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Perspectives from the American Experience on Russian Public Opinion on the Ukraine War

John Mueller — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:21:00 +0000

The United States has fought long wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq since WWII. It remains to be seen whether Russia's operation in Ukraine will be similarly expanded. However, if that happens, history from America's wars gives lessons—and non-lessons—for judging Russian sentiment on the conflict in Ukraine.

The comparison implies that, regardless of the effects of media coverage, antiwar demonstrations, censorship and propaganda operations, or military events in the war, a fall in support is to be expected following a rally around the flag effect at the start of the conflict. This will also lead to a greater willingness to tolerate failure or even calamity in the conflict, as well as a strong desire to avoid similar endeavors in the future. However, there is a significant difference in the experiences, one that could be significant: although the ordinary American was mostly unaffected personally by the wars, the same may not be true for the average Russian.

Support at the Start

Even when civil freedoms were restricted, initial Russian public support for the war appeared to be relatively high—probably about 70 or 75 percent. Except for the war in Afghanistan, which began immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and received close to 90% support at the onset, the same number approximately applies to American wars.

People have a proclivity for believing what they want to believe. The high initial support for all of the wars was almost certainly due to a rally around the flag effect, in which the publics overwhelmingly desired to believe that their governments' actions were justifiable, wise, and necessary.

The Russian government's propaganda operations and its controlled media have been repeatedly blamed for the high initial support for the Ukraine invasion among the Russian populace. Those same forces, on the other hand, have spent years trying to persuade Russians of the importance of Sputnik, the Russian anti-covid vaccination. Nonetheless, there has been a lot of pushback to that message. We'd all be driving Edsels and sipping New Coke if extensive and targeted promotion could ensure acceptance—legendary marketing flops in 1958 and 1985 by two of the (otherwise) most successful corporations in history: the Ford Motor Company and Coca-Cola.

It's not uncommon for people to accept false information in such situations. A majority of Americans felt Saddam Hussein was "personally involved" in the 9/11 attacks at the start of the Iraq war, prompted by the Republican administration. Despite the fact that the nudging ended, 30 to 40 percent of those polled remained convinced for more than seven years. Furthermore, the public believed that a loss in Afghanistan would lead to more 9/11s, that al Qaeda posed an existential threat to the US and had infiltrated the country with thousands of trained operatives, that the Vietnam and Korean wars were necessary to prevent World War III, and that Saddam Hussein would come to "dominate" the Middle East with his remarkably inept army and/or hand off weapons of mass destruction to friendly terrories. Arguments that could be made to refute such claims failed to gain traction.

Support is Weakening

According to American data, Russian support for the conflict in Ukraine will diminish quickly in the initial months as hesitant supporters drop out, then more gradually as the remaining supporters become harder core backers. The accumulation of casualties—particularly combat deaths—by their forces is the most crucial factor in this decrease.

However, it shouldn't be expected that poll respondents have a good idea of the actual number of casualties or battle dead, and their predictions on the subject don't always match up with support or opposition to the war. Rather, individuals appear to perform a crude cost-benefit analysis, weighing the worth of the war as they view it against the cost of American lives thus far.

What has mattered most to American public opinion in all of this has been American losses, not those of the people defended. Despite the fact that the number of Iraqis killed as a result of the US invasion has surpassed the hundreds of thousands, the only cumulative corpse count that matters to American public opinion and is routinely reported is the American one.

This issue is not new: Americans backed the wars in Korea and Vietnam because they saw them as necessary for countering the communist menace, and defending South Koreans or Vietnamese was never considered a priority. This effect may be different in the current battle due to the historical closeness of Russians and Ukrainians ("our brothers"). However, it seems important to note that, despite the fact that fully 60% of Americans believe the Iraqi people are blameless for their leader's policies, Americans have given little attention to Iraqi deaths in the conflict.

