From Russia with hate

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Weapons were central to Cold War narratives, be they superpower summits or super-popular James Bond movies. In the end, in fiction and in real life, the good guys almost always won.

But now, during the post-Soviet cold peace between Russia and the U.S., the bad guys seem to believe it’s not arms, but tentacles of disinformation distorting democracies that may be the most effective weapon. And this emerging scourge isn’t just being deployed by Russia, but China, Iran and other countries comprising an emboldened axis of authoritarianism.

The axis’ tactics are the focus of the latest assessment on election security from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which posits that “Foreign actors — particularly Russia, Iran, and China — remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system consistent with what they perceive to be in their interests, even as their tactics continue to evolve.”

These “foreign influence efforts will intensify in the lead-up to Election Day,” the update states, “especially through social media posts — some of which are likely to be AI-generated or -enhanced.”

Efforts like the lies about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the target of a viral video, which was quickly debunked, that accused him of sexual misconduct when he was a high-school teacher. Newly available intelligence, the report said, shows that “Russian influence actors manufactured and amplified inauthentic content” about the Democratic vice-presidential nominee and found “several indicators of manipulation that are consistent with the influence efforts and tactics Russian actors have used this cycle.”

Among those Russian influence actors was an American, John Mark Dougan, a former Palm Beach, Fla., County sheriff’s deputy who got out of Dodge after being indicted on 21 charges of extortion and wiretapping. Fleeing to Russia, Dougan has allegedly become part of the sprawling disinformation infrastructure weaponized against the West.

More Kremlin menace looms.

The office “is increasingly confident that Russian actors are considering — and in some cases implementing — a broad range of influence efforts timed with the election,” said the report. Even more menacing are Moscow’s alleged post-election plans, which are “aimed at inciting violence and calling into question the validity of democracy as a political system, regardless of who wins. Others are aimed at amplifying false information and conspiracies — that may exacerbate post-election tensions in the United States.”

Pre-election tensions were exacerbated too. For instance, after the dual devastating hurricanes that ravaged parts of southeast states, Russian-led media highlighted alleged FEMA failures and prioritization of migrant aid, according to research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based organization that tracks disinformation and online extremism.

The Kremlin was “attempting to exploit existing frustrations among certain political groups in the U.S.,” the ISD stated, adding that “this propaganda is reaching large audiences on mainstream social media platforms, where it is being allowed to spread without appropriate measures, such as fact-checking and state affiliation labels, in place. The efforts to exploit U.S. hurricane response fit into a long-observed effort by Russian media to deepen political polarization and reduce public support for Ukraine, which appears to be ramping up as the U.S. approaches the presidential election.”

Among Moscow’s motivations is impunity, Andy Carvin, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, said in an email interview. “From the Kremlin’s perspective, they don’t have much of anything to lose. They’re applying information warfare tactics that have proved successful in the past — generating fake news and fake social media profiles, producing propaganda, funding influencers to proliferate their messages. And their strategy targeting U.S. voters aligns with their broader strategy of undermining support for Ukraine at a global scale, as sowing discord among the U.S. populace or between Western allies makes it harder for Ukraine to sustain the necessary attention and direct support.”

The shooting war in Ukraine does in fact factor into the shadow war against the U.S. election, said Bret Schafer, senior fellow at GMF’s (German Marshall Fund’s) Alliance for Securing Democracy.

“Russia’s number one objective right now is to weaken support for Ukraine,” said Schafer. “The number one supporter of Ukraine is the United States. [A second] Trump administration is without question going to be less willing to support Ukraine. So it’s a pretty simple equation for them.”

More complex is how Russia, Iran (which Schafer said favors Harris) and other foreign adversaries seek to sow domestic disruption here at home. Where each malign country aligns is “an America that is either in chaos or is at least so wrapped up in partisanship that we’re not functional,” Schafer said, adding that his biggest concern is disinformation efforts “to cause people to doubt the election, to help to create political violence.”

The “most sobering aspect of all of this,” said Carvin, “is the Kremlin has successfully primed the pump over the last several presidential election cycles: by stoking conspiracy theories and partisan rage, they’ve contributed to significant discourse collapse in the U.S., where millions of angry voters are more than happy to share false and misleading information as long as it hurts the other party. And there’s no clear solution to any of this, particularly in the near term.”

Carvin’s correct; right-and left-wing social and partisan-media silos in America are increasingly entrenched, and efforts for more European-style social-media regulation are resisted due to appropriate First Amendment concerns.

But media mistrust matters too, said Schafer. Disinformation “is so effective,” he said, because this mistrust “has picked up steam, particularly on the right, and so fewer and fewer people turn to trusted sources, and their sources of information are now not just even Facebook and Google and Twitter [X], you’re talking 30 platforms that don’t care at all or don’t have anybody to deal with content moderation. This is just a sort of wide-open space for malign activity to take place without a lot of checks there.”

Other Western democracies face similar dynamics (the authoritarian axis, conversely, quashes the possibility). But countries like Germany, Schafer said, “aren’t as vulnerable [because] there is still a higher degree of trust in government institutions and media. That’s degraded in the U.S., and so that creates a pretty perfect environment if you’re a threat actor.”

The threat actor running (and ruining) Russia — who seems to come right out of central casting as a Bond villain — will continue to exploit that pretty perfect environment. So it’s up to individuals and institutions to flip the script on the Kremlin and be the heroes of this dystopian thriller by fighting back against the weapon of disinformation.