My son got a call on voice chat when he was playing Fortnite. A Russian guy. I was in the next room and overheard the conversation. I quickly went to his room and asked him to hang up and we had a talk about Russian influence operations.
The call didn’t get much further than what’s your name, where are you from, how old are you. Maybe it was just some Russian guy who enjoyed the game and felt like talking. I don’t think so. There has been an uptick in the online information war recently. I see this in YouTube and the comment sections on Washington Post. Russian agents recruiting vulnerable people through Fortnite fits the pattern.
We are back to the Cold War.
Remember the spy cameras found in Poland next to the railway line going into Ukraine? The antisemitic grafitti appearing? The pro Russian, anti war protests throughout Europe? The burning of the Koran in front of embassies? Misleading posts spreading on FaceBook? They start like this. Young people groomed into helping Russia sow discord in free western societies. First you get an easy and seemingly innocent task like drawing grafitti on a wall and sending a picture. You get paid. Easy money. Then it escalates.
Whether we like it or not, the war is here. We must realise that we are fighting it. And we must act so that we win.
The nature of the game has changed
The thing is, we have been playing a game of economic growth for generations. It’s a game where we trade and look for win-win outcomes. Where it pays to help other players, even if we also compete for resources. Russia is playing a zero sum game. One side wins, another side loses. It’s a completely different game.
Russia is playing Chess. We are still playing Monopoly.
In Chess you sacrifice the queen to deliver the check mate. Losses don’t matter if you win the game. In games like Monopoly or Settlers of Catan, players entering a trade are rewarded while passive players lose out. In an economic game we are risk averse. We don’t like taking loses. In a zero sum game, taking loses is perfectly fine as long as the opponent lose more. The best negotiated outcome in a two player game is a draw. Which just means that we play again later. The most aggressive player chooses where and when.
There can be no negotiation with Russia as long as Russia is playing a zero sum game.
We must play not only for us to win but for our opponent to lose.
Resilience and unity
The Church of Sweden suffered a ransomware attack late November. They refuse to pay the ransom and are working to restore the systems. Most medias chose to report this as “They were warned about a vulnerability one week before the attack and didn’t do enough to prevent it!” However, a local media in southern Sweden chose a different angle: The local church administration had contingency plans in place and seamlessly switched to continuing business using a pen and paper system to book services. As the local vicar says, “We've been handling paper since the Middle Ages in the church, it's nothing unusual for us.”
We are so used to headlines of fear and panic in the mainstream media. While what we need is resilience and unity. We can choose to respond to setbacks just like this Swedish vicar.
Learn from the past, invest in the future
I’m reading a book about the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks didn’t win because they were a majority (despite their name). They won because the opposition was divided. They won because they pursued their strategic goal ruthlessly and were willing to use extreme violence to get there.
The map could have looked so much different. The Versaille Treaty looked as a great outcome for London and Paris. However, it handed over the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and Ukraine to the terror of the Soviet Union. It sowed the seeds for World War Two and the suffering of generations.
Let’s not make the same mistake.
The Institute for the Study of War (a US non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organization) recently presented four scenarios on how the world could look after the War in Ukraine. It’s sobering reading. USA not continuing to provide military funding for Ukraine in 2024 would be the biggest geo-strategic blunder since handing over Eastern Europe to Stalin at the Yalta conference in 1945.
We have taken peace and safety for granted for more than a generation. Now it’s time put in what it takes for future generations to prosper.
It is not only the US that provides military aid to Ukraine. Scandinavia, Balticum, Northern and Eastern Europe know what is at stake. The war in Ukraine is not just a regional conflict.
During the Cold War, Sweden spent 5% of its BNP on Defense. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, most NATO countries reaped the peace dividend and cut down on Defense spending to well below 2% of BNP. We are nowhere near Cold War levels. Yet.
Putin’s Potemkin Village
Putin’s Russia is a Potemkin village. War time economy with 33% of the state budget going into producing tanks and drones. There is no rotation of troops. Any male within the Russian Federation that for whatever reason is sent to Ukraine is sent on a one way ticket. To find out what happened to their sons, Russian mothers travel to the front line. There has been no exchange of POWs since August. Moscow doesn’t want POWs to return. Soldiers are recruited from prisons and regions far away from Moscow. It’s all a facade to maintain the illusion that the war does not impact the lives of Muscovites and that Russia is fighting the good cause.
Let’s not be blinded by Putin’s smoke and mirrors. The cost and the suffering in Russia of Putin's illegal war of agression is real.
The road ahead
Soon is Midwinter Solstice. These are the darkest days. From now the light will return.
Sure, Hungary’s Victor Orban vetoed the EU 2024 budget for Ukraine. However, Norway, Sweden and Denmark announced bilateral funding even before the veto. Denmark purchased Swedish IFV for Ukraine. Swedish Archers take out Russian artillery and logistics near Kherson. Poland got a pro European prime minister in a democratic election.
Sure, Turkey and Hungary are holding back ratification of Swedens NATO membership. However, a united Swedish parliament has made the strategic decision to join. Sweden is on a path towards NATO membership. The wheels are in motion for closer cooperation and coordination with US, UK and neighbouring countries.
Sure, the MAGA Republicans blocked US funding for Ukraine for now. However, I refuse to believe that US will give up the position as geopolitical leader. Funding will come early in the new year.
The process may not be pretty but the free democracies of the world will find a way.
Believe in victory and stay vigilant. We can win this.