Misure attive. Storia segreta della disinformazione

by Thomas Rid

Viviamo nell’era della disinformazione. Agenzie di comunicazione, professionisti dei social media e abilissimi hacker sono l’esercito silenzioso di chi, attraverso divulgazione di fake news e falsificazione di dati, agisce spesso nei lati più oscuri dell’informazione con un unico obiettivo: indebolire la democrazia mettendo in dubbio la sua stessa credibilità. Era il 2016 quando Thomas Rid, tra i massimi esperti di cybersecurity a livello globale, alle porte delle elezioni americane portò alla luce la notizia di un’operazione sotto copertura da parte dell’intelligence russa per ribaltare il risultato elettorale. È l’evoluzione delle cosiddette “misure attive”, ovvero di tutte quelle attività di influenza architettate strategicamente per raggiungere un determinato obiettivo. Dalle campagne di disinformazione post rivoluzione russa che hanno portato alla Guerra Fredda a quelle organizzate ad arte da CIA e KGB nel corso della storia, fino alla più recente vicenda della “fattoria dei troll” di San Pietroburgo. Con "Misure attive" Thomas Rid traccia una storia della disinformazione professionale organizzata, ricostruendo attraverso documenti esclusivi alcune delle vicende più significative e incredibili dell’ultimo secolo, dimostrando, tra le altre cose, come le spie avessero imparato a muoversi agilmente tra le pieghe di Internet molto prima della vicenda WikiLeaks. Il libro di Rid è anche una riflessione sul futuro che ci aspetta, che assomiglia sempre di più a una casa di specchi in cui sarà indispensabile imparare a distinguere la realtà da tutti i suoi verosimili riflessi.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Espionage, Psychology, Audiobook, Russia

496 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 2020

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a truly amazing summary of disinformation (especially early Soviet, US vs Soviet during the Cold War, and post-cold war Russian operations). Pretty amazing overview of everything. I was already very familiar with all the post-cold-war stuff, but learned an a lot about the earlier periods from this book.

I think there are really four core lessons here: 1) Intelligence agencies use disinformation extensively, and it wasn't solely the Russians -- the US was great at this in the 1950s too! 2) Wittingly and unwittingly, press and activists really are the critical enablers of this 3) A lot of the disinformation (and other intelligence ops) have been for really dubious value -- i.e. spending massive amounts of money and time to do something like "reduce the prestige of an adversary" -- perhaps the hardest part of this whole thing is measuring success, and in particular, having the right metrics in the first place 4) Technology, and especially social media, makes active measures "more active and less measured".

(I personally wasn't a huge fan of the postmodernism argument toward the very end, but the rest of the book was great.)

[Ola Bini · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good overview of a subset of active measures primarily between US and Soviet. However, quite frustrating to read, because it's so obvious the author has a political agenda behind everything written. It's not an obvective overview in any sense of the word - rather it's a politically slanted history.

I would have loved to see this kind of history, but including a broader overview, including looking at the use of influence measures from the US targeted at Latin America and other regions.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rid provides several case studies of active measures applied by the Soviet Union, its allies, Russia, and the US from roughly the 1920s onward. The case studies are engaging and, with the benefit of hindsight, Rid does an excellent job examining their effectiveness. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is that for all the conspiracy theories and fake news proliferating on the internet and cable news, the truth itself is often ignored despite being just as, if not more, fascinating than the conspiracy theories.

Rid does an excellent job examining some of the active measures employed during the 2016 election. His analysis of Russia's Internet Research Agency convincingly describes an effort that likely, in itself, had little impact on the election. Rid's analysis of how Russia's military intelligence hacked the DNC's emails is also excellent, although he does not offer an assessment on whether or not the Russian effort to support Republican efforts to keep news of Hilary's emails in the public spotlight impacted the election. While the individual analysis of these two measures is excellent, it was disappointing that Rid did not examine whether these were simply efforts in a Russian campaign to boost Trump at the expense of Clinton. The US intelligence community published this assessment, without saying whether or not the election results were affected, in January 2017, which Rid would certainly have read. Rid also avoids making an assessment on whether Russia was able to undermine democracy in the US simply by interfering. Republicans get to say that there was "no collusion" and that the results were not affected while leaving open the potential for Russia, at a minimum, to interfere in the same manner again. More likely, Russia will apply the lessons they learned in the US and elsewhere to elections in any country where Russian leaders feel the country has a strong national interest.

