Battlegrounds

by H. R. McMaster

6On Gerasimov and the Syrian Civil War, see Kramer, “Russian General Pitches ‘Information’ Operations as a Form of War.” On Syrian use of nerve agents, see Daryll Kimball and Kelsey Davenport, “Timeline of Syrian Chemical Weapons Activity, 2012–2019,” Fact Sheets & Briefs, Arms Control Association, March 2019, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Syrian-Chemical-Weapons-Activity. On Putin’s intervention in Syria, see Maksymilian Czuperski et al., “Distract Deceive Destroy: Putin at War in Syria,” The Atlantic, April 2016, https://publications.atlanticcouncil.org/distract-deceive-destroy/assets/download/ddd-report.pdf; and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “How a 4-Hour Battle Between Russian Mercenaries and U.S. Commandos Unfolded in Syria,” New York Times, May 24, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/american-commandos-russian-mercenaries-syria.html.

  7Neil MacFarquhar, “Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian Oligarch Indicted by U.S., Is Known as ‘Putin’s Cook,’” New York Times, February 16, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/world/europe/prigozhin-russia-indictment-mueller.html.

  8Mariam Tsvetkova, “Russian Toll in Syria Battle Was 300 Killed and Wounded: Sources,” Reuters, February 15, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-casualties/russian-toll-in-syria-battle-was-300-killed-and-wounded-sources-idUSKCN1FZ2DZ.

  9Lavrov was the mouthpiece of the regime abroad, a legendary diplomat who spoke flawless English and used his diplomatic cunning in foreign capitals to cover up the Kremlin’s abuses. Yet it was not clear if Lavrov’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had the bureaucratic weight in the Russian system, which was dominated by the security services, to put back together the pieces of a bilateral relationship that the security services had broken with Russia’s 2016 election interference. Patrick Jackson, “Europe | Profile: Putin’s Foreign Minister Lavrov,” BBC News, June 29, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6242774.stm. On Patrushev’s rise to power, see Andrew Monaghan, “Power in Modern Russia” (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2017), 21.

  10Quotations in the previous paragraph are from Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015), 185–89, 388. On Putin and Patrushev’s climb, see Hill and Gaddy, 41, 185–89.

  11This was in violation of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, an agreement that demonstrates a commitment to respecting the sovereignty of each state and its right to choose the best means to ensure its security while promising a peaceful settlement of disputes. These three concerns are also consistent with the analysis of Russian policy assumptions in Monaghan, “Power in Modern Russia,” 26–27; North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Summary: Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security Between NATO and the Russian Federation,” May 27, 1997, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_25470.htm?selectedLocale=en. & NATO; “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security Between NATO and the Russian Federation Signed in Paris, France,” https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm.

  12Jakub J. Grygiel and A. Wess Mitchell, The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), 49.

  13On Kerry, see John Kerry, “Face the Nation Transcripts March 2, 2014: Kerry, Hagel,” Face the Nation, March 2, 2014, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-transcripts-march-2-2014-kerry-hagel/. On maskirovka, see “Maskirovka: From Russia, with Deception,” October 30, 2016, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/10/31/maskirovka_from_russia_with_deception_110282.html. For more on World War I, see Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (New York: Basic Books, 1999).

  14For more on sanctions, see “President Donald J. Trump Is Standing Up to Russia’s Malign Activities,” Fact Sheets, The White House, April 6, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-standing-russias-malign-activities/; Office of the Spokes-person, “Sanctions Announcement on Russia,” U.S. Department of State, December 19, 2018, https://www.state.gov/sanctions-announcement-on-russia/.

  15On the attempted coup, see Andrew E. Kramer and Joseph Orovic, “Two Suspected Russian Agents Among 14 Convicted in Montenegro Coup Plot,” New York Times, May 9, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/world/europe/montenegro-coup-plot-gru.html; Adam Casey and Lucan Ahmad, “Russian Electoral Interventions, 1991–2017,” Scholars Portal Dataverse, December 15, 2017, https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.5683/SP/BYRQQS. On sanctions, see Jeremy Herb, “Senate Sends Russia Sanctions to Trump’s Desk,” CNN, July 27, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/russian-sanctions-passes-senate/index.html.

