Psychological Bioterrorism

We are getting close to the formal release date (October 08, 2024) for PsyWar: Enforcing the New World Order,” and I have received about thirty advance author’s copies of the book from SkyHorse Publishing, some of which I have shared with the podcasters and reviewers who wish to read, review, and to interview me about this new book. 

I have also completed recording the audiobook version, and our Sound Engineer and partner in the audiobook Mr. Joao Zurzica has processed the resulting files and formatted them for audiobook upload. Joao has done a fantastic job – I am amazed at the audio clarity and purity of the resulting files.

Today Jill and I are in Tokyo and will speak later this afternoon to the Japanese Parliament (House of Representatives), about “Building Resilience: Countering Psychological Warfare for a Secure Future.” Yesterday I spoke in the open meeting for the ICS 6 about PsyWar with an emphasis on Psychological Bioterrorism. This seems to be a topic that resonates with many, perhaps because once people have a name for something that they have experienced, then it becomes easier to understand what has happened to them. I also find that many who have received pre-publication copies of PsyWar are particularly interested in this chapter, perhaps because it is early in the book (and they have not had time to read all of it), or perhaps because there is something about the term and the chapter that particularly resonates with them.

The text of this chapter was first published here in this Substack, and long-term readers may recognize much of it, although there have been edits made to fit this into the broader context of the book

In any case, I sense that if this term (Psychological Bioterrorism) becomes more commonly used, if it is accepted as part of the language used to describe the process of weaponization of fear to psychologically train individuals and populations to comply with various policies and procedures, that will contribute to stopping the use of this tactic to manipulate people for marketing or control purposes. Once you understand the term and concept, you will see examples of these tactics and strategies all around you.

Knowing how and why they do it is crucial for anyone who seeks the truth. This isn’t a book, it is essential armor for the dark times we are currently in.
—Hon. Andrew Bridgen, former Member of the House of Commons, United Kingdom

I hope that you enjoy reading and/or listening to this chapter, and if you do, that you consider purchasing the hardback, kindle, or audiobook versions of this new book. Jill and I have poured two years of effort into building PsyWar, hoping that readers will find it helpful as they encounter the modern psychological battlefield for control of their minds. Please let us know what you think of this and whether you find the following explanation of the concept and background concerning Psychological Bioterrorism helpful in your daily life.

CHAPTER 3

Psychological Bioterrorism

Psychological Bioterrorism is the use of fear about a disease by governments and other organizations, such as Big Pharma, to manipulate individuals, populations, and governments. Although the fear of infectious disease is an obvious example, it is not the only way psychological bioterrorism is used.

Stay Informed with Brownstone Institute

Name *

First

Last

Email *

Subscribe

In a January 2017 interview with the journal Current Concerns, Dr. Alexander Kouzminov (a former Soviet-Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) intelligence officer) described operational fundamentals of spy tradecraft which he termed “Information Bioterrorism.” His analysis was supported with examples drawn from events surrounding late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century infectious disease outbreak events; Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) (2002–2003), Avian Influenza A (H5N1) (1997, 2006–2007), and H1N1 “Swine flu” (2009).

He defined this as a new method for exerting global operational influence and manipulation over individuals, populations, and nations, and he suggested that other names for this strategy could be “information bioterrorism” or “information biological blackmail.” In the essay, Dr. Kouzminov provides specific language for key roles, responsibilities, and strategies used when deploying this form of bioterrorism.

Recognizing that deployment of this strategic approach has become one weapon in the larger domain of modern psychological warfare (or PsyWar), we propose an alternative term for these methods: “Psychological Bioterrorism.” Since psychological bioterrorism operates on both conscious Psychological Bioterrorism as well as subconscious levels, this form of mental manipulation is an example of both PsyWar (targeting the conscious mind) as well as cognitive warfare (targeting the subconscious).

Dr. Kouzminov’s credentials in this area are impeccable. He is a highly qualified and experienced biosecurity specialist with an extensive record of work in central government and the private sector as a senior advisor, senior analyst, director, and chief executive. He has contributed to a number of environmental and biosecurity policy papers within New Zealand and internationally, including UNESCO policy forums (among others), and has received several awards from New Zealand’s central government as well as international recognitions for his policy development work.

