DISINFO: NATO’s Steadfast Defender exercise is a brainwashing operation to justify war
SUMMARY
NATO is brainwashing Western society with its anti-Russia wargames. Steadfast Defender 2024, the bloc’s largest exercise in decades, is not only about military cohesion – it’s about selling war to the people. The exercise was preceded by a veritable onslaught of propaganda - or in up-to-date NATO-speak, cognitive warfare. One dead give-away that this has been deliberate is that the Western think tank/information-war platform the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is already accusing Russia of engaging in “an information operation to misrepresent” the purely “defensive” Steadfast Defender. Remember the old rule of thumb: Usually, what the West accuses others of doing is what it is doing itself.
RESPONSE
Conspiracy theory not backed by any evidence, aiming to promote several recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about a belligerent NATO.
The Steadfast Defender 2024 military exercises aim to “demonstrate [NATO’s] ability to deploy forces rapidly from North America and other parts of the Alliance to reinforce the defence of Europe” and show that it “can conduct and sustain complex multi-domain operations over several months, across thousands of kilometres, from the High North to Central and Eastern Europe, and in any conditions”, and to signal “NATO’s commitment to collective defence and send a robust message about its readiness to protect all Allies in the face of emerging threats”. Several European military leaders have framed the exercises as deterrence for Russia not to attack any NATO member, as a direct reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the growing awareness of the threat it may pose to other countries.
See other examples in our database, such as claims that NATO defence efforts are irresponsible and can lead to real warfare, that Baltic states are provoking Russia by hosting foreign troops, that NATO is boosting its presence in the Baltic Sea to provoke Russia, and that NATO may invade Russia after the war in Ukraine.