The Folly and the Glory by Tim Weiner
Although Weiner’s book traces the history of the US’s relations with Russia, focusing mostly on the Cold War, it is a timely book since he ends with an overview of the Russian influence on our elections and social fabric. What is fascinating about this book is how Russia has taken some of the practices from the CIA about election interference, working to destabilize countries and use the press to spread disinformation and perfected them to attain their ends. I’m not sure if that speaks to the increasing need for information literacy in schools, to make sure that the future generations are savvy enough to understand propaganda and make informed decisions about the information they encounter online, or whether it really speaks to the downward trend of the US’s intelligence organizations in the world. Nonetheless, this was a well-researched and fascinating history of the Cold War, the intelligence tactics used by both the US and Russia, and where it has led us today. In addition, Weiner not only focuses on the US and Russia, but emphasizes how other countries were used and manipulated by the US and Russian intelligence agencies to gain power and standing during the Cold War. Sadly, we often see how the US and more often its intelligence agencies were on the wrong side of history, whether it was giving up Mandela to South African officials, ordering the murder of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, or William Barr’s pardons of war criminals like Caspar Weinberger. A few other interesting parts of the book that I knew less about was how the US aided the Solidarity group in Poland, providing them with printing presses to broadcast their message. It was also interesting to learn more about Putin’s own rise to power and how he consolidated power and transformed Russia. It is a timely book that helped me understand more about how and why Russia interfered in the recent election. Like Weiner's other books about the CIA and the FBI, this book explores some of the hidden history of these agencies and the work they have done to affect hearts and minds, not only in the US but in other regions. However, this book also explores the impact of those campaigns to create regime change and shows how Russia ended up perfecting some of these approaches to, in turn, influence our own elections.
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
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