By: Ken Robinson
Foreign influence against the United States is no longer best understood through the familiar image of espionage: a recruited official, a stolen document, a clandestine meeting, a payment for secrets. Russia and China have developed broader approaches suited to an open society in which political arguments, money, media, personal relationships and social division can produce strategic effects without a traditional intelligence operation ever becoming visible.
An American political organization does not have to be controlled by Moscow or Beijing to advance an outcome favorable to either government. Nor does agreement with a Russian or Chinese policy prove foreign influence. The counterintelligence problem is more demanding. It requires determining whether an American position developed independently, whether a foreign service later recognized its value and amplified it, whether relationships were cultivated around it, whether concealed assistance followed, and at what point influence became direction.
Russia has demonstrated the model repeatedly. Its political warfare is designed less to convert Americans to Russian ideas than to exploit divisions already present in American society. During the 2024 election cycle, the Justice Department exposed a Kremlin-directed operation employing fabricated media properties, false personas, artificial intelligence and American influencers. Treasury separately disclosed that personnel associated with RT had used an intermediary company to obscure Russian involvement while financing content aimed at American audiences.
The significance of those cases was not simply that Russia had produced propaganda. Some Americans operating inside the information network apparently did not understand who ultimately stood behind it.
That is a far more useful arrangement for an intelligence service than an openly identified propagandist. The American retains his credibility because he believes what he is saying. His audience sees an American opinion rather than a foreign government’s message. Moscow does not have to manufacture the grievance or write every argument. It needs to recognize a useful argument, place resources behind it and conceal the hand doing the pushing.
China works differently. Beijing’s approach is generally more patient and institutional. Relationships are cultivated over time among business leaders, academics, diaspora organizations, community figures, state and local politicians, political consultants and others who may acquire greater influence later. In February 2026, a California political operative was sentenced to four years in federal prison after admitting that he had acted as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China while advising a successful local political campaign. The Justice Department said he received taskings from Chinese officials, disseminated propaganda and attempted to influence political activity inside the United States.
The case should dispel the notion that foreign intelligence services are interested only in senators, cabinet officials or presidential candidates. Intelligence officers understand political trajectory. A city councilman today may be a member of Congress ten years from now. A congressional aide may become a governor. A student activist may eventually become a national political figure. Cultivation can begin long before the target possesses anything resembling national importance.
Political Warfare in an Open Society
Foreign influence operates across a spectrum. At one end lies diplomacy, public relations and legitimate advocacy. Foreign governments are entitled to explain their policies and seek support for them. Beyond that lies amplification, in which an outside actor identifies an existing American argument and increases its reach. Cultivation follows when relationships are developed with people who possess access, credibility or potential influence.
The more serious threshold is crossed when assistance is deliberately concealed. Money, travel, media support, consulting, organizational assistance, access or information may be provided through intermediaries whose purpose is to obscure the ultimate foreign source. At the far end is direction: the individual or organization begins performing activities responsive to a foreign principal, knowingly or otherwise.
Those categories should not be blurred. Policy agreement is not evidence of control. A citizen can arrive independently at precisely the position Moscow or Beijing would prefer.
For the foreign intelligence service, independence may actually make that citizen more valuable.
The Return of the “Useful Idiot”
Some have labeled the Democratic Socialists of America Moscow’s latest “useful idiots.” The term is loaded and, applied indiscriminately, goes beyond what the public evidence supports. There is no established evidence that DSA as an organization is controlled by Russia or China. Its members are entitled to advocate radical political change, oppose American wars, criticize NATO or reject the traditional foreign-policy consensus without becoming legitimate targets of government investigation.
That does not make the underlying counterintelligence problem disappear.
Several positions prominent within democratic-socialist politics align closely with long-standing Russian and Chinese strategic objectives: substantial reductions in American defense spending, withdrawal from overseas military commitments, hostility toward NATO or its expansion, reduced willingness to provide military assistance abroad, skepticism toward the national-security establishment and rejection of the American leadership role that has shaped the international system since 1945.
