August 14, 2024:
Russia has become increasingly desperate about its inability to counter the enormous amount of NATO aid that has prevented a Russian victory in Ukraine. Seeking additional tools to discourage NATO aid for Ukraine, the Russians turned to their Cold War (1947-91) disinformation campaigns. These efforts consisted of developing believable but misleading information to be spread among enemy populations. If disinformation works, your enemies find they are facing growing popular opposition to anti-Russian policies.
None of these Cold War disinformation campaigns, such as nuclear winter, were effective enough to have a decisive impact on target nations. But the Russian disinformation was annoying and some of the misinformation survived for years after the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. Current Russian leaders remembered this because most current Russian leaders were junior members of the government of military bureaucracies in the 1980s and they remember what worked or seemed to work.
In 2024 Russian propaganda specialists have some powerful new tools to work with. This includes AI (Artificial Intelligence) software that can search the internet in minutes to find information to assist in whatever you are doing. In this case Russian propaganda specialists are seeking information that would be useful for a disinformation campaign in NATO countries that would generate popular opposition to NATO efforts to support Ukraine. The Russian efforts also make use of rapidly establishing new websites in different languages to represent the manor NATO countries. A media expert can quickly determine if these websites are fake, but such experts are not always available to debunk disinformation sites that suddenly appeared but claimed to have been around for a long time.
The Russian disinformation had some success, but nothing decisive. That’s because Russia was the invader of Ukraine, not the victim of any non-existent NATO conspiracy. There is ample evidence of Russian misbehavior in Ukraine and scant material supporting claims of NATO misbehavior against Russia.
Even with the help of AI software, Russia was unable to change enough attitudes in NATO countries to make a difference. There was a similar result during the Cold War, in an era that lacked the internet, 24/7 news media on television and radio or any effective AI apps. Those did not show up until the 21st century.
The current Russian disinformation efforts depended on gaining access to Russian and some western news agencies and major media outlets that could be coerced or deceived into carrying Russian disinformation. These arrangements rarely last long because in an age of instant news available everywhere at all times it is impossible to maintain a disinformation campaign for long. That was where the AI apps came in because the AI could be programmed to continually revise and rewrite Russian disinformation so it could be reinserted into international news media. That worked for a while until the infected news outlets became aware of their problem and developed methods, some using AI apps, to detect and delete the Russian disinformation.
Russian disinformation specialists keep trying even though their fake news survives for shorter and shorter periods. If Russia is willing to continue devoting money and resources to this AI powered disinformation effort, it will have some impact. The impact will diminish as media victimized by the Russian disinformation campaigns increase their denunciations of the Russian efforts. At that point, all the Russian disinformation efforts are more annoying than effective. This is very similar to what happened to pre-AI efforts during the Cold War. With AI you can do it faster and more frequently but with similar lack of success.