(Originally on 21 Dec. 2015)
Some time ago, I was enquired what are those agents of influence I had written about. Agent of influence is one of the roles in which an agent can work on behalf of a foreign power. The role and working ways of an agent of influence are quite different from those of, for example, an agent provocateur or a useful idiot – two other types often mentioned in texts about information warfare.
Some time ago, I was enquired what are those agents of influence I had written about. Agent of influence is one of the roles in which an agent can work on behalf of a foreign power. The role and working ways of an agent of influence are quite different from those of, for example, an agent provocateur or a useful idiot – two other types often mentioned in texts about information warfare.
An agent
can act on behalf of other players also, besides foreign states – companies and
corporations, political parties, lobbies, and even civil society organizations
use agents. The so called change agents constitute an example of the consult
jargon that has spread to civil society. This article deals primarily with
agents working for a foreign government in Finland, but the principle is the
same also in private sector, and especially so in regard to agents of influence
because they do much the same that lobbyists and change agents do – i.e. try to
influence matters and affairs in favour of their agenda.
Agents of
influence are usually found to be more difficult to expose and counteract,
compared with such agents of foreign powers who do things like steal secret
documents, bribe officials of railways and the post or the cleaning-lady of a
defence institution's IT centre, install explosives, or cultivate a terrorist
group to destabilize a country. This is for the reason that agents of influence
very often do not need to break laws in any way.
Unlike
lobbyists openly working to promote the interests of let's say eastern trade,
agents of influence act in a more conspiratorial manner and seek to conceal the
fact they work for a foreign power. Their effect is much bigger if they manage
to present themselves as 'impartial' or even experts and authorities of the
issues in question.
In some
occasions they may also use the so-called false flag – meaning they would claim
to represent quite different an interest party than the one they really work
for. In such cases there may be similarity to the actions of provocateurs, who commonly
use the false flag as they seek to foment controversies, incite hatred against
a group, or just divert attention and move the gravitational centre of the
opinion spectrum. False flag is rarer with the agents of influence. Much more
common for them is to present their agenda as 'impartial' and 'pragmatic'. As
agents of influence are supposed to be taken seriously, provocateurs take care
of the loud barking, which indeed makes the message of the agents of influence appear
moderate.
Russia has
penetrated all systems in Finland on such a high and deep systemic levels that
she can obtain any relevant information available in Finland, if she so wishes.
Russia's capacity enables her to analytically or operatively utilize
information available in Finland in more effective and focused manner than what
Finland's own capacity allows. It is exactly in the analysis and
operationalization of information where the Finnish capacities are rather weak.
Finland is able to utilize information available in her own country, let alone
elsewhere, only to the extent within her limited capacities.
Therefore,
Russian agents need not concentrate in traditional espionage. In a country as
open as Finland, the main task of Russian operatives is influence, not
espionage – however, this does not refute the fact that Russia is
overwhelmingly the most active and the most aggressive actor also in espionage.
It is nothing new that in Russian information warfare influence takes priority
over espionage. This was the case also in the Soviet times, which has been
discussed in public for instance by the KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov.
The Finns
had better understand especially how crucial role activities of influence have
as compared to the illegal methods used in espionage. I am afraid that in the
stubbornly legalist Finland this is still not quite understood, as discussion
is still centred at the protection from traditional espionage, terrorism, and
cyber threats targeting vital infrastructure. Not at the integrity of
information content – that is, at knowing things – which is the target of the
most intensive efforts of Russian agents.
The targets
of the agents of influence include what Finns think they know, which
situational understanding they have, what opinions they hold of things, where
is their attention – and through the influence in these what is called 'reflexive
control' in the terms of Russian information warfare takes place. That means,
the target is successfully manipulated to act in the way desired by the
manipulator, through compromising influence in his informational integrity.
Finland
does not seem to find ways to counteract against agents of influence in any way
because the latter are unlikely to commit to anything illegal. The country has a
long tradition of exclusion, on purely ideological grounds (the so-called
'general reasons'), those opinions and individuals that were deemed anti-Soviet
in the old times or anti-Russian in contemporary terms from the acceptable
consciousness. Yet the reverse has proven very hard in Finland. An agent of
influence may act however strikingly and yet no control mechanisms for his
exclusion take place, not even in the most critical tasks regarding national
security and informational integrity.