These positions did not originate in Moscow. They have deep roots in the American left. That is precisely why they are exploitable.
A Russian intelligence service looking at American political movements would not ask whether it created DSA. It would ask a more practical question: if an authentic American organization already favors policies that would reduce American military capacity, weaken NATO cohesion, constrain assistance to Ukraine and encourage American withdrawal from international leadership, what advantage would there be in creating another organization?
None. The opportunity lies in amplification, access and influence around political tendencies that already exist.
China can make the same calculation. Beijing does not need to convert American socialists into Chinese communists. It benefits when American political forces favor a reduced U.S. military presence abroad, weaker security commitments in Asia or declining public support for the instruments of American power.
The distinction is between authorship and exploitation. Foreign intelligence services do not need to write America’s arguments. They need to know which arguments produce useful strategic consequences.
Polarization Is the Target
Focusing only on the political left would badly misunderstand Russian doctrine. The radical right offers its own opportunities. So do racial tensions, immigration, Ukraine, Gaza, abortion, guns, policing, gender politics, economic resentment, conspiratorial movements and collapsing confidence in government.
Moscow does not require ideological consistency. Russian political warfare can exploit an anti-NATO socialist in one information environment and an isolationist nationalist in another. The two may share nothing politically and may regard each other with contempt. From Moscow’s perspective, both can contribute to weakening confidence in American institutions and reducing support for American international commitments.
The target is not socialism. The target is cohesion.
This is also why modern influence operations need not depend on fabricated information. Much of the most effective propaganda begins with facts.
America has serious inequality. Police misconduct occurs. Corporations can exercise excessive political influence. Wars can be badly conceived and badly fought. Intelligence agencies have committed historical abuses. Washington has supported governments that did not reflect American democratic values. Those are facts available to any critic of the United States.
An adversary’s contribution is often editorial rather than creative: isolate the failure, repeat it relentlessly, remove the surrounding context and present it as evidence that the entire American system is corrupt.
The same technique works on the right. Illegal immigration exists. Violent crime exists. Federal institutions make serious mistakes. Cultural change creates legitimate tensions. Political elites can be arrogant and hypocritical. Again, no fabrication is necessary.
The foreign operator selects the grievance, amplifies the most inflammatory interpretation and directs attention toward the Americans who should supposedly be blamed for it. The result is not necessarily conversion to a foreign ideology. The more valuable outcome is estrangement among Americans themselves.
The International Objective
These domestic operations belong to a larger strategic competition. American power rests on much more than military capability. It derives from economic scale, technological leadership, alliance networks, political legitimacy, global financial infrastructure and the confidence of other nations that the United States possesses both the capacity and the political will to sustain commitments over time.
Russia and China both seek to reduce those advantages.
Moscow’s immediate interest is obvious. American leadership has been central to NATO cohesion, Western sanctions, military assistance to Ukraine and the broader coalition resisting Russian efforts to revise the European security order by force.
China’s objectives are larger and more patient. Beijing seeks greater freedom of action in Asia, increased international acceptance of Chinese political and economic leadership, reduced American military leverage near China’s periphery and a global economic architecture less dependent on Western financial institutions.
BRICS forms part of that effort. Its members have expanded the use of local currencies in trade and discussed financial mechanisms that reduce reliance on traditional Western systems. The New Development Bank has increased local-currency financing, while China has steadily sought wider international use of the renminbi.
Energy markets are particularly important. Oil and commodity transactions conducted in yuan or other national currencies gradually provide alternatives to the dollar-denominated system that has reinforced American financial power for decades.
Claims that the dollar is about to disappear as the world’s principal reserve currency are unsupported. The dollar retains enormous advantages in liquidity, convertibility, market depth and institutional confidence. The Chinese renminbi remains far behind it.
The significant development is not the imminent destruction of the dollar. It is the deliberate construction of alternatives that reduce the ability of Washington to use dollar dominance and financial access as instruments of national power.
