Short-form insights and rapid-reaction analysis of breaking news and global events.
2024 is a year of critical elections around the world. This holds especially true in Europe, where in June alone, the European Parliament elections, British snap elections, and surprise French parliamentary elections all took place in quick successi [...]
Introduction In the days after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a torrent of false and misleading information about the attack flooded social media. While the majority of these claims see [...]
Despite a lower profile in the national debate, the tools, tactics, motivations, and actors associated with foreign interference in US elections have evolved significantly since Russia’s “sweeping and systematic” 2016 operation. The Cybersecurity an [...]
Often criticized for their lack of mettle in combatting foreign interference, European institutions have shown signs of increased combativeness in recent weeks. A whole bevy of cash-for-influence, election interference, and espionage cases have been [...]
With democratic decline on display around the world, Georgia should be on our mind. Policy Recommendations The US and EU governments should insist that the Georgian government invite the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Co [...]
At the inaugural Belt and Road Forum in 2017, the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) leader, Xi Jinping, made a pitch to the global south: the PRC could help develop partnering countries by building “big data, cloud computing, and smart cities” infr [...]
Almost half a century after its Carnation Revolution that led to the end of the country’s dictatorship, Portugal’s political landscape is once again marked by the remarkable rise of the far right. Last Sunday’s election saw the ruling left-leaning S [...]
The presidential campaign season in Russia has shown a stark turn from the themes that dominated—and were absent from—last September’s regional elections in Russia. With the war then at a stalemate, even the ruling United Russia party avoided any me [...]
Introduction On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, US President Joe Biden’s administration issued an executive order that directs the Departments of Justice (DOJ), Homeland Security, Health and Human Services (HHS), Defense, and Veteran Affairs to take a [...]
“Look up SMARTMATIC and tweet me what you think?” tweeted Rudy Guiliani, then-US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, in the weeks after the 2020 US presidential election. It was part of a broader campaign to delegitimize the election by castin [...]
While the news cycle is still abuzz with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin, flying under the radar are new details about Russian intelligence’s role in cultivating ties with political parties in Euro [...]
My travels to South Korea as part of a “Next Generation Leaders” delegation, sponsored by the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and the Korea Foundation, highlighted the robustness of the US-South Korean alliance and the challenges facing demo [...]
Introduction In January 2012, the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s state-owned broadcaster CCTV opened an African branch headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. Shortly thereafter, CCTV Africa—later rebranded as CGTN Africa—began publis [...]
The recent Taiwanese elections provide important insights into the tools and tactics the People’s Republic of China (PRC) might use when election results matter to its leadership. Similarly, Taiwanese authorities’ vigilance and responsiveness to Bei [...]
As we step into 2024, an unprecedented four billion people globally are gearing up to participate in what is set to be the largest election year in history. At the forefront of this democratic marathon is Taiwan, whose January elections not only ina [...]
The intensification of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks has forced liberal democracies to carefully craft a message that balances their support for Israel with growing domestic criticism over civilian casualti [...]
Since 2019, the Alliance for Securing Democracy at GMF has operated the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard, an online tool to track messaging originating from Chinese, Iranian, and Russian state media and government officials. In its time, the dashboard collect [...]
“Elections have consequences” the saying goes, often to justify a break with a previous administration. Along Europe’s Eastern flank, where illiberalism is on the rise and support for Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression is wavering, the resul [...]
In her last State of the European Union (SOTEU) speech for this Commission mandate, Ursula von der Leyen expectedly stayed mum on whether she intends to stand again. But it is difficult to take her address as anything but a carefully calibrated effo [...]
Meta’s recent report on the company’s takedown of a Chinese government information campaign that was the “largest cross-platform operation” ever, and of several smaller influence campaigns that originated in Turkey, Iran, and Russia, named hundreds [...]
Over the course of the war in Ukraine, a loose network of Russian military bloggers on Telegram have provided a fervently nationalistic, though at times highly critical, view of Russia’s “special military operation”. Providing more unfiltered covera [...]
