Combating disinformation and foreign interference in democracies: Lessons from Europe

For people pondering the potential effects of foreign interference in the 2020 elections here in the United States, it is worth understanding what other democracies are doing to confront the same problem and what lessons can be learned from their experiences. As a 2018 report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee put it: "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s Kremlin employs an asymmetric arsenal that includes military invasions, cyberattacks, disinformation, support for fringe political groups, and the weaponization of energy resources, organized crime, and corruption." Americans must be attuned to the risks to our democratic institutions when influential political actors in the US use the tactics of disinformation, originally perfected by the Kremlin, to advance and sustain political power. The four countries I highlight (Sweden, France, the United Kingdom, and Hungary) represent different illustrations of foreign influence and how various countries have responded. The key lesson from abroad is that disinformation is most effective when it plays on existing tensions within society. Amplifying and exacerbating those tensions can be all that is needed to destabilize a democracy. President Donald Trump is deploying some of the same disinformation tactics Vladimir Putin used to consolidate his own power in Russia.