For each conflict, the public did not calculate the stakes in the same way. The United States had suffered around 19,000 fighting dead when support for the wars in Vietnam and Korea fell below 50%. Using the same metric, that level of support was obtained in Iraq after about 1,500 people were slain. This reduced tolerance for losses is likely attributable to the fact that the stakes in Iraq were viewed as significantly less important than those in Korea and Vietnam, which were seen as crucial aspects in the Cold War. It's still unclear how such a calculation will affect Russians today.

For the most part, specific events throughout the conflict appear to have had little long-term impact on the decreasing trend. As a result, a decline in popularity in 2004 following the revelation of American soldiers abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq was mostly reversed in a matter of months. When there was a noticeable upward change in support after Saddam Hussein was captured, the same thing happened: support quickly went back to where it had been before, and then continued on its downward trend.

More broadly, as the arrest of Saddam Hussein demonstrates, if people believe the war is not worth fighting, gains on the battlefield will not increase support for the war. During the surge in Iraq between 2007 and 2008, for example, the percentage of those who believed the US was making major success increased from 36 to 46, while the number who believed it was winning the war increased from 21 to 37. Despite this, support for the war did not rise—there was no change in responses to questions on whether the war was worth the effort, whether it was the correct decision or a mistake, and whether respondents preferred to stay as long as it takes. Successfully waging a war, it appears, is unlikely to persuade those who have already decided that the expenses are not worth it.

If the drop in support is primarily due to the invading forces' rising deaths, media and propaganda operations, as well as public antiwar demonstrations, will be ineffective. This effect is likely to be true in the Ukraine conflict as well.

No amount of censoring or skewed reporting will be able to mask the two most essential factors in the public's decision-making process: the war is still going on, and our people are dying as a result of it. A comparison of the Korea and Vietnam Wars—costly anti-Communist wars on the outskirts of Asia—suggests that noisy public antiwar demonstrations often fail to persuade and may even be destructive. Despite the fact that there were few, if any, antiwar demonstrations during the Korean War, support for the war dwindled, just as it did during the Vietnam War, when antiwar protests were common and conspicuous.

Even if an antiwar movement succeeds in electing like-minded officials to power, the war's conduct may not be significantly altered. Instead of repeating the mistakes of their Vietnam War counterparts, opponents of the Iraq War worked hard within the Democratic Party, and in 2008, they were the cornerstone of the triumph of Barack Obama, the only major presidential candidate in the field who opposed the war. But he was a disappointment: he chose no one who had publicly and explicitly opposed the Iraq war before it began, left the war on George W. Bush's timeline, and passed the war in Afghanistan over to his successor.

The Consequences of the Support Decline

Although dwindling support for the conflict does not always lead to its end, it can nonetheless have implications.

For example, the reduction influenced military strategies to lower the rate of American casualties in all four wars, despite projections that lower fatality rates would raise support for the fight.

Another result could be the formation of a politically favorable environment for disengagement and even disaster. This may be seen in the public's acceptance of Afghanistan's unexpected and humiliating collapse last year. The population, for the most part, accepted the calamity and had no interest in sending troops to try to fix it. And President Joseph Biden's political status appears to have been unaffected by the catastrophe. The acceptance of the United States' complete failure in Vietnam in 1975, which led to a Communist takeover, was a similar event. In reality, President Gerald Ford, who presided over the disaster, tried to utilize it to his advantage in his reelection campaign the following year, claiming that "we are at peace." Tonight, there isn't a single young American fighting or dying on foreign soil." Despite the lack of polling data, the Russian public appears to have accepted the Soviet catastrophe in Afghanistan under Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, and the history suggests that they would accept a humiliating pullout from Ukraine in the same way in the future.

Third, the Ukraine war is unlikely to have an impact on the reduction of international war, which is one of modern history's greatest triumphs.

Until Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Europe has been free of major international conflict for the longest time since the term "Europe" was coined over 2500 years ago. The rest of the world has mostly followed suit, and the use of war to settle international disputes has almost entirely vanished—though other methods such as intervening in civil wars, imposing economic sanctions, attempting covert regime change, poaching fish, and waging armed border disputes in remote areas continue to be used.