Russia has urgent reasons to support that transition because sanctions demonstrated how exposed Moscow remained to Western financial systems. China has a longer horizon. It seeks greater insulation from American financial coercion before a future geopolitical crisis makes that vulnerability decisive.
BRICS should not be mistaken for a disciplined anti-American alliance. India, Brazil and other members pursue their own interests and frequently resist Chinese or Russian attempts to turn the organization into something more explicitly geopolitical.
Even so, the direction is unmistakable. Russia and China seek an international system in which nations have increasing capacity to trade, finance development and exercise political influence outside institutions dominated by the United States and its allies.
The Domestic and Foreign Battlespace
The connection between domestic political division and international competition is direct. An adversary seeking to reduce American power can attempt to defeat the United States abroad. It can also encourage conditions in which Americans voluntarily dismantle the advantages that make the country powerful.
The second approach is cheaper and considerably less dangerous.
If an American coalition decides on its own that NATO is obsolete, overseas bases should close, defense expenditures should fall sharply and the United States should withdraw from global leadership, Russia acquires portions of its preferred strategic environment without defeating the United States militarily.
A different political movement can produce similar results from the opposite direction. If alliances become regarded purely as commercial transactions, longstanding partners as freeloaders and every American commitment as worthwhile only when an immediate return can be calculated, confidence in American guarantees diminishes.
The political philosophies differ. The strategic consequences may not.
That is why foreign influence cannot be analyzed through ordinary American partisan categories. Moscow and Beijing are not interested in helping one American tribe because they admire its ideology. They are interested in weakening the system that allows the United States to exercise disproportionate international influence. Political fragmentation assists that objective.
Why DSA Is an Attractive Influence Environment
DSA possesses characteristics that would naturally interest a competent foreign influence service. It is growing. Its activists are disproportionately young. Its chapter structure is decentralized. It has demonstrated an increasing ability to compete successfully inside Democratic primaries. It maintains an international political component. Its foreign-policy philosophy is sharply critical of American military power and of much of the national-security architecture built after World War II.
None of that establishes foreign penetration. It establishes potential value.
A careful counterintelligence assessment would therefore stop short of accusing DSA of serving Russia or China and reach a narrower conclusion: several of the organization’s independently developed foreign-policy objectives converge with important Russian and Chinese objectives. That convergence creates opportunities for foreign amplification, cultivation and covert assistance without requiring DSA members to know that any foreign actor is involved.
The same standard applies to the American right. A nationalist organization advocating withdrawal from NATO, abandonment of Ukraine, hostility toward intelligence institutions and rejection of longstanding alliances may be equally useful to Moscow regardless of its rhetoric about patriotism or anti-communism.
Foreign intelligence services are not sentimental about American ideology. They look for access, influence, vulnerability and useful outcomes.
Follow the Foreign Connection
American counterintelligence cannot make political belief the investigative predicate. The FBI and Justice Department should not investigate citizens because they are socialists, nationalists, antiwar activists, isolationists or advocates of any other protected political position.
The proper predicate is a foreign connection accompanied by conduct.
Warning indicators include unexplained foreign financial relationships, concealed beneficial ownership, foreign-sponsored travel tied to political activity, undisclosed relationships with foreign officials or intelligence-linked intermediaries, straw donors, covert media subsidies, foreign logistical support, tasking relationships and deliberate efforts to obscure the origin of money or information.
Those indicators should be applied without regard to party. Republicans, Democrats, DSA organizations, MAGA organizations, corporations, universities, religious institutions, environmental groups, nonprofits and think tanks should be evaluated under the same counterintelligence standard when evidence provides a lawful reason to do so.
That is not simply a constitutional safeguard. It protects the integrity of the analysis. Once investigators begin with an ideological conclusion and work backward toward evidence, counterintelligence becomes politics.
Money, Cutouts and Attribution
American campaign-finance law prohibits foreign nationals from financing elections. Citizens United did not change that prohibition. The vulnerability lies elsewhere.
