On June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a federal War on Drugs during a White House press conference. President Nixon announced that “public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.” Nixon proposed an “all-out offensive” composed of a worldwide, bipartisan, government-wide initiative including a nationwide youth education campaign against drug use. The official beginning of the War on Drugs had a massive cultural, governmental, and criminal impact on the United States. It led to decades of increased funding and powers for law enforcement agencies, legislation that changed sentencing laws, and a national spotlight on the adverse effects of illegal drug use in the United States.
Background on the Criminalization of Narcotics
The criminalization of narcotics began in the United States decades before President Nixon’s address. The first federal law was enacted in 1906 to control narcotics in home remedies which primarily treated young children. This law, known as The Pure Food and Drug Act, emerged from salacious reports of unsanitary manufacturing conditions in the meatpacking industry. It aimed to regulate the labeling of manufactured products and prohibit the addition of ingredients which could harm the consumer. The law made clear that the government had a responsibility to protect consumers from harmful ingredients and appropriately expanded the government’s power to do so. Eight years later, the Harrison Narcotic Act classified drugs such as heroin, cocaine, morphine, and opium to facilitate the “orderly marketing” of such drugs. Disguised as a licensing law, it actually prohibited the sale of opiates. In reality, it had minimal impact on the use of such substances. The subsequent Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 levied hefty taxes against marijuana dealers to discourage its use. The Narcotics and Marijuana Tax Acts had little impact on drug use and disproportionately impacted and punished immigrants and racial minorities due to uneven enforcement.
Impact of the Declared ‘War on Drugs’ in the 1970s and 1980s
Richard Nixon’s 1971 declaration set a precedent for how the country’s political leaders would approach the question of drug abuse in the coming decades, explicitly emphasizing the role of law enforcement and incarceration in combating the trafficking, distribution, sale, and use of illegal narcotics. His declaration called for $350 million from Congress, in part to establish a new government bureau, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The President’s call for an all-out offensive coincided with a rise in recreational drug use in the 1960s and the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which Nixon signed into law in 1970. The CSA classified drugs into five schedules based on their medical application and potential for abuse, with class one drugs such as marijuana and heroin with a high risk for addiction and little evidence of medical benefit. Schedule five drugs are medications like cough syrup with low levels of codeine.
The official inception of the War on Drugs in 1971 expanded the power of law enforcement agencies and increased penalties on drug users and dealers, which President Ronald Reagan strengthened in the 1980s. President Reagan’s administration also passed the landmark Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 established mandatory minimum sentences for various violent and non-violent crimes. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 expanded the established mandatory minimum penalties for drug infractions, specifically possession, based on the drug’s classification (or schedule) and expanded international and domestic drug enforcement funding.
The War on Drugs in the 1990s
The drug control measures introduced under Reagan’s administration set the stage for drug policy in the 1990s. During President Clinton’s time in office, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was passed, introducing a new “three-strike rule.” The “three-strike rule” was aimed at discouraging recidivism. Under this rule, a defendant may receive life imprisonment if convicted in federal court of a serious violent felony and “has two or more prior convictions in federal or state courts, at least one of which is a ‘serious violent felony. The other prior offense may be a ‘serious drug offense.’” The 1994 Act was the largest-ever crime bill, adding 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons, and $6.1 billion for prevention programs.
Impact of Policy Changes
The expansive changes in sentencing for drug infractions and police power had a massive impact on the criminal justice system. Between 1982 and 2007, drug arrests more than tripled. In a similar time frame, from 1987 to 2005, arrests from drug abuse violations increased from 1 in 14 out of all arrests to 1 in 8. The population of drug offenders in jails and prisons has increased 1100% since 1980. Between 1988 and 2004, the proportion of defendants convicted of a drug offense who were sentenced to prison increased from 79% to 93%; drug offenders released from prison in 1986 who had been convicted before the adoption of mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing guidelines had served an average of 22 months of prison, while offenders sentenced in 2004 were expected to serve 62 months. The growth in imprisonment is most explicitly seen in the increase in the number of prisons; in the mid-1990s, an average of three 500-bed prison facilities opened each week, which were filled with inmates convicted of drug offenses. In 1979, 6% of state prison inmates were convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, and by 1998 the proportion had increased to 21%.
Efficacy and Racial Bias
Incarceration for drug possession has been disproportionately harmful to African Americans.
African Americans comprise 14% of regular drug users but are 35% of those arrested for drug offenses and 56% of persons in state prisons for drug offenses. The United States spends about 33 billion dollars a year on drug control and one trillion total since the 1960s. The United States makes up 30% of the world’s illicit drug consumption. There are roughly 70,000 overdose deaths annually, increasing 4% each year. 47% of young people will use an illegal drug by the time they graduate high school, and about 39% of adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five have reported using drugs. Drug use in the United States costs the economy 200 billion a dollars a year in lost productivity.
Recent Developments
The War on Drugs has begun to be scaled back in recent years. In President Obama’s “drug policy for the 21st century,” he declared that the United States “cannot incarcerate our way out of the drug problem” and emphasized prevention and treatment over increased incarceration. The 2010 Fair Sentencing Act reduced the sentencing disparity between offenses for crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1 and retroactively applied the sentencing guidelines to individuals sentenced before the law was passed, so thousands of people will be able to have their cases reviewed. The decriminalization and legalization of marijuana is also a significant step in scaling back the War on Drugs and the incarceration-focused drug control policies. Currently, it appears as though the trend is moving towards prioritizing treatment and prevention programs and scaling back the harsh penalties for drug users. The decriminalization of marijuana and the opioid crisis likely have played a significant role in changing the perception of drug users and addiction.
Introduction: The Need and Demand for Quality Public Transit
Public transit ridership has increased 21% since 1997, the state of public transit systems across the United States is in overwhelming disarray. A growing number of riders depend on public transit, but they are often left with limited access to nearby, expansive transit options riddled with frequent delays, service interruptions, and unfit station stop conditions. According to The Federal Transit Administration’s Status of the Nation’s Highways, Bridges and Transit: Condition and Performance Report (24rd edition)(2021), 43.2% of Guideway Elements (tracks, tunnels, and bus guideways); 23.8% of Systems (train control, electrification, communications, and revenue collection); 14.7% of Maintenance Facilities (bus and rail maintenance buildings and equipment/storage yards); 19.7% of Vehicles (large buses, heavy/light rail, commuter rail cars); and 53.7% of Stations (rail and bus stations, platforms, walkways, shelters) are below the “State of Good Repair” (SGR). The percentages of these Asset Categories determined to be in “poor condition” are substantial as well—6.4% of Guideway Elements, 21.4% of Systems, 36.4% of Maintenance Facilities, 18.5% of Vehicles, and 5.3% of Stations. As the 6,800 transit systems across states continue to struggle to procure adequate funding to modernize, expand, and rehabilitate their transit systems, the Department of Transportation estimates that the current $105.1 billion backlog of repairs is estimated to marginally decrease by 3.7%, to 102.2 billion by 2036 if current spending on transit asset preservation and expansion ($11.6 billion and $7.2 billion, respectively) is maintained.
