France Mulled ‘Boots on The Ground’ in Ukraine For Months – Le Monde
The idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine was secretly discussed in Paris as early as last June, months before French President Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to keep all options on the table to defeat Russia, according to Le Monde.
The subject was raised at a defense council meeting in the Elysee Palace in June 2023, soon after Kiev launched its much-touted counteroffensive, the French newspaper wrote on Thursday.
“The role of the military is to always prepare the maximum number of possible options, in order to help with the political-military decision of the President of the Republic,”Chief of Staff of the French Army, Pierre Schill, told the paper. Macron’s recent public statements are “foremost a political and strategic message” to Russia about France’s “will and commitment,” rather than an escalation, the general argued.
Following a summit of Ukraine’s sponsors hosted in Paris in late February, Macron said there was no consensus on sending troops in any official manner, but claimed that “in terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything.”
READ MORE: French oppose Macron’s Ukraine NATO talk – poll
The controversial statement prompted a wave of objections from NATO members, including the US, UK, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic. The US-led bloc’s chief has declared outright that “NATO has no plans to send troops to Ukraine.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said there will be “no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil, who are sent there by European or NATO countries,” and that the bloc’s leaders were “unanimous as far as this question is concerned.”
However, the French leader has stood behind his words, repeatedly reiterating that nothing must be excluded to make sure that Russia is defeated in Ukraine.
READ MORE: German and French leaders ‘don’t get along’ – Bloomberg
“We must, with determination, will and courage, say that we are ready to use the means to achieve our objective – which is that Russia does not win,” Macron again said in a televised interview to TF1 and France 2 on Thursday. While refusing to draw red lines, Macron said France would never initiate an offensive against Russia, even as he called Moscow an “adversary.”
The latest rift between the leaders of France and Germany has exacerbated an already strained relationship, as Macron allegedly made his comments “against express wishes of Scholz’s office,”Bloomberg wrote early in March.
The heads of the two states are set to meet in Berlin on Friday in an effort to reduce tensions over Ukraine, Politico wrote on Wednesday, while Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will join the meeting later in the day.
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Separating Information From Disinformation: Threats From the AI Revolution
Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot distinguish fact from fiction. It also isn’t creative or can create novel content but repeats, repackages, and reformulates what has already been said (but perhaps in new ways).
I am sure someone will disagree with the latter, perhaps pointing to the fact that AI can clearly generate, for example, new songs and lyrics. I agree with this, but it misses the point. AI produces a “new” song lyric only by drawing from the data of previous song lyrics and then uses that information (the inductively uncovered patterns in it) to generate what to us appears to be a new song (and may very well be one). However, there is no artistry in it, no creativity. It’s only a structural rehashing of what exists.
Of course, we can debate to what extent humans can think truly novel thoughts and whether human learning may be based solely or primarily on mimicry. However, even if we would—for the sake of argument—agree that all we know and do is mere reproduction, humans have limited capacity to remember exactly and will make errors. We also fill in gaps with what subjectively (not objectively) makes sense to us (Rorschach test, anyone?). Even in this very limited scenario, which I disagree with, humans generate novelty beyond what AI is able to do.
Both the inability to distinguish fact from fiction and the inductive tether to existent data patterns are problems that can be alleviated programmatically—but are open for manipulation.
Manipulation and Propaganda
When Google launched its Gemini AI in February, it immediately became clear that the AI had a woke agenda. Among other things, the AI pushed woke diversity ideals into every conceivable response and, among other things, refused to show images of white people (including when asked to produce images of the Founding Fathers).
Tech guru and Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen summarized it on X (formerly Twitter): “I know it’s hard to believe, but Big Tech AI generates the output it does because it is precisely executing the specific ideological, radical, biased agenda of its creators. The apparently bizarre output is 100% intended. It is working as designed.”
There is indeed a design to these AIs beyond the basic categorization and generation engines. The responses are not perfectly inductive or generative. In part, this is necessary in order to make the AI useful: filters and rules are applied to make sure that the responses that the AI generates are appropriate, fit with user expectations, and are accurate and respectful. Given the legal situation, creators of AI must also make sure that the AI does not, for example, violate intellectual property laws or engage in hate speech. AI is also designed (directed) so that it does not go haywire or offend its users (remember Tay?).
However, because such filters are applied and the “behavior” of the AI is already directed, it is easy to take it a little further. After all, when is a response too offensive versus offensive but within the limits of allowable discourse? It is a fine and difficult line that must be specified programmatically.
It also opens the possibility for steering the generated responses beyond mere quality assurance. With filters already in place, it is easy to make the AI make statements of a specific type or that nudges the user in a certain direction (in terms of selected facts, interpretations, and worldviews). It can also be used to give the AI an agenda, as Andreessen suggests, such as making it relentlessly woke.
Thus, AI can be used as an effective propaganda tool, which both the corporations creating them and the governments and agencies regulating them have recognized.
Misinformation and Error
States have long refused to admit that they benefit from and use propaganda to steer and control their subjects. This is in part because they want to maintain a veneer of legitimacy as democratic governments that govern based on (rather than shape) people’s opinions. Propaganda has a bad ring to it; it’s a means of control.