Some fear that the conflict in Ukraine may destroy this tremendous achievement. But the aversion to such wars is far more likely to persist, as evidenced by the fact that the war has been nearly universally denounced and that other countries are unlikely to be inspired by the costly and messy precedent, regardless of how the war ends.

Most of America's conflicts resulted in a significant public aversion to repeating the event. There were no replays of the Korean or Vietnam wars, and following its major overreactions to 9/11, the country appears to have adopted an Iraq/ Afghanistan syndrome. This pattern shows that Russia's incursion into Ukraine may be a one-off rather than a precursor. "Let's not do that again," as in the United States, will most likely be the primary answer.

Direct Pain to the Public: A Potentially Significant Difference

Aside from individuals who participated in American wars and those close to them, the general population was never forced to pay a high price or pay a fee to support them. Russians, on the other hand, may endure significant economic hardship and even collapse as a result of their invasion of Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin, the war's principal architect, claims that Russia will be able to absorb any economic losses. However, even before the conflict, the Russian economy was not looking so rosy. In 2014, a long period of expansion in this century came to an end, and growth has been sluggish since then. Some of this was triggered by the reaction to Putin's 2014 annexation of parts of Ukraine, which triggered what amounted to an economic doomsday machine. Russia's currency has depreciated as a result of its shenanigans, as has capital flight, a reduction in its stock market, and a dip in foreign investment. And, probably most importantly, there was a significant decline in trust among investors, purchasers, and sellers around the world, alienating, in particular, the European Union, Russia's greatest trading partner and direct investor for a long time. In addition, other countries imposed economic sanctions on Russia, and unconnected to the crisis, oil prices on the international market plummeted, a scenario that was particularly damaging to Russia, as oil and gas sales account for roughly 36% of the country's yearly budget. As a result, between 2014 and 2017, real disposable income plummeted by 15%. While aspirational purchases such as mansions and vehicles gave way to purchases that were more practical.

As a result, even before the Ukraine crisis, experts were predicting "poor" development prospects for Russia over the next decade, and the war in Ukraine is expected to exacerbate the problem, particularly if oil prices fall from their current highs. Customers in Europe have stepped up their efforts to wean themselves off Russian natural gas and oil, and there has been a concerted effort to impose harsh economic sanctions. Furthermore, a large number of foreign, primarily western, companies have abruptly exited the Russian economy, and few are likely to return anytime soon, particularly as long as Putin stays in power. This might be especially costly because, as Barack Obama mockingly, though undiplomatically, stated in his final press conference as president in 2016, "their economy doesn't produce anything that anyone wants to buy, except oil, gas, and arms." They don't come up with new ideas."

Although nothing similar occurred in any of the four American wars, the economic consequences of Russia's war are likely to be felt directly by the Russian people as currency becomes unstable, travel is restricted, jobs are lost, incomes fall, opportunities are snuffed out, shortages erupt, the quality of life plummets, corruption worsens, businesses fail, government coffers become empty, and talent is hemorrhaged. Russia may be able to weather the storm, but there is a distinct risk of tragedy.

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The Illusion of Cyberspace

John Mueller — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 07:13:00 +0000

When Russian forces invaded Ukraine last month, governments and experts around the world warned about the risk of huge cyberattacks. Indeed, in the days before Russia invaded Ukraine, hackers defaced Ukrainian websites, unleashed malware on government systems, and tried to get into the country's banking system, but they had little effect. Even though there hasn't been a cyber Armageddon, officials are becoming more afraid that Russia might step up its efforts and even attack the United States in the future.

Russia's invasion is sure to be bad. As a result, cybersecurity policymakers in Washington and other places should avoid the "alarmism" that has long been a problem in the field. During a speech in 2011, Mike Mullen, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "cyber is the single biggest threat to our existence." In the next year, Martin Dempsey, who took over for him, said that "a cyberattack could stop our society in its tracks." Leon Panetta, a former Defense Secretary, told people in 2012 that there was going to be a "digital Pearl Harbor." For years, Nicole Perlroth, a reporter for the New York Times, has asked insiders how long it will be before "cyber-enabled cataclysmic boom" takes us down. She's always been told that 18 to 24 months. Well over a hundred months ago, she began her survey.

