Operation Bluebird：Étude for Color Revolution？
By Lu Chien-yi
The Storm Media, June 21, 2024
In a turbulent world, waves of protests and demonstrations continue globally. In Taiwan, the parliamentary reform has sparked an alleged rally of 100,000 people. As the Legislative Yuan reviews and votes on the reconsideration proposal submitted by the Executive Yuan, the "Bluebird" and "Blue Eagle" groups will face off around the Legislative Yuan on June 21, intensifying societal division and unrest. This article aims to provide an alternative perspective on this civic movement, beyond the framework of "parliamentary power expansion" and "procedural justice in reforms," and to highlight an undercurrent threatening global democracy.
A doctoral dissertation published this April focuses on a segment of the American foreign policy system dedicated to "democracy promotion" overseas. According to the dissertation by Benjamin Thomason, this industry, boasting an impressive annual budget of billions of dollars, has been led by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), operating in over 100 countries since 1983. Thomason's analysis reveals that the core activities are not about promoting democracy. Instead, they involve establishing, nurturing, and supporting local civic groups, think tanks, scholars, experts, media, social platforms, influencers, artists, legislators, and other political figures under the guise of democracy promotion. This network enables the U.S. government to efficiently mobilize "smart mobs" in critical times, using the explosive power of street "citizen forces" to correct legislation it disagrees with or to punish and even overthrow governments that defy American directives, achieving regime change through so-called "color revolutions."
Thomason's research found that most local participants in these activities (such as NGO and media employees, and online warriors) believe they are working for the cause of democracy, unaware that their compensation comes from NED or USAID funds, which are laundered through private companies in target countries via the Cayman Islands or Panama. This operation, honed over decades, effectively manipulates collective consciousness in other societies. The strategy often begins with engaging youth through popular culture, avoiding politics initially. As trust is built, specific issues are framed as "anti-democratic," "undemocratic," or "rolling back democracy," inciting uninformed citizens to take to the streets. Thomason concludes that behind the beautiful façade of NED’s and USAID’s "promoting democracy" and "protecting human rights" lies ruthless violence and unscrupulous methods aimed at maintaining American hegemony and protecting the interests of a select elite.
In March 2022, a few weeks after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, NED President Damon Wilson gave an interview to Central News Agency, discussing "Lessons from Ukraine for Taiwan." He asserted that the war would deter China from attacking Taiwan, expressing that many autocrats around the world are watching what they perceive to be the mighty Russian military run into a complete buzz saw, a complete disaster: up to 15,000 Russian soldiers killed in just two weeks, 10 to 15 percent of their military demobilized, morale problems, and equipment failing. What Taiwan can learn from Ukraine is to mobilize its entire civil society. Their partners in Ukraine—some humanitarian and peace movement organizations—told me that the Russian military thought they were fighting the Ukrainian army, but their real opponents were the entire mobilized Ukrainian people: civilians, women, mothers, all involved in civil response. Wilson stated that therein is where some of the lessons for Taiwan lie. In light of Ukraine's current state of military collapse, countless casualties, and lost territory, this advice from the NED President is both ironic and chilling.
Another layer of NED's deep connection with Taiwan can be seen in the concept of "sharp power," which NED began to widely promote from 2017 to 2018. NED's description of "sharp power" almost seems like a self-portrait: "...manipulating target country audiences by distorting information"; "...managing the information received by the target country's populace through control of its news media and educational systems, thereby misleading or dividing public opinion, or concealing negative information about itself, or diverting attention." However, the skilled and experienced NED cleverly excludes itself from this negative concept by defining "sharp power" as applicable only to authoritarian states like China and Russia, but not to democracies.
Since then, Taiwan’s academia has enthusiastically adopted NED's framework to study China's "sharp power." Taiwan certainly needs to research this area thoroughly, as it must understand the various cognitive warfare tactics employed by the mainland against Taiwan. The problem arises from Taiwan's wholesale acceptance of NED's pre-packaged framework, leading to a lack of awareness about the cognitive warfare conducted by the United States against Taiwan, which NED conveniently omits. NED deliberately contrasts America's so-called "soft power"—a form of power that wins the hearts of other countries through positive interaction and genuine persuasion, thereby influencing their policies—with China's "sharp power." In Taiwan, we seem to fully accept that the United States relies on soft power, not sharp power. However, the reality is that the millions of deaths resulting from the American War on Terror, the Vietnam War, and countless deaths in Latin America, Africa, and Gaza were caused by CIA, USAID, and NED's information distortion, media filters, and cognitive manipulation, not by any "soft power."
Regarding the highly efficient mobilization and rapid allocation of domestic and international funds for “Operation Bluebird," although no high-ranking American officials were present among the protest crowds, several American scholars, including former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director Stephen Young, issued a joint statement criticizing the "parliamentary expansion chaos." Former AIT Chairman Raymond Burghardt even expressed his "deep shock and sadness." Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, who visited on May 28, praised Operation Bluebird, describing it as a manifestation of democracy and calling Taiwan a beacon of democracy: "People can protest without fear of retaliation, something unattainable in mainland China." What McCaul omitted was that the United States continues to repress and retaliate against its own domestic protesters. Those who took to the streets to protest America's active involvement in the Gaza genocide faced not accolades and cookies from high officials but batons, fists, tasers, tear gas, and subsequent extreme anti-democratic repercussions such as dismissals and permanent blacklisting. The individuals that American protesting students see as genocide executioners are regarded as protectors by Operation Bluebird.
We live in a post-truth era. From commercial advertising to political propaganda, cognitive warfare from all directions bombards and infiltrates us constantly. In Taiwan, our understanding of the massive American "democracy promotion" industry is nearly nonexistent, which itself reflects the success of its operations. However, from the Gaza genocide, the Russia-Ukraine war, and Georgia, to the deliberate efforts to turn Taiwan into a hedgehog island, the flaws in this mechanism are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. The "democracy promotion" industry is not merely political propaganda; it also functions as commercial advertising, tasked with marketing and securing investments for the military-industrial complex, which boasts an annual capital of $1.5 trillion. Taiwan needs passionate citizens, but even more, it needs citizens who are cool-headed, sharp in judgment, and appropriately vigilant.
The author is a researcher at the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, and co-sponsor of the 2023 Taiwan Anti-War Statement.