The impact of this backlog is costly. 45% of Americans have no access to public transit; 41.7% of U.S. households possess one vehicle or less, and the average U.S. household spent $10,000, or 17% of total household expenditures on transportation in 2014. As a result, carless, low-income individuals cannot reliably depend upon the nation’s transit systems to access higher education, work, or critical social services such as healthcare, legal assistance, and quality food markets. Black and brown citizens shoulder this cost disproportionately as 24% of public transit riders are African American—making them the second-largest group of riders despite making up 12% of the U.S. population—and 10% of African Americans rely on public transportation to commute to their jobs.
“White Flight,” Redlining, & Highway Creation Projects Historical Impact on Today’s Transit Systems
“White Flight” describes the period following World War II (1940-70s) where whites’, unwilling to reside beside black and brown citizens, fled cities and other metropolitan areas in order to maintain segregated communities. As whites fled to suburban areas, policies such as the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and other highway-creation projects became the legislative focus of President Eisenhower and Congress, in order to provide these newly white-inhabited suburbs with access to cities. Creating these highways often involved bulldozing black neighborhoods, further intensifying segregation between white and black communities. According to The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Travel Patterns of People of Color, it wasn’t just whites that fled metropolitan areas; employment opportunities left with them, thus resulting in black and brown communities struggling to find high-skilled, well-paying work nearby. As a result of being “geographically mismatched,” unable to purchase homes in affluent, job-rich suburbs due to racially discriminatory policies in the housing market such as redlining, and owning personal vehicles at significantly lower rates than whites, black Americans and other minorities were and continue to be forced to procure the lower-skilled jobs in closer proximity to them. In this way, white-focused urban renewal projects and housing policies, as well as the push toward car-based travel, have stunted economic mobility for people of color.
Current Effect on Black Communities, Non-Racial Minorities, Environment, & National Economy
The ramifications of such policy decisions have a disproportionate effect on black Americans. On average, 14% of black households’ pretax income is consumed by transportation costs, and low-income black households spend 30% of their pretax income on transportation costs. The lack of efficient, expansive, and inexpensive transit options poses a barrier to such groups who struggle to travel to access opportunities and services. Black households rely on public transit the most among all races and ethnicities, as 20% of black households do not have access to an automobile and 14% fewer jobs were located near black residents in major metropolitan areas between 2000 and 2012. The burdens of transportation costs have driven people of all races and incomes to evade transit fares—an act criminalized in many states that could land evaders in jail. In line with other policing trends, black and brown riders are disproportionately fined, arrested, and even brutalized by transit police.
Racial minorities aren’t the only ones to suffer from the nation’s poor-quality transit systems; rural communities, the environment, and the nation’s economy, also take a hit. According to data in the Transit Cooperative Research Program’s (TCRP) “Report 266: An Update on Public Transportation’s Impacts on Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, public transportation saves the United States 6 billion gallons of gasoline annually. In addition, communities that invest in public transit reduce the nation’s carbon emissions by 63 million metric tons annually. APTA’s “Economic Impact of Public Transportation Investment: 2020 Update reports that public transportation is an $80 billion industry that employs more than 448,000 people. Every $1 invested in public transportation generates $5 in economic returns, and home values also increase near public transportation.
The Freedom to Move Act, Other Policy Recommendations, & the Debate Surrounding Transit Funding and Expansion Methods
While there is a consensus amongst voters of all partisan backgrounds that public transit should be prioritized, legislators are divided on the extent to which funding should be allocated to revamp and expand America’s transit systems, and how this funding should be procured. In a 2020 national Survey collected by Data for Progress, 66% of voters believe their own communities would benefit from expanding public transit while 77% of voters believe the US overall would benefit from expanding public transit. Democratic legislators, whose party platform traditionally emphasizes political values such as racial equity, environmental justice, and maintaining necessary social services, largely support expanding the federal budget allocated to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Republican legislators tend to view public transportation spending as less of a political priority because the majority of their constituents rely on highways and car-based travel.
Introduced by Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) in the House and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) in the Senate, the Freedom to Move Act aims to award up to $5 billion in five-year grants to states and localities that implement an environmentally conscious, expansive, fare-free transit system. By incentivizing participants through grants, the act aims to provide both racial and environmental justice to underserved communities through alleviating the financial burden of fares; eliminating disproportionate and excessive punishment for fare evasion; expanding access to safe, accessible, frequent, and reliable transit; and reducing traffic congestion and pollution. While many laud the Act for tying infrastructural improvements to racial and environmental justice, some critics oppose it because they feel eliminating fares would not only increase the current spending backlog, but make transit unsafe by attracting trouble-causing youth, drunks, addicts, and homeless riders. Supporters of the act argue that since fare revenue currently only accounts for 30% of transit systems’ funding, state budgets, with increased aid, can manage without collecting revenue.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorizes up to $108 billion for public transportation over fiscal years 2022 through 2026, the largest federal investment in public transportation in the nation’s history. The measure has four priorities: safety, modernization, climate consciousness, and equity. Many critique these bipartisan measures because of their failure to specifically address the burden of transportation costs. Additionally, some are concerned with the federal government and other public investment sources’ historic inability to consistently meet the funding needs for state transit systems, and advocate for public-private partnerships, or P3’s. P3’s are contracts between a public or governmental agency and a private entity that facilitates greater participation by the private entity in the delivery and operation of an infrastructure project, facility, or service. While supporters of P3’s find that collaboration with the private sector can promote a more free market and in turn cultivate innovation in infrastructure, some doubt the level of oversight governmental agencies will exert throughout project development and implementation. Such critics argue that while these partnerships can expedite transit development and rehabilitation, profit-driven private companies may lead projects away from centering transit development and expansion around racial, economic, and environmental justice.
Economic sanctions refer to a policy of withdrawing customary trade and financial relations in response to a diplomatic or foreign policy challenge. Governments may choose to enact comprehensive sanctions on an entire country, or direct sanctions on institutions, groups, and individuals in order to impact a government’s actions or decisions. In the case of its foreign policy with Russia, the United States has used targeted economic sanctions to deter and alter Moscow’s aggressive military actions in Ukraine.
Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 sparked initial sanction measures imposed on Russian individuals, entities, and financial institutions by the U.S. and E.U. The recent recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk breakaway regions as independent and the subsequent Russian invasion of Ukraine have also been met with a harsh international response, most notably in the form of economic sanctions. These policies are intended to deter Russia from further military escalation against Ukraine and to publicly indict violations of international law. However, the new sanctions introduced in 2022 have the potential to be far more economically damaging and isolating for Russia than any previous measure.
