Short-form insights and rapid-reaction analysis of breaking news and global events.
The US Agency for Global Media’s closing aids authoritarian interference. Two days after the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Soviet television broadcast a 20-second report acknowledging that a minor “accident” had occ [...]
In March, Russian political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, sometimes credited as a source of inspiration behind the Kremlin, spoke to the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. He predicted an interesting development in Italian politics: Prime Ministe [...]
Russia and China’s information operations in Venezuela have been extensively discussed and documented. Their media strategy has involved forming partnerships with ideologically aligned national and regional outlets such as TeleSUR, promoting revisio [...]
The EU must make information warfare a core defense priority. With high-level summits, new initiatives, and massive spending commitments dominating headlines, the EU appears poised for a collective Zeitenwende in defense. Its exact contours remain u [...]
Since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Moldova has oscillated between East and West, or between closer ties with Russia or the EU. Last fall, the country faced this existential question once again. Moldovans went to the polls to selec [...]
On March 13, 2025, police raided more than 20 addresses across Europe and sealed two offices in the European Parliament amid suspicions of bribery by Chinese technology giant Huawei. According to media reports, Huawei is suspected of using "items in [...]
The EU has made progress in bolstering its approach to geopolitics in accordance with a world that is increasingly adversarial and hostile to the EU's founding principles, but Brussels must still "move the needle more decisively" on security, defens [...]
After a contested July presidential election in which Nicolás Maduro claimed victory with 51% of the vote—amid allegations of irregularities, limited oversight, and too few international observers—Venezuela was thrown into turmoil. The Carter Center [...]
Foreign interference, or what the EU now calls FIMI (foreign information manipulation and interference), has a multifaceted toolkit. In addition to information manipulation, ASD has identified cyber operations, economic coercion, malign finance, and [...]
This is part two of a two-part series on how RT Deutsch content is evading domain bans and sanctions published in partnership with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Find part one here. Germans head to the polls on Sunday not only to decide who [...]
TV BRICS, a Russian-registered media outlet dedicated to covering the founding BRICS+ countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), as well as BRICS+ candidate states, has largely flown under the radar of Russian media analysts. TV BRI [...]
On December 21, 2024, then-US President-elect Donald Trump demanded that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States from Panama if the latter continued to charge US vessels what he described as “exorbitant” and “ridiculous” rates. A day later [...]
Russian President Vladimir Putin is counting on the incoming US administration to do his bidding by pushing for a settlement to the Ukraine war largely on the Kremlin’s terms, even if this does not happen, as Donald Trump has promised, on his first [...]
Just before their 2024 presidential election, 58% of American voters said that the US political system needs a major overhaul. Another survey revealed that only 4% described the system as working “very well” or “extremely well”, and fewer than a qua [...]
Last week, devastating wildfires ignited across Los Angeles County in what is one of the most destructive natural disasters in US history. But as firefighters continue to battle the flames, false and misleading information about the disaster has spr [...]
The US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) detailed charges against Iranian operatives involved in the plot to assassinate Donald Trump during the recent presidential campaign should dispel any skepticism about US national security threats emanating from [...]
This year’s US election cycle was marked by increasingly brazen attempts by foreign actors to interfere and influence voters. Iran orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump and successfully accessed documents fr [...]
The Kremlin is known for testing disinformation strategies in its “backyard” before applying them globally. Last week in Moldova, the presidential election and constitutional referendum on EU membership presented Russia with such an opportunity. Rus [...]
In May, ASD, along with our partners at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the University of Amsterdam (UvA), published a report documenting roughly 400 domains that had published identical or nearly identical copies of articles original [...]
Americans vote in this year’s consequential presidential election in an environment marked by growing threats, including the weaponization of artificial intelligence, influence campaigns run by foreign authoritarian adversaries, and false election n [...]
Influencers and content creators play a critical role in today’s information environment as opinion makers and trusted voices. As a result, influencers and their online communities have become targets for malign actors seeking to undermine confidenc [...]
In the polarized political landscape of the United States, few words carry as much weight or evoke as much passion as “democracy”. As the cornerstone of American political identity, democracy is both revered and contested by citizens across the ideo [...]
The decentralized nature of election administration in the United States means that every state—and even election jurisdiction—has its own rules for voting and ballot counting. In 2020, variances in election procedures were misconstrued, and in some [...]
Few national contexts offer a more disturbing picture of Russian malign foreign interference than Moldova’s. As the country readies for critical elections on October 20, it also faces a barrage of Russian hybrid attacks of remarkable scale and inten [...]
The complexities of the information space are eroding trust in election processes. The information space, where Americans work, learn, engage, and entertain themselves online, is increasingly opaque and fragmented. The major social media platforms h [...]
The Ukrainian president’s visit to a Pennsylvania arms factory was partisan but not election interference. On September 27, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment against three Iranian intelligence agents accused of running a “hac [...]
This is the first in a series of reports covering online conversations related to the security and administration of the 2024 US elections. These reports are meant to highlight key narrative trends in the election space, including but not limited to [...]
On September 4, 2024, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) seized 32 website domains connected to Russia’s “Doppelganger” network and charged two Russian state media employees with funneling almost $10 million to a Tennessee-based online content creat [...]
In May 2024, ASD, along with our partners at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the University of Amsterdam, published a report documenting roughly 400 domains—ranging from mirror sites and content aggregators to faux local news outlets and si [...]
Italy has long been a prime target for Russian interference efforts. From cultivating malign financial ties and relationships with political elites to executing covert information operations, Russia has consistently sought to increase its influence [...]
In recent months, taking advantage of pliable politicians and a vulnerable information space, Russia has escalated its hostile actions in Europe in both frequency and intensity. In fact, Russia’s destabilizing actions have become so brazen that simp [...]
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 success [...]
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 [...]
Bucking the precedent of long and arduous bargaining processes over the EU’s top institutional jobs, national leaders found consensus on nominees for the bloc’s three most prized positions unusually fast. Equally unusual will be the barrage of chall [...]
This article is part of a series of short texts on issues that challenge the alliance as it celebrates its 75th anniversary. Citizens of NATO member states face an increasing onslaught of manipulated information, a challenge made more complex—and mo [...]
The US presidential debate provided insights into the candidates’ messaging around election integrity, with former President Trump revealing a shift in his messaging toward a broader audience. Meanwhile, President Biden’s performance led to question [...]
The impact of the European Parliament’s rightward shift will depend on the extent to which the far right can unify as well as on the willingness of the center to engage with parties to their right. The 2024 European parliamentary elections were long [...]
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 [...]