Focused Read in 4-5 minutes
Pictured, L-R, Co-authors Michael Carpenter,
Joe Biden and moderator Richard N. Haass ~
President of Council on Foreign Relations
"How to Stand Up to the
Kremlin
Defending Democracy
Against Its Enemies
By Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and
Michael Carpenter
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., leads the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global
Engagement and served as Vice President of the United States from
2009 to 2017. Michael Carpenter is Senior Director of the
Penn Biden Center and served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense from 2015 to 2017."
📎 Note: The end of this essay is the most important part of the essay -- in my opinion -- so I have focused on highlighting the end of it! You an find the full article, with a lot of important background included, by using the link below.
HOW TO FIGHT BACK
Russia’s
assault on democracy and subversion of democratic political systems
calls for a strong response.
The
United States and its allies must improve their ability to deter
Russian military aggression and work together more closely to
strengthen their energy security and prevent Russia’s nonmilitary
forms of coercion. They must also reduce the vulnerability of their
political systems, media environments, financial sectors, and
cyber-infrastructure.
Every
country in the Kremlin’s cross hairs must also better coordinate
its intelligence and law enforcement activities to root out Russian
disinformation and subversion and find ways for authorities to
cooperate with the private sector to counteract such meddling.
But
Washington and its partners cannot only play defense. They also must
agree to impose meaningful costs on Russia when they discover
evidence of its misdeeds. At the same time, to prevent
miscalculations, Washington needs to keep talking to Moscow.
The
Kremlin would like nothing more than for Western leaders to declare
NATO obsolete and cut investments in collective defense.
Given Russia’s
aggression in Georgia and Ukraine, NATO must
continue to forward-deploy troops and military capabilities to
eastern Europe to deter and, if necessary, defeat a Russian attack
against one of the alliance’s member states. But the threat of
unconventional and nonmilitary coercion now looms larger than ever.
More than a decade has
passed since Estonia became the first NATO
country to see its government institutions and media organizations
attacked by hackers based in Russia. In the intervening period, the
risk of a far more debilitating attack has increased, but planning
for how to defend against it has lagged.
One
step NATO members can take would be to broaden the responsibility for
such planning beyond their militaries and defense ministries. The EU
and the private sector need to be part of such efforts, so that
Russian strikes on infrastructure can be isolated and backup systems
can be put in place.
Although
much of the responsibility for cyberdefense currently rests with
individual countries, the interconnectedness of allied infrastructure
makes greater coordination imperative.
Western
democracies must also address glaring vulnerabilities in their
electoral systems, financial sectors, cyber-infrastructure, and media
ecosystems.
The
U.S. campaign finance system, for example, needs to be reformed to
deny foreign actors—from Russia and elsewhere—the ability to
interfere in American elections.
Authorities
can no longer turn a blind eye to the secretive bundling of donations
that allows foreign money to flow to U.S. organizations (such as
“ghost corporations”) that in turn contribute to super PACs and
other putatively independent political organizations, such as trade
associations and so-called 501(c)(4) groups.
Congress
must get serious about campaign finance reform now; doing so should
be a matter of bipartisan consensus since this vulnerability affects
Democrats and Republicans in equal measure.
The
United States also needs more transparency in its financial and real
estate markets, which have become havens for corrupt foreign capital,
some of which undoubtedly seeps into politics. To expose and prevent
the money laundering behind that trend, Congress should pass new
legislation to require greater transparency in high-end real estate
investments and tighten loopholes that allow money to be laundered
through opaque law-firm bank accounts or shell companies.
Authorities in Washington and other Western capitals
must also integrate law enforcement and intelligence tools to
neutralize corrupt networks linked to Russia.
The Kremlin has
successfully fused organized criminal groups, intelligence agencies,
and corrupt businesses, as revealed in great detail by a recent
investigation carried out by Spanish authorities.
Nothing illustrates the
tangled web linking organized crime, Russian government officials,
and the Kremlin’s foreign influence operations more clearly than
the ongoing lobbying efforts in the United States on behalf of the
criminal syndicate responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky, the
Russian lawyer who was killed in a Moscow prison after he uncovered a
corrupt scheme to steal $230 million from the Russian Treasury.
In the United States, a
dedicated interagency body should be charged with coordinating
efforts to neutralize such malign networks.
