U.S Domestic Barriers Against Malign Foreign Interference

Abstract

Russian information operations in the 2016 Presidential election was far from the only instance of foreign interference. Throughout U.S history, Foreign states have attempted to influence segments of U.S society based off ethnicity, political ideology, and class. Two historical cases show that two major powers, Imperial Germany (1914 -1918) and Soviet Russia (1919 - 1939), attempted to influence U.S domestic policy. Both failed to successfully exploit U.S societal seams to interfere in U.S policy construction due to directed Americanization efforts on the U.S immigrant community, domestic political fragmentation, and a robust U.S intelligence and security apparatus. As the U.S re-enters great power competition, foreign competitors are likely to exploit U.S historical socio-cultural and political seams. It is vital for the intelligence community today to better understand how U.S socio-cultural, political and security elements responded to foreign interference.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 02, 2021
Accession Number
AD1177974

Entities

People

  • Kevin M. Dwyer

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Birds
  • Civil Rights
  • Congress
  • Ethnic Groups
  • Fake News
  • Governments
  • Information Operations
  • International Organizations
  • Labor Unions
  • Law
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Political Ideologies
  • Political Science
  • Political Systems
  • Surveillance
  • Terrorists
  • United States
  • United States Government

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.