As the 2020 election season heats up, the Trump administration must warn Russia that interference in America’s democratic process will have serious consequences, but admonitions without action will not discourage damaging intervention by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, his regime, and other hostile actors. Instead of another reactive defense and years of pointless indignation, a proactive U.S. strategy is what’s required to keep the Kremlin’s ambitions in check.
The 2016 election provided an unsupervised laboratory for Russia’s intelligence officers, oligarchs, and hired trolls. Evidence is now abundant that Moscow has also prepared cyberattacks and influence operations for 2020. It is uncertain which presidential candidate the Kremlin will ultimately favor, but the primary objective will be to widen divisions among the public, deepen distrust in the democratic process, and weaken the legitimacy of whoever ends up president.
To counter this shadow war against democracy, Russia itself must experience a sustained information offensive, but one that is based on facts, not disinformation, about the country’s dire condition. The fragmented Russian Federation is afflicted by many more economical, social, political, ethnic, religious, and regional vulnerabilities than the United States. These domestic frailties need to be thoroughly exposed as Russia enters a period of presidential transition.
Factual information will help empower Russians in confronting Putin’s dictatorship. It can also encourage power struggles inside the ruling stratum. Western sources, through a multitude of media and social platforms, can disseminate poignant data and analysis about Russia that are avoided by the state media, particularly its economic deterioration. This collapse is evident in growing poverty, rural depopulation, crumbling infrastructure, environmental disasters, government corruption, demographic decline, and spreading regional unrest.
U.S. intelligence services can also access and leak compromising material about Putin and his inner circle. This should include both official and private communications from the Kremlin, government ministries, parliament, and key oligarchs. Detailed revelations about financial abuse and opulent lifestyles among officials while living standards plunge for the masses will demonstrate the government’s disdain for ordinary citizens.
Disclosures about greed and backstabbing within the ruling elite can also generate uncertainty in government circles and expose the regime’s political weaknesses. The promotion of internal power struggles can help divert the Kremlin from its unchallenged disinformation war against Western democracies. Suspicion and distrust between officials will raise fears of political purges or state expropriation of oligarchs, and factional infighting can become aggravated.
Participation in social media platforms is soaring among the Russian youth. This offers the U.S. an opportunity.
The West needs to target young people, supporters of democracy, ethnic and religious minorities, and other disaffected groups to help inspire the emergence of anti-Kremlin movements. Russia is not immune from the anti-establishment populism that has swept through Europe and the U.S. in recent years, the same force the Kremlin has benefited from in its efforts to disassemble the West. This populist boomerang, fueled by the yawning gap between rich and poor amid rampant official corruption, can manifest itself in various anti-government actions.
Some critics will caution that information offensives against Moscow would be too provocative and could escalate tensions, but, from the Kremlin’s perspective, it is precisely the absence of an effective informational counterattack that invites even more intensive intervention against our democracy and ongoing assaults on NATO allies and partners.
Successful U.S. policy toward the Soviet bloc under the Reagan administration should serve as a poignant lesson for returning to core principles in dealing with Putin’s Russia. It must be anchored in promoting genuine political pluralism, democracy, decentralization, and federalism. Just as President Ronald Reagan endorsed the transmission of facts to the captive nations to counter persistent Soviet fabrications, Washington must now support all efforts to inform the Russian public about the Kremlin’s failures and deceptions.
It is in America’s national interest to encourage the transformation of an authoritarian and hostile Russia into a democratic state and a genuine federation, and, if this fails, Washington must focus on managing a peaceful dissolution similar to that of the defunct Soviet Union. Only a democratic and decentralized Russian state will curtail its attacks on Western democracies and become a dependable international partner.
Janusz Bugajski is a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis in D.C. His recent book, co-authored with Margarita Assenova, is Eurasian Disunion: Russia’s Vulnerable Flanks.
