by Nomad
In Part One of this series, we took a look at the basic principles of Russia's hybrid warfare campaign on social media based on a 2015 NATO report. In this segment, let's take a look at how these techniques have been used in practice. In addition, we will look at the role that Russian hybrid warfare played in the 2016 campaign.
That's a puzzle that's still missing quite a few pieces.
Early Warnings
| I don’t think anybody knows that it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia—I don't, maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? - Donald Trump, September 26, 2016 |
This remark by candidate Trump in last months of the campaign must have struck many informed observers as extremely peculiar. His denial of Russian hacking didn't fit into the established timeline.
Only a few months earlier, on July 27, in the heat of the campaign, Trump had invited Russian hackers to find the 30,000 Hillary Clinton's emails.
And a month before that, June 15, 2016, a hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0 explain he had given the hacked emails to WikiLeaks. The emails reportedly came complete with telltale Russian-language formatting errors. Yet, Trump was still inexplicably denying what was already obvious.
