Image Source.

...Rendón, says Sepúlveda, saw that hackers could be completely integrated into a modern political operation, running attack ads, researching the opposition, and finding ways to suppress a foe’s turnout. As for Sepúlveda, his insight was to understand that voters trusted what they thought were spontaneous expressions of real people on social media more than they did experts on television and in newspapers. He knew that accounts could be faked and social media trends fabricated, all relatively cheaply. He wrote a software program, now called Social Media Predator, to manage and direct a virtual army of fake Twitter accounts. The software let him quickly change names, profile pictures, and biographies to fit any need. Eventually, he discovered, he could manipulate the public debate as easily as moving pieces on a chessboard—or, as he puts it, “When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.”

...Sepúlveda’s team installed malware in routers in the headquarters of the PRD candidate, which let him tap the phones and computers of anyone using the network, including the candidate. He took similar steps against PAN’s Vázquez Mota. When the candidates’ teams prepared policy speeches, Sepúlveda had the details as soon as a speechwriter’s fingers hit the keyboard. Sepúlveda saw the opponents’ upcoming meetings and campaign schedules before their own teams did.

Money was no problem. At one point, Sepúlveda spent $50,000 on high-end Russian software that made quick work of tapping Apple, BlackBerry, and Android phones. He also splurged on the very best fake Twitter profiles; they’d been maintained for at least a year, giving them a patina of believability.

Sepúlveda managed thousands of such fake profiles and used the accounts to shape discussion around topics such as Peña Nieto’s plan to end drug violence, priming the social media pump with views that real users would mimic. For less nuanced work, he had a larger army of 30,000 Twitter bots, automatic posters that could create trends. One conversation he started stoked fear that the more López Obrador rose in the polls, the lower the peso would sink. Sepúlveda knew the currency issue was a major vulnerability; he’d read it in the candidate’s own internal staff memos.

Just about anything the digital dark arts could offer to Peña Nieto’s campaign or important local allies, Sepúlveda and his team provided. On election night, he had computers call tens of thousands of voters with prerecorded phone messages at 3 a.m. in the critical swing state of Jalisco. The calls appeared to come from the campaign of popular left-wing gubernatorial candidate Enrique Alfaro Ramírez. That angered voters—that was the point—and Alfaro lost by a slim margin. [1]

Here's a simple scenario.

It's November 8th and the choice is between Trump and Hillary.

Both candidates have negatives approaching 70% (Hillary is currently at 56% and Trump is at 60%). The campaign has been vicious. Like a rematch of Hitler vs. Stalin in US politics.

For months, there has been violent protest in every US state. Protesters vs police vs. each other. Voters are edgy when they head to the booths on November 8th. Everyone is ready to put this campaign behind them.

However, things are about to change for the worse.

Early in the afternoon (EST) a small group of global guerrillas spring an N-1 trap (N-1 is a last moment action or betrayal) on the US:

• A dozen faux bombs in suspicious packages are placed at heavily (Rep or Dem) polling locations resulting in evacuation and widespread concern.
• Robocalls pour in to police departments and polling places in heavily (Rep or Dem) polling locations with bomb/terrorist threats. Widespread poll closures occur. Calls continue until late.
• Election results are skewed. Electoral college swings to the candidate helped by the threats.

One candidate declares victory. The other cries foul. Protests go national. Violence, looting and active engagement with police soon follow.

Calls for calm ignored. Martial law is declared in different areas. The Internet is turned off in problematic areas.[2]

Image Source.

The jihadists of the Islamic State have had a lot to say about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They do so because they see themselves locked in a rivalry with it. At the heart of the rivalry is the question of who gets to pose as the defender of ‘Sunnidom’ in the face of Iranian expansionism in the Middle East, a perception both rivals share and agitate over. The Islamic State argued that the House of Saud has lost the legitimacy and efficacy necessary to mount such a civilizational defense. They cited the static nature of Saudi inaction, one that did not correspond to the alarmist rhetoric emanating from Riyadh concerning Shi’a transgressions against Sunnis. The jihadists may believe that this disconnect between rhetoric and action is accelerating the disaffection of Saudi citizens with their rulers. They may hope that this disaffection would welcome the expansion of the Islamic State into the Saudi heartland—a goal that is critical to the long-term survival of their state, or so they may believe.

