A Tale Of Two Summits
A Serene Swiss Scene Versus A Manic Mean Girls Get-Together
Coming Monday: I’ll be adding a new class to the the Foreign Influence Operations course. The class will offer tips and resources to help us become better consumers of information. Because in the end, information literacy is the only thing that will save us. Have a great weekend!
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ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
Two important summits took place this week, both related to the conflict in Ukraine. Representatives from nearly 100 countries gathered in Obbürgen, Switzerland, for the Ukraine Peace Summit. Five thousand miles east, Kim Jong Un—the only fat person in North Korea™—welcomed Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang.
The Swiss gathering, like most Swiss things, was kind of boring. About 80 countries agreed on paper that, yeah, Ukraine is a sovereign country and should remain so. But a lot of countries couldn’t go even that far, with several delegations refusing to sign the summit’s end document. It stands in contrast to March 2022, when 141 countries at the UN called on Russian troops to leave Ukraine. That so few signed on to the new document shows just how much geopolitics have shifted in the last two years.
Many attendees who refused to sign the Swiss document hail from Africa and likely didn’t want to offend their new Russian and Chinese overlords, who have been spreading their influence (and violence) across the continent for some time now. For background on this, see my essay on Africa.
Of course, Russia was not invited to the peace summit, mostly because it is choosing war, not peace [insert your own Dostoevsky joke here]. And the Russians weren’t jealous at all about everyone getting together to talk about them behind their backs. Here’s a tweet from the spokeswoman of Russia’s Foreign Ministry:
Meow! Those sarcastic air quotes hit hard.
Not to be outdone by a “gathering” that had beautiful views of mountains dotted with cows and where attendees presumably were given gift bags full of chocolate, Riccolas, and tiny knives, the actual purveyors of the war decided to pull a Mean Girls move and have their own “get-together,” without all those peace-loving lame-os.
Clap Hard Or Die
Pyongyang was where it was at this week. Kim—and his ever expanding cheeks—greeted Putin with masses of forced clappers, who looked scared out of their minds they would be shot on the spot if they didn’t appear to be applauding hard enough for the Supreme Leader and his new bestie.
It is hard to digest that such scenes still exist today, in a world where in the not-so-distant past we thought we had reached “the end of history,” that everyone had discovered the sweet nectar of democracy and wanted to suck it down forever. Alas, dictatorships and the cult of personality that accompany them are alive and kicking, and waving flowers, and clapping frantically.
The duo went for a joy ride, played with puppies, and pet horses before their sad goodbye (I added my own soundtrack).
The budding bromance bred a mutual defense pact, with Putin and Kim vowing to come to the other’s aid should either be attacked. However, it is unclear if Kim has anything more to offer than poop balloons, as I Ranted about last week, given that his economy remains isolated from pretty much anything that might make money.
Putin, for his part, also seems short on cash. The guy can’t even pay his troll farms anymore, as became apparent this week when one of his disinformation bots glitched because the account ran out of credits. Instead of doing what it was told, the bot simply retweeted the ChatGPT prompt it had been given in Russian, revealing that it was being programmed to argue in favor of Trump in English. For more on the incident, here’s a fun video explaining it.
Kim was also probably pretty jealous about the “get-together” he was not invited to in Switzerland. After all, Switzerland has endless amounts of cheese, and North Korea does not. Kim has a soft spot for Swiss cheese, with which he began a lifelong love affair while attending boarding school there as a child.
The Orc In Nork (Thank you to Toomas Hendrick Ilves for this headline)
In addition to the mutual defense pact, Putin and Kim’s meeting led to another outcome: South Korea announcing it will now consider sending weapons to Ukraine. Until now, it had only sent non-lethal aid. But after watching the two dictators with a skewed definition of “defense”—remember, Putin paints his “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine as a defensive action—pledge allegiance to each other, South Korea came to the conclusion it needed to step up its game with its own allies. I’m not sure that was the outcome Kim and Putin were going for.
Despite the pomp and circumstance and North Koreans over exerting themselves in forced idolatry, the lavish display in Pyongyang revealed just how desperate Putin is. He is so isolated, the only person he can turn to is the head of the most isolated country on Earth. Putin went to the Hermit Kingdom to ask the head hermit to help him. Hardly the sign of someone who is winning.
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of things you should be reading
CORRUPTION AND A FREE PRESS
Washington Post publisher alleged to have advised Boris Johnson to ‘clean up’ phone during Partygate Covid scandal (The Guardian)
CORRUPTION AND THE US ELECTION
Roger Stone Touts Plan for Trump Win: ‘Lawyers, Judges, Technology’ (Rolling Stone)
DISINFORMATION AND THE US ELECTION
‘Cheapfake’ Biden videos enrapture right-wing media, but deeply mislead (Washington Post)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
I think the source of calories for KJU are those who don't clap with sufficient vigor