In December of 2021, as Russian forces continued to amass on the Ukrainian border, the United States warned of new measures if Russia invaded Ukraine. Prior to and in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine, the U.S. and its European allies implemented sweeping economic sanctions on multiple sectors of the Russian economy as well as Russian individuals. In response to Russia’s claims of de facto control over Ukraine, an initial round was announced from February 21-23 to deter further action. After Moscow launched an armed invasion on February 24, another round of sanctions was introduced. The most recent, and arguably the most damaging, sanctions were introduced from February 26-28 as active fighting continued.
Although sanctions are extensively used in American foreign policy, their actual impact on Russia has been widely debated. Sanctions generally fall into two categories: those that seek to encourage a change in Russian state behavior and those that seek to impose costs without necessarily having a specific policy goal. The success of these sanctions is measured by their ability to influence another state to change its behavior in accordance with U.S. foreign policy goals. As Russia gathered troops at its Ukrainian border in the lead-up to the invasion, sanctions were introduced as economic deterrents to further aggressive military action. A best-case scenario may have been to avoid war altogether. As armed conflict is underway, however, it seems that this objective was either impractical or not well addressed by threats of sanctions. Sanctions now are focused on economic isolation to encourage disengagement or ceasefire in the region.
The 2022 sanctions have been more expansive than previous rounds and focus on five areas: financial institutions, export controls, personal sanctions against individuals, investment prohibitions, and energy and gas. Three of these expanded measures—preventing Russia’s central banks from using foreign currency reserves, termination of certification for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and blocking Russian banks from the SWIFT system—are significant escalations from past rounds and may be the most impactful in changing Russia’s behavior.
Financial Institutions
Financial institutions and banks were targeted the most heavily during this round of sanctions, measures which the U.S. Treasury called “unprecedented.” The most critical of Russia’s financial institutions were targeted, including its largest, Sberbank. Sberbank holds about a third of all Russian bank assets, is Russia’s biggest lender, and is majority-owned by the Government of the Russian Federation (GoR). These sanctions require all U.S. institutions to close Sberbank accounts and reject future transactions with Sberbank or its subsidiaries. Under these new measures, Sberbank is also barred from purchasing and making transactions with U.S. dollars. The European branch of Sberbank now faces failure in Europe in the fallout from the U.S. and E.U. sanctions.
Additional financial institutions—such as VTB Bank, Otkritie, Novikom, and Sovcom—were identified in new sanction measures. These institutions have been identified as systemically important to the Russian financial system; these sanctions aim to undermine the Russian financial sector and export economy from participating in the global market and using the U.S. dollar. Significantly, the full blocking sanctions on VTB Bank, which holds 20% of Russian banking assets, freeze assets from being accessed by the GoR and mark a measure on one of the largest institutions the U.S. Treasury has ever targeted. About 80% of the $46 billion daily transactions conducted by Russian financial institutions are conducted in U.S. dollars. By barring Sberbank and VTB from processing payments through the United States’ financial system, the foreign exchange transactions normally conducted by these institutions will be greatly disrupted.
Additionally, Russian politicians and oligarchs connected to Moscow were sanctioned personally, including President Vladimir Putin, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, 351 members of the Russian parliament, financial actors such as the head of Promsvyazbank, and senior executives at state-affiliated banks. Personal sanctions include freezing foreign-held assets and travel bans. While personal sanctions are not the most effective on a global scale, undermining Russian elites’ power and credibility could have lasting effects on the country’s domestic politics.
No continent is experiencing as much difficulty with COVID-19 vaccination roll-out as Africa. As of September 14, 2021, there were 8.06 million COVID-19 cases recorded in Africa. In the week of September 12, there were 125,000 new cases. Though this was a 27% drop from previous weeks, weekly new cases are still as high as they were during the peak of the first wave. Currently, 19 African countries continue to report high or fast-rising numbers while the highly transmissible Delta variant has been found in 31 countries.
The continent as a whole is currently standing at a low COVID-19 vaccination rate, with only 3.6% of its population fully vaccinated. COVID-19 vaccines are provided to Africa via the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) scheme. This scheme is a joint venture between the World Health Organization (WHO); Center for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation (CEPI); Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and UNICEF. COVAX has a bulk purchasing program that is meant to allow smaller nations to get vaccines at the same price as larger countries. 92 of the world’s poorest nations depend on COVAX to secure vaccines.
Worldwide Vaccine Shortage
COVAX’s main promise was that by the end of 2021, 20 percent of the world’s population would be vaccinated—620 million doses. Wealthy nations fund COVAX in return for secured vaccine shipments in the future. Many had signed deals with manufacturers as early as July 2020, while COVID-19 vaccines were still in development and undergoing trials. Buying up large quantities of the vaccine far in advance has dried up the supply, leaving nothing for poorer nations. Due to this lack of supply, COVAX has only been able to distribute 65 million vaccines to over 100 countries. The primary supplier of vaccines to COVAX, the Serum Institute of India, has exported more vaccines than it has given to the entire Indian population, and due to this discrepancy, they have halted delivering vaccine shipments to other countries.
Larger countries with poorer populations are falling behind in vaccine distribution compared to more wealthy nations with smaller populations. It’s estimated that poorer countries will not get broad access to vaccines until 2023 or 2024.
Africa has received just 276 million doses and administered 198 million. Currently, less than 10 percent of African nations are expected to meet the end-year goal of fully vaccinating 40 percent of their population.
WHO Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, warned about the consequences of not getting vaccines to places like Africa, saying “the staggering inequity and severe lag in shipments of vaccines threatens to turn areas in Africa with low vaccination rates into breeding grounds for vaccine-resistant variants. This could end up sending the whole world back to square one.” However, world leaders at the Global COVID-19 Summit in September announced that they would pledge hundreds of millions of doses to low- and lower-middle-income countries through COVAX in the next year.
Unusable Vaccines in Africa
Even when some vaccines are able to make their way to Africa, problems arise. Many African countries have had to either destroy or return thousands of vaccine doses because they had exceeded the expiration date. For example, Malawi destroyed 20,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and South Sudan announced that it would destroy 59,000 doses. These countries had both received vaccines from the African Union, which receives vaccines from other nations as well as manufacturers. Many of the vaccines donated through COVAX had already gone bad. The Democratic Republic of Congo said that it could not use most of the 1.7 million vaccines it received under the COVAX scheme for poorer countries. Also through COVAX, South Sudan received 132,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in March with an expiration date at the end of June. South Sudan did not have the ability to undergo a mass vaccination rollout in such a short period of time, so it handed back 72,000 of those doses.
In South Africa, one million doses were received from India in February, with an expiration date of April. The government, however, was concerned that those vaccines would not protect against the South African COVID variant, and so, in late March, the doses were passed on to other African countries such as South Sudan, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, and The Gambia. Although Togo and The Gambia were able to use all of their vaccines prior to the expiration date, larger nations were unable to use all theirs.
