The Great Disruptor – Public Enemy No 1 - Russia

 

The Great Disruptor – Our Public Enemy No 1: Russia

“OK, I’m going to act a little tougher with you for a few minutes… 

But it’s for the cameras, and after they leave, we’ll talk. You understand.” 

Former White House Press Secretary, Stephanie Grisham’s recollection of a private conversation 

between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019

China may be our frenemy, a nation that we have to deal with on so many levels as one of our biggest trading partners and as a necessary player in any possible solution to climate change, but Russia, simply put is our most powerful foreign enemy. Even more than the hateful Islamist regimes and terrorist groups around the world. As American go-it-alone policies under both the Trump and Biden administrations have placed a strain on US-European Union relations, Europe is still beholden to Russia for natural gas. Both Russia and China are heavily into building up their militaries, exercising as much control over other nations as they can, but in the end, we don’t need much from Russia other than to deescalate military might. 

With the rise of Islamist militancy, Russia is acutely aware of the large sections of former Soviet territory that are principally Muslim, starting with Chechnya within Russia herself, and with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, today independent nations closely allied with Russia. The Soviet Union was in substantial part brought down by its failed effort to support the incumbent regime in a nine-year Afghan civil war, mostly during the 1980s. 

But it became very obvious, during the US’ (often with NATO) involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its confrontation with the Assad Regime in Syria, its ongoing hostility with Iran, its battle against ISIS and its distancing from purported NATO ally, Turkey (slowly turning into an Islamic autocracy), that Russia very carefully supported regimes (mostly autocratic) that thwarted US efforts in the region. If the US wanted it, Russia would undermine our efforts. Moscow was sure to find a way to support our enemies and detractors. Without Russian support, the brutal Assad regime in Syria would have collapsed and Iran would have been further politically isolated.

But Russia’s upgrade of its nuclear arms, its development of smart nuclear torpedoes and hypersonic missiles, its supplying missile defense systems and sophisticated weapons to our Middle Eastern and Central Asian enemies, were just icing on the anti-American cake. Russia instead developed a vastly more effective offensive set of cyber-weapons that probed and penetrated the very essence of the United States. From very sophisticated breaches of some of our government’s most sensitive and clandestine information – evidenced by Russian corruption of essential software noted below – to its embrace of detailed and automated analytics (powered by artificial intelligence) of millions of Americans’ personal online biases and vulnerabilities, Russia found a way to help implode the United States from within.

Last year, Russian “hackers attached their malware to a software update from SolarWinds, a company based in Austin, Texas. Many federal agencies and thousands of companies worldwide use SolarWinds' Orion software to monitor their computer networks… SolarWinds says that nearly 18,000 of its customers — in the government and the private sector — received the tainted software update from March to June [of 2020].” NPR.com, December 21st. The degree of compromised military and diplomatic classified information was staggering. Yet nothing begins to approach the effectiveness of Russian destabilizing efforts against the United States more than its very sophisticated and automated use of social media to decimate our democracy. 

We may never know why Donald Trump so embraced Putin, refused to follow the reports from every one of our intelligence agencies’ clear warnings about Russian disinformation and election interference, and found ways to blame others (e.g., China, Ukraine, etc.) for what were rather unambiguously Russian efforts to undermine our entire system of government, all under the aegis of Trump’s bromance partner, Vladimir Putin. Putin played Trump like a puppet on a string, with the latter evidencing jealousy at Putin’s uncaring and unrestrained ability to crush Russian opposition to his autocratic rule. 

If Russia’s 2016 efforts to tilt social media in favor of Donald Trump’s presidential bid were bad, subsequent efforts have only become worse. Putin smelled nascent American polarization rising, a division that could possibly end the United States as a nation. He refocused his country’s efforts to exacerbate and amplify that red-blue rift through an intensive campaign to spread dissent and fill social media with divisive disinformation. While other nations have clearly engaged in similar campaigns of disinformation, hacking and disruption, their efforts pale when compared with the tsunami of cyberattacks and disinformation generated by Russia.

In addition to penetrating the websites and internal cyber-communications of extremist groups within the United States, Putin’s cyber-army, hiding under the guise of First Amendment rights but always operating clandestinely under false names and from untraceable sources (or sources that created an opportunity for “plausible deniability”), has used mainstream US-based social media, particularly Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube and Twitter, as the principal instruments of Moscow’s own US-targeted propaganda and disruption campaign. Russia’s ability to use automated Internet bots to create focused deceitful communications to individuals with obvious biases is without parallel in the modern world. Effectively, Russia has managed to turn individual Americans who embrace conspiracy theories – from a stolen election to quack cures and any politicization of anti-COVID measures – as tools of its propaganda ministry.

As a startling example, let’s look at the Russian response to YouTube’s addressing the US massive anti-vax campaign on its platform: “On Wednesday [9/29], YouTube announced a major update to its medical misinformation policy that will see the Google-owned platform ban all types of dangerous anti-vaccination content… As a result of the policy update, YouTube has banned prominent anti-vaxxers, such as Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from its service. Mercola and Kennedy are part of a group that misinformation researchers have dubbed the ‘Disinformation Dozen.’

“Earlier this year, the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Vax Watch released a report detailing how just 12 prominent anti-vaxxer influencers are responsible for around 65 percent of ‘anti-vaccine content’ on major social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.” MSM.com, September 29th. YouTube uses a “three strikes” format, initially to suspend offenders for increasing lengths of time, leading to a permanent ban after the third strike. Oh, and that policy also was necessarily turned on Russia’s efforts further to divide the US.

In August, the New York Times (8/5) identified yet another Russian campaign of disinformation within the United States “that taps into skepticism and fears of coronavirus vaccination to not just undermine the effort to immunize people but also try to falsely link the Biden-Harris administration to the idea of forced inoculations.” A clear effort to keep that red-blue issue as divisive as possible. One of Russia’s main channels to spread its view of the world, its ubiquitous RT channels, was deeply into reporting on this notion of “forced inoculations” and spreading other disinformation about the US vaccination program. As a result, RT faced that YouTube ban.

“President Vladimir Putin brought Russia's independent TV networks [including RT] under his control soon after taking office in 2000. But YouTube has so far evaded his chokehold — despite the platform being popular with Russians under 30 and Putin critics, Moscow journalist Andrei Loshak told Axios.” Yahoo News, September 29th. YouTube’s possible ban impacted RT channels in the United States and in Germany. Coming off of a high when it successfully coerced Google and Apple to remove Russian apps linked to Putin’s political opponents during the recent Russian election, Moscow made it clear that it is considering banning YouTube in entirety unless an uncensored YouTube RT channel is fully restored. But unlike the Apple and Google app removal, Moscow was attempting to preserve its right to misinform outside of Russia!!!

Economically, Russia is at best an also-ran, even as Putin dreams of restoring Russia to Soviet era power. He faces an underperforming economy and even threats from internal and external sources, including Islamists who hold Putin and Russia in disdain. Having a clear enemy, the United States, helps deflect his people’s disaffection with his governance. We are his blame pincushion, and the likelihood of warm relations between Russia and the US anytime soon is negligible.

I’m Peter Dekom, and one of the most destructive aspects of the Trump era, not entirely reversed during the Biden administration, is the degree with which Russia is allowed to mount its cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns within the US with little or no meaningful American governmental resistance.