PerspectiveCombatting Russia’s Assault on Democracies: Lessons from Europe
A 2018 report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says: “For years, Vladimir Putin’s government has engaged in a relentless assault to undermine democracy and the rule of law in Europe and the United States. Mr. Putin’s Kremlin employs an asymmetric arsenal that includes military invasions, cyberattacks, disinformation, support for fringe political groups, and the weaponization of energy resources, organized crime, and corruption.” For people pondering the potential effects of Russian interference in the 2020 elections here in the United States, it is worth understanding what other democracies are doing to confront the same problem and what lessons can be learned from their experiences.
European democracies have been coping with foreign interference for longer than the United States, and the primary threat to European democracies comes from Russia. Following consolidation of his power within Russia in the early 2000s, President Vladimir Putin turned his attention to the former states of the Soviet Union and the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. His goal was to peel those countries away from Western-style democracy and return them to Russia’s coercive sphere of influence. Later, Putin turned to weakening the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU)—bringing Western European democracies and the United States squarely into his sights. Russian disinformation campaigns are used to discredit politicians and democratic institutions like elections and independent media.
Putin is using many tools at his disposal to realize the goal of weakening Western democracy. As a 2018 reportby the Senate Foreign Relations Committee put it:
For years, Vladimir Putin’s government has engaged in a relentless assault to undermine democracy and the rule of law in Europe and the United States. Mr. Putin’s Kremlin employs an asymmetric arsenal that includes military invasions, cyberattacks, disinformation, support for fringe political groups, and the weaponization of energy resources, organized crime, and corruption.
Margaret L. Taylor writes on the Brookings Institute website that for people pondering the potential effects of foreign interference in the 2020 elections here in the United States, it is worth understanding what other democracies are doing to confront the same problem and what lessons can be learned from their experiences.