Vaccine Mobilization and Skepticism
Other than receiving almost-expired vaccines, many African countries were unprepared to undergo such a vast vaccine mobilization program. These nations know how to vaccinate, but many do not have sufficient financial resources and are plagued by an ineffective government, poor transportation networks, and poor health services. There has been trouble with training health care workers and convincing them to take the vaccine. Concerns over the safety and efficacy of vaccines, fueled by myths and false information, have long plagued many nations in Africa, particularly Sub-Saharan ones. These myths have created distrust among communities and generated a dangerous environment for increased COVID transmission rates.
The Africa CDC conducted a study on COVID-19 vaccine perceptions in 15 countries that indicated a significant proportion of those living on the African continent express concerns over vaccine safety. Respondents tended to view new COVID-19 vaccines as less safe than vaccinations in general. For example, while 94 percent of Ethiopian respondents said they would be willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, other nations rated lower. The Democratic Republic of the Congo had only a 59 percent willingness to get vaccinated. More than half of respondents surveyed felt that the threat from coronavirus is exaggerated and that it does not pose the risk that others claim. Moreover, 41 percent of respondents mentioned online sources as their most trusted source for information about COVID-19, and respondents who demonstrated vaccine hesitancy were more inclined to consult online sources than those who were willing to take the vaccine. The problem seems to be a lack of education about the effects and transmissibility of the virus.
Impacts on International Development
There could be a greater force affecting people’s perceptions about the virus. In the same study by the Africa CDC, a survey was conducted to find out the exposure to general misinformation regarding COVID in Africa. Unsurprisingly, the most popular story heard on this continent, and other continents too, was that COVID-19 was created by China. The second most popular was that the virus was created by the United States, and the third was that people in Africa are being used as lab rats in vaccine trials.
These rumors reveal something deeper about how people in Africa perceive the West. Throughout history, Africa has been exploited by Western nations through the global slave trade and the Scramble for Africa, which saw European powers divide the continent for their own commercial and political interests. These two major historical events had direct consequences on the development of Africa, and the continent has not forgotten the injustices it had to endure. Anti-Western sentiment stems from centuries of colonization, occupation, and intervention. The reluctance to trust Western countries in providing vaccines for a novel virus is unsurprising given these facts.
The Coronavirus Aid, Recovery, and Economic Support Act (CARES Act) was passed on March 23, 2020, under former president Donald Trump’s administration. This act was passed to mitigate the damage that the sudden and rapid emergence of the COVID-19 virus had on the economy in the United States—particularly local businesses—and the livelihoods of citizens.
Past Recessions and Government Action
The economic downturn caused by COVID-19 was not the first time that America has suffered a recession. For instance, in 1907, 73 financial institutions failed, primarily due to the bankruptcy of two small brokerage firms, which sparked distrust in companies and banks. However, this panic also convinced Americans that the government had a role to play in solving economic crises. In 1910, discussions about the formation of a central bank began, and by 1914, the Federal Reserve was created. Similarly, at the start of the Great Depression in 1929, the unemployment rate stood at 3.2% and peaked at 24.9% by 1933. To recover the economy, the Social Security Act of 1935 was passed, authorizing funds to be paid out to states (through the Social Security Administration), based on wages earned a few years before a beneficiary turned 65. Overall, the Great Depression changed the structure of the government and the general attitude towards the role of the government in solving economic crises.
Economic Provisions
Many provisions within the CARES Act directed financial support to businesses and individuals whose finances were directly impacted by COVID-19. For example, Section 2102 expanded unemployment compensation between January to December of 2020, granting 39 weeks of federal unemployment compensation to individuals who may have previously been ineligible under the laws of their state or territory. In addition, Section 1102 amended Section 7(a) of the Small Business Act by allowing the Small Business Administration to lend money to businesses that do not employ more than 500 people. This section required that such businesses use these loans solely to repay necessary business expenses, including compensation (i.e. wages and salaries, paid vacation time, health benefits, paid or unpaid leave, etc.) and utility costs. These measures provided money to both individuals and businesses to reduce the effects of the pandemic.
Housing Provisions
However, economic recessions and depressions not only impact employment prospects, but housing prospects as well. For example, not long after the pandemic began, tenants felt the impact of the contraction of the economy. Concerns over the spread of COVID-19 prompted private and governmental employers to either shut down or only partially open their workplaces, which left many employees, or residential tenants, without the stream of income that they had received before. Thus, the CARES Act also imposed a national foreclosure moratorium through Section 4022, and a national eviction moratorium through Section 4024, which ended in June 2021. Since the end of the foreclosure and eviction moratoriums, there has been a rising trend in eviction numbers. For example, since March 2020, Houston, Texas has seen 67,304 eviction filings by landlords, while Albuquerque, New Mexico has seen 9,339 evictions, and New York City 89,312. In response, states have supplemented provisions of the CARES Act with their own anti-eviction legislation. This provided tenants with additional time to make payments towards rent and business expenses. However, state moratoriums were also a temporary measure.
As a whole, the CARES Act provided temporary financial assistance to Americans. It gave money to individuals and businesses to support the recovery of lost wages and revenue and protected tenants via a federal eviction moratorium. However, as the measures within the CARES Act were only temporary, the future of American businesses, as well as American people’s tenancy and homeownership status, will depend largely on the state of the economy as it works to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
From Burkina Faso’s Code of Persons and Family, stipulating equal inheritance for brothers and sisters, to Mali’s state-manded electoral gender quotas, requiring at least 30% of candidates on electoral lists to be women, eye-catching progressive policy is perceived as a beacon of change in regions like West Africa. However, statutory legislation often conflicts with lived experience for women in these areas where women’s rights have been stifled since colonization. Burkina Faso’s Family Code does not apply to women married under customary law and Mali’s electoral quotas coexist with customary laws that limit women’s autonomy, rendering them virtually ineffective in boosting female representation. While it is important to recognize progressive policy successes in West Africa, it is equally critical to avoid muting the voices of those still suffering despite legislation.
Definitions
For the purposes of this article, statutory law is defined as legislation passed by legislative bodies in West Africa, as well as international or continental treaties, conventions, and charters signed or ratified by West African nations. Conversely, customary law consists of traditional or religious rules and practices accepted as law by a specific culture. This article adopts the conceptualization of West Africa as defined by the African Union and African Development Bank; the 15 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Women’s rights is a complex and multifaceted term, but this article focuses on the four core dimensions of women’s rights as outlined in the OPEC Social institutions and Gender Index (SIGI), a global measure of sociopolitical discrimination against women. These dimensions include family practices, physical integrity rights, access to financial resources, and civil liberties.
Statutory Law
Many statutory policies have been created and ratified by West African nations in the past three decades, spanning all four dimensions of the SIGI. Several examples for each dimension are outlined below.
Civil Liberties: The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women stipulates women’s right to vote and hold political office. The PACHPR also requires equal representation of women with men at all levels of electoral processes. National policy on this issue includes Togo’s Law on Electoral Campaign Funding, which necessitates fund allotment to each political party in proportion to the number of women from that party who have been previously elected.
