Second wave: in Western democracies, 2014 to now
In the past three years, Russian interference has expanded into such countries as the United States, Germany, France and Britain, among others. These efforts have ranged widely. For instance, to prevent Montenegro from
joining NATO, the Kremlin likely
sponsored an October 2016
coup attempt. In a number of European countries, Russia helped
fund far-right parties such as the National Front in the run-up to France’s 2017 election. Russia waged
disinformation campaigns in other countries. In the United States’ 2016 election, that included creating
fake Facebook accounts that may have reached
as many as 126 million Americans; disseminating
leaked emails and
fake documents to WikiLeaks; and launching cyberattacks
targeting state voting registration systems. And in
Norway and
Germany, Russia launched phishing attacks against parties and campaigns.
Have Russia’s efforts to steer elections changed the results?
Let’s consider the 16 elections in which Russia appears to have tried to influence the results since 2015. Of these, two —
Brexit in 2016 and the
Czech Republic in 2017 — turned out the way the Kremlin apparently hoped, and seven had results that partly reflected Russian interests. One example from the second group is the 2017 French presidential elections. The National Front won an unprecedented amount of support — but the pro-European Union Emmanuel Macron won. Similarly, in the United States, Hillary Clinton was defeated, but U.S. sanctions against Russia remain in place. The others were the 2016 elections in
Austria,
Bulgaria, a referendum in the
Netherlands, and the 2017 elections in
Germany and the
Netherlands.
Favorable outcomes in nine out of 16 elections may seem like a lot. But it’s not at all clear that Russia’s efforts made any difference. Other factors also affected the elections:
increased immigration, for instance, and the perception that established party systems weren’t responding to ordinary voters’ concerns. In fact, only three election results can be plausibly attributed even partly to Russian efforts.
And even in these, a closer look shows that Russia’s actual influence is far from clear.
First, in April 2016, a Russian
disinformation campaign may have helped sway Dutch voters to reject a nonbinding referendum on the E.U.-Ukraine Association Agreement. But maybe not. Many Dutch citizens had long resented European policymaking on
a wider range of issues. In any case, the
Dutch parliament ignored the results and
enacted the Association Agreement.
Second, in November 2016, Bulgaria elected as president Rumen Radev, a
pro-Moscow candidate who
had received assistance from Russian intelligence. That prompted the pro-Brussels prime minister Boyko Borisov to resign. But Borisov’s party
won a plurality in the March 2017 elections — and he
returned as prime minister.
Finally, as the U.S. intelligence services have unanimously concluded, Russia was heavily involved in the 2016 U.S. election. In addition to releasing
hacked emails that embarrassed Clinton, the Russian government appears to have created
fake Facebook and Twitter accounts to distribute negative and often false news intended to stir up outrage.
[Republicans used to compare talking to Moscow to talking to Hitler. Trump changed that.]
But there are reasons to be skeptical of the claim that Russia swung the election for Trump. First, Russian
information warriors produced
far less fake news and polarizing rhetoric than did
domestic and other international sources. Russia simply added to the already deafening cacophony of inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation.
Second, the hacked emails had little obvious impact. The first batch of Democratic National Committee emails was released in July 2016, amid the two party conventions — after which Clinton’s lead increased. Similarly, after WikiLeaks released John Podesta’s emails in October, Clinton’s
support increased, apparently in response to such other campaign events as the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape. Trust in Clinton
remained more or less the samethroughout October — not what we’d expect to see if the emails had made a difference.
Of course, Russia may still have influenced the outcome. As FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten
notes, “the drip, drip, drip” of these email releases “makes it all but impossible to measure their effect precisely.” And Trump won by such a thin margin that even a small Russian impact could have tipped the election.
But there is far stronger evidence that other factors were more critical. For instance, public opinion shifted suddenly after Oct. 28, when FBI Director James B. Comey
announced that he was reopening an investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state. And the closeness of the election mostly resulted from polarization between Democrats and Republicans that
long predates Russian President Vladimir Putin or the rise of Trump.
It’s true that Russia has been increasingly trying to meddle in Western elections. But it hasn’t gotten much for its efforts — and these efforts have often backfired. For instance, the U.S. uproar about Russian interference has almost certainly made it less likely that the United States will lift its sanctions. Thus, on balance, Putin’s expansion of Russian interference may not be in Russia’s interests.