The U.S. Senate Armed Forces Committee approved the draft National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2021, which begins October 1, 2020.
The document was supported by 25 senators, two members of the committee spoke out against. Now he will be sent to consider the entire composition of the Senate. According to the bill, about $ 740 billion is planned to be allocated for defense.
The leitmotif of the document is the strategic competition of the USA with the Russian Federation and China. According to the authors of the initiative, both Washington’s geopolitical opponents oppose American values - “freedom, democracy and peace”, as well as “seek to change the global order in their own interests.”
- Capitol Building
- Reuters
- © Erin Scott
The document reflected the events that began in the United States in late May. Recall that in the country protests do not cease, sometimes turning into riots: demonstrators demand an end to the arbitrariness of the police against the black population.
A wave of protests was provoked by a video recording that hit the Internet in May - random witnesses recorded the arrest by police of 46-year-old African American George Floyd. The policeman pressed the man’s neck with his knee, despite the detainee’s complaints and the indignation of those gathered around the passers-by. Floyd later died in a hospital.
“Fake statements and zero facts”
The authors of the draft defense budget are demanding information on the support that Russia allegedly provides to extremists inciting interracial hatred.
The priority of strategic rivalry with Russia and China “requires the provision of information on the support that Russia provides to violent extremist groups and networks operating on racial and ethnic grounds in Europe and the United States, and which directly or indirectly leads to an increase in threats to national security and an increase in the scale of the information war and the growing number of threats to social stability and democratic institutions, ”the document says.
Recall, earlier about such claims against Moscow, said the former national security adviser to former US President Barack Obama Susan Rice. True, she accused Russia more of inciting the protesters through social networks than of sponsoring radical groups.
- Susan Rice
- Reuters
- © Aaron P. Bernstein
“The handwriting of Russia is felt in what is happening. We cannot allow extremists and foreign actors to distract us from the genuine problems that exist in our country, ”Rice told CNN.
In her opinion, a number of states have long been trying to sow discord in American society.
“They take any controversial painful problem and incite both sides. Their goal is not just to put the United States in an awkward position, but to cause a split in our country, ”the former adviser to the President of the United States emphasized.
Rice’s words didn’t go unnoticed in Moscow: Russian President’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov called such statements “insinuations.”
Rice also commented on the Russian Foreign Ministry. Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that Rice is trying to repeat the 2016 mistake when the Democrats tried to accuse Russia of losing to Hillary Clinton in the US presidential election.
“You are trying to repeat this mistake today, resorting to CNN’s journalist to dirty methods of information manipulation: fake statements and zero facts to support them,” Zakharova emphasized, recalling that the social networks through which Russia allegedly affects the mood of Americans are registered in the USA .
Meanwhile, some media have picked up the version of Russia's influence on events in the United States. So, the American publication Politico published in early June a material accusing Moscow and Beijing of allegedly inciting protests in the United States through the media and social networks.
"Now Russia is doing the same as usual," - quotes Bret Schaffer, a specialist in media and digital disinformation from the Washington-based analytical center Alliance for the Defense of Democracy (refers to the German Marshall Fund of the United States *).
It is noteworthy that Russia is blamed on the fact that its media cover the situation with the protests. The authors of the publication scrupulously calculated how many times Russian and Chinese news agencies posted information on events in the USA on social networks.
For example, the Spanish edition of RT was reproached for regularly publishing news about the crisis in the United States.
- Riots in Charlottesville
- Reuters
- © Joshua Roberts
At the same time, the authors of the article note that the Russian and Chinese media did not publish false information, but at the same time actively disseminated "sowing discord" content.
Similar statements were also made by the American news publication Axios, which published material about alleged attempts by the Russian Federation to take advantage of America’s racial problems.
"Russia's tactics are nothing new - its intelligence services use disinformation to cynically exacerbate racial tensions in the United States since the Cold War," the material said.
At the same time, the publication notes that it is not Moscow, but the Americans themselves, that are to blame for the problems that American society faces.
Right turn
At the same time, US authorities are looking for a more “material” threat from the Russian Federation than its alleged activity on social networks. So, in April, the State Department included the Russian Imperial Movement (RID), a group of Russian right-wing conservative monarchists advocating for the "restoration of the Russian autocratic monarchy" through the establishment of a "Russian national dictatorship," as a terrorist organization.
“The Russian imperial movement provides militarized training for supporters of the ideas of the superiority of the white race and neo-Nazis in Europe and is active in rallying such groups into a united front in the face of those whom they consider their enemies,” the State Department said in a statement.
American officials refrained from direct accusations of RID ties with the Russian authorities, however, subsequently responding to the reaction of the Russian Foreign Ministry to this step, the State Department rebuked Moscow in supporting terrorists and called for an end to "propaganda."
- Activists of the Traditionalist Worker Party
- Reuters
- © Stephanie Keith
Subsequently, the German media disseminated information that the RID organized military training on the basis of DOSAAF, where ultra-right activists from Europe came.
RID was also seen in contacts with American radicals. So, in 2017, activists of the organization traveled to the United States at the invitation of the Traditionalist Worker Party, an extreme right neo-Nazi organization. She, in particular, took part in the events of 2017 in Charlottesville.
At the same time, the Traditionalist Worker Party was not subjected to any sanctions by the US authorities and self-dissolved in 2018.
Experts say that American intelligence agencies sometimes use local radicals to solve some non-trivial tasks.
“Therefore, their structures operate freely, and sometimes even strengthened with the help of shadow financing. As for the search for extremists sponsored by Russia, this is simply an attempt by the US authorities to divert public attention from internal problems, ”said Alexei Mukhin, director of the Center for Political Information, in an interview with RT.
From the point of view of analysts, in reality, the ideological nuances are of little interest to US authorities. It is precisely foreign affiliation or “ties” with Russia that are of key importance, said Andrei Manoilo, a member of the Scientific Council under the Security Council of Russia, doctor of political sciences, in an interview with RT.
“The task of the defense budget is clear: to find any extremist groups that can be accused of receiving help from Russia. There is no ideological connotation, only a political one. Russia is accused of being directly interested in destabilizing the US political situation with any tools, ”the expert said in an interview with RT.
In his opinion, efforts to find the “Russian threat” are now aimed at launching a campaign to shift responsibility for the unrest in the United States to the Russian Federation.
“It is very convenient to say that the purely internal protests are somehow inspired by Russia. The problem is that when the protests began in the United States, both federal and local authorities were simply at a loss. Now they are looking for excuses in order to ultimately find those responsible for these events outside the country, ”Manoilo explained.
A similar point of view is shared by professor at the Higher School of Economics Dmitry Evstafiev. As he emphasized in an interview with RT, the call to find some "extremists" connected with Russia "indicates that the US is trying to promote a" new campaign against Moscow. "
“True, if we follow this logic, we must admit that today the main“ extremist ”organization in the USA is the Democratic Party, which supports the protests. Well, Russia probably controls it - only such absurd conclusions can be drawn from such accusations, ”the expert summed up.
* The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF; German Marshall Fund of the United States) (USA)) is an organization whose activities are deemed undesirable in the territory of the Russian Federation by decision of the Attorney General's Office on March 20, 2018.