Customary Law and Lived Realities
Statutory policies often conflict with customary law and social practices in West Africa. This leaves room for significant abuses of the four SIGI dimensions of women’s rights.
Given the clash between statutory laws and customary practices, efforts to promote women’s rights must be endogenous to local communities to be relevant and sustainable. West African women are not passive victims to policy; they are agents of change and critical actors in bridging the gap between their statutory and customary rights. Today, several West African grassroots organizations work to spread awareness about women’s rights in communities where customary law may tolerate abuse. One such organization is Ligue LIFE, a Beninese group whose awareness campaigns about child trafficking and domestic violence are being adapted and disseminated by the UN Democracy Fund. Another successful organization is Project Alert on Violence Against Women, created in 1999 by female activists in Nigeria. Project Alert administers school and church-based advocacy programs that partner with local schools and places of worship to train parents, teachers, and religious leaders how to recognize and respond to GBV. By taking a bottom-up approach to social norms change, these grassroots initiatives and others like them help to bridge the gap between women’s rights under customs and women’s rights under statutory law in West Africa.
Conclusion
While this article has illuminated the wide gap between West African women’s customary and statutory rights, it is important to note that not all statutory policies in West Africa are ineffective. Some laws have effected remarkable change, such as Senegal’s 2011 Gender Parity Law that increased female representation in the national government from 22.7% to 42.7% over one election cycle. Unfortunately, not all West African statutory policies have created such concrete change in the lives of women. Thus, it is critically important to consider how women’s rights as outlined by law and as experienced by women differ in everyday life. Moving forward, it seems that grassroots social norms change is a crucial tool in bridging this difference, especially when spearheaded by West African women who have the most to lose if the gap between customary and statutory rights remains.
The territory that the country of Georgia now occupies has seen human development since the Paleolithic period. Over the last few thousand years, the territory has been under the domain of Georgian, or Kartvelian, kingdoms and other regional empires. However, Georgia’s contemporary history began following the country’s absorption into the Russian Empire during the 19th century.
Following the Russian Revolution, Georgia became independent from the USSR and came to be known as the Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) in 1918. However, in 1921, the DRG was forcibly integrated into the Soviet Union and would not regain its independence again until 1991. Georgia had an influential role in Soviet history. For example, the USSR was governed by Georgian-born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin, from 1924 until his death in 1953.
The decade following Georgia’s independence, in 1991, was marked by significant political turmoil. Between 1995 and 2003, the country was led by President Eduard Shevardnadze. His eight-year rule as President was characterized by severe economic mismanagement and rampant institutional corruption. In response to Shevardnedze’s political failures, Georgians engaged in countrywide demonstrations demanding political transparency; these demonstrations were later termed the Rose Revolution. In the end, Shevardnadze vacated the presidency, and Mikheil Saakashvili was sworn in as President.
Saakashvili’s ascension to the presidency signaled that Georgia had chosen to resist Russian influence and fight corruption; however, Georgia’s position as a democratic state has become threatened in the last few months. After leaving office, Saakashvili moved to New York before ultimately moving to Ukraine, where he served as the Governor of Odessa, as well as other positions within the Ukrainian government. However, in 2018, he was tried and convicted in absentia for abuse of power. Saakashvili returned to Georgia in October 2021 and was subsequently arrested. After his arrest, Saakashvili went on a fifty-day hunger strike, which ended following his admittance to an intensive care ward after he fainted. Saakashvili asserts that his arrest and trial are purely political rather than based on any substantive issue. Regardless, the arrest of a former president does not bode well for democracy in Georgia.
Mikheil Saakashvili and George W. Bush—Image Courtesy of NATO
Background on Georgian Politics
Georgia’s capital is located in the central city of Tbilisi. Georgia’s government is a semi-presidential republic. Currently, the head of state is President Salome Zurabishvili, and the head of government is Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. Unlike the United States, which has two chambers in its legislature, Georgia has a unicameral legislature: the Parliament of Georgia. In total, one hundred and fifty members are elected to represent the nearly five million people living in Georgia. One hundred and twenty members are elected through proportional representation, while the remaining thirty are elected through a single-member district plurality system; that is, a representative is elected to a parliamentary seat after reaching a majority vote. Presently, the political party Georgian Dream—Democratic Georgia forms the government with eighty-four seats. The United National Movement party, initially founded by Mikheil Saakashvili, sits on the opposition side with thirty seats.
Labor-intensive occupations drive the Georgian economy, with the two most important sectors being agricultural production and manufacturing. Due to its smaller population, Georgia’s workforce includes roughly 686,000 citizens. Despite relying on agriculture and manufacturing, the Georgian economy is transitioning towards a service and tourism-based economy. Between 2016 and 2017, the country’s GDP grew 5%, indicating positive economic development. However, Georgia still deals with significant unemployment, 11.8% by 2016 figures, and poverty, as nearly 20% of all Georgians lived below the poverty line in 2019.
International Issues
Georgia mainly exports raw materials and manufacturing products. The country’s primary exports are copper, iron alloys, cars, packaged medicine, and wine. Despite them having a tense interstate relationship, Russia is the most common destination of Georgian exports. In 2019, 12% of Georgian exports went to Russia, followed by 12% to Azerbaijan and 9% to Armenia.
Although Georgia derives 65% of its electricity from hydroelectric sources, according to 2017 statistics, it still relies heavily on natural gas imports. Turkey is Georgia’s primary import partner, accounting for 17% of Georgian imports, followed by 11% for China’s, and 9% for Russia’s. The United States is a minor trade partner and only accounts for 5% of Georgian imports.
Georgia’s geographic position on the border of Europe and Asia yields some economic advantages. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the South Caucasus gas pipeline allow Georgia to play a significant role in the movement of oil and natural gasses from Central Asia to the Mediterranean Sea. Additionally, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad positions Georgia in the middle of the transcontinental movement of goods.
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline—Image courtesy of Silk Road Studies
Territorial Issues
Although Georgia has made significant economic and political gains following their emancipation from the Soviet Union, this sovereignty is not without problems. Two regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, are breakaway regions, and multiple wars of independence have been fought over them.
Abkhazia is an autonomous region in northwestern Georgia. Apart from Russia, the breakaway region is only recognized by five UN-recognized states. Between 1992 and 1993, Georgian forces fought against Abkhaz separatists in a thirteen-month war. A ceasefire subsequently ended the conflict, but the political ramifications remain. Abkhazia eventually declared its independence in 1999.