However, Saudi Arabia’s regional policy is no longer static. A year ago, the Saudi state launched a military operation in Yemen against rebels it deemed beholden to Iran. The jihadists responded with disdain and mockery. They assumed that it was a fluke occurrence and that the war would expose Saudi feebleness and irresolution. Yet in December 2015, the Saudi state went further and declared the formation of an Islamic military alliance to combat terrorism. The implication was that Saudi Arabia is willing to take the battle to the jihadists in Syria and elsewhere. The move was also widely interpreted by Middle Eastern observers in media and intelligence circles as one that seeks to counterbalance Iranian activism across the Middle East. One Saudi-focused analyst wondered whether it constitutes the formation of an Islamic equivalent to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This latter perception has seeped into the public debate across the region, raising expectations of a “new order.”

The jihadists were not prepared to consider the possibility of such an unprecedented paradigm shift in Saudi behavior when they first analyzed the Yemen campaign. Their anti-Saudi narrative was tailored to address and belittle Saudi inaction, and now it must play catch up to Saudi action. They must also address the ideological ramifications of the kingdom positioning itself as a “warrior state,” harking back to a centuries-old identity that it used to manifest prior to its founding in 1932. The rhetorical arsenal that the jihadists had developed and deployed in previous years is ideologically insufficient to counter a rival warrior state, especially if it is Saudi Arabia. Now they will have to contend with the possibility that Saudi Arabia’s new expansionist policies may be well-received by its citizens, whom the jihadists were hoping to recruit and incorporate into their own expansionist state. The jihadists must now argue that Saudi action is illegitimate. That is a harder argument to make compared with one centered on Saudi torpor since the Saudis are doing precisely what jihadists for years have criticized the Saudis for not doing. It is especially harder should Saudi action lead to a radical rearrangement in the balance of power in the Middle East. As such, ideology follows action, and the jihadists were caught by surprise, at least for now. But the Islamic State could possibly find its footing if or when the Saudi-led Islamic Alliance fumbles on the terrain of battle or even if it fails to launch at all and falls short of meeting the expectations it has raised. Saudi Arabia may have felt compelled to take such a gamble, given what the jihadists were saying about its inactivity and other internal socioeconomic and cultural challenges at play. But it is a dangerous gamble nonetheless. If the Islamic Alliance ends up perceived by Saudi citizens to be a failure, then that perception may accelerate the loss of the regime’s cache of legitimacy. The jihadists may then spot an opportunity to gain ground within the kingdom, directing more of their personnel, resources, and propagandist attention toward that goal. (emphasis added) [1]

"Pegausus," Those Do Not remember the Past Are Doomed to Repeat It (2016) Image Source: Sam Hayson, "British Street Artist Compares Trump With Hitler," Mashable (22 Feb 2016).

Let's talk Trump and historical analogies for a bit.

A lot of people--and I have seen several just today--are writings clever jokes on their facebook feed with punchlines like: "Mein Trumpf.” The idea is not new. For months now people have been writing that Trump is fascism personified, an Adolf Hitler for America.

This idea is silly. You all know I hate Trump. Not all of you have been following me all these months, but I have been pretty loud about how much I destest the man. The anti-Trump fever pitch once grew so hot on this page that two Trump supporters defriended me in response to the Facebook Phillipics I wrote against him (this was in December, when he declared war on religious liberty). I will not vote for a loathsome character like him. 

But the comparison with Hitler is analytically sloppy. Yes, I know that Hitler=EVIL is an equation we all agree on, and I also realize that if you can link Trump to Hitler then Trump is evil too. I get. We all get it. But it is still silly. If you are raising the comparison to rally the troops and mobilize your political tribe then, fine, that's acceptable, in politics you say and do what you need to say and do for success. But if you are actually trying to understand Trump, his appeal, and his likely impact on our republic, then this analogy distorts far more than it reveals.

