Russia Isn’t the Only One Meddling in Elections. We Do It, Too.
- 6 years ago
Russia Isn’t the Only One Meddling in Elections. We Do It, Too.
That said, the methods they used in this election were the digital version of methods used both by the United States
and Russia for decades: breaking into party headquarters, recruiting secretaries, placing informants in a party, giving information or disinformation to newspapers.”
His findings underscore how routine election meddling by the United States — sometimes covert and sometimes quite open — has been.
In recent decades, the most visible American presence in foreign politics has been taxpayer-funded groups like the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which do not support candidates
but teach basic campaign skills, build democratic institutions and train election monitors.
Thomas Carothers, a scholar at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace, recalls arguing with a State Department official who
told him at the time, “Yeltsin is democracy in Russia,” to which Mr. Carothers said he replied, “That’s not what democracy means.”
But what does democracy mean?
The United States “absolutely” has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, “and I hope we keep doing it.”
Loch K. Johnson, the dean of American intelligence scholars, who began his career in the 1970s investigating the C. I.A.
officials told Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s that “insertions” of information into foreign
news media, mostly accurate but sometimes false, were running at 70 to 80 a day.
That said, the methods they used in this election were the digital version of methods used both by the United States
and Russia for decades: breaking into party headquarters, recruiting secretaries, placing informants in a party, giving information or disinformation to newspapers.”
His findings underscore how routine election meddling by the United States — sometimes covert and sometimes quite open — has been.
In recent decades, the most visible American presence in foreign politics has been taxpayer-funded groups like the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which do not support candidates
but teach basic campaign skills, build democratic institutions and train election monitors.
Thomas Carothers, a scholar at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace, recalls arguing with a State Department official who
told him at the time, “Yeltsin is democracy in Russia,” to which Mr. Carothers said he replied, “That’s not what democracy means.”
But what does democracy mean?
The United States “absolutely” has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, “and I hope we keep doing it.”
Loch K. Johnson, the dean of American intelligence scholars, who began his career in the 1970s investigating the C. I.A.
officials told Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s that “insertions” of information into foreign
news media, mostly accurate but sometimes false, were running at 70 to 80 a day.