  16Tak Kumakura, “North Koreans May Have Died in Israel Attack on Syria, NHK Says,” Bloomberg, April 27, 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20121103011551/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aErPTWRFZpJI&refer=japan; IDF, “The Secret Operation Revealed a Decade Later,” IDF Press Center, March 21, 2018, https://www.idf.il/en/articles/operations/the-secret-operation-revealed-a-decade-later/.

  17Vladimir Putin, “Russia at the Turn of the Millennium.” https://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/Putin.htm.

  18Donald Kagan, Thucydides: The Reinvention of History (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 1, 9, 14–16.

  19Vladimir Putin, “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,” President of Russia, April 25, 2005, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22931.

  20On Russia in the late 1990s, see Michael McFaul, “Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin” (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001). See also Chrystia Freeland, Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution (London: Little, Brown and Company, 2000).

  21On the use of assistance, see U.S. General Accounting Office, “Foreign Assistance: International Efforts to Aid Russia’s Transitions Have Had Mixed Reviews.” GAO, November 2000, 33, https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-8. On Russia under the Obama administration, see Carter Ash, Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in the Pentagon (New York: Dutton, 2019), 272–77.

  On Putin’s speech, see Washington Post Editorial Board, “After the Fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S Tried to Help Russians,” Washington Post, May 4, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/after-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-the-us-tried-to-help-russians/2015/05/04/cc4f7c20-f043-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html.

  22On Putin quote, see Russian media source: PNA HOBOCTN, “Путин: ‘цветные ревоΛюции’ в ряде стран—это урок дΛя России,” PNA HOBOCTN, November 20, 2014, https://ria.ru/20141120/1034329699.html. For estimates on civilian deaths and torture, see Simon Shuster. “Putin’s Secret Agents,” Time, https://time.com/putin-secret-agents/; Eli Lake, “Georgia’s Democracy Recedes into Russia’s Shadow,” Bloomberg Opinion. September 14, 2018. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-09-14/georgia-s-rose-revolution-recedes-into-russia-s-shadow. On the color revolutions, see Lake, “Georgia’s Democracy Recedes Into Russia’s Shadow”; also, William Schneider, “Ukraine’s ‘Orange Revolution,’” The Atlantic, December 2004, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/12/ukraines-orange-revolution/305157/; Anthony H. Cordesman, “Russia and ‘The Color Revolution’: A Russian Military View of a World Destabilized by the U.S. and the West,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 28, 2014, https://www.csis.org/analysis/russia-and-%E2%80%9Ccolor-revolution%E2%80%9D. On Putin’s reaction to the color revolutions, see Leonid Bershidsky, “Why ‘Color Revolutions’ Can’t Be Exported,” Bloomberg Opinion, February 14, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-02-15/saakashvili-and-why-color-revolutions-can-t-be-exported. On Putin’s election, see “Putin Declared President-elect,” RT, March 5, 2012, https://www.rt.com/news/putin-win-presidential-election-813/.

  23On Putin’s view of the color revolutions and their motivations, see Dmitri Simes, “Senior Kremlin Official Accuses NATO of Plotting ‘Col
or Revolutions’ in Russia’s Neighborhood,” CNSNews.com, July 5, 2019, https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/dimitri-simes/senior-kremlin-official-accuses-nato-plotting-color-revolutions-russias; Julia Gurganus and Eugene Rumer, “Russia’s Global Ambitions in Perspective,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 20, 2019, https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/02/20/russia-s-global-ambitions-in-perspective-pub-78067.

  24Statistics from the World Bank, “GDP per Capita—United States” and “GDP per Capita—Russian Federation,” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD. U.S. GDP per capita in 2017 was $59,927.93. Statistics gathered from World Bank, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2017,” Transparency International, February 21, 2018, https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2017. On Russia’s corruption, see Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2017.”