This modern approach to cyberthreats looks a lot like the aftermath of 9/11, when most experts thought there would be an even bigger terrorist attack soon. It's the same now as it was then. Cyberattacks can be scary at times, but they've turned out to be a very small and manageable problem. There is a lot of talk about what could go wrong, but it doesn't put the problem in context, and it doesn't take into account the huge value of the Internet and artificial intelligence. Most commentators, on the other hand, don't fully understand that the business sector, which is the most attractive target for hackers, has the ability to come up with effective defenses.

CYBERWAR

Over the last decade, the world has become very worried about digital threats, especially the military implications of new cyber-capabilities. To be sure, the military has to think about how to keep its communications and command and control operations safe from people who want to attack them. If there are any disruptions, they are more likely to be instrumental or tactical than strategic, but they could still be strategic, too.

Despite what people say, the U.S. military seems to have agreed with this. At the time, political scientist Micah Zenko said the Pentagon was spending less than one percent of its budget on cybersecurity. An assessment from 2019 says it could be even less than one-tenth of one percent. Panetta said in 2013 that cyber was "without a doubt, the battlefield of the future." If those funds are enough to meet the challenge, it would be a good deal.

Cyber also supposedly makes it easier for a state to do things like spy, spread propaganda, and sabotage. Analysts have even come up with a new term, "hybrid warfare," which usually refers to these three businesses. But since the term doesn't include direct armed conflict, it might be better to call it "denatured warfare." Cyber, on the other hand, isn't very good at these three things.

Invading hackers who want to spy on the United States, for example, are likely to find that most of what they find is already known, and that much of the rest isn't worth knowing in the first place. Wikileaks' release of thousands of classified U.S. government documents in 2010 showed how many governments around the world have over-classified things. It didn't take Bill Keller long to say "no" when he was asked if the reporting team found anything they didn't already know.

Much the same is true when it comes to intellectual property theft, as well. Not only has this practice been around for a long time, but it has also been bad for governments because it takes their attention away from homegrown ideas. Cyber-propaganda efforts, on the other hand, are more likely to make more information and misinformation available, which has been a problem in warfare for a long time.

Also, the results of cyber-sabotage have been very small, too. A computer virus called Stuxnet was used by the United States and Israel to slow down Iran's progress toward making a nuclear weapon. Even though the operation was seen as a dangerous new development in modern warfare, the damage was only short-term. Iran quickly rebuilt its centrifuges, and the attack was actually counterproductive because it made Tehran want to move faster with its nuclear program. There have also been efforts by the United States to stop North Korea from making missiles. Pyongyang, on the other hand, solved whatever the problem was, just like Iran did. The attacks didn't have a big long-term effect on their program.

Cyber-alarmists have also warned about hackers taking down important infrastructure, like power grids, which could cripple entire countries. Grids do go down from time to time, but squirrels and lightning are usually to blame. These interruptions usually last only a short time and aren't very bad, and engineers are increasingly designing systems that can handle these kinds of threats. Estonia, for example, was the target of a major and often talked about cyberattack in 2007. Now, NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence is based there.

CYBERTERRORISM

In the past, people have been afraid that terrorist groups could do harm through the internet. This isn't a new thing. And even though cyber did not play a direct role in the death of the 9/11 terrorist, the event caused people to worry about the issue. When the Washington Post ran a long front-page piece in 2002, "government experts" said that "terrorists are close to using the Internet as a direct tool of bloodshed."

No terrorist group has been able to use cyberattacks so far. Even if hackers are able to shed blood, shootings and bombings are more likely to do the same thing far more often than that would happen. Still, cyber has undoubtedly been a good way for terrorist groups to find new members and communicate with each other. This method, on the other hand, hasn't caused a paradigm shift. It has simply replaced or added to older methods. Even groups like the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS, have a hard time using the Internet to stir up violence and teach people who might want to join them. In one case, an ISIS handler linked his American charge to a possible collaborator who happened to be an FBI agent.

Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert, says that, for the most part, any virtual terrorist army in the United States has been just that: a virtual one. In most cases, "talking about jihad, boasting about what one will do, and coming up with evil schemes to help each other out is usually the end of it," he told me. Indeed, the fact that some would-be terrorists are so willing to talk about their dreams and fantasies on the Internet has often helped police find them.

MEDDLING IS A WAY TO VOTE

People who are worried about cyberthreats also talk about election interference a lot. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for example, the United States said that Russian hackers were trying to hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign. Analysts say that even though Hillary Clinton still won the popular vote, they say that digital intruders were trying to damage the integrity of U.S. elections and even democracy itself.

These warnings are overblown and, if they come from U.S. policymakers, they may be hypocritical. It is important to point out that the United States has been meddling in foreign elections for a long time now. Furthermore, the idea that elections and voters can be easily manipulated is not true. If a lot of advertising could guarantee success, Americans would all be driving Edsels and drinking New Coke, two marketing failures by two of the most successful businesses in history: the Ford Motor Company and Coca-Cola. In 1958 and 1985, these two companies tried to sell Edsels and New Coke. In any capitalist society, people are bombarded with ads and marketing campaigns all the time. In every case, people who have been asked to do something are free to not do it, and most become very good at it. A lot of people don't change their minds about a candidate because of campaign information. Diana Mutz, a political scientist, says that the effect of campaign advertising is "at most" small.

Political campaigns, as anyone who has been through one knows, are also full of lies. Incumbents deliberately distort their records, and challengers do the same in the opposite direction. During 2016, Russia made a very small contribution to this flood of fake news. On Facebook, where most of the "manipulation" is said to have taken place, Moscow's interference was only a fraction of a percent of the content on the news feed. People who took this also didn't use it because they were already a member of a party or lived in states that voted for one or the other candidate. Russia's efforts, on the other hand, didn't work at all. Because there was little else that the two US political parties could agree on, Moscow got support for anti-Russian sanctions from both parties even though they couldn't agree on anything else.

CYBERCRIME

Despite all the talk about war, terrorism, election interference, and critical infrastructure, most cyberattacks are on businesses and their customers, trying to steal or extort money from them. The record here, on the other hand, is encouraging, and it's likely to have a lot of value. Companies have done a good job of protecting themselves from cybercriminals. They have closed software holes, kept back-ups of important data, and made sure that sensitive information isn't stolen.

The profitability of their business is a big concern for people who might be hackers. A report by the cybersecurity company Symantec says that 978 million people were affected by cybercrime in 2017, which cost them $172 billion. That number, no matter how hackers split the profits, is a lot less than the losses from other types of illegal activity. In 2017, for example, crimes against people and property cost the United States $2.6 trillion.

Businesses, too, are learning to change with the times, which is good for them. Andrew Odlyzko, who used to be the head of the University of Minnesota's Digital Technology Center, says that many businesses have realized that they can easily avoid the worst effects of cybercrime by making small changes to their business practices. As a result, more and more customers are being asked to call or text their banks to confirm large or suspicious transactions. Even though criminals often get millions of credit card numbers from hacked databases, the damage is usually limited and often dominated by the cost of making new cards. Businesses have also made it easy for people to get back from fraud.

PEARL HARBOR AND RESILIENCE

Despite what Panetta said in 2012, the value of adapting and being resilient is shown, not broken, by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. From a strictly military point of view, the attack turned out to be more of a nuisance than a disaster. In a hurry, the U.S. Navy took care of two old ships that had broken down. It would take three days to replace all the planes that were lost at the production rate that would be used in 1942. The loss of life was, of course, heartbreaking. The outraged men who flooded recruiting stations in the following days almost made up for the deaths.

That doesn't mean that the Pearl Harbor attack doesn't support being afraid. Because the system is strong, it can deal with even successful, dramatic and dastardly surprise attacks if it is well-built and well-equipped.

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