In truth, we do not need to look to foreign climes to understand Trumpism. Donald Trump is not America's Hitler. Donald Trump is the 21st century's Andrew Jackson. 

Like Trump, Andrew Jackson ran for office at a time when an entrenched political aristocracy had controlled the American political system for decades.

Like Trump, Jackson's supporters had lost their faith in this system and felt utterly isolated from its ruling class.

As with Trump, Jackson was a fantastically well off in comparison to the average American, but still a considered a complete outsider in elite circles because he was crass, rude, vulgar, and stupid--in other words, a joke, someone not to be taken seriously until it was too late. 

Like Trump, Jackson's success was built upon getting the people who the existing system excluded or ignored engaged in politics in a way they had not been their entire lives. In both cases these people tended to be less educated, not too well off, and of Scots-Irish descent.

Like Trump, Jackson was a nativist, a nationalist, and fairly racist. Both are in essence majoritarians, meaning that their main policy aim was to materially improve the livelihoods and liberties of the majority demographic, even if that comes at the expense of other groups. 

Like Trump, Jackson used these voters to hijack a party coalition traditionally associated with limited government; like Trump, Jackson paid lip service to this philosophy (and sometimes, as with the banks, acted on his words) but possessed a temperament that put him at odds with it. 

Like Trump, Jackson did not have a firm grasp of all the issues at hand on the campaign trail (compared to his opponents, who were quite wonkish), and had a pronounced tendency to personalize all political disputes.

Like Trump, this was one of his greatest selling points with the public: Jackson was someone who spoke as a common man did while being greater than any common man was. He “told it like it is.” Both understood the media technology and news cycles of their time, and took advantage of them in novel ways to “tell it like it is” to far more people than his opponents thoughts possible. You could say that Jackson, like Trump, pioneered a new style of campaigning. By doing so he quickly learned how to outmaneuver his political opponents into oblivion. 

Like Trump, attacks that came against Jackson in response only seemed to make him stronger, and like Trump, most of these attacks were focused less on his ideas--which were always rather nebulously defined on the campaign trail, painted in broad strokes, so to speak--than against his character, especially his (or his family's) alleged lechery, gaudiness, stupidity, or savagery.

I could go on, but you get the point.

The comparison is instructive because it gives us some insight into what a Trump presidency might look like. If Trump wins--indeed, even if he loses--his candidacy will likely change the face and demographic composition of the Republican party for a generation. Like Jackson, he'll be dependent on well connected wheelers and dealers who can catch his mood or vision and transform it into political realities (ala Van Buren). He will act as a demagogue, but be reasonably effective at what he does, and may leave an institutional legacy that lasts decades. Jackson was called a monarch; Trump would be called a fascist, though neither antebellum America or its modern descendant have necessary the political machinery for either man to set up the kind of dictatorship their critics claim(ed) they wish(ed) to establish

In other words, the republic will survive. Some parts of it might even do better than they would do otherwise, because Trump will introduce the kind of shock to the system that will force existing good boys networks to collapse, and prompt each party to change the ideas on the table. Abraham Lincoln detested Jackson. But Lincoln would not have been possible if Jackson had first established the foil Lincoln's cohort would define themselves against. 

An important fact to remember though all this: we do not live in the 1830s. In some ways that is a good thing--a very good thing! No second Trail of Tears is possible in Trumps’ America. In other ways we are ill prepared for the second coming of Andrew Jackson. We sometimes call his day "the age of Jackson," but really it was just as much the age of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. Even with imperial Andrew Jackson at the fore, the center of Washington politics was the Senate. The executive branch had little power in comparison to its present incarnation, and federal bureaucracy (to say nothing of international surveillance networks) was practically non-existent. At that time the townships, counties, and state governments were really more important to the daily life of the average man than anything decided in Washington was. This is no longer true. Our government is over bloated and dangerously unbalanced. The only two candidates who ever showed any awareness of this institutional decay (Jim Webb and Rand Paul) have long been forced out of this election. Trump will only make this situation worse.

