Deploying reality against Putin

THE INTERNET, microchips and semiconductors are all products of American defence spending during the cold war. Another, less well-known, is a school of social psychology that President Joe Biden has drawn on heavily in recent weeks. It has been evident in his administration’s remarkable openness with intelligence in both its diplomacy and public messaging on Ukraine.

This effort started shortly after the administration concluded last October that Vladimir Putin’s military build-up was an invasion plan. It began reclassifying the supporting intelligence in order to make it widely available within NATO. From early December, when it published an intelligence assessment that Russia meant to invade Ukraine with 175,000 troops in early 2022, it applied the same tactic to its communications. For example, it released details of a supposed Russian plot to topple Ukraine’s government and another to create a pretext for invading eastern Ukraine by means of a “very graphic propaganda video” of fake attacks by Ukrainian troops “which would include corpses and actors who would be depicting mourners”. Naturally, Russia denied it. The administration also released alleged intercepts of Russian officers complaining that the Americans were broadcasting their schemes.

A senior administration official explains this “unprecedented”...