South Ossetia is a breakaway state in North-Central Georgia, which makes up the southern half of the traditional homeland of the Ossetian people. The Russian republic of North Ossetia-Alania borders it to the north. Like Abkhazia, South Ossetia receives minimal recognition from the international community, outside of a few states. Russia recognizes South Ossetia and maintains a military presence in the region. In 2008, President George W. Bush campaigned for Georgia’s membership to the Membership Action Plan, designed to set Georgia on the track for NATO membership. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin argued that any attempt to enlarge NATO was a national security threat and began preparing for an invasion. The Russo-Georgian war then took place once Russia invaded Georgia, where Georgian and Russian soldiers, as well as Russian-backed Ossetian separatists, fought against each other. This led to Russia occupying South Ossetia in an attempt to prevent Georgian ascension into NATO.
Cultural Dynamics
Many political dynamics serve as catalysts for conflict between Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia; the different groups that live in the region being one of them. During the Soviet era, Abkhazia was populated by a mix of Abkhazians, Georgians, Russians, and Armenians; however, now the region is predominantly Abkhazian. Georgians are an isolated ethnolinguistic group, whereas Ossetians are an Eastern Iranian ethnolinguistic group, and Abkhazians are a Northwest Caucasian ethnolinguistic group. These groups, despite living together as part of the Soviet Union and being native to the Caucasus, are not related, and their ethnolinguistic differences became salient once the Union collapsed.
Georgian-American Relations
The United States and Georgia officially established diplomatic relations in 1992. Given the economic and political disparities between the two countries, Georgia certainly relies more on the United States. The United States has committed significant amounts of aid to Georgia, in order to advance democratic and economic growth within the country. However, the United States does rely on Georgia’s geographic position to advance its “competition” with Russia.
Multiple attempts to integrate Georgia into NATO have occurred, but none have been successful, especially after Russia’s 2008 invasion, whose likely goal was to prevent Georgian ascension into NATO. Georgia, although it lacks official membership, is a member state in the Partnership for Peace, which aims to build trust between NATO members and regional non-members.
Georgian and American soldiers in a joint training exercise, 2008—Image courtesy of NBC News
A healthy diet requires an appropriate balance of macronutrients, micronutrients, and caloric intake. A proper diet can reduce the prevalence of nutrition-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and heart disease. In the United States, people in the carceral system experience a disproportionate amount of diet related illnesses. A special report by the United States Department of Justice found that 30% of incarcerated people have hypertension compared to 18% of the general population, 9% have diabetes compared to 6.5% of the general population, and 9.8% have heart problems compared to 2.9% of the general population. One factor suspected of contributing to this increased incidence of diet related illness is the high availability of processed foods and the limited availability of fresh fruits and vegetables in their prison diet. Processed foods are more frequently served in prisons due to cheap costs and long shelf life. Most correctional facilities and prisons outsource to private food vendors. Prison meals outsourced in this way are mass produced and cost around $1-$2 per meal.
Background Information
While processed foods are cheaper and more easily sourced, they tend to have high levels of sugar, cholesterol, and sodium, and limited amounts of essential micronutrients such as potassium, magnesium, and vitamin E.
In 2016, the California’s Department of Corrections food administrator stated the sodium content of meals averaged 3,500 milligrams per day. For reference, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) advises people to eat up to 2,300 milligrams per day.
A 2012 analysis of South Carolina correctional facilities found that inmates received an average of 97.5 grams of sugar per day, more than double the USDA’s recommended 41.8 grams.
While fruits and vegetables provide many micronutrients, prisons are often reluctant to purchase them because of their short shelf-life and limited seasonal availability. According to a report conducted by Impact Justice, around 62% of incarcerated individuals stated they rarely have access to any fresh vegetables, while 54% expressed that they rarely had access to fresh fruits.
One way that prisons in the U.S. can offer healthier foods to incarcerated people is through prison agricultural programs. These are programs that connect prisoners with local farms. Through prison agricultural programs, incarcerated people can gain agricultural skills, provide fresh food to the prison population, and give back to the community by providing support to local farms.
One such program is Planting Justice, which works to build gardens and create jobs for people transitioning from prisons in San Francisco. Individuals who go through the program have a 0% recidivism rate compared to the general 44.6% recidivism rate in California. Planting Justice provides a living wage to current and formerly incarcerated participants entering the program. Another prison agricultural program is Salvation Farms, an organization that partners with the Vermont Department of Corrections. Salvation Farms provides education, an outlet for productivity, and agricultural goods to incarcerated people. It aims to bridge the gap between agricultural surpluses and food distribution systems by partnering with various organizations and institutions across the food sector. By partnering with the Vermont DOC, Salvation Farms is able to provide fresh produce to incarcerated people in Vermont.
Positive Arguments of the Programs
These programs improve nutritional quality for incarcerated people who choose to consume more fresh fruits and vegetables. This could potentially reduce the percentage of incarcerated people with diet related diseases and the healthcare expenditures associated with those diseases.
Prison agricultural programs can teach incarcerated people employable skills. Having those skills may lead to a reduction in recidivism if formerly incarcerated people have access to stable employment when re-entering society. The education received may also translate to healthier eating habits after re-entry into communities.
Prison agricultural programs also provide an outlet for productivity, which can potentially improve the mental health of incarcerated people participating in agricultural related activities.
Negative Arguments
On the other hand, there’s debate over whether or not the net costs of prison operations are reduced when implementing prison agricultural programs. According to the correctional spokesperson for Wyoming County Correctional Facility, the farm that worked with the correctional facility lost $3.4 billion per year. In addition, security costs play a factor; extra security is needed when incarcerated people are working on the farms. Additionally, while fruits and vegetables are integral to nutrition, proteins and grains are also essential to a nutritious diet. Therefore, prison agricultural programs may fix some, but not all of the nutritional deficiencies present among incarcerated populations.
Cities have been increasingly implementing measures to lessen the environmental impact of housing development and create more efficient dwellings. Smart growth is a new strategy for development which is being explored in many communities. It advocates the end of zoning (segregation of types of development), using green construction practices, repurposing old buildings, and considering the life cycle of a building. Green construction and LEED certifications are also increasingly being implemented to push developers toward more sustainable construction. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is used globally. LEED advocates for conserving water and energy, using green materials during construction and renovation, and building in efficient locations.
The Standard Zoning Act, implemented in the 1920s, aimed to “avoid an undue concentration of population”. Policies and acts like this are still widely in use and limit the amount of housing with walkability, or the ability to access resources without a vehicle. Smart growth aims to counter this by allowing re-zoning measures to develop mixed-use areas, improve walkability, and limit the need for transportation. Similarly, it advocates for housing to be inclusive of family and residence styles. This means allowing young adults, single adults, and older adults to have housing alongside family residences. Smart growth also pushes for smarter land use in developments. Many low-income residences are built in areas with minimal consideration for historical environmental patterns like flooding. This puts these residents at higher risk because they “have fewer resources to prepare for storms or flee to safer territory.”
