Enemies foreign and domestic: America's media ecosystem and the externalization of domestic threats

Abstract

Russian information warfare is not new. The state has long employed such techniques, first domestically to influence individuals and shape narratives, and eventually outside of its borders. Yet throughout the Cold War, the Kremlin’s propaganda campaigns proved ineffective. What is vital to understand as fear and paranoia over the increased sophistication of Russia's twenty-first century active measures becomes common place, is that the tenets of The Kremlin's information warfare have not changed. Their propagandists employed the same methods of kompromat and dezinformatsiya during the 2016 presidential election cycle as they did during the Cold War years. Changes in technology have provided Russia’s agents with new avenues, but the central principles remained unchanged. This begs the question, if the Kremlin’s foreign propaganda methods have barely changed, what has made them so effective now? The answer is that the United States has become more vulnerable. This chapter reveals how shifts in the domestic political landscape, developments in the digital space, and changes in the media ecosystem amplified the power of traditional Russian information warfare while simultaneously increasing the United States’ vulnerability to such nefarious tactics. In doing so it not only serves to challenge the dominant narrative around Russian interference but highlights areas of vulnerability which could be addressed to better protect the United States from such information warfare in the future.

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