By Michael Kaplan | New York Post
If you feel like the world seems more chaotic as of late, you can lay some of the blame at the feet of Vladimir Putin.
Russia has stepped up its campaign to sow “controlled chaos” in the US as the presidential election approaches, experts warn.
The Justice Department said in September it had busted a coordinated campaign generated by Moscow, which saw $10 million funneled to a Tennessee-based content creation company which paid US influencers, who then spread Russia-friendly content — sometimes not even realizing who their paymasters were.
It’s all part of a formulated master-plan. “Russia has a standing doctrine that was developed on Putin’s orders,” Rebekah Koffler, former senior intelligence analyst with the US Defense Intelligence Agency and the author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told The Post.
“It is called controlled instability and sometimes it is referred to as controlled chaos. The strategy is about destabilizing the United States and the West. [It is] just below the threshold of a direct [land] war.”
Britain’s MI5, the UK’s equivalent of the Secret Service, agrees with the assessment. Ken McCallum, head of the counter-intelligence agency, told BBC last week that Russia’s special services are “on a permanent mission to create chaos on the streets of Britain and Europe.”
Russia’s tools for doing it, he added, include “arson and sabotage” as well as radicalizing people online. McCallum added 25% of cases of online extremism they investigate are now for “extreme right-wing terrorism,” of the type promoted by Russia, rather than Islamic extremism.
In America, the spreading of disinformation, encouraging radical activities and tampering with elections are part of the mix.
“By creating mayhem, they spread our counterintelligence services thin,” said Koffler “We have finite resources. So we’re not spending as much time trying to figure out what is on Putin’s mind” – and more time on dealing with issues like campus unrest.
There are Russian agents on the ground, some of whom are here illegally, operating under assumed identities, alleged Koffler, who she says “try to participate in various protests to stir the pot.”
Such moves on the part of Russia have become something of a spy-craft necessity since 2020. Over the last four years, 12 Russian diplomats have been booted from their US embassies — on charges that include interfering in the 2020 election.
“We made it less easy for the Russians to create chaos physically,” Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan think tank, told The Post.
Referring to snooping that had once been done by the diplomats, who are generally believed to be Russian spooks, he added, “They know we are watching them; so they are more focused on sowing chaos through digital means. Which is not hard for the Russians to do in the midst of this insane social media environment that we now find ourselves in. In fact, it’s quite easy.
“Putin is loving it, Any opportunity to sow chaos or undermine the United States, he loves – especially if it’s cheap.”
There are also worries things could also escalate further, particularly in the air. Already common in Europe, at the end of September a Russian fighter jet flew dangerously close to an American F-16 jet in airspace near Alaska. That aggressive act is known as ‘buzzing’ and was labelled “unsafe, unprofessional and endangered all,” by the commander North American Aerospace Defense Command, Air Force General Gregory Guillot.
Unidentified swarms of drones have also been spotted over the military complex around Langley Air Force Base in Virginia for 17 nights at the end of last year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Pentagon has said they do now know who sent the drones, but Russia, China or Iran are the most obvious adversaries, according to security experts.
But regardless of who takes the White House, the war between US ally Ukraine and Russia provides plenty of incentive for the country to keep attempting to disrupt the civilian population.
“The primary driver of [the creation of chaos] being stepped up is because of the US support of Ukraine,” said Koffler. “The nature of the weapons provided has changed dramatically from night vision goggles and blankets to strategic weapons systems for fighting conventional wars. They want to compel the US and the West to stop doing that.”
From Russia’s perspective, the timing for such actions is optimal. “Putin sees the US as weak right now and he is trying to take advantage of that,” said Schanzer. “The US is having less of a backbone, less of a will to fight, less of a will to support its allies. So, Putin is trying to take advantage of that by pushing out disinformation and gaslighting the American people.”
President Biden’s screwy trade of arch arms dealer Viktor Bout for WNBA superstar Brittney Griner has not helped things. In fact, it did more than merely unleash a merchant of death upon the world. It also served Russia’s interests in a serious way.
An article in the Wall Street Journal reported that Bout quickly got back into the arms-dealing business and recently brokered a $10 million deal to supply the Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen with weapons.
And it comes with secondary effects that make this worse than it sounds.430
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“What Bout does is provide weapons to prop up opposition governments … and elected governments who are sympathetic to the Russian cause,” said Koffler.
“That prisoner exchange has made America less safe. He’s not just an agent of Russia. He’s a former intelligence operative. He is working directly for Putin.”
In that regard, said Koffler, he sells weapons strictly to entities who hate the United States, attack allies of the United States and have disdain for Western values. Hence, Bout making sure that the Houthis are loaded up with deadly weapons that can be used against US ally Israel and unsettle Americans.
“Russia revels in challenging US led structures,” said Schanzer. “And they’ll do it any way they can.”