It is in
most cases not illegal to lie and to manipulate, and this is truer still in
regard to more subtle methods. Finnish mentality is conditioned to watch over
decency and good manners in various, more irrelevant matters, yet when it comes
to the 'general reasons', legal offenses need to be rather blatant before
anyone deems it appropriate, or even possible, to do anything. It sometimes
seems there's no limit to those offenses even at high treason or at support for
terrorism, if 'general reasons' are in question.
If Finland
does not fix the basic systemic problems in informational interest and
informational ideology, there is a risk that new investments in electronic
intelligence, costly technological solutions, or information bying from
external subcontractors may actually only constitute subvention of the
adversary's intelligence from Finnish tax revenues.
What kind
of things, then, are the agents of influence engaged with?
It is
logical to assume that they do at least two kinds of things: Firstly, they
spread information and opinions that support their agenda. Secondly, they seek
to prevent the spread of information and opinions that run counter to their
agenda.
In the
first case their impact is similar to that of propaganda, but it is usually
more focused and sophisticated. Agents of influence whisper to the ears of
decision-makers and opinion-makers – for example, politicians, civil servants,
journalists, and academics. In the second case, they seek to form filters and
obstacles to the ears of the mentioned groups, to obstruct reception of correct
information and undesired opinions, for example by discreditation, questioning,
and conditioning such information and opinions.
Spreading
wrong or biased information is typical activity for agents of influence. The
information operations they conduct or support are often detectable by their
calculated timing. It usually happens in the very situations when Russia has an
interest in spreading false information or in changing the topic. An influence
agent's informational operation is often also synchronized to coincide with the
flooding of similar or similarly inclined content by the media-distributed
propaganda machinery and troll factories.
Influence
to attitudes and opinions is another form of activity, more long-termed and
often more difficult to detect. It consists of manipulation of the opinion
spectrum of decision-makers and opinion-makers as well as the general public
opinion. Russian information operations targeting attitudes have sought, for
instance, to generate negative conditioning towards Moscow's opponents and
entire nationalities. This has resulted in unconscious negative or at least
suspicious 'gut feelings' towards those peoples who have stood on the way of
the aggressions of Russia or her allies – for example Chechens, Albanians, the Baltics,
and Georgians. Finns have occasionally been quite eager to resort to
condescension and mock at small East European nations, let alone further-away
ones, without noticing their attitudes have fallen prey to manipulation.
Individual
people are also targeted with similar methods of manipulation: agents of
influence seek to generate negative or ridiculing conditioning towards critics
of the Kremlin, politicians, intellectuals, researchers, or journalists. Many
Finns, who may consider themselves serious and respectable, hardly notice how
they add to the choir of mock and undermining, although in regard to someone
else, those parts of their brains that call for respect and rational approach
would immediately be activated at such. Manipulation of attitudes usually affects
through emotional conditioning.
Propaganda
is often divided into white and black propaganda, and this is the case also
with information operations and influence to attitudes. What is basically true,
or meant to enhance positive image, is called white propaganda – it is also
practiced by Western countries, including Finland seeking to spread information
and reports that are flattering to the country such as the Pisa results, or
beautiful and pure ideas of Finland. Black propaganda is more characteristic to
actors like Russia: it doesn't shun outrageous lies or smear campaigns. There
are naturally various shades of grey between black and white propaganda.
Another standard
practice of the agents of influence is to brand certain subjects by stirring
controversies. When those topics that are particularly sensitive to the
'general reasons' are branded as controversial, rational conversation on them
becomes difficult. Discussion gets polarized and emotional, which in the
Finnish culture works particularly well in favour of the manipulators.
