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Comment by patrickaljord | Hacker News Reader

I find all these anti-Russia and China articles tiring. Not saying China and Russia aren't trying to spy and influence the US and UK, but the US and the UK are doing the same thing to them and many other countries and have a big documented history of doing so. So these relentless articles on how bad Russia and China are for doing what everybody is doing seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries to prepare the population for a possible future more frontal conflict or war which I hope will never happen.

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I find all these anti-Russia and China articles tiring.

The articles will stop once the bad behaviour stops. Don’t hold your breath.

but the US and the UK are doing the same thing to them

Really? What elections are the West trying to undermine?

This is pure false equivalence: it’s not like choosing between a Coke or Pepsi. If the authoritarians succeed in their aims, the future really will be “a boot stamping on a human face - forever”. If you truly believe in peace, all lovers of freedom must vigorously defend democracy now!

> Really? What elections are the West trying to undermine?

Professor Dov H. Levin does a lot of research on this subject and collected accounts of many interventions by both sides. See his papers https://www.dovhlevin.com/research

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention

Your problem is with the article?

So you have a problem with the fact that after an official UK investigation found deep and troubling Russian interference, newspapers decided to report it?

Well, some are obviously more successful than others at influencing elections and politics...

The USA are leaving their leadership position, if only thanks to the current administration, shaking things in disarray. Their structural weaknesses were certainly used to that end and put to profit by foreign countries interested getting into that position.

Such a massive change (or tentative change) in geopolitics seldom develops quietly, on either end. Unless one side doesn't react at all.

>> seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries to prepare the population for a possible future more frontal conflict or war which I hope will never happen.

It's more about a restart of the cold war than a "frontal" war.

I'm not sure if you can compare Russia's situation with the US or UK. I doubt the wealthy of the US/UK are actually inteligence officers.

Of course UK/US tries to influence the elections in Russia but the warning here is that Russia is more successfull and seems to have more tools than us.

> seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries

Ignoring media manipulation seems like a way to allow instability to be promoted. We've seen Russia stir up gun ownership and racial issues in the US, and Scottish independence in the UK.

Regardless of your political stance it's important be be aware there are outside interests manipulating things to cause maximum chaos.

Why chaos? There's benefit, but small fry.

I'd push for Brexit, Scottish independence, and a rift amongst American democrats and Republicans to weaken these states, so that I might bring my power to bear on a now localised objective in a smaller thus weaker state.

It appears to have worked very effectively in the UK. That anybody can be swayed to believe that one is more powerful than two is crazy hard. The Russians, and the move was so masterful that I believe it was the Russians, made it seem easy -

Frame the whole thing as a servile UK being crushed by German industry. Masterful, and as the referendum shows, it worked.

I think we're probably on the same track - I'd consider creating rifts within democracies, and creating rifts between democracies, a kind of chaos.

Ofc both sides are doing it, but typically in a conflict you want your side to win ;)

And the irony? They’re using our platforms to do it

Can we start being honest about it then? "The Russians are doing it, and we need to stop them, because we should be the only ones doing it". That's honest. "The Russians are meddling with the divine nature of democratic elections" is fake and shit.

And can we go back to not pretending that there's nationalism and national interests and just ignore the twitter mobs that form when it's suggested? It's obviously true, it's strongly hinted at in these kinds of things, it's evoked in Covid-19 responses, but it must not be said. It's not just not helpful, I believe that having things that are obviously actively done but forbidden to talk about is harmful to everybody's psyche.

Or at least try and stop the other side from winning, even if they do have loads of cash.

I agree with you in the sense that the reporting is insular, holier than thou, faux shock, and silence about our own activities, turning a blind eye, pretense - the reports themselves interference in our perceptions, from our own side - "weapons of mass destruction". Also tedious the way it gets turned into a left vs right weapon - "they won - it was the russians!". Also, it's about as surprising and informative as chickens laying eggs. Actually, I was going to see your point of view, but then argue against it, claiming it's good to be kept up to date, but now I just agree with you.

This is because the Russian interference report was published about an hour ago, its a relevant conversation today.

If you can find evidence of the UK messing about with Russian or Chinese elections (if you can call them elections) We can get some Anti-GB articles going.

I think its very difficult to do that. All media articles on snowden and assangle typically tall about their persona rather than illegal actions they've uncovered.

Actually we need at least one article on how deep UK secret services have been meedling in United States elections. Any more "dossiers" for us from ex-MI6, dear Beeb?

There will be no war with near peer powers since the 'guvners' in City of London likely do no wish to glow in the dark. All these games are to extract even more concessions from the subject classes and play binary political games for plebe entertainment.

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