Impact On Developers
Major cities like San Francisco and Boston have begun to implement smart growth ideas and LEED certification requirements. San Francisco requires that small residential buildings must have at least a 75-point score from Build It Green, high rises must have a similar score to small residential buildings or a silver LEED rating, commercial buildings must meet a Gold LEED rating. The more restrictive the requirements, the higher the cost of building. LEED certification can increase the overall construction cost by 4-11%. While incentives are used in many areas to push developers to meet these certifications, there is still a significant cost associated. These costs can deter development projects or get passed on to the consumer, both of which can be detrimental to the affordable housing supply.
Impact on Businesses, Homeowners, and Renters
Mixed zoning increases foot traffic, which benefits small businesses, and limits transportation costs and time. Removing density limits also allows for more residential spaces which can improve walkability and limit the amount of personal or public transportation that people rely on. Smart growth’s advocacy for considering environmental patterns creates residential and commercial buildings in areas that are more sustainable in the long-term and less costly in terms of insurance. Although LEED certifications increase development costs, which can increase costs in the short term, LEED certifications make energy, water, and other resource consumption more efficient, which can bring down prices in the long term. The issue moving forward will be finding the balance between the two so that energy-efficient dwellings can be accessible to all income levels.
Moving Forward
According to analysis from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, “many of the reasons consumers cite for preferring suburban housing reflect social attributes, such as personal security, higher-quality public services (particularly schools) and greater property value security, rather than the physical attributes of sprawl.” All these reasons could be addressed within compact urban living while also allowing for public transportation, walkability, and protecting the environment.
“Information has become a destructive weapon just like a bayonet, bullet or projectile.” – Vladimir Slipchenko, Russian military academic
Introduction
The accessibility of online information has allowed Russian state and nonstate actors to parasitically inject misleading and false information with the intention of manipulating a target audience. Disinformation is false information that is deliberately created and intentionally spread with the intention of causing harm. Russia weaponizes disinformation to achieve a key strategic objective: the subversion of the West. In the case of Russian Information Operations (IO), target audiences include the American population and the populations of other Russian adversaries.
When a democratic society no longer agrees upon a common set of facts, citizens begin to question firmly held truths and lose faith in their public institutions. Russian information operations administer damaging narratives against politicians, political parties, and/or hot-button issues like the COVID-19 vaccine into the American media space. By doing so, Russia provokes the American electorate. Russia has material weakness relative to the United States, the Kremlin has managed to stave off its waning global influence through its superior use of information as a tool of “asymmetric statecraft.”
The dissemination of deceptive content online has proved to be more advantageous than engaging in conventional kinetic warfare: it is cost effective, can be executed without casualty, can be finely targeted and can be achieved clandestinely. Information operations operate in the gray zone “short of declared war” and allow Russia to engage in asymmetric warfare in which it can inflict damage on the United States by sowing social discord and political fragmentation. Kremlin-based disinformation campaigns are carried out by Russian state and nonstate actors. Some are employed directly by Russian security services whereas others are carried out by non government entities such as the Internet Research Agency. Additionally, disinformation campaigns target states across the globe, not just the United States. These campaigns are not designed to change public opinion or convince a population of any one particular thing. They are meant to generate enough ‘noise’ in the online space to the point where societal divisions threaten the stability of a democracy ruled by a citizenry that no longer knows what is objectively true. In the words of a senior FBI official, “To put it simply, in this space, Russia wants to watch us tear ourselves apart.”
The Goal of Russian Information Operations
The primary goal of Russian information-based warfare is to undermine the legitimacy of democratic governments by aggravating societal cleavages including racial, religious, political and ideological differences. By blurring the line between fact and fiction and intentionally fanning the flames of certain societal divisions, causes Americans to question their firmly held beliefs. This confusion and distrust across the U.S. population has threatened the stability of America’s democratic institutions.
For Russia, employing informational and propagandistic campaigns is nothing new. During the height of the Cold War, Soviet “dezinformatsiya” campaigns were at the forefront of the Soviet Union’s strategy for undermining and discrediting the United States. The Soviets funded communist newspaper outlets and radio stations that were broadcasted in the United States, along with publishing books written by authors paid by the Committee for State Security (also known as the KGB). KGB-funded publishing houses were even among the first to cast doubt on the Warren Commission’s findings that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy. As technological capabilities have become more sophisticated in the digital age, so too have information warfare tactics used by Russia against the United States. Russia can no longer directly compete with Washington’s military might and world influence, but it can cost-effectively influence America’s democratic institutions by infusing distrust and confusion into the U.S. media space.
Russia can secure its strategic objectives against the West without having to invest in costly military operations or resort to physical force. The Kremlin can take advantage of the viral nature of internet platforms to exploit existing political fault lines and target specific subgroups of the American population with tailored messages that are designed to further polarize them. Steven Wilson, a political science professor at Brandeis University, eloquently describes the consequence of Russia’s information warfare:
In 2020, the U.S. Department of State characterized the Russian disinformation and propaganda ecosystem as having five key pillars: state-funded global messaging, cultivation of proxy sources, weaponization of social media, official government communications and cyber-enabled disinformation. The first three pillars listed above are the central means by which Russian sows discord in the United States. State-funded global messaging includes campaigns mounted by Russian intelligence agencies like the FSB, a security service that succeeded the KGB, that spreads falsehood with the intention of undermining confidence in American leaders, institutions and further polarizing debates around hot-button issues. Russian intelligence agencies have targeted Western vaccines like Pfizer by publishing exaggerated reports of the risks that COVID-19 vaccines pose and their long-term side-effects. This fear-mongering taps into vaccine skeptics by exploiting deep-seeded anxieties over the safety of the vaccine and promotes the success of Russia’s own vaccine, Sputnik V.
Another key element of Russian IO is the cultivation of proxy sources. Proxy sources are news outlets that are funded by the Kremlin, but attemptto maintain a veneer of separation to keep their connections to the Kremlin unclear, and thus dupe American readers into thinking that these sites publish independent work. They publish the works of fringe Western thinkers and make the outlets appear to be based in the United States or Europe. Sources like Global Research, The Strategic CultureFoundation, Geopolitica.ru, New Eastern Outlook and News Front are all publications that are heavily immersed in Russia’s disinformation ecosystem. The Strategic Culture Foundation, for example, is an online journal registered in Russia and directed by its Intelligence Service (SVR). These outlets publish conspiratorial content; recent examples include pieces blaming the U.S government for spreading COVID-19 or questioning Al-Qaeda’s responsibility for the 9/11 hijackings. According to the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), Global Research, a conspiracy site operating out of Canada, received an estimated 12.370 million page visits between February 1 and April 30 of 2020. The Strategic Culture Foundation received nearly 1 million in the same period. Russia’s disinformation ecosystem is diverse and the lack of a central avenue of disinformation for their deceptive dissemination lets the information appear more credible and widespread.
