Why this New Cold War Rhetoric Now?

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Why, in the last days of Barack Obama’s presidency, are we being subjected to the constant orchestrated drumbeat of anti-Russian propaganda on American television and newspapers? After all, Washington has been long aware of Russian cyber spying.

Part of it is to weaken Donald Trump, as he gets set to assume the presidency. After all, Obama and Hillary Clinton are still seething over their loss to the man they kept mocking.

They hope to drive a wedge between the new president, who has consistently indicated a desire to improve American-Russian relations, and anti-Kremlin hawks like senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

McCain has called the hacking of a Democratic Party e-mail server “an act of war.” Graham told reporters in Latvia that “Russia is trying to break the backs of democracies all over the world.” And Obama himself recently referred to the “free world,” a Cold War term not heard in many years.

So a second reason is to prepare the grounds for claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin will have “fixed” next year’s French and German elections, should the right-wing, anti-European Union National Front (FN) or Alternative for Germany (AfD) happen to win.

Indeed, the intelligence agencies have now begun to doubt the validity of last June’s Brexit referendum, in which a majority of Britons voted to leave the European Union. That result, too, went the “wrong” way, so why not also try to tie Putin to that as well?

A Dec.10 article in the London-based Guardian noted that the CIA investigation into the alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s e-mails “may also have implications for the integrity of Britain’s Brexit referendum last June, and how upcoming elections in France and Germany could be vulnerable to Russian manipulation.”

A few days earlier, the chief of the British intelligence agency MI6, Alex Younger, warned that cyber-attacks, propaganda and subversion from hostile states pose a “fundamental threat” to European democracies, including Britain.

Younger did not specifically name Russia but left no doubt that this was the target of his remarks.

British Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon also contended that there was “a disturbing pattern” of allegations against Russia around cyber warfare.

The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service also has warned that next year’s German general election could be targeted by Russian hackers intent on spreading misinformation and undermining the democratic process.

"We have evidence that cyber-attacks are taking place that have no purpose other than to elicit political uncertainty,” Bruno Kahl, president of the Federal Intelligence Service, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung in late November.

“The perpetrators are interested in delegitimising the democratic process as such, regardless of who that ends up helping.” He added that the attacks “come from the Russian region.”

Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, said in an interview that cyberspace had become “a place of hybrid warfare” in which Russia was a key player. “More recently, we see the willingness of Russian intelligence to carry out sabotage.”

Germany faces a heated election campaign next year, largely due to the pressure Chancellor Angela Merkel is under because of her liberal refugee policy.

She, too, has asserted that populists and social media platforms spreading propaganda were in danger of causing unprecedented damage to democracy.

In France, NF party leader Marine Le Pen has stated that her election as president next year would form a trio of world leaders – meaning herself, Putin and Trump -- that “would be good for world peace.” This is obviously music to Putin’s ears.

But will he necessarily support her campaign? Russia might be just as content to aid the conservative candidate François Fillon, who is known as a friend of Russia and a critic of Western sanctions against the Kremlin.