The
United States’ cyber-infrastructure, most of which is owned and
managed by the private sector, remains vulnerable to foreign
hacking [20]—or, worse, a crippling systemwide attack.
To protect the networks that operate power plants, for
example, or those that manage train and airline traffic, government
regulatory bodies and private operators must raise their standards
and apply them consistently.
This
means, among other measures, ensuring that there are no back doors
into networks that remain isolated from the public Internet,
mandating that software patches and updates be installed as soon as
they become available, and conducting regular network diagnostics.
Similarly,
state and local governments that maintain electronic voting machines
must address lapses in network security that have left open too many
back doors to intrusion and potential manipulation. Some immediate
steps that authorities should take include mandating an auditable
paper trail of every ballot cast and protecting voter registration
rolls with the same vigor as vote tabulation systems.
Meanwhile,
journalists and activists in the United States and Europe must do
more to expose and root out disinformation, especially on social
media. Civil society initiatives have taken the lead on this: the
University of Pennsylvania’s FactCheck.org, Ukraine’s
StopFake.org, and the German Marshall Fund’s Hamilton 68 have all
exposed propaganda by debunking falsehoods and shedding light on the
sources propagating them.
Social
media companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google must provide
greater transparency about who funds the political advertisements on
their platforms, work harder to eliminate automated and bot-generated
content, and invest in the technological and human resources to root
out fake foreign accounts that spread disinformation.
In
countries with extensive experience of Russian information warfare,
such as Estonia and Finland, officials and media professionals alike
have learned that the more light they shine on the methods foreign
actors use to sow disinformation, the less successful the propaganda
becomes.
HANG TOUGH, BUT KEEP
TALKING
In the short term, Putin
and his allies are likely to continue their assault on Western
democracy. So Washington and its allies must stand firm and impose
costs on Russia for its violations of international law and other
countries’ sovereignty—those it has already committed and those
it is likely planning.
Maintaining
the sanctions that the United States and the EU levied on Russia in
response to its invasion of Ukraine has been important not only in
pressuring Moscow to resolve the conflict in the near term but also
as a signal to the Kremlin that the costs of such behavior will
eventually outweigh any perceived benefits.
Even while defending U.S.
interests and safeguarding liberal democracy elsewhere, Washington
must keep the channels of communication open with Moscow. At the
height of the Cold War, American and Soviet leaders recognized that,
whatever their differences, they could not afford a miscalculation
that might lead to war. They had to keep talking. The same is true
today: as two nuclear superpowers with military assets deployed in
close proximity in many different parts of the globe, the United
States and Russia have a mutual obligation to maintain strategic
stability.
That means not only
regulating the development and deployment of strategic weapons but
also communicating clearly to avoid misunderstandings about what each
side perceives as a strategic threat.
For
its part, Washington needs to spell out clear consequences for
interfering in the U.S. democratic process or tampering with critical
U.S. infrastructure.
MOBILIZING WHEN TRUMP
WON'T
As
two former government officials, we are, of course, no longer in a
position to implement such policies, which raises the question: What
if these recommendations are ignored?
The
White House seems unlikely to act. Too many times, President Donald
Trump has equivocated on whether Russia interfered in the 2016
election, even after he received briefings from top intelligence
officials on precisely how Moscow did it.
After meeting privately
with Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam
last November, Trump told reporters that Putin “said he
absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they
are saying he did.” [22] Pressed about whether he
accepted Putin’s denials, Trump replied: “Every time he sees me,
he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he
tells me that, he means it.”
Trump
has made a habit of lavishing praise on Putin and even reportedly
sought to lift sanctions against Russia shortly after his
inauguration. We are not questioning Trump’s motives, but his
behavior forces us to question his judgment.
If
this administration cannot or will not stand up to Russia, other
democratic institutions, including Congress and civil society
organizations, must mobilize.
A
starting point would be the creation of an independent, nonpartisan
commission to examine Russia’s assault on American democracy,
establish a common understanding of the scope and complexity of the
Russian threat, and identify the tools required to combat it.
The 9/11 Commission
allowed the United States to come to terms with and address the
vulnerabilities that made al Qaeda’s attacks possible. Today,
Americans need a thorough, detailed inquest into how Russia’s
strike on their democratic institutions was carried out and how
another one might be prevented.
In
the absence of an independent commission with a broad mandate, the
United States will be left with only the relatively
narrow investigations led by the special counsel Robert Mueller,
the congressional intelligence committees, and the Senate
Judiciary Committee.