  25On projected population decline in Russia, see David Holloway, “Russia and the Solecism of Power,” Governance in an Emerging World, Fall Series, Issue 118, October 3, 2018. https://www.hoover.org/research/russia-and-solecism-power. For statistics on health, see Rachel Nuwer, “Why Russian Men Don’t Live as Long,” New York Times, February 17, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/science/why-russian-men-dont-live-as-long.html. Life expectancy data accessed from the World Bank, “Life Expectancy at Birth, Total (Years): Russian Federation,” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=RU&name_desc=false.

  26I am indebted to Dr. Kathyrn Stoner of Stanford University for this and many other insights into Russian strategy. For more on Putin’s preference for destroying rather than rebuilding order, see Jakub Grygiel, “The Geopolitical Nihilist,” American Interest, December 10, 2014, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/12/10/the-geopolitical-nihilist/.

  27Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying Out Combat Operations,” trans. Robert Coalson, Military Review, January–February 2016 (originally published in Military-Industrial Kurier, February 27, 2013), https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20160228_art008.pdf.

  28Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews, “The Russian ‘Firehose of Falsehood’ Propaganda Model: Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It,” RAND Corporation, 2016, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html; Margaret L. Taylor, “Combating Disinformation and Foreign Interference in Democracies: Lessons from Europe,” Brookings Institution, July 31, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2019/07/31/combating-disinformation-and-foreign-interference-in-democracies-lessons-from-europe/.

  29Amy Zegart, “The Dark Arts of Deception: What’s Old? What’s New? What’s Next?” Global Populisms Conference, March 1–2, 2019, Stanford University, https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/zegart_populisms_memo_2.21.2019_1.pdf.

  30See Stanford Internet Observatory Paper, “Evidence of Russia-Linked Influence Operations in Africa,” https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/prigozhin-africa.

  31On the Ukrainian presidential elections, see Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, “Ukraine Presidential Election 31 October, 21 November and 26 December 2004: OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report,” May 11, 2005, https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/ukraine/14674?download=true; and Steven Pifer, The Eagle and the Trident: U.S.-Ukraine Relations in Turbulent Times (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 274.

  32On Russian interference in Moldova, see Andrey Makarychev, “Russia’s Moldova Policy: Soft Power at the Service of Realpolitik,” ponarseurasia.org, March 2010, http://www.ponarseurasia.org/sites/default/files/policy-memos-pdf/pepm_094.pdf.

  33Gabe Joselow, “Election Cyberattacks: Pro-Russia Hackers Have Been Accused in Past,” NBC, November 3, 2016, https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/technology/election-cyberattacks-pro-russia-hackers-have-been-accused-past-n673246.

  34On Russian subversion in each of these countries, see Jamie Doward, “Malta Accuses Russia of Cyber-attacks in Run-up to Election,” The Guardian, May 27, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/27/russia-behind-cyber-attacks-says-malta-jseph-muscat; Oren Dorell, “Alleged Russian Political Meddling Documented in 27 Countries Since 2004,” USA Today, September 7, 2017, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/09/07/alleged-russian-political-meddling-documented-27-countries-since-2004/619056001/; Ann M. Simmons, “Russia’s Meddling in Other Nations’ Elections Is Nothing New. Just Ask the Europeans,” Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2017, https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-election-meddling-20170330-story.html; and Larry Diamond, “Russia and the Threat to Liberal Democracy,” The Atlantic, December 9, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/russia-liberal-democracy/510011/.

  35On the Montenegrin election, see David Shimer, “Smaller Democracies Grapple with the Threat of Russian Interference,” The New Yorker, December 8, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/smaller-democracies-grapple-with-the-threat-of-russian-interference.

  36Milivoje Pantovic, “Vucic: Serbia Arrests People Involved in ‘Illegal Acts’ in Montenegro,” Balkan Insight, October 25, 2016, https://balkaninsight.com/2016/10/25/serbian-pm-failed-to-explain-coup-in-montenegro-10-24-2016/.

  37Kramer and Orovic, “Two Suspected Russian Agents.”

