Undermining Democratic Institutions and Splintering NATO: Russian Disinformation Aims

The U.S. intelligence community produced a report which found that "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. Presidential election." The intelligence community report warns that "Moscow will apply lessons learned to future influence efforts worldwide, including against U.S. allies and their election processes." With elections on the horizon in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Italy, European intelligence services are sounding the alarm about Russian attempts to skew the outcome with targeted disinformation and propaganda. Russian disinformation has been growing in sophistication, intensity, reach, and impact. "Russia's information warfare does not crudely promote the Kremlin's agenda, instead it is calibrated to confuse, befuddle, and distract." According to the Center for European Policy Analysis, "Russia aims to erode public support for Euro-Atlantic values in order to increase its own relative power." Russia has deployed its arsenal of trolls, propaganda, and false information to a new level. Moscow's strategic objective is to break apart the NATO alliance and, thus, to boost Russian geopolitical influence in Western Europe.