The good news is that
Congress has already demonstrated its clear understanding of the
Russian threat: in an overwhelmingly bipartisan manner, it
passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions
Act by a margin of 419 to 3 in the House of Representatives and
by 98 to 2 in the Senate.
Congress
should continue to rigorously exercise its oversight
responsibilities to ensure that the administration applies the
letter and spirit of the legislation—and, if it does not, to make
sure the American people find out.
And
finally, as more news breaks each day about the extent of Russia’s
disinformation campaign and the tactics that Moscow used to
manipulate public opinion and exploit the fault lines within U.S.
society, it falls on all Americans to be aware and informed citizens.
We must collectively reject foreign influence over our
democratic institutions and do more to address the challenges within
our own communities, rather than allowing demagogues at home and
tyrants abroad to drive us apart. Putin and his cronies do not
understand that the greatest strength of American democracy is an
engaged citizenry. Even if the president refuses to act, we can."
You can find the article here
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→ Direct sources for Democrats:
* ( Personal favored and most informative follows are shared here with the understanding that readers will always apply their own critical thinking to any information provided anywhere by anyone. #StrongerTogether does not share sources of information lightly but -- no one is perfect! -- so always #DistrustAndVerify I am using a star rating that is strictly based on my situational experience with the work of the media personality specifically in relation to issues of interest to me. )
The Democratic Party Website
Also
C-SPAN (a good place for speeches & hearings direct source (s))
→ Fact checking organizations courtesy of the Society of Professional Journalists
in alphabetical order...
→ Some of my favorite, most informative
follows on Twitter include:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ US Intelligence | Author | Navy Senior Chief | NBC/MSNBC
⭐⭐⭐ Federal Government Operations | Vanity Fair | Newsweek | MSNBC Contributor | Author
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Voting Rights/Voter Suppression | Author | Mother Jones
→ Some of the most credible media -- at the moment:
📰📰📰 Mother Jones
→ Some of the most credible Talking Heads -- at the moment -- and their Twitter handles:
( 📎 Interesting to note: Wallace, a Republican (an inactive Republican I believe she calls herself) s new to the job but for right now she has clearly put country over party and her work on Trump GOP has been credible, IMO... )
...for Networking for Democrats today!
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(Linked) "...is our 2016 platform...a declaration of how we plan to move America forward. Democrats believe that cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls.
It’s a simple but powerful idea: We are stronger together."
( #its2018now )
In honor of women leading the American Resistance ~
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (and just one of the ways they partnered to get the work done) are this month's Focused Inspiration:
" ... Susan, a Quaker, came from a background where girls were valued and educated just as Quaker boys were, but Susan began to see the real world when she became a teacher and was routinely paid about one-quarter of the salary she would have received if she had been a man.
Elizabeth was from a well-to-do family where boys were favored. Elizabeth married and began having children ... At that time, women had little opportunity to control whether or not they became pregnant, and it frequently happened that just as Elizabeth was about to attend a new round of meetings or take on a new push for voting rights, she would find herself pregnant and more or less homebound again. Despite this, Elizabeth attended everything she could and when she was needed at home, she served their team effort by writing speeches that Susan could use at conventions or on the road. ... "
" ... Susan, a Quaker, came from a background where girls were valued and educated just as Quaker boys were, but Susan began to see the real world when she became a teacher and was routinely paid about one-quarter of the salary she would have received if she had been a man.
Elizabeth was from a well-to-do family where boys were favored. Elizabeth married and began having children ... At that time, women had little opportunity to control whether or not they became pregnant, and it frequently happened that just as Elizabeth was about to attend a new round of meetings or take on a new push for voting rights, she would find herself pregnant and more or less homebound again. Despite this, Elizabeth attended everything she could and when she was needed at home, she served their team effort by writing speeches that Susan could use at conventions or on the road. ... "
You can read more about this power friendship here
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Curated by Gail Mountain, with occasional personal commentary, Network For #StrongerTogether ! is not affiliated with The Democratic Party in any capacity. This is an independent blog and the hope is you will, at a glance, learn more about the Party and you will, with a click or two, also take action on its behalf as it is provided!
( You can also find me on Twitter @GKMTNtwits )
*
See the League of Women Voters website:
Vote411 here
Thank you for focusing!
g., aka Focused Democrat
✊ Resisting "Fake News"
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