Another shortfall of Active Measures is that Rid does not provide an overarching model to consider how the implementation of active measures fits into or mirrors the broader intelligence cycle (establish requirements, task assets, collect information, analyze information, inform decision makers) or feeds back into a state's strategic decision making.

Rid also missed the opportunity to examine US military doctrine on psychological operations and the ethics of active measures. While Rid ably discusses the US's use of active measures during the Cold War, he misses how such tactics perhaps evolved into modern psychological operations. An American today may argue that the difference between US and Russian information/psychological operations is that the US tells the truth to influence adversaries and the public while a country like Russia invents stories to exploit vulnerable populations, but this begs the question of whether or telling the truth to support a perverse goal could be unethical and disastrous (possibly inciting violence or triggering a war by revealing foreign corruption) or whether lying (directly or by omission) to prevent conflict (not disclosing US active measures that supported a coup movement in a foreign country) could be ethical and morally sound.

These shortfalls are relatively minor given the excellent research and insight in Active Measures. Clearly, the public of any country subject to active measures most consider not only whether the measures had the effect that was initially intended, but whether the measures can serve a longer-term, disruptive effect on the targeted country.

[Maćkowy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nudna książka i właściwie w całości o komunistycznej bezpiece. Próżno szukać w Wojnie informacyjnej na przykład tematu rzekomego posiadania przez Saddama Husajna broni chemicznej, co było bezpośrednią przyczyną wybuchu drugiej wojny w zatoce. Nie ma nic o Bellingcat, walczącym od Pomarańczowej Rewolucji z ruską dezinformacją w Ukrainie, nie ma nic o innych portalach zajmujących się fact checkingiem. Z książki nie dowiemy się również zbyt wiele o samych mechanizmach wojny informacyjnej i o nowoczesnym jej wykorzystaniu, mamy za to zapis kilku spraw z czasów Zimnej Wojny, masę nazwisk i niewiele dowodów. Do tego Thomas Rid nie za bardzo potrafił zdecydować, czy pisze reportaż, czy bardziej książkę popularnonaukową, w związku z czym powstała książka nieciekawa, przydługa, która powinna nosić nazwę "Historia rosyjskiej dezinformacji".

[Jared · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it.” - Karl Marx

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?
- The book is a history of disinformation and traces the rise of secret organized deception operations from the interwar period to contemporary internet troll farms.

WHAT ARE ACTIVE MEASURES?
- First, and most important, active measures are not spontaneous lies by politicians, but the methodical output of large bureaucracies.

- Second, all active measures contain an element of disinformation: content may be forged, sourcing doctored, the method of acquisition covert; influence agents and cutouts may pretend to be something they are not, and online accounts involved in the surfacing or amplification of an operation may be inauthentic.

- Third, an active measure is always directed toward an end, usually to weaken the targeted adversary.

PERIODS OF ACTIVE MEASURES
- The first wave of disinformation started forming in the interwar years, during the Great Depression, in an era of journalism transformed by the radio, newly cutthroat and fast-paced.

- In the second wave, after World War II, disinformation became professionalized, with American intelligence agencies leading the way in aggressive and unscrupulous operations, compounded by the lingering violence of global war.

- The third wave arrived in the late 1970s, when disinformation became well-resourced and fine-tuned, honed and managed, lifted to an operational science of global proportions, administered by a vast, well-oiled bureaucratic machine.

- The fourth wave of disinformation slowly built and crested in the mid-2010s, with disinformation reborn and reshaped by new technologies and internet culture. The old art of slow-moving, highly skilled, close-range, labor-intensive psychological influence had turned high-tempo, low-skilled, remote, and disjointed.

TECHNOLOGY, POLITICAL DIVISIONS, AND TENSIONS
- Disinformation operations rely upon tactics that exploit technology, political divisions, and tensions between allies. Political fissures and friction are a function of the target. The design of the divisive material and the craftsmanship of disinformation are a function of the attacker. The technological substrate and the available media platforms are a function of the operational environment.

- The higher the quality of all three, the more active a measure will be—or, put another way, the lesser the political divisions within the target organization, and the more primitive the telecommunications environment, the more value the attacker will have to add at all stages of an operation in order to make and sustain an active measure.

DENIABILITY
- one of the game’s key strategies is the art of deniability, the art of designing and structuring releases so that the victim’s denial will only strengthen an operation.

