Putin’s Russia and Political War

Has Russia changed? Does it have a new strategy for dealing with those who oppose it?

Some think so. After a British court found cause to believe that Putin was complicit in the death of Alexander Litvinenko and after attacks on power plants in Ukraine, attributed by many to Russia, it has been argued that Russia has adopted a new strategy, a new tradecraft.  In particular, the claim has been made that Moscow has replaced murder with hacking.

The truth is that Moscow uses a multitude of means to deal with opposition in the world beyond Russia’s borders.  It always has. It is doing nothing new.  It follows a strategy that was adopted by Lenin.

Political war: More than hacking, less than combat

Lenin and his successors in the Soviet Union used all means available to influence a world they saw as irretrievably hostile. Putin’s Russia does much the same. Because of geography and the relative weakness of Russia’s military or simply out of prudence, the use of Russia’s military has been out of the question in most of the world. Like Lenin and Stalin before him, therefore, Putin has come to rely on political war, that is, on “the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one’s will.”

This is not the same as hybrid war, the term used to describe Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Hybrid war still relies on military force and political war has a different aim. In Ukraine—and in Syria, for that matter—occupying territory matters, which makes military action necessary. In political war, the goal is simply to weaken the political will of opponents, to “chip away at public confidence.”

The Soviet Union used a variety of political means—both overt and covert— to extend its influence into the West and elsewhere. Many of these means have been updated and are used by the Kremlin today. Instead of Radio Moscow, look at RT and similar   Instead of support given to Communist Parties in the West, look at the support given to right-wing parties.

Information technology has increased the potential of political war in the 21st Century. The cyber realm promises to extend the reach of political war far beyond. Russia has been taking full advantage of it.

As they have shown, social media can be a potent tool of the political warrior. It is ubiquitous, accessible through any smartphone or computer, available at any time of day or night, and increasingly important in the lives of many in the developed world.

It is also less attributable than older media. Whereas radio in particular was clearly identified with its owners and the country from which it broadcast, social media are often ostensibly state-neutral. We knew who Tokyo Rose, Radio Moscow, the BBC, and Radio Free Europe represented; we don't know that about most of those who post on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. They can come from anywhere; they can be anybody.

Then there is hacking, or cyber war, if you will. It is often hard to attribute the source of cyber-attacks to their source, particularly if that source is a nation-state determined that its efforts remain hidden. Indeed, attacks often go unnoticed for years even as they quietly achieve their goals.

They can be launched to serve a multitude of purposes. Some can deny access to services available online, as in Estonia in 2007. Others can be another form of espionage, as with the attacks on OPM databases in 2014-2015. Still others can wreak physical destruction. Stuxnet showed that potential. More recently, just last year, the BlackEnergy toolkit was used to attack power plants in Ukraine. It appears to have been used for a variety of political purposes since at least 2014.

Of course not all of these attacks were made by Russia, and Russia is far from the only country able to wage cyber war. But it is widely recognized that Russia is one of the best at it. It is an important element in the Russian approach to political war, as an article by two Russian military officers published in Voennaya Mysl in 2013 shows. They describe a continuum of operations through all phases of ‘new-generation war.’ Cyber-attacks have a prominent role throughout, from spreading propaganda to the final, military phase.

What is to be done?

The West has always had difficulty dealing with political war. The credulousness of William Duranty, who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that the Great Famine in Ukraine did not occur and Joseph Davies, the ambassador to Moscow who believed that the people Stalin put on stage in the show trials were guilty, are but two examples. There are myriad others that can be gathered from across the Western world.

As Mark Galeotti argues, we are no better prepared today as Putin and his government use the methods of 21st Century political war to combat the many hostile elements they find in outside world. We need to recognize the efforts that they are making and the means they have available. Sometimes they will succeed.

Should Russian political war be cause for alarm? Arguably not, especially in regard to the United States. After all, it is not new. We survived the Soviet version of political war; the Russian threatens us less, despite the evident effectiveness of Russian cyber arms over the last decade and the growing efforts to gain influence through the new and old media.  Moreover, political war is not war war. And while Russia is certainly not a friend—the hostility of Putin to the West can be almost palpable—it is not an out and out enemy. For most of its history, the Soviet Union was.

Countries where democratic institutions are weaker are a different matter. Ukraine is one example, but Bulgaria is another. A response to Russian efforts to wage political war is needed, but it should be measured.

We would do well to nurture that antidote by strengthening private and public programs that foster open media, good government, and cyber defense. An increase in covert programs such as those George Kennan sought in 1948 will not survive when they come to light once again, as they did before and will again. The creation of a bureaucracy devoted to political war, as Max Boot advocates, is overkill.

Our response to this long-standing Russian reliance on political war needs to take into account the strengths that our open society can bring to a political struggle. The weaknesses have been often noted, but truth is a powerful antidote to propaganda.