Agents of
influence are skilled to exploit the cultural characteristics of their target
society. Finns are rendered vulnerable to influence by many oddities of our
communication culture. As an example, Finns are exceptionally touchy about dissent in opinions, and they generally seek to avoid debate, taking it
personal and considering it a threat to the desired consensual state of
communication. In contrast, Finns overrate vagueness and purposeless verbosity
when it helps to avoid expressing opinions – often at the same time at the
expense of also content. It is an old cliché that Finns ceaselessly wonder what
the others think of them, but not a baseless one. Finns consider it wise to
remove from topics that risk bringing up debate – that is, differing opinions. The
Finnish culture is one of avoiding communication and certainly preferring
silence to dissent.
Finland
also has a culture of avoiding responsibility, although this may be a rather
new cultural phenomenon. Opinions are usually expressed in passive form, or
otherwise in a way that would make it seem as if the speaker doesn't express
his own opinion but rather something 'generally thought', or an idea
originating somewhere else. It enables the speaker to avoid responsibility for
what he states. This characteristic of the Finnish culture makes the work of an
agent of influence easier, as when they spread false or biased information, fellow
Finns don't demand them to explicate their personal opinion let alone take
responsibility for it.
One of the
most important uses of power in a state system is nominations. Democracy tends
to decentralize power, which means that each individual only does his or her
part in a large machinery of decision-making. Therefore political power at its
most practical is to push the right people to the right places in order to make
those decisions desired. Seasoned professionals of politics are professional in
exactly this kind of machinations. Unfortunately, so are also foreign
intelligence organs, with their agents of influence.
In Finland,
positive pushing of one's favourites to favourable positions for influence
requires existent power positions or the so-called 'good fellow networks', sometimes
just a good game-eye in situations where parties distribute seats among
themselves, or in other words, reach political compromises. Here I will not
comment on the extent to which foreign states may already possess extant formal
power positions in this country. It is natural that from such positions it is
rather easy to machinate agents of influence directly to key positions.
Negative
influence, however, is easy in the Finnish culture also from outside the formal
power positions. For example, spreading malicious rumours and disinformation
about individual persons has been standard activity for agents of influence
since the Soviet times. In Finland, such activity is particularly effective
because Finns are in general timid and avoid controversies. They would rather
not take the risk than check the veracity of rumours. In such a culture those
who do use malicious disinformation to block nominations have an advantage, and
further enhance the culture of timidity and harmlessness.
Another
method of person-level influence, slightly more radical than the spreading of
rumours, is the use of threats. It typically takes place in form of covert
threats, which do not fulfil the criteria for illegal threat (a legal offense) and
therefore doesn't trigger criminal investigation. Alternatively, it consists of
anonymous messages and phonecalls, so that even when the criteria for illegal
threat would be fulfilled, the culprit is not known, or finding out the sender
would require means that are so far outside of the legal options for Finnish
authorities.
Agents of
influence obviously also probe for weaknesses and practice stirring of
conflicts. In such practices they should not be confused with another category
of agents, the talent-spotters, whose tasks include identification of persons
as potential targets for the operations of professional intelligence operatives
– for example for cultivation, recruitment, or 'kompromat' [compromising operations,
usually targeted against a person's reputation by framing the target as
pervert, mentally ill, politically incorrect, criminal, or something else that seeks
to discredit him/her].
Simply leading
– or misleading – discussion is a routine activity of the agents of influence.
They will, whenever possible, help Finnish politicians, reporters and audience
to fuss about what's irrelevant, and to silence about what's relevant. Once
again, the careful timing and synchronization with the narratives offered by
Russian propaganda often make such deliberate guidance detectable.
Finally, it
is necessary to practice some caution against the other extreme: While
healthy suspicion is usually beneficial, all-engulfing paranoia is malignant.
Not all information consists of lies, and not all lies constitute deliberate
operations of influence. One should not keep his own mouth shut in fear of
agents of influence – quite the contrary, one does better in promoting open and
honest information culture, where it makes sense to analyse and organize
information, and where the existence of opinions is not feared or shamed, not
even for 'general reasons'.
If I have managed
to raise the reader's level of consciousness in recognizing a relevant
dimension of informational influence, it means my own information operation has
been successful.