Though its capabilities remain more limited than those of Russia or China, Iran is becoming a significant authoritarian actor challenging democracy in the United States and Europe. Through information manipulation, malign finance, and cyberattacks, Tehran seeks to weaken the United States and like-minded democracies to undermine their efforts at democratization beyond their borders. Find ASD’s work on Iran on this page.
Who Cares about a Midterm Election? Comparing Russia, Iran, and China’s Electoral Interference from Past to Present
The 2020 presidential election cycle was abnormally long, with chaos, debate about the outcome, and an insurrection before it finally concluded—at least officially—on inauguration day in January 2021. Now just over a year later, the United States mu [...]
French Election Dashboard Toplines: March 14–20, 2022
Highlights Despite being less than a month away from the first round of the presidential election in France, the elections have received far less coverage in state-backed media outlets than the war in Ukraine and other topics. None of the top 10 key [...]
Over a Barrel: Energy Exports as a Political Weapon
Introduction States have wielded energy access as a strategic tool since at least the industrial revolution, when the adoption of coal power made energy a resource to be extracted and exported (or not), just like other strategic resources, including [...]
Politically Motivated Ransomware Attacks: Science Fiction or Reality?
Cybersecurity experts have watched closely as two trends in cyber interference have steadily grown in popularity: ransomware and hacktivism. Up to this point, they have remained relatively separate. That is, hacktivists have used technology for encr [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 22–28, 2021
Russia Last week, Kremlin-affiliated messengers pushed combative messaging around the conflict in Ukraine. Russian officials and state media continued to blame the “'collective West’ under the leadership of the USA” for tensions along the Ukrainian [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 15–21, 2021
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded outlets continued their media push around the Belarusian-manufactured migrant crisis playing out on the Polish border, resulting in both “border” and “migrant” appearing among the top five most fr [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 8–14, 2021
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state media put forward a massive amount of commentary on the migrant crisis taking place on the Belarusian-Polish border. Six of the top ten most frequently used phrases by Russian accounts tracked on Hamilto [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 1–November 7, 2021
Russia Russian officials and state media continued their messaging push around the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference, making the meeting’s abbreviation, COP26, the most used hashtag last week by Moscow-linked accounts monitored on Hamilton 2 [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 25–31, 2021
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded media provided updates on the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Rome. Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend the meeting but delivered a video address that criticized unnamed G20 members for al [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 18–24, 2021
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded media disparaged NATO to justify the Kremlin’s move to suspend its permanent mission to the alliance. Moscow’s decision followed NATO’s expulsion of eight members of the Russian mission for allege [...]
The German Elections Dashboard in September 2021: Foreign Election Coverage and RT Deutsch’s YouTube Ban
September was an important month for German politics with the federal elections taking place on September 26. Our pre-election analysis demonstrated the reach of and bias in Russian coverage ahead of the elections. Both before and after the election [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 11–17, 2021
Russia Last week, Russian officials and state-funded media continued to push back on accusations that the Kremlin abused its dominance in the European energy market to cause the continent’s gas shortage. Moscow-linked outlets amplified President Vla [...]