Russia’s weaponization of social media is also pervasive and cost-effective. It is important to note the connection between the business model underlying social media platforms and Russia’s disinformation campaigns, as the two go hand-in-hand. The underlying economic logic of platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is the monetization of user engagement.These large technology firms rely on data collection in order to create detailed behavioral profiles on individuals and their preferences, interests, likes, dislikes and beliefs. Sophisticated algorithms use this information to provide users with dynamically optimized stimuli and curated content. User data is sold to advertisers to create targeted advertising regimes that are tailored to each individual. By keeping users engaged, this business model has proved highly profitable.
However, nefarious actors like Russia can use this regime of targeted advertising, user data collection, and sophisticated algorithms to identify pockets of the voting population that are susceptible to false information. Russian disinformation works on both sides of the aisle, inflaming both conservatives and liberal Americans. By using behavioral profiles of online users, Russian internet-agitators can find specific subgroups that share similar beliefs and target these groups with evocative social media posts or send them invitations to join Facebook groups centered on divisive topics like police brutality or immigration. For example, low-income populations were targeted with immigration and race-related advertisements, whereas middle-income populations were shown advertisements to join groups centered around nationalism. This demographic targeting stokes hyperpartisanship and furthers Russia’s strategic objective to weaken.
U.S. Department of State
Russian IO utilizes a variety of channels to manipulate American audiences via social media. The St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA), for example, is financed by allies of Putin and engaged in online influence operations by spreading conspiracy theories and incendiary messages to stoke discord on issues like race or religion in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. The Kremlin-backed group, often called a “troll farm” – a professionalized group that coordinates the posting of provocative content using fake identities– employed an army of trolls to inject extreme content into the American media space and create an illusion of support for radical ideas. Russian troll groups like the IRA bought and ran ads on Facebook and Instagram during the 2016 election, which according to MIT’s Tech Review, “was reaching 140 million US users per month – 75% of whom had never followed any of the pages. They were seeing the content because Facebook’s content-recommendation system had pushed it into their news feeds.” Social media algorithms tend to boost evocative and sensational information, and Kremlin-backed troll farms exploit this to proliferate disinformation in the American information space. Troll farms and online bots pump out social media posts that are slogan-dependent, include heavy visuals and often utilize memes and humor.
Known Russian Information Operation Example
Up until 2017, apopular Facebook account called ‘Blacktivist’ used racial issues – particularly police brutality – to stoke outrage online. The account collected over 350,000 followers – surpassing the number of followers on the verified Black Lives Matter account at the time. Posts included videos of violent police arrests and messages such as “Black people should wake up as soon as possible.” In late 2017, it was discovered that Blacktivist was actually operated by Russia and designed to stoke racial tensions in the United States.
House Intelligence Committee, Facebook
House Intelligence Committee, Facebook
Preventative Measures and the Road Ahead
Countering Russian information warfare is like a game of whack-a-mole: nobody knows when or where Russian disinformation will pop up, as it elusively resurfaces again and again. Online agitators can change their IP addresses and create new webs of bot accounts. Whereas Russian-sponsored posts were previously riddled with grammar and syntax errors that were specific to native Russian speakers – often omitting or misusing “a” or “the” because these indefinite articles are not used in the Russian language – Russian-sponsored posts have become more sophisticated in order to avoid detection. Russian troll farms will now copy and paste chunks of text directly from other sources, use fewer hashtags and remove watermarks on images that had been previously taken down. Future disinformation campaigns may employ deep fakes – fake video and audio that appears convincingly real – that make it far easier to mislead audiences and create new suspicions about everything we watch. The possibilities for asymmetric information warfare are clear, but there are measures that can be taken to mitigate the impact of disinformation.
Preventative Measures/Solutions
Artificial Intelligence (AI): Emerging AI capabilities and machine learning may be able to discern and flag fake news on a large scale across multiple platforms.
Education: The American education system needs to emphasize digital literacy. Citizens need to be able to discern the truth by navigating and evaluating an increasingly muddled online information space. Researchers at Stanford University recently published a study revealing that more than 80 percent of students had a hard time discerning the credibility of the news they read. A citizen capable of differentiating an ad from an article or real news from fake news will be less susceptible to disinformation.
Regulate Social Media Companies: The United States comes far behind the EU when it comes to its regulatory apparatus for social media companies. The General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation in EU law that is designed to protect data privacy and apply pressure on big tech companies like Google and Facebook with fines for privacy violations. In terms of developing a minimally invasive method for monitoring social media content, the Czech Republic has come up with a sustainable model. There, a small unit of 15 social media analysts actively monitor platforms like Facebook, Twitter and other proxy sources that circulate disinformation. The analysts simply flag the content as inauthentic – they don’t censor or remove it. This type of content moderation respects America’s veneration for freedom of the press and would not equate to content censorship.
Sources:
Alba, Davey. “How Russia’s Troll Farm Is Changing Tactics before the Fall Election.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Mar. 2020.
Allen, T.S., and A.J. Moore. “Victory without Casualties: Russia’s Information Operations.” Parameters, vol. 48, no. 1, spring 2018, pp. 59+. Gale Academic OneFile.
Alvarez, German, et. al. “Good News, Bad News: A Sentiment Analysis of the 2016 Election Russian Facebook Ads.” International Journal of communications [online], May 2020, pp. 3027+. Gale Academic OneFile.
Domonoske, Camila. “Students Have ‘Dismaying’ Inability to Tell Fake News from Real, Study Finds.” NPR, NPR, 23 Nov. 2016.
Fung, Brian. “Russia Is the King of Disinformation on Facebook, the Company Says.” CNN, Cable News Network, 26 May 2021.
Ghosh, Dipayan. “It’s all in the Business Model: The Internet’s Economic Logic and the Instigation of Disininformation, Hate, and Discrimination.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, vol. 21, no. 1, fall 2020, pp. 129+. Gale Academic OneFile.
Giannetti, William. “A Duty to Warn: How to Help America Fight Back Against Russian Disinformation.” Air & Space Power Journal, vol. 31, no. 3, fall 2017, pp. 95+. Gale Academic OneFile.
Gordon, Michael R., and Dustin Volz. “WSJ News Exclusive | Russian Disinformation Campaign Aims to Undermine Confidence in Pfizer, Other Covid-19 Vaccines, U.S. Officials Say.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 7 Mar. 2021.
Joscelyn, Thomas. “How Effective Is Russia’s Disinformation?” FDD, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 6 Jan. 2021.
Hao, Karen. “Troll Farms Reached 140 Million Americans a Month on Facebook before 2020 Election, Internal Report Shows.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 20 Oct. 2021.
McGeehan, Timothy P. “Countering Russian Disinformation.” Parameters, vol. 48, no. 1, spring 2018, pp. 49+. Gale Academic OneFile.
Thompson, Terry L. “No Silver Bullet: Fighting Russian Disinformation Requires Multiple Actions.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, vol. 21, no. 1, fall 2020, pp. 182+. Gale Academic OneFile.
Wilson, Steven. “What Are Russia’s Goals with Disinformation on Social Media?” BrandeisNOW, Brandeis University, 22 Oct. 2020.
U.S. Department of State
