In the 1930s, ’40s, and early ’50s, Soviet intelligence operations in America centered around the clandestine collection of secret information by KGB agents inside the United States. At that time, there was little in terms of Soviet “active measures” being employed in America.

Soviet intelligence officers operating the the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s did not understand American politics and government very well, and most were smart enough to know that they only had a limited understanding, and that knowledge may have limited the temptation to

undertake active measures. That would, I think, change in later decades when, in the 1960s, Soviet intelligence thought it had gained a better understanding of American politics and society.

By the 1960s, the KGB was beginning to have an enhanced view of the nuances within America, a much-needed insight just as reflexive control theory was being developed in the USSR.

After initially rejecting reflexive control theory, the Russian military eventually began to take an interest. Although the KGB and the USSR were new to the concept of reflexive control, they had an intimate understanding of control in the general sense.

Reflexive control cannot be implemented on an adversary until a model has been built of the enemy’s psychological makeup. If you don’t understand how the enemy thinks and arrives at decisions, then you cannot manipulate them.

This modeling has three primary factors, which include modeling the enemy’s system of logical reasoning (usually some type of deductive logic for Western leaders), modeling specific character traits and personalities, and socio-cultural modeling.

Reflexive control consists of transmitting motives and grounds from the controlling entity to the controlled system that stimulate the desired decision. The goal of RC is to prompt the enemy to make a decision unfavorable to him. One must have an idea about how he thinks

For example, the U.S. military uses a process called the Military Decision Making Process, or MDMP. Another model used by tactical leaders is the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA) loop.

By examining these systems, the American decision-making process becomes quite clear to outside observers. Further information can be gleaned through espionage, such as the recruiting of human intelligence assets and information stolen using cyber-warfare techniques.

Refining reflexive control theory is that a single input of disinformation into the decision-making process is enough to achieve reflexive control. Feedback is not necessary to achieve reflexive control.

With an accurate model of the enemy’s decision-making process created, information can then be introduced into that process, which inclines the adversary toward taking an action that favors the home team’s strategy.

This information need not be false; it could also be true or half-true information. Reflexive control is extremely difficult to detect by an adversary, raising questions as to how much outside malevolent influence already exists within America’s political elite and military

command structure. However, several examples of reflexive control in action can be identified. For example we can logically (I have to ) bombing in Sarajevo. Within minutes of the bombing, CNN and other news outlets were reporting that a Serbian mortar attack had killed

many innocent people in the square. Later, crater analysis of the shells that impacted in the square, along with other supporting evidence, indicated that the incident did not happen as originally reported. This evidence also threw into doubt the identities of the

perpetrators of the attack. One individual close to the investigation, Russian Colonel Andrei Demurenko, Chief of Staff of Sector Sarejevo at the time, stated, “I am not saying the Serbs didn’t commit this atrocity. I am saying that it didn’t happen the way it was reported.”

U.S. and Canadian officer soon backed this position. Demurenko believed that the incident was an excellent example of reflexive control, in that the incident was made to look like it had happened in a certain way to confuse decision-makers.

Another excellent example of Soviet use of reflexive control theory occurred during the Cold War when the Soviet Union attempted to alter U.S. perceptions of the nuclear balance. The aim of this reflexive control operation was to convince the West that its missile capabilities

were far more formidable than they actually were. To do so, Soviet military authorities paraded fake ICBMs to deceive the West. The Soviets developed the fake missiles so as to make the warheads appear huge and to imply that the missile carried multiple warheads.

In this case, the Soviets understood their opponent’s reflexes. Soviet authorities realized that foreign attachés regularly attended these shows, since this was one of the few opportunities to obtain military information legally.

Moreover, since the Soviet Union did not even participate in arms control fairs, the parade held special significance for intelligence officers. After observing the parade, the Soviets knew that the attachés would then report their findings in great detail to Western intelligence

organs. In addition, the Soviets knew that members of the Western military-industrial complex also studied the parades closely.
However, the deception did not end here. The Soviets also prepared other disinformation measures so that when Western intelligence services began to

investigate the fake ICBMs, they would find collateral proof of their existence and would be led further astray. Ultimately, the aim was to prompt foreign scientists, who desired to copy the advanced technology, down a dead-end street, thereby wasting precious time and money.

How reflexive control influenced the U.S. presidential election

Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has a history of conducting covert influence campaigns focused on US presidential elections that have used intelligence officers and agents and press placements to disparage

candidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin. The Russian Federation inherited a cultural and institutional legacy from the Soviet era, one which includes reflexive control theory as put into practice by the KGB and now the FSB, GRU, and SVR.

The CIA and FBI both have a high level of confidence that the “Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.” The NSA has a moderate level of

confidence in this specific claim.

The report continues to state that, “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process,

denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.” That Putin preferred Trump is no surprise.

