ASD contributes long and short form research products and analysis to inform and engage our audience on a range of issues related to malign foreign interference. In addition, we develop policy recommendations and strategies to close vulnerabilities and safeguard institutions from authoritarian threats.
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June 2022
Ballots and Bagels: Key Takeaways from the Pennsylvania Primaries
Last week, ASD Elections Integrity Fellow David Levine spoke with Seth Bluestein, city commissioner for the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Board of Elections, on the latest episode of Ballots and Bagels. They talked about preparing for and administering [...]
How Russia’s Leading Search Engine Spreads Kremlin Propaganda on Ukraine: Introducing ASD’s Yandex Dashboard
Russia’s information environment has become increasingly constricted. Legislation banning the characterization of Russia’s war in Ukraine as anything but a “special military operation” is just one indication of the censorship and cherry-picking that [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 23–29, 2022
Russia Kremlin-linked accounts continued to argue that Western sanctions weren’t impacting Russia’s economy but were driving inflation in the West and prompting a global food shortage. President Vladimir Putin said that the Russian economy was “resi [...]
Neither Gone Nor Forgotten: China Still Interferes in Democracies
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has galvanized the Euro-Atlantic community’s motivation to assess and counter Moscow’s interference in their democracies. The Kremlin’s financing of French far-right politician Marine Le Pen was a central issue in France [...]
May 2022
Winning the Web: How Beijing Exploits Search Results to Shape Views of Xinjiang and COVID-19
Executive Summary As the war in Ukraine unfolds, Russian propaganda about the conflict has gotten a boost from a friendly source: government officials and state media out of Beijing. In multiple languages and regions around the world, China’s “wol [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 16–22, 2022
Russia Russian officials and state media last week posted more than 800 tweets about Finland and Sweden’s applications for NATO membership, making “NATO” the most frequently used keyword by Kremlin-linked accounts. On May 16, President Vladimir Puti [...]
5 Takeaways from the 2022 French Presidential Election
On April 24, French voters re-elected Emmanuel Macron for a second term as president of France. With the presidential election firmly in the rear-view mirror and with the French parliamentary elections still several weeks away, this piece assesses t [...]
Who Cares about a Midterm Election? Comparing Russia, Iran, and China’s Electoral Interference from Past to Present
The 2020 presidential election cycle was abnormally long, with chaos, debate about the outcome, and an insurrection before it finally concluded—at least officially—on inauguration day in January 2021. Now just over a year later, the United States mu [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 9–15, 2022
Russia Russian propagandists last week reacted to Finland and Sweden’s announced bids to join NATO by threatening military retaliation, accusing the two countries of violating international agreements, and highlighting division within NATO. Russia’s [...]
Limits to the “No Limits” Partnership? China’s Pro-Russian Stance in the Face of the Bucha Massacre
Since the war in Ukraine started, Chinese diplomats and state media have attempted to portray their country as a neutral third party interested only in restoring peace to Europe. But that effort has been belied by Beijing’s own messaging, which has [...]
What to Expect from Russia Should Finland and Sweden Join NATO
Finland and Sweden are applying for NATO membership, with both countries drawing a direct link between the Russian military’s unconscionable war against neighboring Ukraine and the need for the formal security guarantees the NATO alliance provides. [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 2-May 8, 2022
Russia Russian government-affiliated Twitter accounts marked Victory Day, which celebrates the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazis in World War II, by launching a patriotic messaging push across social media. Russian diplomats and state media posted more [...]