Glen O'Hara Profile picture
Apr 16, 2018 9 tweets 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
On why #SyriaStrikes are such fertile ground for Russia. 👇
The Kremlin is an adversary that thrives on confusion, uncertainty, doubt. Syria is a complex battlefield - peculiarly fertile for dispute and disinformation. Stumbled on it by chance, but pleased to have done so.
So: have the v small number of US/UK/FR airstrikes against the regime degraded and disrupted its WMD capability? Unclear. Maybe. Scattering assets prob deepest effect.
Are the strikes legal? Lots of ground for dispute there. Superb if you want to create a rolling blanket of 'fog of peace'.
Is the western public uncertain, easily swayed, living in the shadow of Iraq2, clearly susceptible within membership cliques to Left and Right social media? You betcha.
Can you drive a wedge into NATO, and further ratchet up the refugee crisis - and poisonous anti-immigration across the Atlantic allies? Easy.
So the case and the strategy align - Syria is a complex case in which doubt and confusion integral to the multi-sided civil war. If you want to cause confusion and division *rather than any specific end point*, it's perfect.
No doubt the Russian state simply saw all this as part of the traditional Great Game. States have interests, so play them out. They must be surprised to see the door simply swing open, given objective weakness of their position.
They're still winning the propaganda war, and given their successful deployment of kaleidoscopic/ ironic/ fictive/ deliberately owning narratives, will v likely continue to do so. Ends.

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More from @gsoh31

Sep 25, 2018
So now a @UKLabour split looks almost inevitable, time to look at some of its contours.
(1) How many? I think there's a big number here: 24. That's the number of MPs that in alliance with the Lib Dems would pass SNP and become third party in HoC. Get guaranteed Qs at PMQs.
(2) How? Five or six more peeling away and going indy means nowt. An attempted New Party, perhaps as part of the Lib Dems' reforms, might mean a lot more.
Read 8 tweets
Jul 12, 2018
Okay, we've got far enough now that we can see No. 10's #Brexit strategy. /Thread
It's basically to bring things to a head as late as humanly possible - December to late January. At that stage they will squeeze Tory rebels with (among Euroenthusiasts) 'it's this or chaos' and (among Eurosceptics) 'it's this or no Brexit at all'.
Early signs - this will help with the pro-Europeans. Will probably work there. With the Eurosceptics? You can squeeze them, but probably not below 20-30, surely.
Read 9 tweets
Apr 17, 2018
Okay, since we're debating anti-semitism again, let's have a quick run-through of what #Labour might have done, and what they have done.
Have they announced a specific speech by the Leader, or Deputy Leader, admitting mistakes in the past, and laying out a *specific* policy agenda to tackle the problem? No.
Have they admitted that, while of course one finds AS in lots of places, there is a *particular variant* of the curse on the Left, which is insidiously worming its way into the party's DNA? No.
Read 15 tweets
Oct 4, 2017
Maybe #Labour people feel smug after the Tories' self-indulgent misery-fest. They shouldn't. Theirs was a state too.
A load of people gathering for a self-congratulatory slap on each others' backs, having achieved the square root of jack nothing.
Come back when you've halved child poverty or created the National Parks. Until then, take a good look at yourselves and your smuggery.
Read 16 tweets

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