While the Trump campaign said they would work with Russia and even praised Putin on occasion, Hillary Clinton had a history of antagonism with the Russians. One notable example is when the U.S. government promised Putin not to remove Gaddafi during the NATO intervention in

Libya, a promise that was quickly broken. Clinton soon went on television to say, “we came, we saw, he died” with a laugh in reference to Gaddafi. This is one example. There are many others.

After Putin made a policy decision to undermine Clinton during the U.S. election,

he instructed the GRU to begin their campaign. Working through witting and unwitting cut-outs and patsies such as http://DCleaks.com , Wikileaks, and Guccifer 2.0, the GRU hacked into email accounts belonging to DNC members and leaked them into the public sphere.

The information leaked was true and accurate, the best type of propaganda, but the actor behind the leaks remained obscured. The leaking of stolen documents to Americans, knowing the public would be outraged with the Democratic party, is how the Russians achieved reflexive

control over a portion of America’s cognitive process. Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian government agencies, state-funded media, third-party

intermediaries, and paid social media users or ‘trolls.’

To believe that America’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies are all simply “shilling” for the now-defunct Hillary campaign simply defies any credibility at this point. By now, the damage is done,

and reflexive control (which we should recall requires no feedback loop) has taken place.

The second- and third-order effects now see the American government engaged in infighting amongst themselves.

“If Russia is managing to control our national reactions, that’s a significant

achievement. Russia doesn’t have to actually hack the election, because either way, regardless of what the truth is, they’re achieving their goals,” said US Psychological Operations NCO, Influence Consultant and NEWSREP contributor, Salil Puri.

“Essentially, the Russians got the Republicans to ignore them and got the Democrats to undermine their own credibility by advancing what appear to be conspiracy theories. To top it all off, the Russians also undermined confidence in our electoral system.

The Russians don’t care if they actually hacked anything, or if some high school kids in Utah did it, or if nothing happened at all. It doesn’t matter what they did or didn’t do, what matters is how we reacted to what we thought they might have done or not done.

They hijacked our cognitive processes.” Despite Russian denials and anger from the Trump campaign, “CIA is sticking to their guns on this, and Trump is attacking them; that much daylight between a President and the Intelligence Community is tragic, and no matter what,

that is a win for Russia.”
Why are Americans so susceptible to reflexive control?
When the American military or intelligence community talks about getting inside the enemy’s decision-making process, they are talking about taking action so quickly that the enemy is unable to

react fast enough to respond effectively. When the Russians talk about getting inside the decision-making process, they are talking about completely controlling that process from top to bottom without the person(s) making the decision even realizing that there is a foreign

presence inside their cognitive process. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that Americans prefer high technology shock-and-awe strategies, while Eastern cultures originating from Russia, China, and Iran are much more adept at various forms of unconventional warfare. By

comparison, America’s attempts at information operations and unconventional operations is quite infantile and underdeveloped. This is one reason, among many, that Americans are particularly susceptible to reflexive control.

Democracies are also at greater risk than other nations

Unlike in Russia or China, America tolerates open criticism of the government. Soviet propaganda experts are well aware of this tendency toward self-criticism and guilt in the democratic societies, and take full advantage of it in their literature aimed at the Western audience.

Totalitarians have understood that where democracy reigns it gives considerable weight to public opinion. That is why they who trample it underfoot in their own domain have no greater concern than to win it over in the other camp,

while the democracies who respect it abandon it to enemy propaganda without reacting…. totalitarianism moves ahead less on the conviction of its members than on the confusion of its opponents. Communist parties are merely firebrands, and the main effort of the Kremlin is to

pervert or weaken the fabric it sticks them into. While the Russians excel at reflexive control, active measures, and other forms of information operations, the United States is sorely lacking in the development of these capabilities.

In American defense and intelligence circles, a lot of people refer to reflexive control as ‘perception management’, but to me, that misunderstanding, how we prioritize the perception aspect of it, illuminates why we are so bad at it and they are so good.

They [Russians] don’t really care about perceptions, they care about reactions and they want to manage, or control, our reactions. Get your adversary to make decisions not in their interest, but yours, and you win without fighting.

In the United States, the organizations charged with conducting information operations are CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Defense, specifically Psychological Operations or PSYOP. America does not have a solid understanding of reflexive control theory,

much less a capability to conduct their own reflexive control operations. There is nothing even remotely close to it. We don’t have a high level influence cell working on these issues, and we need one. Even at CIA, political warfare, psychological warfare, information operations,

strategic influence, these are used primarily as tools for intelligence collection, just as the DoD uses them to support maneuver warfare. The State Department has a fairly new organization tasked with this [strategic messaging] but they are essentially bureaucrats led by a

Navy SEAL with, as far as we can tell, no real experience in these types of operations, and who focus on marketing and advertising as their models for influence. You don’t affect Nation States or Terrorist organizations using the same methodology you use to sell a middle aged

American man a Porsche.