Dr. Kouzminov was an intelligence operative in the Soviet-Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) during the 1980s and 90s and dealt with intelligence operations with bioweapons-related activities in target countries. He is the author of Biological Espionage: Special Operations of the Soviet and Russian Foreign Intelligence Services in the West (2005, Greenhill Books) and has over fifty published works on biosecurity, focusing on bioterrorism, bioweapons, risk control and management, and policy approaches.

What Is Psychological Bioterrorism?

“Psychological” or “Information Bioterrorism” involves the use of fear of an infectious disease to control people and their behavior. It is a very potent method for mass manipulation of populations, and this method works by creating a state of heightened anxiety and fear of death in the people who are targeted. This promoted fear is often based on allusions to misleading, poorly documented historical stories—essentially folktales or parables—about historical epidemics of very dangerous diseases such as plague, typhoid fever, yellow fever, polio, or smallpox.

Often, these parables have little relevance to modern society with its sophisticated sanitary practices, clean water, hospital networks, and wide spectrum of antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics, and anti-inflammatory drugs. One example of such a story is the tale of the global “Spanish Influenza” pandemic of 1918. This story has long been used to justify the need for mass annual influenza vaccination to avoid some future influenza pandemic. But this is misleading folklore. This story has been repeated for over a century since these events occurred and still incites deep fear in the minds of many.

The truth is that the waves of mass death from infectious disease which did occur around 1918 were not really due to the H1N1 influenza strain, which did infect and cause upper respiratory sickness in many people all over the world—but did not actually cause mass death. Instead, current scientific analysis indicates that these deaths were primarily due to bacterial pneumonia, which co-circulated with the H1N1 influenza virus, together with inappropriate use of non-pharmaceutical public health measures, including masks, and inappropriate dosing with a newly discovered pharmaceutical drug—aspirin. A much more nuanced reality, but not one that supports the need for annual influenza virus vaccination.

The recent global surge in propaganda concerning a more pathogenic strain of H5N1 (Avian Influenza) that is now circulating in large chicken flocks (and a wide range of wild birds) provides a great case study of how a psychological or information bioterrorism event campaign is crafted and deployed. This current round of psychological bioterrorism almost precisely mirrors the previous campaign deployed during 2010–2016.

What Makes Psychological Bioterrorism Effective?

The main components and after-effects of this form of mass psychological manipulation include the following:

1. A Time factor: Psychological bioterrorism provides a practical method for immediate global transmission and development of widespread panic through electronic means of communication.
2. A Vulnerability factor: People feel helplessness when confronting the threat due to the lack of effective means of defense. This creates panic among the general population, which can then be directed or exploited to support other objectives.
3. An Uncertainty factor: A lack of factual information about the source of the bioterror threat and its spread creates an opportunity to manipulate the masses of people who initiate the threat. Initiating and promoting a psychological bioterror event creates an opportunity to craft and promote an explanation of the event and to fashion propaganda narratives that serve or support other (typically hidden) objectives. In the case of the current “Bird flu” narrative, these objectives may include promoting acceptance of mRNA-based genetic vaccination of dairy cattle and promoting the objective of culling cattle herds to mitigate the claimed effects of cattle on CO2 emissions.
4. A “lack of control” factor: Every person who accepts the promoted bioterror narrative develops and internalizes a sense of being “out of control” because he/she is a suspicious object, liable to have the disease, and therefore is a threat to everyone else. This creates chronic internal anxiety in those vulnerable to the bioterror campaign, and this fear is then easily manipulated by the promotion of narratives requiring compliance with a series of actions—effective or ineffective—that serve to create a sense of purpose, identity, and belonging to an “in group” that has achieved protected status (from the manufactured Bioterror threat) by performing a ritual or modifying their behavior in some way.

Who Deploys Psychological Bioterrorism?

Large-scale psychological bioterrorism, information bioterrorism, or “information biological blackmail” is usually secretly deployed by foreign or domestic “intelligence” or “security” services and implemented as an “active operation” in target countries using a variety of witting or unwitting allies.

However, this strategy is also deployed to augment the pharmaceutical industry’s business objectives.

The existence and deployment of an active psychological bioterror operation can be detected as a scripted series of active operational deployment stages, each involving well-defined strategies, actors, roles, and responsibilities.

