Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections has focused American attention on the long-standing and complicated subject of malign foreign influence operations. While Russia has brought this issue into the mainstream political conversation, concerns over the ability of foreign nations—particularly autocracies—to exploit the openness of America’s democracy in order to influence U.S. policy and politics are not confined to any single foreign actor. In fact, influence efforts by Iran and Persian Gulf monarchies have also drawn considerable scrutiny, as have those carried out by China.1 Yet when considering offenders’ capabilities and positions as geopolitical competitors, China and Russia stand out as the two most immediate concerns.
While foreign influence operations are not new, the convergence of three larger global trends has made them a more important and acute challenge. The first trend is the re-emergence of geopolitical great power competition, which is why the United States’ renewed attention on foreign influence should focus primarily on the country’s greatest geopolitical adversaries—Russia and China.2 However, Russia and China are also bolstered geopolitically by the second trend: the rise of nationalism and authoritarianism around the world, particularly in democracies, which is a driving force behind the unfortunate return of great power competition. Authoritarian regimes have seized on a series of setbacks within liberal democracies to bolster the image of alternative autocratic models of political and economic governance on a global scale.3 In addition, autocratic regimes have exploited the openness of liberal democratic societies to influence and undermine democracy. Finally, the third trend is the digital revolution, which has changed how people communicate; disrupted the avenues through which people receive information; and made it easier to flood open public spheres with misinformation.
The convergence of these three trends has created a significant threat to democracy on every continent. Events in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France show that even the world’s oldest and most advanced democracies are susceptible to disruption. Therefore, it is prudent for democratic societies to strengthen their defenses against foreign interference.