By Sheldon Greaves
The COVID pandemic has become a favorite leverage point for Russian propaganda efforts against the United States. Russia’s strategic objectives require the United States to have a diminished role in world affairs. According to a 2019 Strategic Multilayer Assessment by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff:
The main “end” of Russian grand strategy in the 21st century is establishing is a “Yalta 2.0,” in which Russia enjoys an uncontested sphere of influence in the post-Soviet region, broadcasts Russian voice and influence globally, and establishes reliable constraints on American globe-trotting and regime-change activities. Russia’s ways can be described as one of “asymmetric balancing” through gray zone challenges to prevent uncontested US influence from setting the global agenda.[1]
In order to meet these objectives, Russia has employed extensive and sophisticated propaganda campaigns that are little different from those used during the Cold War. The primary difference is the use of the Internet and social media as an accelerant. Conservative American media outlets have unwittingly augmented this effort to disrupt American society and degrade U.S. influence abroad.[2]
Russia’s War
Russia sees itself as being at war with the United States. That the U.S. does not position itself on a war footing is due to a basic difference of understanding; “Russia believes that there is no unacceptable or illegitimate form of deterrence, compellence, or escalation management. It also does not believe in the continuum of conflict that the US has constructed.”[3] However, Russia lacks the strategic assets, both military and political, to directly challenge the current position of the U.S. in global affairs.
Additionally, Vladimir Putin has made no secret of his desire to destroy Western liberalism, to be replaced by a more fascistic political philosophy based largely on an early 20th century Christian fascist named Ivan Ilyin.
Russia has managed to score some crucial victories. It has, for all intents and purposes, placed an agent of influence in the White House.[4] This is an extraordinary development. In addition to his nearly constant favoring of Russian interests over those of the United States,[5] President Trump has become a major source of disinformation regarding the COVID-19 virus and pandemic.
The Bot Army
A recent report demonstrates a classic instance of Russia using propaganda to further fray America’s social fabric, while also creating conditions that have already led to the deaths of thousands of Americans and will likely cause the deaths of thousands more. A surge of support for early reopening on social media is at odds with polling data showing that 60% of Americans support a continued ban on non-essential movement, while 69% support bans on gatherings of more than 10 people.[6] It turns out that the social media support for ending the quarantine is largely driven by bots in a coordinated campaign to push the “open now” agenda, one that will invariably lead to many more unnecessary deaths.
A study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon analyzed over 200 million tweets in support of ending shutdown measures and found that 34% of accounts generating such content are “definitely bots,” while another 32% are “possibly humans with bot assistants.” The researchers also found that 82% of the 50 most influential retweeters of anti-lockdown content, and 88% of the top 1,000 retweeters, are bots. These bots, the researchers say, have been proliferating inaccurate stories about coronavirus and potential cures and dominating conversations about reopening the country.[7]
There is a growing consensus that both Russia and China are spreading disinformation about COVID via social media, both with the intent of weakening the United States, albeit in pursuit of different agendas. Who, exactly is doing this remains unclear, but the campaigns are straight out of Russian and Chinese propaganda playbooks.
[1] “Russian Strategic Intentions. A Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) White Paper”, May 2019
(Joint Chiefs of Staff). https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000016b-a5a1-d241-adff-fdf908e00001
[2] See my discussion of this in “Fox News Prepared the Battlefield for Russia’s Propaganda War” https://www.guerrillascholar.com/cogito/2017/10/01/fox-news-prepared-battlefield-russias-propaganda-war/
[3] “Russian Strategic Intentions”, loc. Cit.
[4] “US spies say Trump’s G7 performance suggests he’s either a ‘Russian asset’ or a ‘useful idiot’ for Putin” Business Insider, 29 Aug 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/spies-react-trump-g7-summit-russian-asset-2019-8. See also John Sipher, “Is Trump a Russian Agent?: Explaining Terms of Art and Examining the Facts” Just Security, 16 April 2019, https://www.justsecurity.org/63660/is-trump-a-russian-agent-explaining-terms-of-art-and-examining-the-facts/
[5] Max Bergmann, Putin’s Payout: 12 Ways Trump Has Supported Putin’s Foreign Policy Agenda” The Moscow Project, 18 July 2018, updated 04 Feb 2019, https://themoscowproject.org/reports/putins-payout-10-ways-trump-has-supported-putins-foreign-policy-agenda/
[6] Thomas Beaumont and Hannah Fingerhut, “AP-NORC poll: Americans harbor strong fear of new infections” AP, 20 May 2020, https://apnews.com/3562b5a082a27221e532075de509a36c
[7] Andrew Solender, “Bot Army Behind ‘Reopen America’ Push On Social Media, Study Finds”, Forbes, 22 May 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/05/22/bot-army-behind-reopen-america-push-on-social-media-study-finds/#4a8edac439b2