DRIVING WEDGES
- This war operated under the single objective of driving wedges into preexisting fissures within the adversarial societies.

CONVINCING THEM THEY ARE ACTUALLY SUPPORTING SOMETHING ELSE
- The secret of disinformation, he said, was that “the KGB distorts or inverts reality.” The trick was to make activists and others support Soviet policy unwittingly, by convincing them they were supporting something else. “Almost everybody wants peace and fears war,”

- “Therefore, by every conceivable means, the KGB plans and coordinates campaigns to persuade the public that whatever America does endangers peace, and that whatever the Soviet Union proposes furthers peace…It is tragic to see how well it works.”

MUST BE IN TUNE WITH TARGET AUDIENCES
- The Stasi was aggressive, unafraid of risk, unscrupulous, and highly innovative. But its most significant advantage was that the organization was geographically, linguistically, and culturally so close to its greatest enemy. The HVA was staffed by Germans who shared the same history, culture, preferences for food and drink, experiences of the war, even traumas and fears and sometimes family ties. All of this enabled the Stasi to craft active measures that were far more sophisticated than almost anything that the KGB was able to deploy in the United States or other countries, during the Cold War and since.

- Ivanov explained that it was very important to understand the specific target of a disinformation operation.

ORAL DISINFORMATION
- Oral disinformation, as Ivanov outlined in his 1979 lecture, could be highly effective, even deadly, especially in developing countries.

- The KGB instructed Soviet agents, likely through the Press and Information Department at the Soviet embassy in Islamabad, to spread the rumor—by word of mouth—that the U.S. government was behind the seizure of the Grand Mosque…The false story spread through Pakistan like a fire in dry brush.

INTELLIGENCE AND JOURNALISM
- Intelligence and journalism, in Wagenbreth’s view, had “entered a kind of marriage,” he said. “They complement each other and can’t let go of each other.”

- “What would active measures be without the journalist?”

- “Manipulating the media is the single most commonly used method to realize ‘active measures’ in the Western world.”

DISADVANTAGE TO OPEN SOCIETIES
- intelligence agencies in open democracies “suffer from the grave disadvantage that in attempting to damage the adversary they must also deceive their own public.”

- one of the most insidious threats posed by successful disinformation campaigns: overreacting to active measures risked turning an open society into a more closed one.

BUILD ON BELIEFS ALREADY HELD
- The doctored documents showed how successful forgeries would work for the next century. They articulated a story that the targets of the ruse already believed—

- “Politicians or journalists wanted to believe in that disinformation message,” he told the Senate. “They confirmed their opinion.”

DEFLECTION
- The USSR invaded Afghanistan in late December 1979, and Soviet forces immediately started using chemical agents against the mujahideen resistance fighters.

- The Soviets launched an entire range of measures in the early 1980s that attempted to blame various diseases on the United States, particularly the Cuban outbreak of dengue fever. It was against this background of military escalation in Afghanistan and weapons of mass destruction in South Asia that one of the most infamous disinformation campaigns of the entire Cold War emerged: the story that AIDS was an American biological weapon developed at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

WHEN LITTLE IS KNOWN AND THERE’S A LOT OF HYSTERIA
- The moment was ideal for a disinformation campaign, as the marchers’ signs in New York made clear: there was yet little research into AIDS, and an abundance of hysteria.

PARADOXES OF ACTIVE MEASURES
- two defining paradoxes of active measures: first, that justifying and running disinformation at scale against a foreign adversary required seeing your own ideology as both stronger than the enemy’s and more vulnerable;

- and second, that finding and training the most talented minds for disinformation meant that officers needed to be just like Bittman: creative, questioning nonconformists who would also conform to orders and not question the party line.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD DISINFORMATION OFFICERS
- the best disinformation officers required a rare combination of creativity, cultural empathy, and outside-the-box thinking, but also rigor, discipline, and ideological firmness.

- “The process of developing [active measures] is complex, and requires not just intelligence and knowledge, but also great intuition, imagination, ingenuity, and sensibility,”

- Intelligence agencies that prized secrecy, military precision, and hierarchy had to find and cultivate individuals with an opposite skill set: free and unconventional thinkers, bookworms, writers, perceptive publicists with an ability to comprehend foreign cultures.

LENIN AND ACTIVE MEASURES
- understanding active measures required understanding Lenin first.

