Why Are Government-Linked US & UK Experts Praising Russia’s Electronic Warfare Skills?

Casual observers might have been surprised to see government-linked US and UK experts praising Russia’s electronic warfare skills in a popular Mainstream Media outlet, especially with regards to pointing out how they neutralized what had previously been considered to be one of Kiev’s “wunderwaffen”. Those who closely follow the emerging narrative, however, wouldn’t have been caught off guard at all since this development fully conforms to the latest trend.

Business Insider published a piece on Sunday that quoted government-linked US and UK experts praising Russia’s electronic warfare skills for neutralizing the threat that Kiev’s Turkish-supplied Bayraktar drones used to pose on the battlefield. Samuel Bennett from the federally funded Center for Naval Analyses told the outlet that “Once the Russian military got its act together, it was able to down many TB2”. He added that Kiev nowadays mainly uses those drones for reconnaissance purposes instead.

The core of Bennett’s assessment was earlier shared by the UK’s partially government-funded Royal United Services Institute, whose report from 19 May on Russian tactics in the second year of this conflict was also cited in Business Insider’s article. The outlet drew attention to the part that described electronic warfare as a “critical component” of Russia’s tactics, which their experts said contributed to Ukraine’s enormous losses of drones over the past 15 months since the special operation began.

Casual observers might have been surprised to see government-linked US and UK experts praising Russia’s electronic warfare skills in a popular Mainstream Media (MSM) outlet, especially with regards to pointing out how they neutralized what had previously been considered to be one of Kiev’s “wunderwaffen”. Those who closely follow the emerging MSM narrative, however, wouldn’t have been caught off guard at all since this development fully conforms to the latest trend.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley set the tone in late January when warning that it’ll likely be impossible for Ukraine to dislodge Russia from all the territory that Kiev claims as its own by this year. Several weeks later in mid-February, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared that his bloc is in a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia, which implied that their single foe’s military-industrial capacity was equal to this alliance’s two and a half dozen members’.

The Washington Post then informed everyone in mid-March of how poorly Kiev’s forces have been faring, after which Politico cited unnamed Biden Administration officials in late April who worried about the public’s reaction if Kiev’s upcoming NATO-backed counteroffensive doesn’t meet their expectations. Shortly after, Poland’s Chief of the General Staff Rajmund Andrzejczak shared some “politically incorrect” truths about the conflict that reaffirmed the preceding two assessments about Ukraine’s weaknesses.

The cognitive dissonance that many pro-Kiev supporters in the West began to experience as a result of their de facto New Cold War bloc’s media and officials contradicting their perceptions of each party’s power prompted some like Garry Kasparov to imagine that Russian agents infiltrated the White House. These kooky QAnon-like conspiracy theories could uncontrollably proliferate in the event that the upcoming counteroffensive fails and thus risk radicalizing a critical mass of the population with time.

With a view towards preemptively thwarting these latent threats, the West has gradually sought to recalibrate their side’s perceptions about this conflict as evidenced by Milley’s candid admission at the beginning of the year and the subsequent narrative developments since then that were touched upon above. The purpose is to prevent the most passionate pro-Kiev supporters from becoming radicalized should their expectations of Ukraine’s “ultimate victory” not be met, which appears increasingly likely.

To that end, the West’s strategic messaging is now geared towards more accurately reflecting the truth about this proxy war, which places Business Insider’s latest piece that quoted government-linked US and UK experts’ praise of Russia’s electronic warfare skills into their appropriate context. This also indirectly serves to temper expectations about Kiev’s potential obtainment of the F-16s by subtly preconditioning pro-Kiev supporters not to place all their hopes in this latest “wunderwaffe”.

In parallel with this, MSM outlets like CNN are also preparing Iran to be the scapegoat if Kiev’s counteroffensive fails in order to distract the public from the “politically inconvenient” fact of Russia’s military parity with NATO in that scenario. The combined effect of all these narrative developments is to recalibrate the Western masses’ perceptions of this conflict closer to reality in order to cushion the blow to their morale if everything doesn’t go the way that they expect by the end of this summer.

This is intended to preemptively avert the potential radicalization of the most passionate pro-Kiev supporters who’ve predictably taken to concocting the kookiest QAnon-like conspiracy theories to explain the fact that their expectations have yet to be met and might never ultimately be achieved. The supplementary motive behind this strategic messaging shift is also to retain support for Biden ahead of next fall’s elections in the hopes that Kiev’s despondent supporters don’t dump him on this basis.

Foreign policy rarely figures into US presidential races, but the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine is an exception considering its global stakes. The deep disappointment that some on-the-fence pro-Kiev voters might feel upon the possible failure of the upcoming counteroffensive could inspire them to sit this election out, vote for third parties, and/or even cast their ballot for the comparatively more pragmatic Republicans out of protest, all of which would work against Biden’s re-election prospects.

The US’ ruling liberal-globalist Democrats who dominate the MSM have a self-interested stake in Biden’s re-election, hence why they began to shift the official narrative about this proxy war almost half a year ago once it began impossible to stick with the prior script. They’ve since accelerated their efforts ahead of the counteroffensive after realizing that there’s a credible chance that this campaign will fail to meet expectations, with Business Insider’s latest piece representing the most recent effort in this respect.

Simply put, the elite are now giving the public comparatively more accurate reports about this conflict in order to manage their perceptions in a way that reduces the risk of pro-Kiev supporters defecting from the Democrats ahead of next fall’s elections and/or being radicalized as a result of their disappointment. These limited hangouts as of late extend credence to claims that the counteroffensive will likely fail to meet expectations, which suggests that ceasefire talks might then follow by year’s end or early next year.