Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine has been accompanied by an intense information war in a struggle to shape public perception about Moscow’s justifications for resorting to armed force. In a steady stream of “authorized disclosures,” U.S. intelligence agencies released detailed information on Russian plans and intentions in the weeks before its invasion of Ukraine. Aside from detailed reports on troop buildup and movements, one piece of information, first reported on Feb. 3, stood out: that Russia had produced a video purportedly showing an attack by the Ukrainian military against Russian territory or Russian-speaking civilians. Putin’s regime was building a case for war and, thanks to western intelligence agencies, everyone was in on the plot.
This supposedly novel policy of informing the public about intelligence assessments, what New Yorker writer Benjamin Wallace-Wells called “a turn in strategy toward a transparency initiative,” was intended to obstruct Russian disinformation operations. The frequent lack of evidentiary support for authorized intelligence disclosures suggests, however, that the transparency initiative has only partly succeeded. In light of growing digital open-source intelligence capabilities, the media and the public should demand a deeper commitment to openness and transparency going forward.
The turn towards transparency in the midst of geopolitical crises is not entirely new. During the...
The President of the Association of Yorubas in Diaspora, South Africa, Dr Olusola Agbeniyi, has asked the senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, to desist from making what he described ...