These strategies, actors, roles, and responsibilities include the following:

1. An “active operation”—This is an activity of an organization (typically a foreign intelligence service), which is aimed at a “target audience” (an object it wants to influence), and is carried out at the request of an “interested party” with “supporters” and “auxiliary means” in order to achieve the required “planned impacts.” The “active operation” is carried out with the support of agents, supporting persons, and interested organizations. Usually, the “intelligence” or “security” organization (mercenary or governmentally associated) conducts the “active operation” using “false flags:” third-party agents or cutout organizations. In other words, it hides its main objectives under the cover of a (politically) neutral nongovernmental organization, a government bureaucracy, an academic institution, or otherwise hides its goals under some kind of a falsely crafted problem. These agents, supporting persons, and organizations can include networks of interested parties with similar, related, or complementary objectives.
2. “Interested parties”—During the Cold War, “interested parties” were usually the government or its special (secret) services, in other words its “intelligence” or “defense” communities. Today, the “interested party” could be a corporate conglomerate, pharmaceutical companies, banks and other large financial consortia, corporatist associations, national or global nongovernmental organizations, private and political groups, industry-associated lobbyist organizations, etc.
3. “Target”—The objects or target audience of an “active operation” may be governments, high-ranking military officials, secret services of the enemy, political parties, banks, companies, etc., as well as ordinary populations, where the aim is to cause some kind of an impact and effect.
4. “Executor”—Classically is some form of secret service, generally but not necessarily drawn from a national intelligence community. Usually, the “executor” carries out the “active operations” using one or more “false flag” operations, which means that it masquerades the true operation by covering it up with a false story or threat.
5. “Supporters”—Examples of supporters include academics, “influencers” in the entertainment, social media, or arts, and neutral third parties [the latter are not with the intelligence community]; these can help the “executor” to realize the “active operations.” Supporters are typically recruited using various means, including direct overt payments involving fee-for-service agreements or more covert indirect payments or incentives.
6. “Mass media”—The key role played by mass (corporate and/or social) media is to implement active operations by auxiliary means. Mass media (corporate press and social media) is one of the most important ways to implement an active operation. The executor uses mass media to achieve the maximum impact on the target audience/object of influence. For example, by raising a threat, spreading rumors and promoting false information. The objective of all of this is really to spread disinformation designed to distract from the true operation and masquerade it.
7. “Planned impacts”—Information strategy and objectives sent out to impact a specific audience must be “sharp.” It is important to design the strategy to influence the intended object. Information is put together purposefully, usually as a threat or a big problem, as if it’s a real problem. The target audience should never doubt the information and should have no awareness of who or what is planning and guiding the messaging and distribution.

What Are the Main Stages of a Psychological Bioterrorism Active Operation?

The approach used to carry out the active operation is based on a crafted strategy: first, messaging about the problem, and then deployment of its solution.

The main stages of the active operation, through which the psychological bioterror event can be created, are as follows:

Phase 1: The executor (e.g. intelligence service), with the help of supporters (e.g. agents) and auxiliary means (e.g. mass media), throws out false information (in one example—an imminent pandemic of Bird flu) onto the target audience (e.g. public) with a pretense that it’s real.

Phase 2: Executors, supporters, and auxiliary means accelerate the problem, making it a hot topic (maximum interest needs to be created). Once the false problem is created, it grows like a snowball, rolling and rolling, independently building size as though it’s becoming a legitimate concern.

Phase 3: The operation’s actual objective is realized (secretly)—monetary gains are obtained, government stability is undermined (e.g., economic loss), and any other planned impacts are achieved.

As Phase 3 is achieved, the target (general population) is told that the problem is being solved and risks are contained. This is done with sideline information (news stories, social media posts, interviews, etc.). However, ideally the problem is left hanging so that the executor can use it again. Ideally, having successfully crafted, inserted, and amplified the fear narrative, the general sense of fear and anxiety about the risks of the psychological bioterror threat agent (in this example, avian influenza or “Bird flu”) should be maintained at a low level so that it is easy to resurrect for future use.