Modern political influence extends well beyond direct contributions to candidates. Advocacy organizations, 501(c)(4) entities, nonprofits, media companies, influencers, consultants, think tanks, litigation groups and issue campaigns all shape the political environment. For a foreign intelligence service, this produces opportunities for attribution laundering.
Money or other forms of support can move through intermediaries, corporate entities, nonprofit structures, consultants and media organizations until the ultimate American recipient may have little understanding of where the original support originated.
Russia’s use of intermediaries to conceal RT involvement in American media operations demonstrates the method. China’s cultivation of political intermediaries demonstrates another.
The counterintelligence question is consequently broader than who signed the check. Who supplied the value? Who directed it? Through how many layers did it pass? Why was the source concealed? What activity followed the support? What strategic outcome did the foreign principal expect?
Those are the questions that reveal an influence network.
America’s Vulnerability Is Internal
The United States remains extraordinarily difficult to defeat in conventional war. Geography, natural resources, economic capacity, military strength, technology, capital markets and alliances provide strategic depth on a scale few nations possess.
None of those advantages can compensate indefinitely for domestic political disintegration. A country divided into hostile political tribes can neutralize strengths that no foreign military could destroy.
Russia does not need Americans to become Russian. China does not need Americans to become Chinese.
What serves both powers is an America in which citizens increasingly doubt the legitimacy of their institutions and of one another; elections are accepted only when preferred candidates win; compromise becomes evidence of betrayal; political opponents become enemies; and every national-security decision is absorbed into domestic partisan warfare.
At that point the foreign adversary is no longer creating the division. It is exploiting a division Americans have created themselves.
For decades the United States worried primarily about hostile states penetrating government institutions. That danger remains. The larger contemporary threat is a hostile state penetrating the information environment surrounding American political life and learning how to manipulate Americans through grievances they already possess.
The United States cannot prevent foreign governments from trying. It can make the effort more difficult.
Democratic Resilience
Censorship and indiscriminate surveillance are poor answers to foreign influence. They damage the constitutional system they purport to defend and provide adversaries with additional material for their own propaganda.
Transparency is more useful.
Americans should know who finances consequential political advocacy. Political organizations should disclose significant foreign relationships. Campaign personnel should understand foreign approaches and influence techniques. Universities, corporations, nonprofits, activist organizations and think tanks should receive the same kind of counterintelligence education routinely provided to personnel working around sensitive government programs.
Public education also needs to advance beyond warnings about “fake news.” Modern influence operations employ authentic information, selective facts, cutouts, false personas, concealed financing, automated accounts, artificial intelligence, emotional manipulation and algorithmic amplification. A citizen can consume information that is factually accurate and still be participating in an influence operation because the deception lies in who selected the information, why it was delivered and what was deliberately withheld.
An open society cannot eliminate political disagreement, nor should it try. The national-security requirement is simpler: Americans should understand when a foreign power is attempting to enter that disagreement and manipulate its direction.
Foreign influence succeeds most completely when the people being influenced believe every thought and action originated entirely with them. That is why an educated citizenry remains part of the national defense.
America’s adversaries understand that the country’s greatest strength has never been unanimity. It has been the ability of people with profound political differences to remain inside the same constitutional order.
Russia seems to amplify a 2-3% political movement 6-18 months before elections to split anti-Russia front's votes (usually pro democracy) on issues like immigration, crime and LGBT, so the Pro Russia candidate/party wins in overall race on that small margin. Works particularly well in presidential type races. You don't have to spend millions to win, just 1-2% margin is enough to skew. Like a Judo movement against weaknesses of electoral democracy. I am sure Putin has a name for this..:) Unfortunately, Democratic Socialists seem to fit with the bill. Although their message is wonderful and right, they may end up helping conservative coalition win. Leaders of democracies need to learn to be smart about China and Russia, stay united and strong and defiant and compassionate at the same time...Peoples of democracies need to hold such a united front that no 2-3 % manipulation by corporate lobbyist, Chineese or Russian operatives be enough to derail