This Unclassified Slide Deck provides an overview of the concept of Reflexive Control Doctrine as it is used as a national strategy by the Russian Federation. It describes exactly how and what was done to "influence" the election differentiating the from the notion of actual "collusion." Disinformation, misinformation, fake news as a campaign strategy is vastly different from actually affecting an outcome by active measures such as bribery, blackmail or hacking.

1. By
Greg Kleponis, Ph.D (c)LL.M, MA Col, USAF (ret)
Russia’s Role in the 2016 Election
Disinformation & Reflexive Control Theory
Unclassified1

2. Overview- What Actually Did Russia Do?
 US Media & Pundits et al. are getting this wrong
 Words like “collusion,” “rigged” and “hacked” miss the point and
inaccurately describe what Russia actually did.
 Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) –Russia or Russian actors DID
attempt to influence the US Elections but not for an “outcome”
but as part of an overarching and more damaging strategy.
 Nearly 4 months after election- US Policy makers and political
researchers remained confused over Russia’s possible involvement
 Conflating “attempting to influence” with actual “outcomes” again-
misses the point and intentionally or unintentionally confuses the
public.
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3. Pssst……Its Not Just About Hacking
 Phenomenon may be new to American politics but it’s an old
strategy in the Kremlin
 To understand what happened and combat the effects and
goals of disinformation- we must understand the concept of
“Reflexive Control” and how it fits in Russian Strategy
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4. Reflexive Control
 Uniquely Russian Concept based on “Moskirovka” – old Soviet strategy
 “Conveys to an opponent specifically prepared information to incline him to
voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the
action”
 Sustained campaign that feeds an opponent select information so that
opponent makes the decision that one wants him to.
 Methods:
 Spreading false information
 Leaking partial information
 Projecting false postures
 Manipulating social groups against one another
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5. • The Essential Goal:
• “To ‘control’ the ‘reflex’ of the opponent by creating a certain
model of behavior in the system it seeks to control”
• Concept has a long history in Russian Military Strategy with Soviet
and Russians Armed Forces studying at tactical and operational
levels.
• Codified as Russian National Security Strategy in the “Gerasimov
Doctrine” Today-a key part of Russia’s new hybrid warfare
• Examples:
• Russia actions in Ukraine- denial and deception
• Currently underway in Baltics- pitting ethnicities against one
another emphasizing “bottom-up” generated animosity rather
than “top-down” orchestrated.
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6. Reflexive Control in US Elections
 Russia employed these tactics in American elections
 Russia produced false information by utilizing botnets, paid
human “trolls” and fake news articles and sites
 Examples:
 Stories of Clinton’s Ill Health
 “Fake Trump Protestor” (supposedly paid by HRC campaign)
 Russian fake sites
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7. Reflexive Control in US Elections
 False Assumptions:
 That this was done deliberately to help Trump win
 Fails to explain for broader RC strategy
 Maybe they wanted Trump BUT RC is aimed more broadly at
manipulating and undermining a state’s decision-making process.
 Russia's goal is not to elect a certain candidate but undermine
the democratic decision-making process to “win” it’s info war
against the West.
 This will continue for the foreseeable future to undermine our
system
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8. Is It Working?
 To repeat RC is designed to get others to react voluntarily in a
way the is most advantageous to you
 US public trust in government at all time low
 US public trust in “Main Stream Media” – nearly non-existent
 Faith in Capitalist Institutions on the decline
 Polarization of Political parties at all time high
 Gridlock in Congress-See last slide on undermining the decision
making process.
 Street violence between polarized groups increasing
 Average person now views the opposing political party- “The Enemy”
 Intra state conflict lexicon creeping into everyday use.
 Resistance
 Hate Groups, Nazis, Alt Right, Hard Left,
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9. Is It Working?
 If the Russian Federations goal really is to destabilize the
political and social fabric of the United States at minimum
effort and cost they could hardly have done a better job.
 Part of RC is to identify weak points to exploit
 Already a divided nation on class, race and political views
 Minimum effort required to destabilize trust in an already
distrustful society.
 Members of the media, extreme Left and the President are
fanning the flames of hatred and mistrust that the RF ignited
 “Useful Idiots” although a term never attributed to Lenin or
used in the Soviet Union.
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10. The Way Forward -Truth from
Falsehood
 Given “rapid” and “repetitive” nature of Russian
disinformation, US cannot combat through traditional
counter-propaganda
 Psych studies show that when brain is exposed to same info
continuously-begins to perceive info as true-regardless of
contradictory evidence
 Simply pointing out Russian disinformation – will not work
 To ‘win’ info war and combat Russian influence , US must
invest in cyber security, discredit platforms that have shown
to propagate false information
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11. • Raise awareness on the psychological effects of disinformation
• Cooperate with allies to generate pro-West content
• Investing in cyber security includes strengthening policies to protect
national data bases
• Better incorporating cyber into our war and national security
strategies
• Facilitating public-private cooperation to combat disinformation on
social media
• Discredit fake news platforms
• Raising awareness of the psychological effects will be difficult because
it requires training people to recognize truth from falsehood (how to
you do that?) Education/experience levels of populaces
• US needs to spend more time dissecting reflexive control as a concept
to fully understand Russia's holistic view of warfare and recognize
Russia's election meddling is not an isolated incident.
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12. In The Meantime
 President, politicians and media should take the lead in re-
instating the positive narrative of the US- stop being divisive
 Media especially not only need to refrain from self-serving
politically motivated narratives posing as “news” but also
work together to identify “fake news”, fake platforms,
disinformation as a public service
 Citizenry need to arm themselves with knowledge and do
their own research to resist disinformation
 Not “bloody likely”
 Confusion and “alternative facts” remain- effects of
disinformation and meddling are fast taking hold
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13. Conclusion
 Reflexive Control seeks to do one thing first!
 Define the point of entry- the “unlocked lock” -the weak link
 Right now the media, political class and newly created
divisions in society ARE the weak links.
 Everyone needs to calm down – reassess priorities
 Consider not the short term of what has happened but what
IS happening and what the long term results will be.
 The Russians are winning.
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