- Lenin reversed the famous line, by the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, that war was a continuation of politics by other means. Politics was a continuation of war by other means, in Lenin’s reading, and active measures an “ersatz for (military) warfare.”

TRUTH
- Something is true when it is right, when backed up by gospel, or rooted in scripture, anchored in ideology, when it lines up with values. This truth is based in some distant past or future.

GOAL OF DISINFORMATION
- The goal of disinformation is to engineer division by putting emotion over analysis, division over unity, conflict over consensus, the particular over the universal.

EFFECTIVENESS OF ACTIVE MEASURES IS HARD TO MEASURE BUT THAT’S OKAY
- “I don’t think it’s possible to measure exactly, realistically, the impact of an active measure,” Bittman told me in March 2017, and added that there was always a degree of guessing. “You have no reliable measurement device,” he said. Active measures, in short, were impossibly hard to measure by design.

- “But the difficulty of measuring impact doesn’t mean that there isn’t meaningful impact,”

OBJECTIVITY VS IDEOLOGY
- Putting objectivity before ideology contributed to opening societies, and to keeping them open. Putting ideology before objectivity, by contrast, contributed to closing societies, and to keeping them closed.

FAKE THINGS TURN INTO REAL RESULTS
- Active measures will shape what others think, decide, and do—and thus change reality itself. When victims read and react to forged secret documents, their reaction is real. When the cards of an influenced parliamentary vote are counted, the result is real.

*** *** *** *** ***

FOR FURTHER READING
- A former head of the KGB’s mighty disinformation unit once praised Bittman’s 1972 book, The Deception Game, as one of the two best books on the subject.

FACTOIDS
- Some highly successful active measures reached their target audience without ever being publicized in a newspaper, radio broadcast, or pamphlet, and sometimes they were more effective for that very reason. The KGB called such operations “silent” measures.

- Klatsch means “gossip” in German

- President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated on January 20, 1981. For the first time in history, the inaugural ceremony was held at the West Front of the Capitol, instead of the East.

- Leaking information online, called “doxing” in internet jargon

HAHA
- The MfS was perhaps the most formidable spying machine the world has ever seen. The agency even collected samples of its enemies’ body odor from chairs and sofas on which unsuspecting victims had been sitting. At least one analyst was appointed in charge of human “excrements” on an internal organizational chart.

[Dorin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a history of active measures from the end of the Second World War up to 2017. Active measures is a broader term than just disinformation. Although an important part of an active measure is disinformation, in the sense that we know it today, it may include other forms of political warfare: propaganda, hacking, sabotage, assassinations etc. However, it is hard to determine where one ends and the other begins, as one can lead to another or may be the direct consequence of another.

The book is structured in six parts, going into the history of the active measures since this term first was invented, in the interwar period. Big part of the book is focused on US-USSR active measures. Rid analyses some of the most notable acts of disinformation between the two blocks. He has hindsight and can determine with some degree of accuracy how effective they were. Some American tactics worked better, other times the Soviets (or their allies) were more effective. Perhaps the Soviets and the east Germans understood better the damage disinformation, forgeries, conspiracies can do. They worked tirelessly and successfully, although the success, in time, with the diversification of the means and instruments involved became harder and harder to measure.

Because of this perceived success, the Russians, even after the Cold War, didn’t stop. In fact, they continue to rely more on active measures. Rid documents some recent cases: the hack of the Ukrainian Central Election Committee, the hack of TV5, the DC Leaks, the Russian troll farm Internet Research Agency, NotPetya, WannaCry etc. These were especially interesting to me. I knew of them, but Rid offers a lot of details I did not know at the time they were happening.

Although the Russians are pretty good at hacking, they lack(ed) the expertise in disseminating. They lacked the knowledge of how social platforms worked. Their engagement was almost non-existent. Even after they established troll farms, they lacked specific knowledge about those societies they wanted to manipulate. They do billions in damage with their hacking, but it is almost impossible to measure the damage they did in manipulating election results, says the author. That is correct, but the damage exists and is probably bigger than we realize. Unfortunately, there is little to do. Rid argues that even debunking is bad in a lot of cases. If we take a piece of false info, which doesn’t have a very big audience, and we debunk it, we are passing it to new audiences this way.

Anyway, very interesting and informative read.

