PerspectiveForeign Campaign Intervention May Go Way Beyond Russia to China, Iran, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia
The risk of foreign intervention goes far beyond Russia. Indeed, this type of action has happened many times in U.S. history. What’s new in 2020 is that, over the past few years, Russians have shown other nations how easy it is to sow disinformation and disrupt democratic elections. Many countries, including the United States, seek to make the voting process easy so balloting is designed much more for user-friendliness than electoral security. At the same time, technology companies have created social media platforms that are easily exploited through disinformation, false news, and fake videos. What’s more, the use of this technology to disrupt campaigns is cheap and difficult to trace.
In July 2016, candidate Donald Trump famously encouraged Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails. At a press conference, he said “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” That same day, according to a federal indictment unsealed last year, Russians sought to hack Clinton’s personal servers and a few months later, Wikileaks released sensitive emails to the general public.
Much has been made in recent months about the likelihood Russia will steal emails and engage in disinformation during the 2020 campaign. In his congressional testimony, Mueller openly predicted Russia would do that as part of its general effort to destabilize American democracy. He urged Americans to remain vigilant about this possibility.
Darrell M. West writes for the Brookings Institute that the risk of foreign intervention goes far beyond Russia. Indeed, this type of action has happened many times in U.S. history.
What’s new in 2020 is that, over the past few years, Russians have shown other nations how easy it is to sow disinformation and disrupt democratic elections. Many countries, including the United States, seek to make the voting process easy so balloting is designed much more for user-friendliness than electoral security. At the same time, technology companies have created social media platforms that are easily exploited through disinformation, false news, and fake videos. What’s more, the use of this technology to disrupt campaigns is cheap and difficult to trace.
