Thursday, March 28, 2024

True diplomacy is a beginning, but the United States needs to make Putin pay the price

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Regardless of whether the red line is raised, the fact remains that for the Russian government, the cost of interfering in past US elections is very low. State-supported Internet research institutions, given a number, spend Spend only $46,000 on Facebook ads before Election Day in 2016 Arrivals 126 million Americans.According to the U.S. Department of Justice, its overall budget around September 2016 file, More than $1.25 million per month-for a Billionaire oligarch Putin single-handedly tried to create chaos in the U.S. elections, especially when compared with hundreds of millions of people spend By the candidate. This tactic follows the long history of Russian security agencies and various front-line organizations, which use “active measures” to conduct secret activities below the threshold of armed conflict to instigate division and promote leaders’ goals. The Internet makes today’s version cheaper to execute.

Washington’s response was relatively small. Many American diplomats, law enforcement officials, and intelligence officials have publicly raised the issue of the Trump administration’s interference in the election, although in most cases, Trump will refute and attack them.United States have Implementation a lot of Sanctions To the Russian government-including recent additions to the Biden administration-many of them debate at least communicate with Tell the Kremlin that interference in the election will receive a response from the United States. However, sending a signal of displeasure is not the same as making the activity costly or harder to execute.

American technology platforms have not fundamentally changed their business model and website structure to prevent the (cheaply built) Russian “troll factory” from spreading misinformation. Although these companies point out that funds are used to combat influence operations, in many respects they are still struggling with their own system, which aims to maximize participation and micro-positioning.Recall, for example, how Russian agents are essentially used Facebook’s advertising features remained the same in 2016 and 2018. These actors keep moving targets, adapt Their technology still runs on the same platform.

On the other hand, Moscow has also gained a lot: propaganda activities were launched without serious resistance, the US media widely reported Russia’s interference in the election, and the narrative fuel of Putin’s image as a strong man. Not to mention that the Kremlin has seen itself as an information conflict with the West. Of course, such comments have propaganda value—for example, suggesting that American social media platforms are tools for subversion—but they also reflect the Kremlin’s true belief in the open Internet in the United States and the world. The Kremlin’s cost-benefit decision-making was made in this context.

Some things have improved; American journalists may Not easy In 2016, the Democratic National Committee selectively reported hacked and leaked materials, and now understands more about the ways they are used to Create a scandalBiden also verbally promised to conduct cybersecurity dialogue with his Russian counterparts, which is an important part of contemporary diplomacy, but has been devalued by the Trump administration.

Looking to the future, narrowly defining attacks or infrastructure that are considered “forbidden zones” will become a key part of these low-level cybersecurity conversations. Biden’s visit itself, and related public statements against election interference, also emphasized the White House’s priority for diplomacy with US allies and partners—another benefit of the summit. Although if Putin’s election interference calculus is really to be changed in the future, the old US response will not be enough.


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