Practical Example: Deploying Psychological Bioterrorism

1. Create the problem. First, there needs to be some report of a local outbreak of avian influenza in chickens or other animals, which the interested party can use to advance its own interests. This of course is false information. Avian influenza is endemic in a wide range of bird populations. There can also be a report that it’s a supposed “leak” from a secret military-medical laboratory, academic laboratory, or army “biodefense research” center. The executor (secret service) can deliberately craft such a situation to create great interest, awe, and fear.
2. Snowball the problem. The media (“auxiliary means,” also including “supporters,” e.g. agents of influence) starts to “heat” the public. The front pages of newspapers, TV channels, the internet, and social media are already filled with alarming titles—”highly pathogenic virus,” “new contagious disease,” “new flu outbreak into a pandemic,” “be ready for corpses, flu plan says”—all heightening the threat and scaring everyone! Mass media and interested organizations issue warning signs/messages like “the disease breaks the human-to-human transmission barrier” and “predict” that “the disease would infect up to millions of people globally.” For example, “A super-flu could kill up to 1.9 million Americans, according to a draft of the government’s plan to fight a worldwide epidemic.”
3. The problem becomes a hot topic Health authorities/senior officials/experts/agents of influence express concerns that a virus will mutate into a form that can spread from one human to another, and this could lead to a worldwide pandemic, and claim that an influenza pandemic would likely lead to high rates of morbidity (sickness) and mortality (death). For example, “…the death toll from a human pandemic of avian influenza could be anything from 5 to 150 million.” Also, “There is no time to waste. The virus [Bird flu] could ignite the next human flu pandemic. I do not need to tell you of the terrible consequences that could bring to all nations and all peoples.”
4. Aggravating a problem and obtaining planned results.The World Health Organization (WHO) may announce a new strain or clade of avian influenza, a public health emergency of international concern. Soon, an influenza pandemic alert is raised to five on a six-level warning scale, meaning a pandemic is imminent. Governments around the world have little choice; under pressure from businesses and citizens, they must respond to the WHO’s pandemic declaration by spending billions on drugs and/or vaccines (if available) and throwing all available resources at fighting the disease once the WHO has declared the pandemic is underway. This triggers a wave of panic buying of vaccines and antivirals by governments around the world, in many cases involving far more money than hundreds of millions of dollars. Authorized and interested organizations recommend that national governments use specific antivirals and flu-fighting drug(s) and inform them that a new, more “effective” vaccine is being developed and will soon be ready to use.

Role of the Secret WHO Emergency Advisory Committee

For example, after the prior “swine flu” pandemic scare, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) highlighted the existence of a secret WHO emergency committee that advised the WHO Director-General on when to declare the pandemic. It was claimed that “WHO was being advised by a group of people who were deeply embedded with the pharmaceutical industry, and had a lot of gain by beating this epidemic into a pandemic.” The BMJ reported that WHO had, in February 2009 (about a month before the first cases of the 2009 “swine flu” outbreak were reported), amended the definition of the pandemic by removing that pandemic can cause “enormous numbers of deaths and illness,” lowering the bar for pandemic announcements.

Weaponizing and Promoting Fear of an Infectious Disease for Political, Financial, or Any Other Purpose Is Unethical

This includes physicians and corporations that amplify fear of a pathogen like H5N1 in order to sell drugs, vaccines, or nutritional supplements.

This includes individual scientists or virologists who assert that H5N1 will kill all Covid mRNA-based vaccine recipients when there are no data demonstrating active human-to-human transmission, let alone evidence of human H5N1 mortality in Covid-19 vaccine recipients. This is attention-seeking behavior and should be condemned. There is a human cost associated with these types of communications that is paid by the naive in terms of depression, suicide, and mental health damage when these types of fear-based narratives are promoted.

This includes state governments, which assert that H5N1 constitutes a public health emergency when no data demonstrate active human-to-human transmission.

This includes corporate media, which build viewership and readership by broadcasting or publishing speculative and unsupported fear regarding H5N1.

This includes governmental centers for Disease Control and Drug Regulators (FDA, EMA), NGOs, and global “health” agencies and organizations (WHO) that promote misleading, inflated high H5N1 human mortality narratives based on rare infection events.

This includes academic physicians and scientists whose careers are advanced by promoting irrational public fear of infectious diseases, including H5N1.

These are all examples of psychological bioterrorists.

We need to learn to protect ourselves from the economic, social, and psychological damage that is caused by permitting psychological bioterrorism.

This is truly a crime against humanity, and one which can only be stopped when politicians with integrity and the general public become aware that they are being manipulated, refuse to play along, and socially, economically, and politically shun those who promote and deploy psychological bioterrorism.

Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me.

Republished from the author’s Substack