Combating Russia in cyberspace requires a change in tactics

Feelings are foremost. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his former KGB colleagues are masters at manipulating them. It’s how they deftly recruited assets during the Cold War. Play to someone’s insecurities, desires, and of course their flaws. This is the strategy Russia continues to use in their operations in the United States and around the world. I know better than most. I coordinated America’s response to the first major battle in this modern era of information warfare.

{mosads}It started with little green men. Not aliens, Russian soldiers. They appeared with great precision across the Crimean Peninsula. Yet, their uniforms bore no military insignia. Simultaneously, an aggressive online operation was waged to obscure their origin. Of course, most everyone knew the real identity of these well-organized troops. The key for Moscow was to create a veneer of plausible deniability. This meant the international media had to use words like unknown, suspected, or alleged. Lesson one: they only need to mask their actions beneath a very thin layer of lies.

It’s a different ballgame. At the White House, we recognized that this propaganda campaign was far different from those we had previously faced. First, the scale and intensity were on a whole new level. Second, the sophistication of the obfuscation and misinformation was far greater than Russian operations elsewhere. Finally, there was an astonishing integration between their intelligence collection and information dissemination. We were witnessing the emergence of an era in which fake news and fabricated facts would have very real results. Lesson two: propaganda is now central, not secondary in its importance.

It’s not about numbers. Many may ask who even watches or follows Russia Today, Sputnick, or other Kremlin-backed “news” outlets? The truth is that they don’t need a big audience to be successful. Their role is to inject a negative narrative or salacious story about their enemies into the public discourse. It’s then amplified by bots, paid allies, and especially those at our political extremities. The latter are overly inclined to buy a bill of goods, even if they seem far too good to be true. The process is inverted if it’s information the Russians stole, say John Podesta’s emails or in the case of Ukraine, a phone call between U.S. officials. That information gets funneled to a third party and then Moscow magnifies and maximizes its exposure. Lesson three: they will ferociously form and feed a false frame about their adversaries.

Forget about fighting with facts. In Ukraine, many at the State Department wanted to do battle with every lie that was churned out by Putin’s propagandists. It’s easy to show how you, “countered 101 lies today.” That’s exactly what Russia wanted us to do. They say the sky’s purple. We say it’s not. In either case, the debate is about a purple sky. We needed to construct a conversation on our terms. This requires us to spend less time putting out fact sheets in response to their misinformation. Instead, we needed to shape a more personal, positive, and persuasive narrative. Lesson four: emphasizing emotion lets you control the context.

Russia’s goal isn’t to prove they’re right.  They want to sow doubt, distrust, and division. It’s a playbook they’ve used many times before. I saw it play out in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe. Their brand of asymmetric warfare has now arrived in full force to our shores. Their real goal is to diminish America’s standing and muddy the waters of moral clarity.  This doesn’t stop with Trump’s election.  If anything, their information operations will intensify. They will spread beyond politics to other segments of society, as our technology, entertainment, and finance industries feed our global strength. This existential threat requires more than investigation.

Intelligence agencies dislike two things above all else: Exposure and being exposed to their own methods. Putin is one of the most secretive leaders in the world. Yet, I wouldn’t even bother hacking his email. His weakness is that he’s built up a public image of such surreal strength. Send in the sarcasm. A few of those viral videos spread around Russian social media sites and the Kremlin will start to get the message. Add to the mix a campaign contrasting the economic hardships of average Russians with the luxurious lifestyles of their corrupt leaders and you’ll really hit a chord.

The increasing power of information warfare requires us to change tactics. We need more than defensive capabilities. We need to develop and deploy our own offensive communications weapons. They may well serve as our most effective deterrent in an age where global conflicts play out more online than on the ground.

Brett Bruen is president of the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Global Situation Room, and an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University. He also served as director of Global Engagement in the Obama White House and as a diplomat for 12 years.

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