However, the state’s enemies—both domestic and foreign—are said to understand the power of propaganda and do not hesitate to use it to cause chaos in our otherwise untainted democratic society. The government must save us from such manipulation, they claim. Of course, rarely does it stop at mere defense. We saw this clearly during the covid pandemic, in which the government together with social media companies in effect outlawed expressing opinions that were not the official line (see Murthy v. Missouri).
AI is just as easy to manipulate for propaganda purposes as social media algorithms but with the added bonus that it isn’t only people’s opinions and that users tend to trust that what the AI reports is true. As we saw in the previous article on the AI revolution, this is not a valid assumption, but it is nevertheless a widely held view.
If the AI then can be instructed to not comment on certain things that the creators (or regulators) do not want people to see or learn, then it is effectively “memory holed.” This type of “unwanted” information will not spread as people will not be exposed to it—such as showing only diverse representations of the Founding Fathers (as Google’s Gemini) or presenting, for example, only Keynesian macroeconomic truths to make it appear like there is no other perspective. People don’t know what they don’t know.
Of course, nothing is to say that what is presented to the user is true. In fact, the AI itself cannot distinguish fact from truth but only generates responses according to direction and only based on whatever the AI has been fed. This leaves plenty of scope for the misrepresentation of the truth and can make the world believe outright lies. AI, therefore, can easily be used to impose control, whether it is upon a state, the subjects under its rule, or even a foreign power.
The Real Threat of AI
What, then, is the real threat of AI? As we saw in the first article, large language models will not (cannot) evolve into artificial general intelligence as there is nothing about inductive sifting through large troves of (humanly) created information that will give rise to consciousness. To be frank, we haven’t even figured out what consciousness is, so to think that we will create it (or that it will somehow emerge from algorithms discovering statistical language correlations in existing texts) is quite hyperbolic. Artificial general intelligence is still hypothetical.
As we saw in the second article, there is also no economic threat from AI. It will not make humans economically superfluous and cause mass unemployment. AI is productive capital, which therefore has value to the extent that it serves consumers by contributing to the satisfaction of their wants. Misused AI is as valuable as a misused factory—it will tend to its scrap value. However, this doesn’t mean that AI will have no impact on the economy. It will, and already has, but it is not as big in the short-term as some fear, and it is likely bigger in the long-term than we expect.
No, the real threat is AI’s impact on information. This is in part because induction is an inappropriate source of knowledge—truth and fact are not a matter of frequency or statistical probabilities. The evidence and theories of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei would get weeded out as improbable (false) by an AI trained on all the (best and brightest) writings on geocentrism at the time. There is no progress and no learning of new truths if we trust only historical theories and presentations of fact.
However, this problem can probably be overcome by clever programming (meaning implementing rules—and fact-based limitations—to the induction problem), at least to some extent. The greater problem is the corruption of what AI presents: the misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation that its creators and administrators, as well as governments and pressure groups, direct it to create as a means of controlling or steering public opinion or knowledge.
This is the real danger that the now-famous open letter, signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and others, pointed to: “Shouldwe let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”
Other than the economically illiterate reference to “automat[ing] away all the jobs,” the warning is well-taken. AI will not Terminator-like start to hate us and attempt to exterminate mankind. It will not make us all into biological batteries, as in The Matrix. However, it will—especially when corrupted—misinform and mislead us, create chaos, and potentially make our lives “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
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Russia Claims it Has Killed 6,000 Foreign Fighters in Ukraine, Including 491 Americans
Russia’s Defense Ministry issued a report Thursday which said its forces have killed nearly 6,000 foreign mercenaries and volunteers fighting on behalf of Ukraine since the war began over two years ago.
The report claimed that in total 13,387 “foreign mercenaries” from multiple dozens of countries have fought in Ukraine, and offered a remarkably specific breakdown of nationalities. International press outlets underscored that it was impossible to independently verify the claims.
Russian Defense Ministry releases stats on foreign mercenaries in Ukraine
— Russian Market (@runews) March 14, 2024
The MoD says that since February 24, 2022, 13,387 mercenaries arrived in Ukraine. 5,962 of them have been confirmed killed in action.
Poland remains the largest source of mercenary power for Kiev, with… pic.twitter.com/YQEUraWuYh
Notably Russia claimed an astounding number of American mercenary deaths, putting the number killed from the United States at 491. The number of fighters killed who hailed from Britain was listed at 360, and Canada – 422, another surprisingly high figure according to the claims. But the Russian MoD’s tally of Polish foreign fighters was by far the largest group – at 1,497 out of 2,690 fighters said to have been killed.
Within the first year of the Russian invasion, it was especially then UK Prime Minister Liz Truss who openly encouraged British and Western fighters to go volunteer to fight for Ukraine.
The US too at the time openly allowed recruitment efforts by Ukraine’s international/foreign legion through online advertising including social media and large platforms like Facebook.
However, as the war tragically turned into a ‘meat grinder’ and stalled front lines, Western officials seemed to back off their active encouragement for individuals to travel to Ukraine to fight.
