Available wherever military-grade weapons and services are sold

I've wondered before why government contractors like Raytheon and BAE advertise: they aren't selling products to consumers, and theoretically the people making purchasing decisions aren't going to base contracts worth billions of dollars on 30-second TV ads. But I think I've found the answer: in case any of their deals come under public scrutiny. Essentially, it's a PR hedge against unflattering information surfacing in the media. The ads both soften up the public, and – I would assume – make media bosses think twice before digging up dirt on their advertisers.

Active measures and the Right Reverend Wright

The Jeremiah Wright controversy has the potential to torpedo Obama's campaign, according to results of a poll published by the NYT. I find one of Wright's comments particularly interesting – that is, his belief that AIDS was/is a plot by the American government to decimate Africans and black Americans. Thanks to the Mitrokhin Archive and public acknowledgments by former Soviet officials, we can now say with some certainty that this conspiracy was deliberately propagated by Soviet secret services.  They were part of the broader strategy of active measures which the Soviets were quite fond of – contemporary FSB support of Chechen terrorists and al-Qaeda would fall under the same category. Anyway, I just found it incredible that Soviet active measures from decades ago are still working so well to stir up racial tension in America.

Sochi fails to impress

In continuing with the dictatorships and their Olympics dreams theme, a story from the Moscow Times (via La Russophobe – a blog brimming with depressing news about Russia) talks about the Russians' troubles in Sochi. In the world of Olympics politics, Russia had to at least be given a Winter Olympics, and so the southern resort city of Sochi will host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Though Putin did better than Aliyev in Azerbaijan in that he actually got the Olympics, it appears there is trouble with the construction. The IOC commission was a bit concerned when accusations of mismanagement and cost overruns started showing up in the media. But now, apparently the head of the oh-so-Sovietly named state corporation "Olimpstroi" has resigned amidst the scandal:

When Vainshtok resigned last Thursday, government officials said the change in command had been planned in advance and would not affect the pace of preparations.

But a flurry of subsequent media reports suggested that Vainshtok had quit because he realized the task was too unwieldy.

"It is very difficult to make Sochi an Olympic city," an unidentified official said, RIA-Novosti reported. "There are many infrastructure limitations – no electricity, no roads, no way to get cargoes there needed for building."

Hint to future authoritarians considering hosting the Olympics: it's not worth the embarrassment.

Communist party PR: who can, who can't

China has reaffirmed its total ineptitude with handing PR on an international scale in claiming the Dalai Lama is orchestrating suicide attacks. It looks like China will be spared a Taiwanese declaration of independence during the Olympics, but I doubt the Tibet crisis will be the last one before the end of the games in late August. I think China has grossly overplayed its hand in hosting the Olympics – at least in America, China is the villain du jour because of the latest anti-globalization backlash provoked by the longer-than-ever presidential election season. Europe has a similar antagonism, divided between intellectuals who look down on their human rights abuses and lack of freedom, and those who have been riled up by protectionist sentiment. The CCP has become so sure of its propaganda techniques at home that thinks that they'll work against world audiences. The truth is that they probably don't even work in China – the threat of the state coming down is strong enough to coax people into either apolitical or pro-party stances. I don't see this at all helping China anywhere where it matters (i.e., advanced democracies). In the rest of the world, the power and money is in the hands of people who aren't particularly concerned with China's big coming out party.

China ought to take a page from Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania's totalitarian dictator. The Soviets had taught him well, and he turned on the Soviet Union (at least publicly) and managed to be the only communist dictator to secure Most Favored Nation trade privileges from the US. He knew that identifying a common enemy was key to obtaining favors from the West (at least till he went too far and squandered it all in the late '80s), and that allowed him to do some pretty terrible things. Essentially, Ceaușescu courted the West by railing against the Soviets, all in order to cover up behavior that was for more anti-liberal than anything in the USSR after Stalin.

Putin used the same model, and anti-terrorism was what he used to get Bush to look into his eyes and "get a sense of his soul" – and it was a good sense. Meanwhile, it's likely that Russia fabricated a lot of the attacks that were supposedly perpetrated by "Chechen terrorists." The apartment bombings that were the direct cause of the Second Chechen war were most likely black flag operations by the KGB FSB. Moscow theater crisis, too.

Of course, dictatorships have no monopoly on disingenuous PR. America has clearly provoked, if not intentionally, a lot of Islamic terrorism against itself, all in the name of rooting it out. Thankfully for Americans, it doesn't do nearly as well with PR than the dictatorships.