Putin tries to draw West into ground operation against ISIS

 By Irina Severin | UAObserver 

Increased Russian propaganda activity about a possible Putin's ground operation in Syria was started by Putin himself in order to draw the West into a ground conflict with ISIS. The trick is simple: if the Kremlin talks about a ground operation against ISIS, then the West would want to get ahead of the Kremlin and be the first to send troops for a ground operation.

The Kremlin hopes to put the West on the wrong track and thus weaken it physically, financially and morally. Putin wants that not Russia, but the West get stuck in the Middle East the same way as the Soviet Union got stuck in Afghanistan before the collapse. Putin also wants to set up the entire Muslim world against the West, and not against Russia.

Russia practically invests nothing in the war in Syria - all military operations taking place as a way of utilization of outdated Soviet equipment. It is more expensive to dispose of it in Russia than to bomb the Assad opposition in Syria. The second direction is a test of new weaponry. Of course, if the information about its existence is not a propagandist bluff from the start - a typical psychological attack designed for preventive intimidation of the enemy.

Russia's main emphasis is on the information/psychological war, which the West completely ignores. Lagging for decades behind the West militarily, Russia has an overwhelming advantage in the information sphere. As a result, Russia could transform any defeat in the perception of the masses into a victory and any crime into the rightness of the Russian side. Thus, all actions of the West are discredited from the start what results into the West predetermined loses of all battles, as far as the information/perception sphere is controlled by Moscow.

Russia would have used the West’s ground operations in the Middle East masterfully to discredit the West, accusing it of victims of the local population. Even if the collateral damage is not there, the Kremlin will create vivid pictures and spread them as it often happened during Russian military aggression against Ukraine. In addition, the bombing and ground operations in Syria and Iraq will make it much easier for Russia to provoke terrorist attacks by the Islamists in the West since the mere presence of the Western forces in the region will create the necessary information background for propaganda.

At the same time, ISIS is not a traditional structure, therefore traditional methods of war will not work with it. The main battle to destroy ISIS should be conducted on the Internet, where its main operations are carried out. The main task is to block propaganda, communications and financing channels. All the infrastructure benefiting ISIS is launched by the FSB. Among them - the social network Telegram assuring anonymity and confidentiality for terrorists' communication, Bitcoin designed for anonymous financing of terrorists as well as other less visible Russian subversive special operations abroad.  

Recruitment to the ranks of ISIS is also carried out on the Internet through online gaming platforms. By solving these problems, the West will weaken not only the international terrorism but the entire network of Putin's influencers and tailor-made for Russian interests political movements in the West using the same communications and financial channels for advancement. Without Russian funding, they will stop to exist.

It is important to realize that ISIS is a network of mercenaries with an artificially created ideology and an artificially created syncretic religion tailored to the needs of a terrorist organization. The struggle against the deviant ideology and fake and instrumental religion should also be conducted on the Internet. Enough to block the channels of propaganda, recruitment, and funding, and ISIS will cease to exist without the Western ground operations. The main problem which will remain to resolve will be the rehabilitation of people with the already crippled psyche by the propaganda machine managed from Moscow.

By creating ISIS Russian not only blows up the Middle East to reshape it in its favor but gets rid of a potential Islamic rebellion against Moscow inside of Russia by externalizing terrorist threat (sending potential terrorists to Middle East) and channeling it against the West.