Since then, periodically Russia has claimed to have killed or taken prisoner American or UK citizens. Overall, the whole initiative didn’t go well as stories like the below demonstrate…
The Gregg family is laying direct blame on then Prime Minister Truss:
A young British man who took his own life after fighting in Ukraine went to the country after Liz Truss, the former prime minister, claimed anyone who did so would be joining a “battle for democracy”, his family said.
Harry Gregg was 23 and had no formal military training other than a spell in the Army Cadets when he decided to fly to the country after it was invaded by Russia in 2022.
He ended up fighting in the trenches, where he witnessed the deaths of fellow soldiers and reported seeing the aftermath of Russian atrocities against civilians.
He was found hanged after returning to his home in Thetford, Norfolk, the day after his 25th birthday.
Speaking after his inquest at Norfolk Coroner’s Court last week, his family said his decision to go to Ukraine came after the former prime minister, who was his local MP and foreign secretary at the time, said she “absolutely” supported any Britons who wanted to travel to fight the Russians, arguing they would be joining a battle “for democracy”.
An example of a CBS headline during the early months of the war…
More recently, the Kremlin has claimed large numbers of French mercenaries are active in Ukraine, especially near Russia’s border in Kharkiv. Paris has rejected the claims. At the same time, Russia too has been known to deploy foreign fighter in its ranks, but numbers are unknown.
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Kiev-Backed Terrorist Cell Tried To Poison Soldiers – FSB
A Kiev-backed terrorist cell, which plotted to poison food intended for Russian soldiers on the frontline, has been busted in St. Petersburg, the Federal Security Service (FSB) reported on Thursday.
The four members of the group were identified as far-right radicals and members of the ‘Russian Volunteer Corps’ (RDK), a militia affiliated with Ukrainian military intelligence. The conspirators were acting on orders from their leadership and on behalf of the Ukrainian government, the FSB said.
In addition to the alleged poisoning plot, the suspects were surveilling crucial infrastructure in and around Russia’s second-largest city for possible future attacks, the agency stated.
All four persons were arrested and are facing prison terms of at least ten years for being members of a terrorist organization, according to the press release.
Earlier this week, RDK, which includes neo-Nazis in its ranks, and other Kiev-backed militant groups composed of Russian citizens, staged an attempted incursion into the Belgorod and Kursk border regions, using heavy weapons. According to their statements, the Tuesday operation was meant to disrupt this week’s presidential election in Russia, with gunmen pledging to “vote with calibers.”
Russian security forces reported stopping the attack, eliminating 234 fighters, seven tanks, three Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and two armored personnel carriers. A video released by the militants and purporting to show them fighting on Russian soil was filmed in a Ukrainian border village, according to geolocation data.
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Kim Jong Un Drives Tank in Live-Fire ‘Preparations For War’ Drill
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has staged some interesting military theatrics ahead of next week’s expected visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to South Korea for the third Summit for Democracy.
The recent renewal of ongoing major US live-fire exercises on the peninsula has also triggered sharp denunciations from Pyongyang. On Thursday Kim oversaw his own live-fire exercises, while riding in the north’s newest battle tank.
The North Korean leader wore a black leather jacket and mounted a new tank, supposedly driving it himself, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
State media ominously described the exercise as part of “preparations for war”:
Kim expressed “great satisfaction” that the tank – first unveiled during a 2020 military parade – demonstrated its striking power in its inaugural performance display and told his troops to bolster their “fighting spirits” and complete “preparations for war”, KCNA said.
Kim hailed the newly deployed North Korean-made battle tank as “the world’s most powerful” – and state media published a photograph that featured his head sticking out of the tank while in operation.
Notably the exercises were said to have involved military units stationed close to the border wand within striking distance of the “enemy’s capital” – according to KCNA.
Kim has meanwhile denounced the latest joint Washington-Seoul war exercises, which recently even included strategic assets, as a “rehearsal” for invasion of the north.
The past month had already seen Kim reportedly oversee two prior drills, but this new live-fire “training march” appears the most impressive given the number of tanks and maneuvers, and Kim’s apparent direct participation.
The New York Times recently wrote that the Kim Jong-un government has plans for escalation, saying that it will soon launch some kind of lethal military action against the south, but will still seek to avoid a full-scale war.
US officials indicated the recent spate of more aggressive statements from Kim should be taken seriously. “While the officials added that they did not see an imminent risk of a full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula, Mr. Kim could carry out strikes in a way that he thinks would avoid rapid escalation,” the report predicted.
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Trump is Second Man in History to be Nominated For President Three Times by The Republican Party
Roger Stone joined the Alex Jones show on Thursday to discuss the truly popular Donald Trump 2024 campaign.
“This entire war of law-fare against him, this tsunami of fabricated charges against him in Washington D.C., in South Florida, in Georgia, in New York has turbocharged his candidacy in a way that could never have been foreseen,” Stone said. “In the 45 years that I have known him, in roughly 25 years that I have been studying sophisticated polling data regarding public attitudes toward Donald Trump, he has never been stronger than he is at this exact moment.”
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