America was also not a super-power whose nuclear deterrent and forward deployed forces undergird the global order. The challenges Jackson faced abroad are far removed from our own. It is hard to tell what Jackson would have made of NATO or the war in Syria. I think many people will be surprised to find what Trump thinks of these things--surprised to discover that Clinton has a much tougher line on China than he does, and that in contrast, he is much more hostile towards Israel than she ever has been. But my mind keeps coming back to East Asia, and our unequal alliances with South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Trump has stated that he wants to dismantle them, or change their nature entirely. Will he? What will the consequences of that be in near and short terms? It is hard to say. Andrew Jackson offers little guidance here.

Anon, "King Andrew the First" (1832) Image Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Japanese soldiers approach the walls of Nanjing   By Sweeper tamonten,China Incident Photograph Album, Vol 2, published in 1938 by Asahi Shimbun., Public Domain, accessed at Wikimedia Commons.

We know hardly anything about the war in China.

To give just one example, about 80,000 Chinese and Japanese soldiers became casualties during the first battle for the city of Changsha in September and October 1939 (there were three more battles for the city later in the war.) This is more than twice the number of total casualties on both sides during Operation Market Garden, the disastrous British and American attempt in September 1944 to penetrate German defenses in a bold airborne assault.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of books have been written about that failed Allied offensive, focusing especially on its tragic epicenter at Arnhem. By contrast, not a single book exists in any western language about the first battle of Changsha – or the second, third and fourth, for that matter.

Comparisons such as these could go on for a very long time. Whereas biographies of US General George Patton are too numerous to count, no books exist in the West about flamboyant commanders such as Chinese Muslim General Bai Chongxi or Sun Liren, described as “China’s Rommel.” How many people in the West know that in China local puppet troops were doing a lot of Japan’s “dirty work”? Or that the first American firebombing in Asia was against the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 1944? [1]

Various explanations can be put forward to account for this gaping hole in the historiography. First, it can be argued that the China theatre was not decisive in the same way that, for example, the Eastern Front was. Even in a regional context it was arguably a sideshow. The war against Japan was decided on the small islands of the Pacific, not in China’s interior. According to this argument, post-war historians have shied away from this subject simply because it wasn’t important enough.

The argument is not particularly convincing [for lots of reasons readers of the Stage likely know already]....

Another possible explanation for the low level of interest in China’s struggle is the absence of a consensus narrative about the war.....

This argument has been weakened by the recent thaw in relations between China and Taiwan, reflected in growing recognition among Chinese historians of the key role played by Chiang Kai-shek and the forces under his command. However, what really destroys the argument is the fact that, the Cold War notwithstanding, it would have been possible for American and Taiwan historians to collaborate on histories of World War Two in China from a Nationalist perspective right from the 1950s. It just didn’t happen to any major extent.

Finally, the lack of interest in China’s World War Two experience has been blamed on the difficulty of using China’s archives. This is potentially critically important, as reflected in what happened after Soviet collapse and the opening of the Russian archives. The possibility of suddenly telling the Russian side of the story triggered an explosion in the literature about the Eastern Front.

Does this argument have relevance for China? Yes and no. It’s true that Chinese archives may have been out of bounds during the Cold War, but today, serious Western historians have much easier access. In addition, both China and Taiwan have published and continue to publish carefully prepared historical source materials, providing valuable information for anyone able to read them. [2]

This leads to the circumstance which I consider the main obstacle to western research into the war in China: the difficulty of the Chinese language. It is a problem that’s not always recognized, but it’s nonetheless very real. According to the Foreign Service Institute at the State Department, it takes 2,200 class hours of devoted study to achieve proficiency in Chinese. This is about twice the amount of time needed to learn Russian or Vietnamese, and four times as much as the time invested in learning French or Dutch.

