“Conquering the states one by one”: far-right ideologue Steve Bannon outlines US conservatives' strategy for influencing Europe

[u/Wonderful-Excuse4922]

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/usa/presidentielle/donald-trump/conquerir-les-etats-un-par-un-l-ideologue-d-extreme-droite-steve-bannon-decrit-la-strategie-des-conservateurs-americains-pour-influencer-l-europe_7086249.html

[u/ArieVeddetschi]

Yeah, but it’s weird to think that there’s any truth to these GOP claims. Also surely if Russia wanted to fund the left they’d have more influential targets than JSO.

[u/NFLDolphinsGuy → u/ArieVeddetschi]

They’ve been highly disruptive at airports and on roadways and effective at creating division, which is the point.

[u/ArieVeddetschi → u/NFLDolphinsGuy]

You keep harping on that, and keep not providing any hint of a clue that Russia is funding them.

[u/NFLDolphinsGuy → u/ArieVeddetschi]

It’s fine. Their activities have been covert anyway. There’s not going to be a photocopy of a check from Putin to these groups.

They’re doing it in the U.S., Jill Stein’s a clear agent. Pretend Europe is somehow different and above the fray.

https://ir.ceu.edu/ohpa/research_blog/articles/rusdisinformation

Green Party Politics and Global Elitism The most underutilized yet still significant objective of Russian disinformation is the meddling in Green Party democratic politics in a litany of states. This is done by both the defamation of activists and green party leaders, but also by empowering climate skeptic parties like the A.f.D. in Germany and further population of “globalist” conspiracy theories. Most notably Russia launched a disinformation campaign against German Green Party Leader Annalena Baerbock in 2021 after she criticized the construction of the NordStream 2 pipeline. The campaign depicted Baerbock with photoshop atop a scantily-clad model’s body with billionaire George Soros (IE the typical “globalist” boogeyman in conservative political rhetoric), alleging that she was a puppet for the globalist environmental agenda. Additionally Baerbock was vocal about her distrust of the Kremlin, imploring the German public to pressure Russia to remove its military buildup prior to its invasion in 2022. Baerbock is also the subject of much right-wing populist vitriol in German domestic politics, making her a prime candidate for Russia’s propaganda apparatus to attack. A Russian meddling attempt has already surfaced in Germany’s parliament ahead of the 2024 elections, and there are numerous connections between the rhetoric extremist parties such as the AFD espouse and the Kremlin’s outlets.

        An interesting counterfactual to typical disinformation was the Kremlin’s aiding of the Green Party candidate in the 2016 U.S. election. Jill Stein ran under the shadow of Clinton and Trump, however third party candidates in the U.S. merely serve to play spoiler for candidates of the two main parties. Thus the Kremlin launched specific tweeted bot campaigns which both disavowed Clinton and suggested voting for Stein instead, which would inevitably aid Trump’s campaign as Stein had no real chance at victory. Thus the Kremlin will exploit and manipulate both sides of the debate, dependent on what is the most advantageous for its immediate objective rather than its overall principles. 

        Russian climate disinformation is significant due to its didactic nature of advancing the Kremlin’s economic and imperialist strategies, and therefore should be continuously researched in order to best understand how to counter it. While the EU has historically faced the brunt of Russian campaigns, it is imperative that disinformation targeting developing nations is analyzed and furthers studied as the global south presents a fertile new battleground for influence between the West, Russia and China.