Navigating the Sea of Misinformation: Increasing Resilience to Russian Influence Operations through Military Education
Russia seeks to undermine American values and interests using malign influence operations. As an example, the United States military should buttress servicemembers’ resilience through education. By educating through engaging discussions, enhancing digital literacy, and employing well-crafted nudging, the U.S. military can improve the Joint Force’s understanding of how Russia operates across its competition continuum and how to recognize and develop defenses against Russian propaganda, ultimately resulting in a resistant and resilient force.
Lessons from Russian Influence Operations in Romania
Romania’s beauty astonishes visitors, but its history is even more astonishing. Romania transformed from a Warsaw Pact member to a NATO ally and functioning democracy, demonstrating resilience in the face of geopolitical pressures. Sharing a 381-mile border with Ukraine makes this scenic country a vital corridor for Western military aid, particularly since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Romania’s importance to the NATO Alliance continues to grow with the construction of NATO’s largest base, solidifying its role as a key regional player.
In late 2024, Russia sought to exploit vulnerabilities in Romania’s democracy by orchestrating a massive influence operation during its elections. Utilizing platforms like TikTok, Russian operatives activated dormant accounts and deployed bots to manipulate public opinion, successfully skyrocketing the popularity of a pro-Russian candidate, Calin Georgescu. Russian operations to multiply these fabrications included covert funding, misinformation, and violations of Romanian campaign laws. These influence operations affected the Romanian election, which the Romanian government annulled. Nearly successful, this influence campaign demonstrated Russia’s ability to exploit social media, one of its preferred tools for cyber-enabled influence operations. Romania’s decision to expose the operation provides a playbook for other democracies under similar threats.
Social Media as a Force Multiplier in Influence Operations
The pernicious Russian threat will remain in the information environment for the foreseeable future. Russia views global competition as a persistent and enduring struggle. Currently, Russia wages a hybrid war using cyber and conventional means in Ukraine, an escalating “shadow war” in Europe, and an information war against the West through malign influence activities. The 2020 Irregular Warfare Annex highlights how U.S. conventional military superiority drives adversaries, such as Russia, to exploit unconventional tactics because “conventional overmatch encourages adversaries to pursue indirect approaches.” Further, the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment reminds us that Russia aims to sow doubt in American democratic processes and challenge U.S. global leadership, seeking to reshape international norms.
Cyber-enabled influence operations remain a central component of Russia’s strategy. The rise of social media has enabled Russia to weaponize these efforts, leveraging platforms’ salient attributes to undermine democracies. Social media has revolutionized the conduct of influence operations, transforming them from covert activities to substantial mass persuasion tools capable of shaping perceptions on a global scale. Studies suggest that social media may even change how people think. Russia’s mastery of the social media domain is evident in its exploitation of three key properties: speed, volume, and reach.
Social media’s speed facilitates the rapid dissemination of disinformation, creating anchoring biases. Platforms like TikTok and X enable Russian operatives to react rapidly, disseminating narratives before factual rebuttals take hold. First impressions matter—individuals are more likely to accept the first information they encounter, even if it is later proven false. This phenomenon enables misinformation to significantly influence public discourse.
Meanwhile, volume overwhelms users, inhibiting critical thinking and creating echo chambers. Russian influence campaigns inundate the digital landscape with RT’s hub-and-spoke system, overwhelming users with large amounts of content and capitalizing on their tendency to rely on shortcuts when processing information. Bots, troll farms, and artificial intelligence amplify the reach of Russian narratives. RAND scholars writing on Russia’s Firehose of Falsehood note, “messages received in greater volume and from more sources will be more persuasive.” The sheer volume of Russian messaging results in a polluted information ecosystem where fake narratives gain traction.
Lastly, reach allows Russia to micro-target audiences, from niche communities to vulnerable demographics, polarizing them and, in some cases, inciting real-world consequences. Russia’s ability to target specific audiences through social media enables campaigns to polarize communities, reinforcing biases and exacerbating divisions. Algorithms can amplify these divisions, creating echo chambers where extreme views are normalized. These tactics have tangible consequences, as seen in shifts in public sentiment or, in rare cases, real-world violence.
Russia Seeks to Undermine Americans’ Trust in Democracy and the Civil-Military Triangle
Russian influence operations have brought the threat to America’s doorstep, reminding us that the homeland no longer serves as a sanctuary. Between 2023 and 2024, Russia targeted over 30 U.S. civil society organizations through spear-phishing and misinformation campaigns. Russian state-run media also funded covert content creation, paying influencers to produce over 2,000 high-quality English language videos with pro-Russian narratives. These videos, spread across TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms, garnered millions of views, amplifying domestic divisions. Russian influence aims to erode trust in American values and governance. By infiltrating public discourse, Russia seeks to erode the trust between citizens and their government, thereby undermining the foundations of democracy. As the Department of Justice stated in 2024, these efforts are a “blatant attempt to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.”
