In-depth, detailed assessments of the trends and issues shaping transatlantic debates.
ASD’s Elections Integrity Fellow David Levine joined with experts from the Brennan Center, Pitt Cyber, and R Street to produce a new report that provides an in-depth look at the equipment, staffing, supplies, and other costs of administering electi [...]
Introduction “For our friends, we produce fine wine. Jackals, we welcome with shotguns.” - Ambassador Gui Congyou, 2019Edward Lucas. “Sweden’s China Problem.” CEPA, January 7, 2020. This was how a Chinese ambassador warned Sweden of potential con [...]
Introduction Europe has been at the forefront of confronting asymmetric attacks from foreign adversaries. Disinformation campaigns have been used against the European public since the Soviet era, and with the advent of social media platforms, they [...]
Protecting the 2020 Election Intelligence and law enforcement agencies warn that Russia, China, Iran, and other foreign actors will seek to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. De [...]
In a world increasingly interconnected by technology, democratic governments are grappling with how to defend against and counter information operations targeting their societies. Russia has emerged as the most prolific foreign actor engaging in t [...]
How to Interpret Hamilton 2.0 Hamilton 2.0 displays outputs from sources that we can directly attribute to the Russian, Chinese, or Iranian governments or their various news and information channels. These channels and accounts often engage with t [...]
About the Author Nina Jankowicz is a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Kennan Institute, where she studies Russian disinformation and the democratic challenges of the technology age. Her first book, How to Lose [...]
This article was originally published as a German Marshall Fund Transatlantic Take on July 26, 2019. In 2014 the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed a staggering Russian money-laundering operation perpetrated through [...]
In his testimony this week, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller III reiterated that foreign interference is “among the most serious” challenges to democracy, and that it “deserves the attention of every American.” The Alliance for Securing Democr [...]
On July 18th, 2019, ASD Deputy Director David Salvo and Head of External Affairs Rachael Dean Wilson released this report together with the Brennan Center for Justice, the University of Pittsburgh Center for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security, and the [...]
The following is an introduction to the submission by ASD Intern Amber Frankland In April 2019, the United Kingdom’s Home Office published its Online Harms White Paper, which proposed a regulatory framework designed to address the prevalence of “il [...]
Executive Summary In recent years, European democracy has been shaken by internal and external events. European nations and institutions are confronting numerous challenges like migration, nationalist extremism, and discontent with the political s [...]
Clint Watts Distinguished Research Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute Non-Resident Fellow, Alliance For Securing Democracy, German Marshall Fund of the United States Author, Messing With The Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hacker [...]
International Grand Committee on Big Data, Privacy, and Democracy May 27, 2019, Ottawa, Canada Remarks by Dr. Heidi Tworek, Assistant Professor of International History at the University of British Columbia, Visiting Fellow at the Joint Center for [...]
Statement by Laura Rosenberger, Director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States BEFORE THE UNITED STATES HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS Concerning: “Undermining Democracy: Kreml [...]
The Energy Weapon is second in a six part series on Illicit Influence, published by the Alliance for Securing Democracy and C4ADS. The first part, A Case Study of the First Czech Russian Bank, can be found here. Russia has a long his [...]
Russian interference operations against the United States during the 2016 presidential election were vast and complex. That’s the conclusion drawn by Special Counsel Mueller, as well as by the Department of Justice, the Intelligence Community, and [...]
Awareness of who owns what is critical to national security, and the U.S. government knows far less than you think. Even after Congress outlaws completely anonymous companies, it will still be difficult for the government to understand patterns of [...]
Understanding the rise of illiberal populism has been a focus of recent debate on both sides of the Atlantic. This “illiberal international” has many faces, often seemingly at odds: Donald Trump and Jill Stein in the United States, Marine Le Pen an [...]
Later this year, Canada faces its first federal elections since potential foreign interference became one of the main concerns for democratic elections in the 21st century. After extensive discussions and consultations, the government has taken sign [...]
Statement of JOSHUA KIRSCHENBAUM Alliance for Securing Democracy, the German Marshall Fund of the United States BEFORE THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL CRIMES, TAX EVASION AND TAX AVOIDANCE Concerning “Money laundering cases involving Russian ind [...]
Introduction In the spring of 2016, as the Russian-domiciled First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB) approached insolvency, staff worked feverishly to erase ledgers, destroy documents, and conceal evidence of the bank’s activity over the previous 9 years. [...]
Executive Summary Two years after the Russian government manipulated social media to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, online information platforms continue to serve as mediums for such operations, including the 2018 midterm electi [...]
Main Recommendations Payments: Establish an international payments database and improve the quality of payment instructions Investments: Require private investment funds to maintain AML programs and report their investors and investment positions [...]
Summary The Russian government’s active measures campaign during the 2016 U.S. presidential election was a watershed moment in the study of modern information operations. Revelations that the Kremlin had purchased divisive political ads on social [...]
ASD's Joshua Kirschenbaum and Peterson Institute's Nicolas Veron outline recommendations for a new European unitary architecture to counter the shortcomings of Europe's anti-money laundering regime. A series of banking scandals in mu [...]
ASD Director Laura Rosenberger testified at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's hearing about "Foreign Influence Operations and their use of Social Media" on August 1, 2018. Rosenberger's complete written statement that was submitted to t [...]
Russia is increasingly turning its asymmetric arsenal on NATO allies to attack the credibility of the Alliance, undermine democratic institutions across member states, and disrupt NATO cohesion on a variety of policy and security issues. Despite fa [...]
Executive Summary In 2014, Russian government operatives began attacking American democracy through a multifaceted operation, a campaign that followed years of similar activity across Europe. A core component of this operation was the Russian gove [...]
The Kremlin’s political and military aggressions over recent years have put Putin’s rejection of the international liberal order and post-Cold War balance of power on full display. Increasingly paranoid about regime survival — which it directly lin [...]
Introduction Latvia’s non-resident banking sector, which caters to clients from Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), has finally become politically untenable. After years of scandals and massive illicit flows [...]
More than 20 years have passed since the United States brokered the Dayton Peace Accords to end the conflict that ravaged Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) after the collapse of Yugoslavia. The peace agreement ended the war, but the country remains bede [...]
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s February 16 indictmenthttps://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download. of the Internet Research Agency, along with 13 key individuals and two related entities, was another reminder for Americans of the coordinated at [...]
Russian influence operations exploit the vulnerabilities of social media platforms to disseminate false narratives and amplify divisive content in order to undermine democracies, divide societies, and weaken Western alliances. In conducting these o [...]
In Brief: Disinformation and misinformation seem to be everywhere. They are often spread by foreign actors like the Russian government who aim to stoke tensions within the United States. Other state or non-state actors may already be starting to co [...]
Dear Senators, We write to express our strong support for the Secure Elections Act (S. 2261). This legislation, introduced by Senators James Lankford (R-OK), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Susan Collins (R-ME), a [...]
Want to combat disinformation? Borrow a page from the anti-money laundering handbook. Russia’s ability to successfully conduct hybrid warfare is predicated on the creation of a fog of ambiguity between the Kremlin’s actions and the Kremlin itself. [...]
In response to the Federal Election Committee’s call for public comments on internet disclaimer rules, Laura Rosenberger and Jamie Fly, the director and co-director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, submitted the following document that outli [...]
Statement Prepared for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism A decade ago, al Qaeda in Iraq littered YouTube with violent videos. A few years later, Twitter became a playground for al Shabaab’s violent tir [...]