  38On Americans’ economic outlook, see Eduardo Porter, “Where Were Trump’s Votes? Where the Jobs Weren’t.” New York Times, December 13, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/business/economy/jobs-economy-voters.html. Michelle Ver Ploeg, “Access to Affordable, Nutritious Food Is Limited in ‘Food Deserts,’” U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, March 1, 2010, https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2010/march/access-to-affordable-nutritious-food-is-limited-in-food-deserts/.

  39Aaron Blake, “More Young People Voted for Bernie Sanders than Trump and Clinton Combined—By a Lot,” Washington Post, June 20, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/20/more-young-people-voted-for-bernie-sanders-than-trump-and-clinton-combined-by-a-lot/.

  40For quote on Trump and historical perspective on Trump’s election, see Victor Davis Hanson, The Case for Trump (New York: Basic Books, 2020); Colleen Kelley, A Rhetoric of Divisive Partisanship: The 2016 American Presidential Campaign Discourse of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018), 15.

  41These and the statistics on the IRA in the following paragraphs from Renee DiResta, et al., “The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet Research Agency,” New Knowledge, 2018, https://disinformationreport.blob.core.windows.net/disinformation-report/NewKnowledge-Disinformation-Report-Whitepaper.pdf.

  42The New Knowledge report on “The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet Research Agency” concluded that the purpose was “to undermine citizens’ trust in government, exploit societal fractures, create distrust in the information environment, blur the lines between reality and fiction, undermine trust among communities, and erode confidence in the democratic process.” Renee DiResta et al., “The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet Research Agency.”

  43Niall Ferguson, “Silicon Valley and the Threat to Democracy,” The Daily Beast, January 21, 2018, https://www.thedailybeast.com/social-media-shreds-the-social-fabric-one-click-at-a-time; Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence, “U.S. Senate: Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interferences in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 2: Russia’s Use of Social Media with Additional Views,” U.S. Senate, n.d., https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf.

  44Select Committee on Intelligence, “Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interferences in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 2: Russia’s Use of Social Media with Additional Views.”

  45Harvey Klehr and William Tompson, “Self-determination in the Black Belt: Origins of a Communist Party,” Labor History 30, no. 3 (1989): 355, https://doi.org/10.1080/00236568900890231.

  46On the IRA’s use of fals
e identities, see Robert S. Mueller, United States of America v. Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, Defendants: Case 1:18-cr-00215-ABJ, U.S. Justice Department, https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download. On Guccifer 2.0, see Robert S. Mueller, “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election,” U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, March 2019, https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf (hereafter cited as “Mueller Report”); on memes and their repurposing, see New Knowledge report, “The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet Research Agency”; and U.S. Justice Department, “United States of America v. Internet Research Agency,” July, 2018, .pdf at https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download.

  47See David Folkenflik, “Behind Fox News’ Baseless Seth Rich Story: The Untold Tale,” NPR, August 1, 2017, https://www.npr.org/2017/08/01/540783715/lawsuit-alleges-fox-news-and-trump-supporter-created-fake-news-story; and U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “New Reports Shed Light on Internet Research Agency’s Social Media Tactics,” Washington, DC, December 2018, https://cryptome.org/2018/12/ssci-ru-sm-aid-trump.pdf; Janine Zacharia, “Facebook, Others Must Do More to Protect National Security,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 17, 2017, http://janinezacharia.net/reporting/facebook-and-others-must-protect-national-security/.

  48See Mueller, United States of America v. Viktor Borisovich Netyksho.

  49Tom LoBianco, “Trump Falsely Claims ‘Millions of People Who Voted Illegally’ Cost Him Popular Vote,” CNN, November 28, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/politics/donald-trump-voter-fraud-popular-vote/index.html.

  50Adam Goldman, Jo Becker, and Matt Apuzzo, “Russian Dirt on Clinton? ‘I Love It,’ Donald Trump Jr. Said,” New York Times, July 11, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/us/politics/trump-russia-email-clinton.html. Also see Mueller Report.

  51On Cambridge Analytica, see Nicholas Confessore, Matthew Rosenberg, and Sheera Frenkel, “Facebook Data Collected by Quiz App Included Private Messages,” New York Times, April 10, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-private-messages.html.