obtained it by tapping American diplomatic lines as part of a concerted strategy to draw the United States into the war. Wilson was reelected on his track record of not getting involved and then...

There was a similar effort by the Brits in WW2 but I can't remember any of the really striking narratives from it.

I'll say "not particularly." America got to the brink of war for several other reasons, most prominently American deaths at the hands of U-boats. The sending, interception, and release of the Zimmerman telegram all hinged on Germany's actions at sea.

In elementary school, they taught us about the Lusitania and the policy of "unrestricted submarine warfare" all as one line item. This elided all the important questions.

What exactly did Germany do?

"Unrestricted" warfare never made sense to me until I learned what restrictions they were abandoning. Dating back to the Age of Sail, noncombatant ships were entitled to significant warning before being sunk. It wasn't as if sailing ships had any chance at stealth, anyway. They would surrender to the (faster, larger) warship, provide their papers, and allow a search for contraband cargo. If they proved to be a legal target, then, the raider was required to let them abandon ship, possibly taking them onboard as prisoners, before firing a shot. Such restrictions, known as "prize" or "cruiser rules", were codified by international treaties.

This was reasonable to ask of a surface combatant, which could comfortably outgun any prey or outrun any reinforcements appearing on the horizon. To a submarine, though, it was a terrifying prospect. Lacking the armor, firepower, or speed of a surface ship, subs were extremely vulnerable while surfaced. Requiring such a boat to expose its belly for the sake of propriety was extremely unpopular amongst submarine captains--and amongst their advocates in the German chain of command.

Twice, the German Navy declared that it would suspend these rules within a specific region of sea. The first of these campaigns lasted about six months before outrage from neutral nations forced them to walk it back. The second got America into the war.

Why did they think this was a good idea?

Britain was a powerhouse keeping the Western Front stable and Germany isolated. It was also an island reliant on imported food. The Germans had no expectations of beating the Royal Navy in a straight fight, so they tried to find another way to strike at the British Isles.

Initially, they believed their undersea blockade could be justified to neutrals as tit-for-tat with the more conventional British one. The first campaign was carried out with some limitations, preferring to target unambiguously Allied vessels, in an effort to minimize the backlash. But the British blockade didn't generate American corpses. Ultimately, this first campaign solidified the American government's position against unrestricted submarine warfare.

By 1917, the Western Front had ossified again. Jutland had thrown the Royal Navy into disarray but confined the Germans to port. Civilians and soldiers alike were faced with the abysmal Turnip Winter thanks to continued blockade and manpower shortages stemming from continued conscription. Germany was getting desperate.

Its informal military junta went for one last gamble. If the U-boats could break Britain, Germany could secure its position and make American diplomacy a moot point. They sent the Zimmerman note as part of an attempt to further delay the U.S. Unfortunately for Germany, British control of the seas extended to undersea cables. The telegram was sent on Jan 16 and intercepted immediately. Between its release to the American government and our declaration of war, German submarines began hunting American vessels in earnest, sinking ten.

Did it really matter so much?

Yes, it did.

I'd be willing to assume my main source, a book I just read, was too generous--it sure is a tidy conclusion for a book about naval power. But the chapters concerning submarines and American war support are well-sourced with statistics, letters, and quotes from the countries involved, all of which speak to the importance of these sinkings. My personal standout has to be Teddy Roosevelt, never the most reserved man, in the spring of 1917:

"If [Wilson] does not go to war with Germany I shall skin him alive!"

The trickle of American deaths into the headlines brought most Americans into Teddy's camp. Meanwhile, Wilson had drawn his lines in the sand, and Germany had finally, knowingly crossed them. We were done making excuses; it was time to "make the world safe for democracy."

I would add a few things –

First, I don't disagree re: the effects of unrestricted submarine warfare. In fact, I would add that the United States has a (reasonable, imho) history of getting involved in naval warfare due to seizure of its maritime assets and to preserve free trade, so it is possible that they would have been drawn in even if Germany did not adopt unrestricted submarine warfare.

But it's also fair to say that Germany was painted as a villain in English propaganda (and Germany did commit some fairly horrific war crimes during the war, so arguably they earned it). But certainly the casting of Germans as "the Hun" speaks to an effort to psy-op Americans into the war, even if the United States would have entered anyway. (It's also worth noting that American public opinion swung strongly against entry into the war, pushing Democrats at the polls and swinging to large majorities of anti-war sentiment in the intervening years. In fact it's not clear to me that a majority of Americans actually supported entering the war when war was declared – I don't know about that one way or the other).

To me that at least superficially pattern-matches the "psyop everyone into war" pattern, but I'm seeing that you, me, and functor may all have a slightly different theory as to what is meant by that. To be clear, though, I do agree you have a point about the importance of unrestricted submarine warfare, which was not something dreamed up by British propaganda.

Secondly, what's interesting is that while things like the English blockade you mention didn't prevent the US from entering the war against Germany, Wilson did try to resist characterizing the United States as allied with England and France, preferring to frame it as being coincidentally on the same side (and of course all the war-to-end-all-wars League of Nations stuff).

Thirdly, you (and I, earlier) skipped the funniest best part of the Zimmerman note! The Germans sent it to Mexico using American undersea cables, because the British had cut theirs and the US had extended use of their cables as a diplomatic courtesy. The British could hardly acknowledge that they had tapped the American diplomatic telegraph cables, so after intercepting the message they had to run a covert operation to steal a copy from its destination in Mexico so they could present it to the United States. Absolute Get Smart stuff, I love it.