“[…] sitting in a Department 8 office overlooking the majestic Vltava River, Agayants [head of Department D (disinformation) of the KGB First Chief Directorate] leafed through a large pile of newspaper clippings. As he finished, pushing the pile back on Bittman’s desk, he said, ‘Sometimes I am amazed how easy it is to play these games. If they did not have press freedom, we would have to invent it for them.’”

“The postwar decades had exposed a cultural tension within truth itself—or rather, between two common understandings of truth that stand in permanent opposition to each other. One is a given, positive and analytical; something is true when it is accurate and objective, when it lines up with observation, when it is supported by facts, data, or experiments. It orients itself in the present, not in the distant, mythical past or an unknowable future. Truth, in this classic sense, is inherently apolitical. Truthful observations and facts became the foundation of agreement, not conflict. The analytic truth bridged divides, and brought opposing views together. Professionals such as scientists, investigative journalists, forensic investigators, and intelligence analysts relied upon a set of shared norms designed to value cold, sober evidence over hot, emotional rhetoric. Changing one’s position in response to new data was a virtue, not a weakness.

But there has always been another truth, one that corresponds to belief, not facts. Something is true when it is right, when backed up by gospel, or rooted in scripture, anchored in ideology, when it lines up with values. This truth is based in some distant past or future. Truth, in this sense, is relative to a specific community with shared values, and thus inherently political. This truth is preached from a pulpit, not tested in a lab. The style of delivery is hot, passionate, and emotional, not cold, detached, and sober. Changing one’s position is a weakness. It tends to confirm and lock in long-held views, and to divide along tribal and communal lines.

These two forms of truth, of course, are exaggerations, ideals, clichés. This distinction is somewhat coarse and simplistic—nevertheless, it helps explain the logic of disinformation. The goal of disinformation is to engineer division by putting emotion over analysis, division over unity, conflict over consensus, the particular over the universal. For, after all, a democracy’s approach to the truth is not simply an epistemic question, but an existential question. Putting objectivity before ideology contributed to opening societies, and to keeping them open. Putting ideology before objectivity, by contrast, contributed to closing societies, and to keeping them closed. It is therefore no coincidence that objectivity was under near-constant assault in the ideologically torn twentieth century.”.

4.5/5

[Dave Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be one the most important book on the subject of disinformation since Ladislav Bittman's The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An Insiders View.

[Jari Pirhonen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book covers four waves of disinformation. (1) Early 1920s and 1930s when journalism was transformed by the radio, (2) after World War II when disinformation became professionalized, (3) late 1970s when disinformation became well-resourced and fine-tuned and (4) mid-2010s when new technologies and internet culture reshaped disinformation.

[Peter McGregor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this book was like trying to eat a boulder with a knife and fork. Just so unnecessarily dense. Rather than present and prove a central thesis, Rid just gives the reader 435 pages of examples with minimal commentary.

His final section about digital disinformation is, frankly, incorrect. To repeat the lie that the platforms tell, that Americans were not affected by digital disinformation during the 2016 election is false. Moreover it demonstrates a lack of knowledge of marketing/communications effectiveness. An impression by itself is meaningless, yes. But many over time + reinforcement via comments and "social proof" leads to a deterioration of fact and the birth of an environment where disinformation can thrive.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Active Measures takes the reader deep into a wilderness of mirrors, exploring a century's worth of disinformation campaigns ranging from post-revolutionary Russia through fanciful deception operations perpetrated by the various intelligence agencies operating on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War and on to the present day, taking a good look at the pivot towards online operations that have become ever more prevalent in the 21st century. Deeply unsettling and deeply fascinating.

[Mythlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting overview and analysis, if rather grim.

'The goal of disinformation is to engineer division by putting emotion over analysis, division over unity, conflict over consensus, the particular over the universal.'
This seems to be exactly where America is now.

[Dalton Erickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is on disinformation and it made me question if this book was disinformation.

A great 100 year history of active measures.

[Paleoanthro · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opening expos, that is nothing but a brilliant, elegant, and comprehensive look into the world of the disinformation game and how it has impacts the political, social, and economic realms. Well researched, and a must read for everyone, we see the impact and lasting effects that disinformation has had and will have in the future. Importantly, we get an inside look at what is happening today and how we need to see through the lies and half-truth out there. Simply put, an incredible read!

