former FBI special agent Clint Watts, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute program on national security. Watts described the scope of the Active Measures program: While Russia certainly hopes to promote western candidates sympathetic to their worldview and foreign policy objectives, winning a single election is not their end goal. Russian Active Measures hope to topple democracies through the pursuit of five complementary objectives. 1) Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance. 2) Foment or exasperate divisive political fissures. 3) Erode trust between citizens
...more