Further, Russian influence operations target the U.S. civil-military triangle, undermining trust among the civilian public, political leaders, and the military. Peter Feaver illustrates the delicate balance of this triangle: “The United States has accomplished something remarkable — a military strong enough to do what the population demands of it through the authority of the civilian government, yet subordinate enough to do only what civilians authorize them to do.” Russian influence operations aim to upset the triangle’s balance in two ways: influence the civilian population and erode the legitimacy of political leaders and processes. These ultimately could lead to diminishing American influence abroad.
Figure 1: The civil-military triangle
With the rapidly changing character of war, trust among the three groups of the triangle remains a vital component in formulating national security. Russia weakens the civilian public’s ability to provide informed oversight by spreading misinformation. House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner stated, “We see, directly coming from Russia, attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.” Russia attempts to erode the strength of the U.S. civil-military triangle by reducing cohesion and amplifying divisions among the American people through misinformation that political leadership sometimes echoes. Large divisions in American politics and public opinion have hindered the U.S. government’s ability to innovate in both policy and spending matters. By amplifying existing divisions to the point of dysfunction, Russia seeks to diminish U.S. power gradually.
The Role of the U.S. Military in Countering Influence Operations
The U.S. military must adapt to address the insidious threat of Russian influence operations. Military members reflect the population and, as such, share vulnerabilities to misinformation. Also, Russian influence campaigns often serve as precursors to more significant actions, setting the stage for military operations. For instance, Russia’s cyber-attacks in Georgia and disinformation campaigns in Crimea illustrate how influence operations can facilitate broader military objectives. The military must incorporate training, doctrine, and education to build resistance and resilience to counteract these information-enabled tactics. The Department of Defense’s 2023 Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment (SOIE) emphasizes the need to equip service members to navigate contested information spaces. Most significantly, we argue that the DoD should promote awareness of Russian influence tactics and educate military personnel to develop cognitive tools that enable them to identify and counter such tactics.
Doctrine and Leadership: Nudging the Path Forward
The U.S. military should continue to develop robust doctrine to share best practices among the services and aid commanders in navigating the complexities of the modern information environment. Training programs should integrate lessons on identifying and countering malign influence, drawing on principles of effective adult education. Finland, one of NATO’s newest additions, offers a highly successful comprehensive approach to digital disinformation detection. Taking a cue from their model, the U.S. military can cultivate resilience within its ranks and among families, contractors, and civilian communities.
Senior leaders must champion these efforts, embedding the understanding of influence operations as a perpetual challenge across the DoD. Conventional weapons often receive significant advocacy; influence operations require similar attention and the gravitas of respected senior leaders behind them. Denying Russian influence increases the maneuver space for the United States on all three axes of the civilian-military triangle. Training service members to recognize and resist Russian and other malign influence operations is an investment in resilience, culminating in deterrence through denial. Leadership can also establish policies that nudge service members to practice their critical thinking skills.
Nudging, also known as choice architecture intervention, subtly encourages people to reconsider their actions or decisions, often through gentle reminders that leverage existing knowledge and awareness. For example, a 2020 review of 174 studies found that nudges can have statistically significant effects in specific contexts, such as when nudging engages “System 2” or logical, effortful thinking. Nudging aligns with the principles of adult learning, which emphasize the importance of relevance and immediate applicability, making it especially effective for military education.
Next steps – Educate the Joint Force
The U.S. military owes itself a deep and thoughtful examination of Romania’s experience. By critically reflecting on this troubling episode, the U.S. military can genuinely understand that influence operations are here to stay due to our overwhelming traditional military superiority, the mindset of our adversaries, and the tools of the digital age. Russian influence operations have taken root in the U.S. homeland. If left unchecked, Russian influence operations will eventually damage U.S. core interests, namely our values and democratic form of government. Russia will eagerly capitalize on this advantage, elevating influence operations to high-level statecraft channeled through the military instrument. History demonstrates how pernicious Russian influence operations portend more significant action and launch a multi-pronged attack on the civil-military-government triangle, which is the foundation of the delicate balance of U.S. military strength and subordination. The DoD can implement the 2023 SOIE recommendations through adult education and leadership development. Across all ranks, military123 members should be able to recognize and understand malign influence operations, ensuring a Joint Force that is resistant and resilient against influence operations. Doctrine and leadership must begin to engage with Russian influence operations profoundly. Finally, leaders at the highest levels should promote the understanding that information confrontation is an ongoing struggle. Leaders can invest in American resilience through advocacy, adult education, and nudging. Helping service members recognize, resist, and call out influence operations can be a necessary first step and exemplar for American society to navigate the sea of Russian misinformation.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, or the Department of Defense.)
