In May 2022, immediately after the invasion of Ukraine, the world was paying close attention to Putin's speech at the victory ceremony of World War II. As an imminent threat to Russia, Putin listed propaganda justifying the war, such as "Ukraine has announced the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons" and "a clash with the United States and its neo-Nazi entourage is inevitable," without providing any evidence.
The controlled Russian media argued that "if Western weapons support continues, nuclear weapons should be used," paving the way for public opinion to align with the "nuclear threat." There are also rumours flying about by Russian public figures. Foreign Minister Lavrov falsely stated that "Hitler was also Jewish" in relation to the "denazification of Ukraine," which is the justification for the war, and tried to link it to President Zelensky's Jewish origins.
There are many Russians who believe this kind of fakery. At the root of this is immaturity, which is unable to relativize the country's politics and history. Under authoritarian politics, the impression has been manipulated that “all critical voices are Western spies or fascists.” If we look at Russian politics objectively, we can see that Putin's regime has a surprising affinity with Nazism, as evidenced by the widespread use of the coined word "Russism." Even Stalin's overthrow of the Nazis was merely a struggle for hegemony between totalitarian camps, but it still functions as an ideology that holds the Russian people in a spell.
Propaganda and the Suppression of Speech
Putin cites the US war in Iraq as an example, criticizing it as a "false flag operation" that uses unfounded evidence and testimony. But Russia has similarly provided incentives for war that are not based on fact. Logically, the far-fetched link between Saddam Hussein and an "international terrorist organization" has been replaced by the far-fetched link between Zelenskiy and "neo-Nazis," as claimed by Russia. The game of hegemony between great powers, symbolized by the United States and Russia, is always a ``back-to-back'' relationship.
On the other hand, Putin stated, “Russia has always called for an equal and indivisible security system despite the differences in the positions of the international community,” making it clear that the purpose of the war was “expanded equilibrium.” did. This can be said to be the truth behind the “war without cause,” in which hegemonic powers use propaganda to amplify the world's threats and lead to new conflicts and gains.
Opportunities to relativize and reexamine politics are lost due to the suppression of speech and education. That is why Putin has reformed the liberalized education system after the collapse of the Soviet Union and promoted a "new history education to cultivate patriots," while restricting freedom of the press and forcibly controlling the opposition, legal profession, and civic organizations.
In populist societies around the world, including Russia and the United States, in order to sort out similar but different claims and information, individual "values" that go beyond mere "relativization of facts" are important. If ignorance that cannot objectify the world is the true nature of conspiracy theories, then knowledge and beliefs to counter it are necessary. If we compare the relativization of overflowing information to a fan that has been spread out, the center of the fan's ribs can be said to be the basis for judgment.
In October 2023, the Israeli military invaded Gaza in retaliation for a terrorist attack by the Islamic extremist group Hamas, which effectively controls the Palestinian-controlled area of Gaza, but this has turned into a war of annihilation. The “propaganda of conflict” in the Middle East that followed the invasion of Ukraine is essentially the same. Although the claims of both the extremist group Hamas and the far-right Netanyahu administration may appear to be embellished with politics and religion, in reality they are nothing more than a convenient distortion of history. The historical revisionism that Putin used in his invasion of Ukraine is of the same root, and is obsessed with propaganda of fear and retaliation.
To avoid falling into the trap of war
Regarding the invasion of Ukraine, Russia's violation of international law and war responsibility are clear. However, after the 2004 uprising of its citizens 20 years ago in the Orange Revolution, Ukraine missed the opportunity it had gained to democratize and eradicate corruption, and failed to make any effort to be welcomed as a member of Europe. The same can be said for Israel and Palestine, which allowed the rise of far-right and extremist groups. Looking at the increasingly tense situation in East Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have no choice but to counter the authoritarian China and North Korea with military expansion, and diplomacy is in the shadows. If bellicose populism returns to the United States, on which these countries rely, the end result of a politics that continues to rely solely on military alliances is that it will be at the mercy of any Asian emergency and engulfed in a whirlpool of war propaganda.
Once a war begins, it is extremely difficult to end it. It is always the citizens, especially the weak, who pay the price for the propaganda of war. To prevent this from happening, there is no better way to prevent the chain of violence than to close the pitfalls that cause war before they happen. The signs of war are: 1) the dysfunction of democracy, 2) neglect of political corruption, 3) collusion between politics, religion, the military, and profit-making groups, 4) the intervention of power in speech and education, and 5) arbitrary rule of law.
By the time we are exchanging plausible propaganda and loudly advocating military expansion as a deterrent, we are already one step closer to war. (End)
*This text was taken from the author's Waseda University Extension College online course "Understanding the World from the Battlefield" published in January 2024.