The sordid saga of the long dead and convicted predator Jeffrey Epstein not only poses a threat to Donald Trump’s presidency. It also conceivably threatens the credibility of the US political system. Yet an even more sinister and potentially dangerous threat lurks for the United States and its friends The two threats are linked, ironically, by Epstein’s ghost.
Trump’s MAGA base is furious that the promised Epstein files have not been released. Worse, that Attorney General Pam Bondi apparently informed Trump his name was in the file is high test fuel for that blaze. And, now, possibly to deflect attention, Trump and his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have accused President Barack Obama of treason by interfering in the 2016 election with Russian help. In a nation as politically divided as America, any spark could ignite a political firestorm.
The strategy would be to use a variant of Orson Welles provocation of massive public and psychological panic in his radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” in 1938.
Beijing, Moscow and others with malintents are intensely watching this saga. One conclusion must be that even greater opportunities exist today to interfere in US and Western politics and not just exploiting this debacle. More importantly, creating new crises that manipulate and fracture political and social cohesion is a formidable danger.
The UK’s Brexit is an example of manipulation. In the Leave effort, Boris Johnson and his key advisor Dominic Cummings determined that one million or so Britons lacked party affiliation. Using social media, this group was targeted with Leave propaganda generated by Cummings. That swung the vote to leave.
Cummings was not alone. Substantial evidence exists that Moscow helped influence Brexit and the leave campaign to weaken the Atlantic Alliance. And Moscow also interfered in the 2016 US elections. Consider the infamous Steele Dossier.
Among the allegations, the dossier accused Trump of lewd sexual behavior in Moscow. Suspend reality and imagine Vladimir Putin intervened to help elect Hillary Clinton as president in 2016. Following Cummings’ lead, Russian trolls would have filled the internet with deep fake photos and invented stories exaggerating or inventing Trump’s misconduct. One wonders who might have been the 45th president.
China and Moscow have significant interests in manipulating and fracturing American and Western cohesion. Putin is focused on winning in Ukraine, minimizing sanctions and in the process weakening Western solidarity. China is keen on reducing American economic and political influence as well as annexing Taiwan.
It would be negligent in not assuming China and Russia are identifying critical weaknesses and potential future fracture points in the US and elsewhere. In that event where might they focus? National political systems given the Epstein debacle and national infrastructures are the two most obvious candidates. Regarding the US, the Constitution and its system of government based on checks and balances and a division of power among three co-equal branches are the best targets.
A super majority of Americans are highly distrustful and disdainful of government. Exploiting this distrust in government would not be difficult using the ubiquity of social media and the propensity of Americans to embrace conspiracy theories. Epstein and the Steele Dossier are two examples of how possible future fractures can be invented to sow political, social and economic disruption. The difference is that these effects could be even more destructive
Regarding infrastructure, Israeli and Ukrainian infiltration of two societies with seeming control of their borders and people to launch surprise attacks deep into Iran and Russia underscores how potentially vulnerable military bases and installations are to drones. And even more susceptible to drone attacks are electric generation and power grids that could cause nationwide disruption.
Kinetic attacks on military and civilian infrastructure are fraught with risk. But perceived threats are not. The strategy would be to use a variant of Orson Welles provocation of massive public and psychological panic in his radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” in 1938. Consider future Wellesian scenarios on steroids that threaten catastrophic events or apply fake news reports of spreading epidemics or environmental, financial and other disasters to induce fear and disruption. Concocting new and credible conspiracy theories would be part of this disruptive strategy.
None of this is new. The USSR used the Comintern, Cominform and the KGB to misinform, disinform, disrupt and provoke. The US and UK employed similar techniques principally against the Nazis in WWII. However, today is different because social and other media can turn these activities into political weapons of mass disruption.
The US will survive Epstein. Against determined adversaries who intend to create and exploit new political fractures, are the US and the West ready? That answer is sadly no.
The writer is a senior advisor at Washington, DC’s Atlantic Council and a published author. He can be reached on Twitter @harlankullman.