![]() Finally, military force is Russia’s ultimate tool of influence. ![]() It has an extensive network of allies and front organizations, and reconstructs reality and rewrites history to legitimize itself and undermine others. ![]() Russia also uses the energy sector, business, and corruption as venues for influence. Human intelligence and cyber operations are important covert tools of influence. Minorities, refugees, and extremists are used to further this divide and rule approach. The population is mainly reached through media and social media, exploiting divisive issues. Russia is targeting the West through a divide and rule approach, using multiple tools of influence. Russia also has more specific objectives related to each individual country. In the shorter term, it is to lift the sanctions imposed after the Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2014. The long-term objective of Russian influence activities is to weaken NATO and the EU. These influence activities support three main Russian strategic objectives: regime security, predominance in Russia’s near abroad, and world-power status for Russia. According to these secret services, Russia is the foreign state that tries to influence European politics and decision-making most, and more so than China and other states. ![]() This activity is by nature covert, and the analysis given in these reports from Western secret services complements other research and shows the broad range of tools and techniques employed for political influence, and much detail on the execution of these activities. It examines current thinking and perceptions on this topic among Western secret services and is based on an analysis of approximately 40 annual reports from 15 secret services in 11 Western countries, covering the period 2014–2018. The purpose of this study is to improve understanding of how Russia is conducting political influence activities against Europe. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |