So the current conversation around Russia’s involvement in the U.S. election, I think,
is a quickly unfolding one and there’s a lot of information that has yet to come to
light.
But broadly speaking it’s not unusual for Russia in particular and larger geopolitical
powers in general to try to influence the outcome of elections that are going to have
ramifications for them on the world stage.
The United States certainly continues to do this and has done this in the past.
You know, Carnegie Mellon did a really valuable study of elections from 1946 through to current
day and found that 11 percent of elections conducted around the world in every country
for that entire period of time had influence from either Russia or the United States—and
70 percent of those instances of influence were the United States, rather than Russia.
This is something that, actually when you think about it, seems almost irresponsible
not to do, to a certain extent.
So if the United States has a perspective around which country is going to sponsor attacks
here in American territory and which candidate in a given government will not, clearly the
United States is going to have a perspective there.
A recent example of this, in the context of the U.S., would be leadership in post-conflict
Iraq.
Obviously there has been a lot of interest from Iran and Shiite forces within the Middle
East in influence now that the government in Baghdad is more up for grabs, post-Saddam
era.
And the United States has a perspective around how much Shiite influence Washington would
like to see in Baghdad.
That’s one example.
Every election in every major strategic territory around the world, the United States, Russia,
and most other world powers have a perspective around which candidate they would like to
see win and which they wouldn’t.
Now the extent to which a government is willing to push that perspective on the electorate
of that country is a matter of law.
And there are lines that, when a foreign power steps over them, they’re in breach of international
law.
There are certainly instances of every major world power, including our own, having overstepped
those lines in the last century, less so in recent years.
The United States has moved away from that habit over the last few decades.
Russia has returned to it with great gusto, particularly in the form of information warfare—what
we’ve come to know as fake news—and we’re just seeing the very, very beginning tip of
the iceberg there.
We are already seeing artificial intelligence in computer programs that are able to take—based
on a small bank of words and a few images—any world leader and have them convincingly say
on video whatever the program would like them to say.
These bots are just in their infancy, and the notion of “to see is to believe” and
video clips being compelling evidence of truth, is something that is unfortunately of a bygone
era.
And Russia is extremely advanced in that technology.
So this is early days and I think rather than expect any world power and Russia in particular
to back off on these kinds of attempts we need to expect our own leaders to have the
integrity to do what’s right even when no one’s watching.
When I trained in service for the U.S. government the inside of our manual said, “Integrity
is doing what’s right when nobody is watching.”
And the temptation to yield to influence in exchange for power is built into representative
democracy.
And, by the way, it’s not just foreign powers like Russia and Moscow.
It’s our own special interests in this country which can yield influence that can be just
as damaging.
And so this is not an issue that’s going to go away for us.
I don’t think we’re going to be able to beef up our cybersecurity over the next couple
of years and bid this threat farewell.
And so while we will continue to be vigilant against it in every way that we can, I think
we also need to rely on ourselves and our leadership to fend off that temptation if
it does make it through the barricades and present itself in the room when nobody’s
watching.