By Scott Taylor
For years now, the Canadian Armed Forces have been telling anyone who will listen, to be afraid of Russian disinformation.
According to our own military officers and a few self-appointed ‘misinformation experts’ the Russian propaganda machine is out to undermine the efforts of the NATO Alliance of which Canada is a founding member.
In 2014, Canada agreed to provide troops to be forward deployed in Latvia as part of NATO’s Operation REASSURANCE, as a deterrent to potential Russian aggression.
The fear was that Russia would disseminate misinformation among the Latvian population – particularly the 25% ethnic Russian Latvians in order to sow discord and discontent between the NATO battlegroup and local civilians. To counter this potential threat, Canada spent a boatload of money to create something called the NATO Strategic Communication Center of Excellence.
Interestingly, this title is somewhat misleading as their website runs an up-front disclaimer that they are not actually part of the NATO command structure and that they do not represent the military alliance. This in turn makes me question the validity of the use of the word ‘Excellence’ in their title.
However, it is now being reported that any Russian propaganda campaigns in Latvia have been largely unsuccessful and have failed to gain traction with that country’s population. Now before some zealot accuses me of spreading Russian disinformation, this latest report comes courtesy of the Royal Military College of Canada, and that internal assessment was obtained by the Ottawa Citizen.
It is not that Russia did not attempt to sow discord in Latvia; it is instead the fact that the tactics used were so lame as to be immediately dismissed by a Latvian public long accustomed to clumsy government propaganda from their Soviet era.
For instance one Russian ploy was to depict NATO soldiers flagrantly littering the streets of Latvia.
If the streets were indeed clogged with garbage, such images may have indeed incensed the Latvian population. But they were not, so the issue gained no traction.
Another Russian ruse was to portray Canadian soldiers as being fixated on the acquisition of beer.
For anyone familiar with soldiers of almost any nationality the question begs, where is the insult? If NATO soldiers were drunkenly staggering en masse through the streets of Riga like extras from the Walking Dead TV series, Latvians might have indeed been displeased with having a NATO brigade deployed on their soil.
The orderly conduct of the Canadian and indeed all NATO contingents in Latvia made that Russian misinformation fizzle on impact.
Perhaps the most outlandish Russian falsehood was to link former Royal Canadian Air Force Colonel, Russ Williams, the convicted serial killer, to the Canadian mission in Latvia.
The kicker was to attach a photo which had been entered into evidence at William’s murder trial, wherein the colonel was wearing the bra and panties of one of his victims.
This, I am sure was dismissed out of hand by any Latvian civilian exposed to this hoax as being too bizarre to even contemplate it being real.
Only those Canadian service members familiar with the Russ Williams saga would have been slighted by the fact a senior RCAF officer had indeed committed rape and murder. But I digress.
Now that the Canadian military have realized how little impact the Russian disinformation campaign has had in Latvia, perhaps they can stop using that red herring to deflect any negative news story here in Canada.
Whether or not Canada’s procurement woes, personnel shortages or sexual misconduct scandals would be “music to the Kremlin’s ears” is irrelevant. The answer is to fix the problems, not blame the Russians.
