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.
Hamilton Toplines: October 24-30, 2020
In the last full week of coverage prior to Election Day, Russian state media continued to advance several familiar themes, including promotion of Hunter Biden allegations, claims of media bias, criticism of the two-party system, and claims of improp [...]
Laura Rosenberger in The New York Times: 7 Ways That You Can Save Our Democracy
Americans have heard a lot about threats to the 2020 election. But one of the greatest threats may be a loss of faith in our electoral system itself. The director of the F.B.I., Christopher Wray, told Congress in September that his greatest concern [...]
Laura Rosenberger Discusses Foreign Interventions in U.S. Campaigns on ‘The Lawfare Podcast’
Director Laura Rosenberger has been working on combating foreign interference in U.S. domestic politics since 2016, and she is the author of two recent significant articles—one in Foreign Affairs and one on Lawfare—both on the subject of foreign inf [...]
Linking Values and Strategy: How Democracies Can Offset Autocratic Advances
In mid-2020, the Alliance for Securing Democracy convened a task force of 30 leading American national security and foreign policy experts to devise a national strategy for the United States to offset autocratic advances in non-military domains of [...]
Clint Watts Discusses Foreign Interference in 2020 Election on ‘Intelligence Matters’
In this episode of Intelligence Matters, host Michael Morell interviews former FBI Special Agent Clint Watts, current Distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Non-Resident Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democra [...]
David Levine in The Fulcrum: Three Takeaways from Election Meddling by Russia and Iran
Last week we learned Russia and Iran are interfering in the 2020 presidential election. That's concerning, but hardly surprising. It's a reminder that Americans need to be vigilant as the election approaches. And there are some common-sense actions [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 17-23, 2020
The final U.S. presidential debate provided significant fodder for Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media to criticize the current state of U.S. democracy. Russian state media provided the most extensive coverage of the debate, with the majority [...]
Everything You Wanted to Know About Voting in the U.S. with David Levine and the Democracy Fund’s Tammy Patrick
With November 3rd just around the corner, Out of Order is continuing the elections theme this week with a conversation on voting in America—making sense of this patchwork system and how it’s all working in an unprecedented year. The host seat this w [...]
Laura Rosenberger in Foreign Affairs: The Real Threat of Foreign Interference Comes After Election Day
With just days to go before the U.S. presidential election, Americans are once again scrolling through news feeds full of stories about foreign operations that seek to undermine their country’s electoral process. Some of the reports raise questions [...]
David Levine Discusses Foreign Interference in Election 2020 on KCRW
During the second and final presidential debate between incumbent Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, the candidates faced questions about foreign interference in the election. It was an issue four years ago as well. Earlier this week, th [...]
Ariane Tabatabai in the Washington Post: Iran’s goal is to undermine democracy. Americans shouldn’t take the bait.
On Wednesday night, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe called a news conference to warn Americans that foreign adversaries were actively interfering in the U.S. elections. Ratcliffe noted that two countries, Russia and Iran, have launc [...]
Rachael Dean Wilson on Foreign Interference in the Election with Spectrum News
Head of External Affairs Rachael Dean Wilson spoke to Spectrum News after the DNI announced Iran and Russia are attempting to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election. “It’s very easy to get sucked into this trap of which country is trying to support whi [...]