Governing by fake news

When fake news is used by Western countriesForeign policy seems to escape all rationality. We engage in conflicts without precise objectives, destroying societies for no clear reason. From Afghanistan to Mali, our strategies are nothing but an erratic series of tactical actions, we look for solutions to our perceptions, not to the reality on the ground. We demonstrate for migrants, but not against the Western strikes that drive them into exile. Millions of people have taken to the streets to demonstrate their anger at terrorism, but how many demonstrated before the strikes provoked this violence, when we knew the consequences?The cause of these dysfunctions is information that is most often deliberately truncated to protect ill-considered decisions, guided by ambition and short-term visions. What we take for certainties are often only crude deceptions.In the jungle of information and fake news used by Western governments, intelligence services have an essential role in providing an objective picture of the situation, which is indispensable for rational decision-making. We will see where they have failed... well before terrorism and wars... Jacques Baud was a member of the Swiss strategic intelligence. A specialist in Eastern countries and head of UN peace operations doctrine, he was engaged in negotiations with the highest Russian military and intelligence officials just after the fall of the USSR. Within NATO, he followed the 2014 Ukrainian crisis and then participated in assistance programs to Ukraine. Author of several books, including Operation Z, The Navalny Affair and Putin: Master of the Game? published by Max Milo.