Bill Tallen

In 1915 — the first full year of World War I — British government propagandists spread lurid tales of atrocities by German soldiers in their march across Belgium. They contained horrific art and “eyewitness” stories of mass rape and murder of civilians, babies bouncing on bayonets and the like. Many were outright lies; those based on verifiable reports were routinely exaggerated. 

Their intent was to strengthen public support for Britain’s involvement in the war, and to draw America and other nations into the war on their side. Books, pamphlets, posters and newspaper stories were the period equivalent of modern social media and internet, cable and broadcast news.

War is serious and brutal business. General Sherman had it right in 1863: “War is Hell.” Bad stuff happens. But despite the 20-plus years of ‘forever war’ that followed the 9/11 attacks, in modern America we don’t understand much about war. Less than 0.8% of Americans are presently serving in the military, living veterans total only 7% of the population, and most military members never see combat up close. We don’t teach history well, so even a vicarious understanding of the nature of war is rare.

Fast forward to the present day, and look at how Western governments and their compliant media have characterized the war in Ukraine, how public opinion has been shaped. The U.S. and NATO chose to assist Ukraine with military aid to keep the war going, and to forbid a negotiated settlement. To ensure popular support required a demonization of Russia much like the treatment of Germany in 1915. We have been fed a daily diet, since 2022, of atrocity stories and provocations. 

We hear about every Russian artillery shell or rocket that results in a civilian casualty. If military operations in an urban area, involving thousands of troops on both sides and the exchange of massive firepower, results in one round hitting an apartment building, it is reported as intentional and probably “genocidal” Russian savagery — unless of course it was American ammunition fired by Ukrainian troops killing Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Every minor success of Ukrainian forces is trumpeted around the world, while their failures and defeats are ignored. Russian losses are exaggerated and celebrated, while Ukrainian military casualties are largely unreported, unless in a play for our sympathy. Reporting on this war, in the West, has been as biased, inaccurate and unreliable as the propaganda of 1915.

Recently our media breathlessly reported that Russia struck “a city” (never a military target in a city) with an “ICBM” or “Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.” Who first called it that? Ukrainian military spokesmen. Why? Because Ukraine has been working ceaselessly since the Russian invasion in 2022 to pull us into a direct role in the war — to bring three nuclear-armed nations (U.S., U.K. and France) and the rest of NATO into direct combat against Russia, which has the largest inventory of nuclear weapons on earth. 

Since 1945, there have been many wars fought around the world — small ones by the standards of 1945 but serious enough for those involved. None of them have involved two nuclear powers in direct conflict, because even the bitterest enemies have had a clear understanding of where that would very likely lead, either intentionally or accidentally, according to the “remorseless logic of war” — somewhere none of us want to go. Ukraine’s leadership evidently doesn’t care, and neither does Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO leadership. 

Since our recent election, this campaign of propaganda and incitement has accelerated, as shown by this calculated exaggeration of a single Russian missile strike in that ongoing war. The next day, it was admitted on the back pages that it was not an ICBM after all, but only a medium range ballistic missile with a conventional explosive warhead, functionally little different from what Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Russia and yes, Ukraine use almost daily. Moreover, Russia informed the U.S. before the missile was launched, as has been a common, cautious courtesy between the two nations for decades. 

To distract from the mounting Ukrainian strikes into Russia with British and U.S.-supplied missiles, the next Western media play was to claim that Russia had threatened a nuclear strike on a base in Poland — a NATO member — that houses U.S. missiles. Not so. Read the actual words from Russia’s foreign ministry, and you see there was no such threat. Nor is there any imaginable reason for Russia to want a war, nuclear or not, with all of NATO.

Somebody seems bound and determined to start World War III. Will adults in the room please stand up and stop them before Inauguration Day next January? The War Party was defeated; it should graciously stand down.

(Bill Tallen earned a master's degree in National Security and Strategic Studies at the United States Naval War College in 2007.)