Author Archives: DemDigest

West & Russia on brink of new Cold War?

     

There’s a fundamental flaw in the Russian propaganda narrative about the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the U.K. earlier this month, Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky writes:… Read more »

‘Information statecraft’: authoritarian attack on discursive space reshaping conflict

     

As artificial intelligence is increasingly integrated into digital advertising, disinformation operations and legitimate political communications will gradually become concerted, automatic and seamless, argues Dipayan Ghosh, a fellow at New America… Read more »

In new era of strategic competition, China’s autocracy at odds with democracy

     

China’s model, which has brought more people out of poverty faster than any other system in history, continues to flourish, argues Wall Street executive Steven Rattner, a counselor in the… Read more »

After Egypt’s election charade, what next?

     

Turnout appeared low on Tuesday as Egyptians voted on the second day of an election that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is virtually certain to win, after all serious rivals were either… Read more »

Has U.S. lost its ‘power of inspiration’ as a model of democracy?

     

The violent collapse of the Arab Spring has damaged the cause of liberal politics not just in the Middle East, but around the world. Strongman leaders are back in fashion… Read more »

‘Backlash to liberal democracy’ threatens Western order

     

In the aftermath of World War II, the victorious Western countries forged institutions — NATO, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization — that aimed to keep the peace… Read more »

$500m fraud case roils Angola’s ‘oil-soaked kleptocracy’

     

One of the world’s most notorious kleptocracies is in the news again. The son of José Eduardo dos Santos, the former Angolan president, has been named as a suspect in… Read more »

Threat to Western democracy ‘starts at home’

     

We have moved from a world of ideological struggles in the 20th century to a world of geopolitical struggles in the 21st—or so goes the conventional wisdom. But technology is… Read more »

Disinformation’s goal: loss of faith in democratic institutions

     

Today’s Russian disinformation campaigns, part of the Kremlin’s hybrid war against Western democracies, seem to have much in common with the infamous Zinoviev letter, says Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli… Read more »

UK and Russia waging ‘fast and furious’ information warfare

     

Blogging platform Tumblr has deleted 84 accounts it says Russian propagandists used to spread disinformation during the 2016 US election, the BBC reports: The accounts are believed to have been… Read more »