Putin and Xi's evolving disinformation playbooks pose new threats
Moscow’s information manipulation playbook is evolving
Russia, a declining power by many measures, seeks to compensate for its relative weakness through asymmetric means, by disrupting the institutions, alliances and domestic politics of its neighbors and geopolitical competitors in the near term. With little to lose and much to gain from public awareness of its activities, the Kremlin is not particularly sensitive to attribution or concerned about repercussions. And so, in order to keep the transatlantic community distracted, divided and unable to carry out a confident, coordinated foreign policy that could be detrimental to its interests, the Kremlin uses disinformation to stoke chaos and promote disorder.
As the information domain becomes an increasingly active and consequential realm of state competition, two countries have gone all in. Both China and Russia have developed sophisticated information strategies to advance their geopolitical interests, and their playbooks are evolving. No longer primarily relying on proxy troll farms to generate large quantities of polarizing content, the Kremlin has turned to military intelligence assets to carry out more targeted information operations designed to circumvent platform-detection mechanisms. And motivated by concern that it might be blamed for a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than five million people worldwide, Beijing has become considerably less risk-averse in its use of “wolf warrior” diplomats to push conspiracy theories online. To sustain its vision of a free and open internet, Washington must develop a strategy to push back.
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