[Sam Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating history of disinformation campaigns starting in WW1 throughout modern day. Detailed to a fault, easy to get lost in the information presented. The author did his research :)

[Ron Seckinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite a title and cover seemingly designed to discourage readership, this is an invaluable guide to disinformation operations, from the Cheka's manipulation of White Russians in Europe to Moscow's efforts to affect the 2016 US election in Trump's favor. Included are discussions of Russia's "troll farms" creating phony personalities and inserting provocative comments on social media, as well as the theft and dissemination of NSA tools. Rid's research is thorough, utilizing declassified CIA materials, Russian and East German documents, and interviews with some of the participants. He underscores the risk to Western democracies in an Internet-connected world that allows almost instantaneous payoff from disinformation ops.

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very clear overview of disinformation and active measures. Rid demonstrates through the historic examples of active measures they are both dangerous and not as powerful as we'd like to believe. I am a big fan of Rid's cyber writings and this does not disappoint. I will say the first few chapters of the book are slow, but the points made are weaved back into the book later on.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. A super compelling, interesting, and informative read on the history of disinformation. Rid starts in the 1920s, goes through the Cold War, and ends after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It is a fascinating review.

[William Schlickenmaier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indispensable

This book is required reading. I will be revising multiple dissertation chapters after reading it, and I think historians will be referring to it for decades to come. Come for the Soviet active measures, stay for the discussion of Foucault in the conclusion.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The goal of disinformation (dezinformatsiya/deza, active measures, exposure, kompramat, psychological warfare) is to engineer division by putting emotion over analysis, division over unity, conflict over consensus, the particular over the universal.” And to “exacerbate existing tensions and contradictions within the adversary’s body politic, by leveraging facts, fakes, and ideally a disorienting mixture of both.” “The more an intelligence agency engages in organized and persistent disinformation operations, the more disinformation is likely to have been deposited int official, archives and the memories of former officers.”

The OG deza was the tsarist “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which is still used against Jews today. For much of the 20th century the Soviets, and then the Russians, had to rely on journalists and activists (antiwar, anti-weapon systems defense, anti-Israel) to disseminate their lies mixed with truth. Groups and influencers critical of the USG “environmentalists, anti-globalization activists, human rights organizations would receive the classic mix of fact and forgery to strengthen existing contradictions.” Russian intelligence influences both the witting and unwitting. The unwitting are cheaper and easier to run. Not belonging to a local communist party was prized as well. Less scrutiny. Techniques include “feigned concern for others, creativity, (perhaps demonstrated by a witty slogan), the invocation of familiar and comforting stereotypes, and the appearance of connection to established and credible persons or organizations.” “[Their] goal was to cause dissension and unrest inside the US and anti-American feelings abroad.” “[M]ore competitive and polarized media outlets presented a major opportunity,” like Fox today. Now they can cut out the middlemen and post stuff on the internet. In 2010, The Manning documents on WkiLeaks made Assange and his site famous. Trolls continue to post today. “The internet seemed custom designed for disinformation, even before social media came of age.” In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, “Unbridled optimism predominated in Silicon Valley; pessimism came to dominate the Beltway. Both extremes would benefit active measures operations…. Utopianism made it easy to run operations undetected; dystopianism made it easy to exaggerate the results.”

We used to employ disinformation against the Soviets but wound it down in the 1960s. Operating under the rule of law makes these ops difficult. The CIA ultimately gave up on active measures once the permanent Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was created in the 70s. We even dissolved the US Information Agency in 1999.

Rid seems to conclude that Russian active measures haven’t been as “successful” across the West as I do. I believe that Russian intelligence was wildly successful in getting Trump to the White House. I also think they are running members of Congress. Holding up aid to Ukraine is otherwise inexplicable. Active measures are behind at least some of the antisemitic protests across the US and elsewhere. If Trump makes it back to the WH, I believe he will propose that we leave NATO, the Russian holy grail. Active measures are still being used against Ukraine and possibly in the recent NSA hack and even the concept of postmodernism. Russian defectors in-the-know have claimed that the Soviets were behind the nuclear winter scare. “As a young KGB office, Putin had served in the Dresden rezidentura that had been opened specifically to run active measures against West Germany at a time when active measures were at their most cunning.” Putin used the release of a sex tape (exposure, kompromat) implicating a potential competitor during his rise to the top post-USSR. I think they have kompromat on Trump and have laundered money through his businesses. His greed and vanity/insecurity, combined with a lack of intelligence and curiosity make him the perfect mark.

[Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding book; one that I’ll be referencing for quite a while. Pair this with “The Sword and the Shield” and you have one of the most complete histories of the Russian mindset towards the west and all open societies, and why their existence is perceived a threat to Russia’s more totalitarian government.

Amazing how since the 1920s, Lenin was prescient in discussing how any rift within a culture or country could and should be attacked when facing a powerful adversary.

Even more amazing is how well Russia has co-opted and exploited everything from the KKK, the peace movement, nuclear reduction movements, and even tragedies within their own borders. Russia does not pick sides on an ideological spectrum, only a tear in the fabric of society.

Finally, the author does a great job explaining how “Active Measures” are not only becoming more active, but more difficult to measure. This, and he explains in great detail how crucial it is to have a hysterical media as part of an Active Measure.

So much goodness here. Read. This. Book!

[Kundan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot but it's a bit disappointing that there's only one Chapter on disinformation campaigns by China and none on disinformation campaigns by Arab countries
Most of it is focused on the US, the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies.

There's also very little on US disinformation campaigns in Latin America.

Nor is there about how disinformation campaigns fit into overall intelligence cycles and government strategy and imperialist strategy.

Hence why it's 4 stars instead of 5.

But I do understand how little space there is to fit everything into a book because it's already at 437 pages even with this limited scope! 🤣

After all, it's a very ambitious undertaking: covering almost a century of disinformation: 1921 to 2017!

But I do like how thorough, systematic methodical, and thematically sectioned this book is.

I learned that Western Abrahamic history doesn't really repeat itself but has actually never changed. That's my number one lesson!

And I learned so many new facts and overall themes that help me understand disinformation way better.

[Zachery Tyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading Thomas Rid's excellent book Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare.

"Intelligence agencies were, again & again, affected by their own constructions. It's not that [they] simply believed their own lies; it's that operators, driven by...bureaucratic logic, tended to overstate rather than understate."Analysts would write AARs & project memos that justified their efforts in terms that were clearer & more convincing than what had happened on the ground, where cause & effect remained entangled by design."

My first supervisor as a junior intelligence analyst gave me a piece of advice I'll never forget. He said, "Never believe your own side's propaganda."

Rid's magisterial book is well worth the read and a timely reminder why my boss's advice remains sound.

[Ash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening, chockablock full of information. After living through the pandemic and having a layman's understanding of the topic and a passionate hatred to mis/disinformation, reading this book broadened my understanding of the topic overall allowing me to better spot mis/disinformation techniques and how to navigate them. It's full to the brim with historical accounts (predominantly from a Western perspective, with an obvious focus on America - because of course it does), break down analysis, and a hell of a lot of quotes from perpetrators, victims, observers and scholars alike.
PS. Doesn't really focus on COVID mis/disinformation, mainly about the inception of active measures post WWII and during the Cold War.

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid read that delivers on what it promises. Active Measures is a largely chronological history of the eponymous subject that fleshes out your understanding the subject with neatly divided chapters of historical examples.

If there's a failing of the book, it might be the strong Western/European focus, but it's somewhat understandable given Rid's background and the windfall that was possible from the fall of the Soviet Union.

[Mirek Jasinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bardzo dobra książka i warta lektury. Szkoda tylko, że ogranicza się tylko do USA i Rosji (włącznie z NRD). Mam wrażenie, że teraz prym wiodą Chiny, o których nie było ani słowa. O tym, że wojna dezinformacyjna się toczy wiedziałem od dawna, choć nie zdawałem sobie sprawy z jej skali i ze skuteczności. Zjawisko też narasta i ciężko nam będzie dotrzeć do prawdy w tym natłoku informacji.

[alicja · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Stalowooka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trochę literówek, momentami odrobinę chaotyczna narracja ale… Informacje z tej książki mogłyby być materiałem na kilka kolejnych. Bardzo ciekawa pozycja.

[Collin Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for details of active measure operations, but sometimes almost too detailed. The connection to post-modernism was interesting at the end, but I wish that was sprinkled throughout the book a little more. Run down of 2016 Russian hacking was very clear and interesting.

[Gabriela Capestany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense and packed with valuable information. I can see how someone could complain that it’s maybe limited or slanted, but generally speaking, I think this is a fair assessment of Cold War and modern-day disinformation campaigns. Any longer and it would be tough to finish.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very educational and written in an engaging manner.