The Russia connectionSo what did we learn? Looking back on four years of Russia’s cyber-enabled “Active Measures”

By Clint Watts

Published 23 January 2018

Americans continue to investigate, deliberate, and wallow in the aftermath of Russia’s rebirth of “Active Measures” designed to defeat their adversaries through the “force of politics rather than the politics of force.” Kremlin interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election represents not only the greatest Active Measures success in Russian history, but the swiftest and most pervasive influence effort in world history. Never has a country, in such a short period of time, disrupted the international order through the use of information as quickly and with such sustained effect as Russia has in the last four years. Russia achieved this victory by investing in capabilities where its adversaries have vulnerabilities — cyberspace and social media. Putin’s greatest success through the employment of cyber-enabled Active Measures comes not from winning any single election, but through the winning of sympathetic audiences around the world he can now push, pull, and cajole from within the borders of his adversaries. Much has been learned about Russia’s hackers and troll farms in the year since the 2016 presidential election, but there remain greater insights worth exploring from a strategic perspective when looking at the Kremlin’s pursuit of information warfare holistically.

Americans continue to investigate, deliberate, and wallow in the aftermath of Russia’s rebirth of “Active Measures” designed to defeat their adversaries through the “force of politics rather than the politics of force.” Kremlin interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election represents not only the greatest Active Measures success in Russian history, but the swiftest and most pervasive influence effort in world history. Never has a country, in such a short period of time, disrupted the international order through the use of information as quickly and with such sustained effect as Russia has in the last four years. Russia achieved this victory by investing in capabilities where its adversaries have vulnerabilities — cyberspace and social media. Putin’s greatest success through the employment of cyber-enabled Active Measures comes not from winning any single election, but through the winning of sympathetic audiences around the world he can now push, pull, and cajole from within the borders of his adversaries. Much has been learned about Russia’s hackers and troll farms in the year since the 2016 presidential election, but there remain greater insights worth exploring from a strategic perspective when looking at the Kremlin’s pursuit of information warfare holistically.
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Also read:

· Peter W. Singer, “What we didn’t learn from Twitter’s news dump on Russiagate,” HSNW, 22 January 2018
· Herb Lin, “Election hacking, as we understand it today, is not a cybersecurity issue,” HSNW, 8 January 2018
· Clint Watts, “Extremist content and Russian disinformation online: Working with tech to find solutions,” HSNW, 10 November 2017
· Ben Collins, Gideon Resnick, and Spencer Ackerman, “Russia recruited YouTubers to bash ‘Racist B*tch’ Hillary Clinton over rap beats,” HSNW, 10 October 2017
· Ben Collins, Kevin Poulsen, and Spencer Ackerman, “Russia used Facebook events to organize anti-immigrant rallies on U.S. soil,” HSNW, 14 September 2017
· “Russia’s broad cyber campaign to undermine Western democracies,” HSNW, 8 September 2017
· “Russia’s used ‘active measures. in 2016 U.S. election, and will do more in future, experts tell lawmakers,” HSNW, 31 March 2017

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In the four years since I encountered and then monitored Russia Active Measures rebirth, there have been four phases to their operations. The phases layer one on top of each other, rather than successively, with each blending into the other as the Kremlin’s military, diplomacy, intelligence, and information arms pursue complementary tasks mutually supporting each other.