The trickle of American deaths into the headlines brought most Americans into Teddy's camp. Meanwhile, Wilson had drawn his lines in the sand, and Germany had finally, knowingly crossed them. We were done making excuses; it was time to "make the world safe for democracy."

Trying a little hard for that good quality contribution link, eh?

(But seriously- well written.)

Thanks.

And...maybe a little. Though that last paragraph was actually the most haphazard. I was getting pretty tired at that point, and I couldn't figure out how to incorporate the "Finis Germaniae" which concludes Massie's book.

Only if you apply the pejorative selectively in one direction but not the other, i.e. that efforts to propagandize the Americans into neutrality are not a psy-op of its own but some sort of moral normal, whereas efforts to propagandize the Americans into picking a side is illegitimate because -reasons-.

I think one can draw a legible distinction between a foreign government running an espionage operation coupled with an untruthful propaganda campaign and the normal process of domestic consensus-making, but I take your point. Particularly in This Day And Age (anything after the telegraph) you've got to presume the possibility of hostile psyops in all directions.

I wish I had your optimism, but I don't think you can make a legible distinction when there are foreign governments running espionage operations in opposite directions at the same time.

When things are hard to measure- and few things are as hard to measure as the actual effects any amount of propaganda has- it's an easy rationalization to attribute unwanted decisions to the malign influence of outsiders while your favored directions are obviously enlightened objectivity of reasonable people.

I think you can make a legible distinction between foreign psy-ops (organized campaigns conducted at the behest of foreign powers) and organic domestic consensus in principle – in other words, there is a difference between the two – which is all that I meant. You can condemn the one and think that the other is all right. I agree that you can't necessarily turn back time and rerun history without the impact of a psy-op to see what effect it might have, and I further agree that psyops run in different directions, making the measurement of impact difficult. But that does not mean that a psy-op has zero effect, or an inestimable effect. (If this was true, it would arguably follow that there was no measurable or real harm in believing psyops or allowing your policy to be shaped by them, and I don't think that's correct.)

When things are hard to measure- and few things are as hard to measure as the actual effects any amount of propaganda has- it's an easy rationalization to attribute unwanted decisions to the malign influence of outsiders while your favored directions are obviously enlightened objectivity of reasonable people.

I'm not sure that it's necessarily true that you cannot measure the impact of propaganda. In fact I'm fairly confident that it isn't true today – maybe it was in 1921. But today you can actually quantify things like the impact the Internet Research Agency had on the 2020 election, not perfectly, but enough to get a measurement on it and talk about the impact it has.

But even if you grant that it is, it doesn't follow that it is good to run propaganda campaigns (and I would say especially ones that involve untruths, especially on your own people) or that it is bad for domestic governments to resist the influence of foreign government propaganda.

For instance, to talk about something I think it even more clear-cut than the psyops surrounding the world wars, I think the Nayirah testimony was

  1. Literally false (the person giving testimony reported firsthand knowledge she did not have)
  2. Substantively false (later investigation strongly suggests that not only were the specifics false, but the type of event depicted – Iraqis looting incubators, leading to children's deaths – never happened)
  3. Substantially justified the decision of the US to enter the Gulf War (was publicly referred to by decision-makers)

And I think this was an effort to propagandize Americans into involvement that was illegitimate (from the American point of view – obviously a Kuwaiti may have a different perspective) precisely because it was based on lies. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them is that the effectiveness of things like the Nayirah testimony generates callousness and suspicion towards actual atrocities.

I think you can make a legible distinction between foreign psy-ops (organized campaigns conducted at the behest of foreign powers) and organic domestic consensus in principle – in other words, there is a difference between the two – which is all that I meant. You can condemn the one and think that the other is all right.

The ability to distinguish which is which is what I am contesting. The ability to say normal is good and artificial is bad is the easy part of differentiation- the issue is actually being able to say what is 'normal' versus 'artificial.'

It's Russel conjugation all the way down. You psyop, I persuade, the people I agree with listen to reason, the people I disagree with are wrongfully misled.

I'm not sure that it's necessarily true that you cannot measure the impact of propaganda. In fact I'm fairly confident that it isn't true today – maybe it was in 1921. But today you can actually quantify things like the impact the Internet Research Agency had on the 2020 election, not perfectly, but enough to get a measurement on it and talk about the impact it has.

Quiz question- do you know how researchers into Russian propaganda outfits like the IRA judge the effectiveness of Russian propaganda efforts like the IRA?

Answer - by reading the internal documentation of propaganda agencies citing western media coverage of them as proof that they are effective when justifying their budgets to paymasters.

But even if you grant that it is, it doesn't follow that it is good to run propaganda campaigns (and I would say especially ones that involve untruths, especially on your own people) or that it is bad for domestic governments to resist the influence of foreign government propaganda.

Again, russel conjugation. You have to resist foreign government propaganda. Reasonable foreigners happen to agree with my authentic political positions.

The ability to distinguish which is which is what I am contesting. The ability to say normal is good and artificial is bad is the easy part of differentiation- the issue is actually being able to say what is 'normal' versus 'artificial.'

I grant that it's fuzzy in some places. I think it is bad when it is lying, and artificial when it is foreign. I don't think there's no difference between things that are true and things that are lies.

Answer - by reading the internal documentation of propaganda agencies citing western media coverage of them as proof that they are effective when justifying their budgets to paymasters.

Uh...that's not the only way to do it. Example of a different approach (I've just read the abstract, fwiw).

...did you mean to cite a study whose own abstract emphasizes how ineffective Russia internet propaganda was in 2016?

Like, literally the conclusion is-

Finally, we find no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior. The results have implications for understanding the limits of election interference campaigns on social media.

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