This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race

by Nicole Perlroth

In a Kremlin statement, Putin called for a cyber “reset” with the United States. “(I propose) … exchanging guarantees of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, including electoral processes,” Putin began. “One of the main strategic challenges of our time is the risk of a large-scale confrontation in the digital sphere. We would like to once again appeal to the United States,” he said, “to reset our relations in the use of information and communication technologies.” Perhaps it was sincere. But American officials dismissed Putin’s proposal outright. The top national security official at the Justice Department disparaged Putin’s reset call as “dishonest rhetoric and cynical and cheap propaganda.” But something tells me the reason we did not see more Russian interference in 2020 was not because Putin was deterred, but perhaps because he concluded his work here was already complete. These days, Russian trolls barely have to lift a finger to sow discord and chaos when Americans, and our outgoing president, do it for them.