We’re in a “shaping phase” right now, as Alex Vindman has indicated on MSNBC. There will be “shock and awe” attacks, likely aerial bombardment with casualties, and then there will be a ‘new’ ceasefire. This will likely happen after the meeting between SecState Blinken and MFA Lavrov.
The Neo-cons at the Institute for (the study of) War now have this prognosis:
Feb 18, 2022 - Press ISW
Russia will likely attack Ukraine before February 21, 2022. The Kremlin has deployed sufficient military forces and set informational conditions to conduct offensive operations including limited incursions into unoccupied Ukraine, a comprehensive air and missile campaign, and large-scale mechanized drives on Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities.
We’re still in a battle of process and media framing. because of Georgia 2008, Crimea in 2014, and now 2022. This is presently a form of what experts call Russian “reflexive control”, and is key to understanding how hybrid war doctrine operates or more importantly, how the information campaign proceeds. Even a look back at the US Civil War battle of Vicksburg tells us how the battle space is more than ground combat.
WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Friday the United States has intelligence showing that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has made a final decision to invade Ukraine, rejecting the final efforts of diplomacy.
“We have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning to, intend to, attack Ukraine in the coming week, in the coming days,” Mr. Biden said in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. “We believe that they will target Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people.”
Asked whether he thinks that Mr. Putin is still wavering about whether to invade, Mr. Biden said: “I’m convinced he’s made the decision.” Later he added that his impression of Mr. Putin’s intentions is based on U.S. intelligence.
The president’s comments, the second in three days, are the clearest indications of just how close the world may be to a catastrophic conflict in Europe. Previously, the president and his top national security aides have said they did not know whether Mr. Putin had made a final decision to follow through with his threat of an invasion.
Still, Mr. Biden implored Russia to “choose diplomacy.”
www.nytimes.com/...
Reflexive Control
Reflexive control is a “uniquely Russian” concept based on maskirovka, an old Soviet notion in which one “conveys to an opponent specifically prepared information to incline him/her to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action”.[ii] That is, reflexive control is a sustained campaign that feeds an opponent select information so that the opponent makes the decisions that one wants him/her to. Methods of reflexive control include spreading false information, leaking partial information at opportune moments, and projecting a different posture of oneself than what may actually be the case.[iii] The goal of reflexive control is to ‘control’ the ‘reflex’ of the opponent by creating a certain model of behavior in the system it seeks to control.[iv] The most fundamental way to do this is to locate the weak link in the system and exploit it through moral arguments, psychological tactics, or appeals to specific leaders’ character.[v]
This concept has a long history in Russian military strategy, with the Soviet and Russian Armed Forces studying reflexive control at both the tactical and operational levels.[vi] Reflexive control has also long been taught at various Russian military schools and training programs, and is codified as Russian national security strategy in the Gerasimov Doctrine.[vii] Today, reflexive control is a key component in Russia’s idea of hybrid warfare.
Russia’s actions in Ukraine in 2014 offer a recent example of how Russia has employed reflexive control in its military operations. During this campaign, Russia attempted to disguise the presence of Russian forces by deploying men in uniforms without insignia and concealed its goals and involvement by publicly denying Russian participation. On other fronts, Russia simultaneously continued to threaten NATO and the West through overflights and hinting at the use of nuclear weapons.[viii] Together, these acts constitute a ‘denial and deception’ operation consistent with the concept of reflexive control. While the success of these actions is debatable, ultimately Russia achieved what it set out to do: Russia projected the Ukraine campaign as a response to NATO expansion, dissuaded the West from getting involved, and managed to drum up support amongst Russians in Ukraine by framing the violence as bottom-up.
georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/...
The following is used in reflexive control:
- Hiding and distorting the true situation. This is one of the most effective methods of reflexive control. He concluded in the filing of misinformation.
- Formation of a competitor's goal. The means to implement this method are provocations, ideological sabotage, insidious "friendly advice", etc.
- Formation of doctrine for a competitor’s decision. Sometimes it is transmitted in the form of ordinary prescriptions. For example, if A, then B. And. The most effective common method for the formation of the enemy’s doctrine is his training. For this, for example, for some time a product with low competitiveness has entered the market. The enemy gets used to this state of affairs and does not take any steps. At some point, side A begins to saturate the market with high-quality goods. This leads her competitor to economic collapse.
- Demonstration of false intentions. The objectives of companies in the market are different. The most global of them consist in the ruin of a competitor and the seizure of his property. Private goals imply ousting the enemy for complete mastery of the market. When applying the method of demonstrating false intentions, Party A somewhat weakens its activities in a certain segment of the market. By this, she is trying to create a basis for the adversary to make a false decision caused by the allegedly vacated niche. After further carrying out serious economic operations in this place, side A will have an indispensable success.
- Imposing your own point of view. The means of this method are conscious discharges to a competitor of specially prepared information about their financial situation.
eng.mentorbizlist.com/…
Even the Civil War Battle of Vicksburg can demonstrate how reflexive control works.
True victory in military operations arises through the acceptance of defeat by one of the antagonists. Despite this, military decision making frequently devolves into analysis of things over thoughts. Reflexive control theory provides an insight into human cognition that can help address this tendency. Reflexive control is “a means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to incline him to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action.” This creates opportunity for cognitive maneuver within assumptions and risk whereby military leaders attack the decision calculus of others within their problem-set. This occurs intuitively within human interaction; however, it receives little emphasis in western military thinking. Military leaders should understand the employment of and defense against reflexive control within operational art. With this view toward the future, Grant’s masterful Vicksburg campaign informs us of these risks and opportunities from the past.
othjournal.com/…