Overview Congress has approved more than $100 billion in aid for Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. Throughout that time, lawmakers have taken to X, formerly known as Twitter, to defend that funding, to call for more assistan [...]
Meta’s Twitter-alternative, Threads, became the fastest app to reach 100 million users. It took five days. The app itself only took seven months to build, a remarkably short start-to-launch period that did not allow the few dozen engineers working o [...]
In the May 2023 Turkish elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan failed to secure enough votes to win a majority in the first round outright, forcing a run-off election where he ultimately held on to power. Like other recent elections in Türkiye, t [...]
Thanks to the European Union, this week’s Ukraine Recovery Conference in London will prove to be the most significant international event of the year to rally support for a thriving Ukraine. Indeed, the EU’s showing was so robust that it signals Ukr [...]
Overview In the early hours of June 6, an explosion collapsed the Kakhovka dam, releasing a torrent of water across the Ukrainian countryside and igniting a blame game across social media. Evidence collected by the New York Times indicates that Russ [...]
How did President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan prevail in the face of a terrible economy, his government’s disastrous handling of the February earthquake, numerous corruption scandals, and a unified opposition? Turkey’s election was partly free, but deeply [...]
In the end, it was not so close. Turkey’s most tightly contested election in a generation ended up giving the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a new mandate to extend his unbroken and unprecedented 20-year hold on power. This victory will [...]
What happened in the first round? In Turkey’s first round election held on May 14, tens of millions of voters turned out for both sides. There was intense competition on a playing field that the incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan skewed heavi [...]
This blog is an adaptation of the chapter on transparency and accountability from “Toward a Marshall Plan for Ukraine: New Ideas and Recommendations”, by Norman Eisen, Alina Inayeh, Jacob Kirkegaard, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, Josh Rudolph, and Bruce [...]
For a country long inured to hardship and crisis management, the upcoming election taking place in Greece on May 21st feels like a transition back to “normal”. Gone are the extraordinary conditions of supervision and oversight by the troika of inter [...]
Elections in Turkey had high turn-out, meaningful results, and little violence, but that doesn’t mean they were free from autocratic manipulation on the part of the regime. On Sunday, Turkish voters went to the polls in a mostly free but highly unf [...]
In Erdoğan’s Turkey, anti-government trolls get arrested, while pro-government trolls get paychecks. Social media has become a major source of information for Turkish people, thanks in large part to the Turkish government’s strict control of tradit [...]
Overview On April 13, the FBI arrested Jack Teixeira for his alleged involvement in leaking hundreds of classified documents. Teixeira, a member of the Air National Guard, reportedly shared the US intelligence assessments with his friends over the c [...]
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared on Capitol Hill on Thursday 23 March to testify in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where lawmakers peppered him with questions about TikTok’s Chinese ownership, effects on youth, and practices aroun [...]
Overview TikTok has been central to the world’s understanding of Russia’s war in Ukraine. It was particularly valuable in the conflict’s early days when people were desperate for news and able to find real-time updates about military maneuvers and o [...]
At the beginning of 2023, Japan assumed the presidency of the Group of Seven (G7) from Germany. This puts Tokyo, already a prime target of Chinese information manipulation, at the helm of a body that has drawn significant and sustained criticism fro [...]
NATO’s role in countering Russian aggression during the war in Ukraine has made the alliance a repeated target of Kremlin-linked propaganda campaigns. Central to this effort is an attempt by Russian state-affiliated media and diplomats to exploit or [...]
Overview YouTube was essential to RT’s early success, helping the Russian propaganda network expand its audience across the globe. YouTube’s decision to ban Russian state media channels after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine thus marked a sig [...]
US President Joe Biden’s Ukraine, Poland, and NATO meetings last week in the run up to the one-year mark of Russia’s attack on Ukraine was historic—and effective. He shored up support among Ukraine’s allies, undercut adversaries abroad and critics a [...]