Active Measures, Disinformation, and the History of Russian Election Interference Efforts in the U.S.
This article provides definitions of “Disinformation” and “Active Measures,” and provides a brief history of past Russian efforts to interfere in U.S. Presidential Election. It is the first installment in the series “Russian Intelligence, Disinformation, and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” While it is not necessary to read previous entries, it is recommended.
This article is an excerpt from my book, While We Slept: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of American Democracy, available .
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —Active Measures and Disinformation — A Primer
The Russian cyber and disinformation campaign targeting the 2016 presidential election was preceded by similar malicious activities across Eastern and Western Europe and in the United States conducted by many of the same actors involved in the 2016 election.While developments in technology exponentially increased their potency, the basic ideas and methodology behind Russian active measures and disinformation practices have been honed over decades. Understanding the basic concepts behind these attacks, and the actions the attackers took immediately before their assault on America’s democracy, is essential.Active measures — activnyye meropriyatiya — is a term of art used to describe a form of political warfare conducted first by Soviet and later Russia’s security and intelligence services.
The US Information Agency describes active measures as “a Soviet term that refers to the manipulative use of slogans, arguments, disinformation, and carefully selected true information, which the Soviets used to try and .”Retired KGB Major General and defector Oleg Kalugin has described these “subversion” practices as “the heart and soul” of Russian intelligence. He further states that they are meant to “weaken the West, to drive wedges in the Western community alliances of all sorts, particularly NATO, [and] to .”Active measures are essentially influence operations designed to confuse and discredit Russia’s perceived opponents, chief among them the KGB’s self-described “Main Adversary,” the United States.Various forms of active measures include the use of forged or fake materials targeting politicians, government officials, the academic community and the public at large, media manipulation either covertly or through state funded media, establishing and/or funding front groups, the use of agents of influence or agents provocateurs, incitement of radical elements in foreign publics and at their most extreme, assassinations and political terrorism.
Active measures can be both overt and covert. Covert active measures are often done in tandem with overt propaganda campaigns conducted by the Russian government, state funded media and witting or unwitting third party intermediaries, often referred to as “useful idiots.” They are the deliberate product of intelligence bureaucracies and are utilized with specific end goals in mind.During the Cold War, Soviet active measures campaigns against the United States included attempts to undermine notable politicians and public personages, the FBI, the State Department and civil rights leaders, among others. The Soviets placed a special emphasis on both exploiting and inciting racial violence and hatred within the US. The purpose of such operations was and is cynical, as racism pervades the Russian security services themselves.Disinformation — dezinformatsiya — is central to all forms of active measures. According to legend, the term was coined by Joseph Stalin, who gave it a French-sounding name .
As distinct from misinformation, which is the unintentional spread of false information, disinformation is spread intentionally and for a purpose. It can be aimed at the public at large, or at select targets through private information channels. Disinformation does not necessarily need to be false information, it can also consist of weaponized bits of the truth selectively disseminated.More than any other political system, in order to function liberal democracy relies on citizens enjoying a shared factual, epistemic framework. As such, they are the specific target of, and uniquely vulnerable to, disinformation operations.For this reason, the partial revelation of disinformation campaigns to their intended targets can counterintuitively increase their potency by correspondingly increasing suspicion towards all forms of publicly available information, which in effect is the end goal of disinformation campaigns.
Previous Russian U.S. Election Interference Efforts
Prior to 2016, Russian efforts to interfere in US elections were limited in both scope and ambition. An early example took place during Richard Nixon’s first run for office in 1960.After several unpleasant interactions with Nixon, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev hoped to persuade two-time former Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson to run against the ardent anti-Communist from California.In January of 1960, Soviet Ambassador Mikhail Menshikov requested a meeting with Stevenson where he passed along a complimentary note from Khrushchev. The note, while repeatedly claiming that the Soviet’s did not want to “interfere” in the US election, heaped praise on Stevenson and asked how the Soviet Union could be of assistance to his potential candidacy.While Stevenson was gracious, he informed the Ambassador that he was not running and offered his own personal “grave misgivings about the propriety or wisdom of .”While Stevenson politely but firmly rebuffed Krushchev’s overtures, the Soviet Premier continued his efforts to thwart Nixon. After Kennedy became the Democratic nominee, the KGB’s Washington Station chief Alexander Feklisov received orders to “inform the Center periodically about the development of the electoral campaign, and to propose measures, diplomatic, propagandist, or other, to encourage Kennedy’s victory.”It remains unknown what, if anything, the KGB did in response to these orders. Krushchev also took US election considerations into his thinking when it came to the release of American airmen, including the U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, taken prisoner while conducting surveillance over the Soviet Union. Believing an early release would benefit Nixon, Kruschev .Kennedy, of course, ultimately defeated Nixon in a closely fought race. Two of the prisoners were freed five days after Kennedy’s inauguration, and Powers was ultimately released in 1962.In 1968 the Soviets, now under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, again attempted to sabotage Nixon’s presidential aspirations. According to then Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, his superiors in Moscow considered Nixon “profoundly anti-Soviet,” and were willing to go to great lengths to oppose him, including offering financial support to his Democratic opponent Hubert Humphrey.Despite his opposition to the idea, Dobrynin ultimately made the discreet offer of financial assistance while at breakfast at Humphrey’s home.“He knew at once what was going on,” Dobrynin wrote years later in his memoirs. “He told me it was .”Nixon went on to win in a landslide and, ironically, attempted to dial down tensions between the two superpowers through his policy of détente.The later emergence of Cold War hawk Ronald Reagan sufficiently alarmed the Soviet’s that they had already begun active measures campaigns against him before his ultimate loss to Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican primary. Beyond planting unflattering stories against Reagan in the foreign press, little else is known about the KGB’s other activities in this regard and it is doubtful they had any impact whatsoever on the outcome of the race.Reagan went on to be elected President in 1980 and reelected in a landslide in 1984. By the time his successor, George H.W. Bush was elected in 1988, the Soviet Union was on death’s doorstep.The next article will examine the history of Russian cyber espionage and hacking in the lead-up to the 2016 election.