[danbruc]

I think I have seen this before and skipped through it slowly enough the get the gist, all the details and which fake news were spread is not really too interesting to me. I have no reason to doubt that the USSR or Russia did use those active measures.

The interesting thing is the gap in the timeline which aligns with other resources I found. There was a time when all the current mess was avoidable, a time at which Russia was eager to work with the West, a time at which Russia was heading towards a NATO membership through the Partnership for Peace program. But things went south and Russia turned against NATO and the USA again, Putin's 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference is probably the most well known expression of Russia's or Putin's frustration [4].

M. E. Sarotte: Not One Inch - America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2022) [1]

John Mearsheimer: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? (2015) [2]

Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin (2018) [3]

Vladimir Putin: Speech at Munich Security Conference (2007) [4]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXBKGRPwfZw

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44

[prox]

Would be interesting to see what the gap is. Thanks for the links btw.

I do know Obama really wanted to get closer to Russia in the sense of a better relationship at the start of his presidency. So what exactly happened I cannot tell.

[danbruc]

I think the gap in the usage of active measures is easily explained. As I said, the documentary starts before the dissolution of the USSR, this was the Cold War, no surprise that such methods were used. After that there were relatively good relationships between Russia and the West, certainly into the early 2000s and Putins first term. Look at the Partnership for Peace map [1], there was a chance to unite all of Eurasia with NATO. This didn't work out, as far as I can tell it was a pretty complicated situation with all the fallout after the collapse of the USSR. The USA, or at least some circles, probably also viewed such unification efforts as a threat that would diminish US influence and power.

I guess things really went south post 9/11 when the USA really used its power without accountability. In its 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference he is frustrate with how the USA acts, how it ignores the UN which he considers the only legitimate entity to decide over military interventions. He complains that the USA wants a unipolar world order. Then in 2008 the Bucharest Declaration opens the way for Ukraine and Georgia to become NATO members and this crosses the red line. It had of course been crossed before with the Baltic states but Russia still swallowed that.

Russia intervenes in Georgia in 2008. And in the active measures documentary you see some dates from the time after 2008, the good relations with the West are over. But the vast majority of examples in the documentary are actually from after 2014, when the the pro-Russian Yanukovych government, that had essentially suspended seeking a NATO membership, was replaced and a NATO membership became a priority again. He annexed Crimea, intervened in eastern Ukraine, and stepped up active measures. He was now somewhat running out of time, Ukraine becoming a NATO member was unacceptable to him but there was no indication that anyone would care.

By keeping Ukraine in conflict in Donbas he could prevent a NATO membership for some time, but it would probably only be a matter of time until Ukraine would become powerful enough to take back eastern Ukraine. And once Ukraine would become a NATO member, he would have to face NATO instead of Ukraine. And this would probably also mean that it would be likely that he will lose the strategically important naval base in Sevastopol on Crimea.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace#/media/F...