At a recent gathering in Berlin of central European military security experts, there was consensus that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and most NATO member states, including the United States and Germany, are well prepared for any purely military aggression from Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
But they are not nearly so well prepared for subversive Russian actions aimed at corrupting Western politicians, businessmen, media, and public opinion. What is still lacking is an effective, full-spectrum strategy to stop Putin’s disinformation war already in progress against NATO and EU countries, a way of making Russian hybrid warfare just as costly and painful for him as any current or potential military aggression against Russia’s NATO neighbors would be.
Many Americans following U.S. media might be surprised to learn that the National Security Strategy public document signed by President Trump in December 2017 names Russia, as well as China, America’s strategic adversaries. In this case, the Trump administration may be ahead of NATO. The international alliance still lacks an updated designation of Russia as a strategic threat, although with a few exceptions, NATO and most of its European members clearly see Russia as such a threat.
Earlier this year, Poland negotiated a bilateral agreement with the Trump administration calling for increased rotational presence of American troops in Poland. Hardly any American journalist expected this from Trump, but he knew that he could not win in 2016 and can’t win in 2020 without the Polish American vote.
Led by the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and the U.S., more than 5,000 troops from these and other NATO countries already operate under the alliance’s Enhanced Forward Presence in the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as in Poland, not to threaten Russia but to respond immediately to any Russian military advances. Russia under Putin’s rule, which should not be automatically identified with the Russian people or their interests, is a declining but still dangerous nuclear power that has violated international borders and illegally occupied parts of Georgia and Ukraine.
Russians need to be convinced that any new military adventure started by Putin would be very costly, not just for him and his oligarchs but also for ordinary Russians, in terms of human casualties and the further lowering of their standard of living. After all, a weak and paranoid autocratic leader in charge of a country with a declining economy may start a foreign adventure just to stay in power. How, then, to do this while also making clear to the Russian people that the West wills them no ill?
NATO members understandably differ somewhat on the severity of the Russian threat, depending on how close they are geographically to Russia. Central and Eastern European countries, as well as the U.S., are opposed to the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that would link Russia and Germany below the Baltic Sea, seeing it as a threat to energy security and a potential weapon of Russian political blackmail. But with the possible exception of Turkey, and to some degree Hungary, they no longer see Putin’s Russia as a potential strategic partner. They realize that Putin is a dangerous and calculating autocrat willing to explore any opportunity to weaken Western unity and resilience.
What Western elites and media need to do is to persuade public opinion that Putin is not a friend of any nation, including the Russians themselves. He is not a well-meaning supporter of any disaffected groups that are current targets of his influence operations. Like almost all autocratic rulers in the past, Putin is bound to fail sooner or later. If he continues to rule Russia, he will ruin his country economically and make most of its people poorer and more miserable, just as he and his KGB colleagues did during the Cold War. It is an important message to counter Putin’s attempts to falsify and weaponize history in his favor.
While NATO security experts have no problem identifying how Russian cognitive warfare against the West works, they have not yet formulated a full-spectrum policy and public diplomacy that combine diplomatic, informational, technological, and legal responses that are not reactive but proactive. To deal with the nonmilitary aspects of Russian interference, much more coordination is needed between NATO and EU members and between various ministries and agencies within each country. NATO and individual member states need to apply new sophisticated public diplomacy and media solutions to stop Russian disinformation. They need to work jointly and individually on improving their public relations strategies and their public image in the U.S. and in Europe. More funding of information outreach and its complete overhaul are clearly called for.
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation think tank, which in effect helps to advance German public diplomacy in more than 120 countries, has identified strengthening global security, including security of east-central Europe, as a topic of major concern. German leaders understand that as the U.S. is becoming more engaged in keeping China at bay, European nations have to take more responsibility, find new alliances within NATO, and increase their contribution to the common defense. There are tensions among the German officials who want to promote more business with Russia and the German officials responsible for security and defense. These tensions may never be fully resolved, but NATO is very much alive, and America’s engagement in Europe remains strong.
NATO is not brain dead. French President Macron said recently it was, giving an unexpected boost to Russian propagandists.. What is needed is a meeting of the minds among Western officials and experts in multiple fields on how to protect the alliance’s unity. The focus of Western governments and NGOs should be on actions that would not be merely responsive to Russian interference, but would anticipate and make any future subversion of neighbors, more distant nations, and democratic institutions too costly for Putin before he even considers putting any new hybrid warfare plans into action.
Western leaders and media also need to convince public opinion that Putin’s warped vision of the world order comes straight out of the KGB handbook and carries a heavy price for everyone. As with the Soviet Union and its former empire, he will bring loss of freedom and independence to any country that allows itself to be manipulated by his cyberwarriors and agents of influence.
Siding with the weak but still dangerous autocrat with no vision of a better future will doom any leader and any country foolish enough to have forgotten what the world looked like when Putin was still a KGB foreign intelligence officer based in East Germany. The task for NATO, the EU, government leaders, journalists, and academics is to remind the public of recent history, to expose and counter Russian propaganda, and to make a better case for Western constitutional democracy and the rule of law as the foundations of freedom and prosperity.
Ted Lipien was in charge of Voice of America broadcasts to Poland during the Reagan administration.
