Human Security Centre Human Rights and International Security Research
1 November, 2024
by Oleksandra Zadesenets, Research Assistant
Russia is recognised by the US government as “the most active foreign threat to our elections,” as remarked by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Russia has proven to be unable to stay on the sidelines when it comes to the change of power in the US, as demonstrated by its disinformation campaigns and meddling with the 2016 and 2020 elections. A recently declassified assessment from the US National Security Council reports that Russia is “better prepared to exploit opportunities to exert influence” as a result of lessons learned in past attempts.
The U.S. has endeavoured to prevent this from happening again using the tools at its disposal. Notably, after the warning from a US intelligence official about interference in the 2016 elections, the Justice Department required Russian-owned media RT to register as a foreign agent. However, since then Russia has developed a more sophisticated mechanism of intervention in US domestic politics, exemplified by efforts to magnify the mistrust of democratic processes amongst the American population.
The evolving threat
In the 2020 elections, Russia used a combination of intelligence, conspiracy and social media manipulation mechanisms to influence the polls. For example, Russia played a role in the ignition of the Burisma scandal, aimed to cause reputational damage to Joe Biden and divert public favouritism to Donald Trump.
In 2024, Russian tactics of subtle manipulation of the American public are arguably at their peak, rendering the polarisation of American society a tool for its war with Ukraine. Russia is playing in tune with MAGA Republican sentiment, emphasising the burden for the support of Ukraine and actively advocating for the cessation of the US military aid and anti-Russian policies including the sanctions regime.
Nowadays, with the emergence of AI, Russia promotes disinformation campaigns more swiftly, involving multiple tools to distort reality. As NPR reported, a Russian bot farm used AI to generate fake profiles on X to promote pro-Kremlin narratives. According to the Department of Justice, it was coordinated by an editor at RT, funded by the Kremlin and supervised by Russian intelligence agencies. More basic techniques have seen a fake video of early voting ballots from the 2024 US election being tampered circulating on social media, with the material identified as emanating from Moscow.
In turn, the United States is trying to deter Russian ambitions. Now, the U.S. Department of State is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information regarding foreign nationals who are involved in meddling with the U.S. elections, including reward for the tip-offs that contribute to the prevention of intervention. There have been reported successes. Notably, the Department of Justice has claimed to have disrupted the Russian-directed foreign influence campaign “Doppelganger”, which strived to spread Russian propaganda.
However, how efficient are the US attempts at deterrence if the mechanism has already been launched and managed to penetrate deeply into US society’s mindset?
Why is the US is so vulnerable to external manipulation?
In order to give a forecast about the potential success of Russian disinformation campaigns and evaluate the efficiency of US deterrence, one should understand the origins of current vulnerabilities. The scholars Matthew A. Baum and Philip B. K. Potter argued that the inherent polarisation of American society contributed to the fragmentation of media. As a legacy of a two-party presidential system, it rendered the current media landscape in the US hyper-partisan, eliminating the role of the media as a neutral arbiter and transforming it into a political tool to strengthen the partisan bases.
Reinforcing the existing views of the voters and diminishing the exposure to alternative perspectives, this has polarised public opinion and shaped it in accordance with the salient policy. Baum and Potter explain that the overwhelming amount of information and politicised connotations make the public more fickle, worsening the political culture and making it harder to hold leaders to account. It results in societal vulnerability to foreign influence, which allows predatory international forces to exploit the public volatility to advance their interests. Furthermore, this tendency is reinforced by American international openness, which turns American democratic values against its security.
Why Russian disinformation campaigns are successful and what Texan independence has to do with it?
Russia’s actions are often well-disguised and remain hidden, therefore it is difficult to track – at least in time for action to prevent it. This allows for the igniting or catalysation of US internal conflict without revealing the identity of the provocateur. By capitalising on domestic issues — either by artificially amplifying their urgency or by framing them with a particular narrative — Russia seeks to promote division, suspicion and conflict to weaken the American government and undermine its credibility. This has most recently been manifested by the exaggeration of the burden the aid to Ukraine poses, portraying the American incumbents as indifferent to existing domestic grievances, and advocating for the abandoning of the US commitments to Ukraine.
One of the ways Russia extorts this influence is via its state-owned media outlet RT without the disclosure of interests. Recently, the US Department of Justice charged two employees of RT with orchestrating a nearly $10 million scheme to produce and distribute content to US audiences while concealing its ties to Russia.
However, one of the most sophisticated strategies used by Russia is the funding of American public media figures, such as right-wing broadcasters Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson and Tim Pool. They create content for the American public from the US perspective, which makes them more credible in the eyes of the populace and eliminates suspicions about the foreign interests behind it. Russian secrecy and the ability to work through multiple societal channels align its propaganda with the nascent domestic issues, resulting in the efficiency of the disinformation campaigns and the manipulation of the US voters.
Notably, Rybar LLC, a media organisation previously funded by the head of Wagner group Yevgeniy Prigozhin, was actively operating in the US media sphere, seeking to “sow discord, promote social division, stoke partisan and racial discord, and encourage hate and violence in the United States”. Amongst its activities, this group attempted to amplify the sentiment in support of Texan independence, spreading the #STANDWTHTEXAS campaign to lobby Russian interest and destabilise the United States. By artificially amplifying the idea of separatism, Russia aims to incite tensions between different regions in the States, deteriorating national unity and laying the ground for instability and civil violence. During the 2016 U.S. elections, Russian operatives were accused of using social media to inflame the idea of Texan independence, promoting revisionist history and encouraging those devoted to secession. While such efforts have no realistic prospect of producing the notionally desired result, the constant widening of societal fissures has a cumulative effect on national cohesion. These efforts fit into the broader Russian post-Cold War agenda of resisting the United States without direct confrontation.
Russian disinformation campaigns can be regarded as successful because they exploit societal divisions and resentments to manipulate narratives and spread confusion. The mixing of factual and provable events with fake and manipulative narratives makes disinformation harder to detect, rendering the Russian linkage almost invisible. It wreaks domestic havoc to divert the attention of the US from the targets of Russian geopolitical interests.
Thus, it can be argued that the reversal of Russian harm becomes possible only if accompanied by a balance of countermeasures encompassing both the domestic and foreign policy of the US, and the active addressing of the internal issues. Yet, this has so far proven challenging, and the current situation has to a significant extent placed the world into a security trap with the US focused on its domestic issues at the price of US reducing of international engagement and Russia winning time and space for its geopolitical ambitions. The US desperately needs a new mechanism for the deterrence of Russia, compliant with the complexity of the modern international environment.