This is just in order to learn the modern Chinese language. To truly grasp the Second Sino-Japanese War in all its complex intricacy, knowledge of the classical Chinese language is a definite advantage, too. For example, Chiang Kai-shek’s diary, possibly the most important primary source of them all, was written in a terse and elliptical style which comes across as archaic even to many Chinese.

Unfortunately, knowledge of the Chinese language is absolutely crucial in order to do more than just scratch the surface of the complex events in China in the years from 1937 to 1945. Speaking from personal experience, if I hadn’t been able to read Chinese, I could never have completed my own two books on the subject, Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City and Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze.

What to do about this situation? The answer is simple: nothing. Just wait. Mandarin proficiency is rapidly catching on throughout the West, as young people prepare for a future in which China will be increasingly important economically, politically and militarily. This will also feed into the historians’ profession, where Mandarin will no longer be such a rare skill as it is today. Based on this, I feel confident that in a decade or two, the bookshops and websites will be brimming with books about China’s epic struggle with Japan in the 1930s and 1940s. (Emphasis added). [3]

 Contemporary historians of East Asia have the same basic set of priorities as the rest of their profession. They focus on structures, cultures, identities, and the hidden voices of history... [but] the idea that East Asianists need to counter the biases of existing, politics-heavy narratives is mistaken, for in too many cases there are no existing narratives to counter in the first place. We are left with huge gaps in the literature. In the case of military history, there are entire wars where millions of people fought and died, and whose stories are instantly recognized by people across China, Japan, and Korea today, that still have no books written about them in English.

Part of the problem is size. The number of East Asianists in academia is small. The number working on pre-modern East Asian history is pitifully small. You can count the number of American scholars who specialize in Silla Korea on one hand. You could count those who specialize in Sengoku Japan on two. You could fit all the specialists on the Northern Song Dynasty on a moderately sized tour bus. This is true now; back when narrative political and military histories was more academically fashionable (c. 1920-1960) the number of East Asianists were even smaller. Because only a few scholars specialized in East Asia then, the peculiar research interests of one scholar and his pupils forty years ago have come to dominate entire fields today (one example of this is substantial amount of work done on medieval Japan's institutional history, something I credit entirely to the influence of John Whitney Hall, who taught Japanese history at Yale for the better part of the last century). There simply weren't enough historians writing then to fill in the gaps.

In addition, many of those who wrote then were relatively unconcerned with high politics, diplomacy, or military affairs. They came to the study of traditional Asia with a set of non-traditional backgrounds. Then—as now—a great deal of East Asian history is written by philosophers, philologists, and archaeologists. These are men and women who began to study East Asia because of a fascination with Pure Land Buddhism, Neoconfucian metaphysics, Shang Dynasty bronzes, or reconstructing classical Chinese pronunciation. In most areas linguistics, philosophy, literature, and religious studies are separate fields, but in the case of the East Asianists (and here a fruitful analogy with the Classicists can be made) they blur somewhat. The very term "East Asianist" (along with its subsets: "Sinologist,""Koreanist," etc.) express the expectation that those studying one aspect of pre-modern Asia should be conversant in all of its other domains. In this milieu intellectual history has always been king. This is partially because many of these disciplines began as an attempt to make the "Eastern mind" accessible to Westerners, and it is partially because it is incredibly difficult to understand even fairly mundane historical sources without a working knowledge of classical Chinese and the history of ideas in East Asia. [5]  The interdisciplinary nature of this sort of intellectual history sheltered it somewhat from the political storms and of the '60s and '70s. It is still the strongest strain of historical scholarship on the region. 

The downstream effects of all this are pretty easy to see. By far the most common textbook for introductory survey courses of East Asian history is Sources of the East Asian Tradition, a collection of mostly philosophical and literary documents from the last few thousand years of East Asian history. The Association for Asian Studies annual conference rarely has panels on the political or military history of Sengoku Japan, but there will always be room for one more panel on the Tale of Genji to be squeezed in. [4]

We know so little about WWII because

1) Academic historians shy away from writing about high politics or warfare

2) The difficulty of the Chinese language keeps the majority of popular historians far away from the topic.