Lawfare Daily: Russia and the American Far-right, with Marlene Laruelle

[Intro]

Marlene Laruelle: There is a danger of talking too much about an influence from Russia on U.S. far-right because it would imply the kind of, you know, unilateral direction in the relationship when in fact, it's going both ways.

Olivia Manes: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Olivia Manes, associate editor of Lawfare with Marlene Laruelle, a research professor of international affairs and political science at the George Washington University and director of GW's Illiberalism Studies program.

Marlene Laruelle: I think the notion of conservative values matter, but also the notion of refusing liberalism and naming liberalism as the enemy is a really, an important intellectual links for all these groups.

Olivia Manes: Today, we're talking about the connection between the U.S. far-right and Russia. With an indictment released by the Department of Justice in September alleging that Tenet, a far-right media group, received funds from Russia, and alt-right figures like Steve Bannon openly expressing admiration for Vladimir Putin, I talked with Marlene to better understand the financial, ideological, and historical factors in play.

[Main Podcast]

Alright, so maybe you can start by giving us a little bit of background on these connections, on these connections between Russia and the far-right in America. When did they kind of start being a part of the public discourse?

Marlene Laruelle: Yeah, indeed it's not a new relationship, right? It had several periods of time. And in fact, it's began, the direct, at least, relationship really began in the early nineties, once the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia's, Russia opened for foreigners.

We know that already in the nineties, there was some Ku Klux Klan figures like David Duke, which, who was traveling to Russia to celebrate it as a kind of food for the white race. We had skinhead groups spreading their culture in Russian big cities. We had Russian section of, you know, Blood and Hhonor or B88. So all the big, kind of, U.S. and British skinhead structure. And we had also the first translation arriving from English to Russian. And we already had the Christian right proselytizing in Russia as early as the early nineties.

But for very long, that relationship, it stayed at the kind of fringe level, you know, it was underground subculture, sport, soccer fan, white prog, skinhead. And then two more intellectual figures already emerged in the early nineties. One is the infamous Aleksandr Dugin, but he was mostly connected to European far-right, not to the U.S. one. And another key figure is Sergei Glazyev, who after, became a pretty close to Putin figure. He was not in the nineties. And he became very close to Lyndon LaRouche. So another type of U.S. far right.

Then we have a second period in the late 2000, early 2000, when it's the Russian Orthodox Church is reaching out to the Christian right. And so that is also a kind of, so the religious line. And then the third period is really the 2010s when the relationship got upgraded to a higher level in Russia with the presidential administration getting involved, and many more actors being engaged in the bilateral relationship.

So still representative of the white supremacist traveling to Russia, the alt-right. We know that, for example, Richard Spencer was interested by Russia, his former wife translated things from Russia. Jared Taylor from American Renaissance traveled to Russia. Several figures from Breitbart, from Fox News also traveled to Russia. Some even took jobs in Russia.

And for all this American alt-right, it's really Dugin who was a key figure, because one of his big theoretical books called the “Fourth Political Theory” got really widely translated in many languages, but especially in English, and was really republished on many of the alt-right websites. Dugin was also interviewed by Alex Jones.

And so that's how really it's the 2010s that the core of the relationship. We know that Bannon mentioned Dugin several time and they had the same kind of network in Europe. And that goes until a few months ago, Tucker Carlson interviewing Dugin in early 2024. So the stories has been growing over the last 30 years, but it's really the 2010s that, so it's really becoming much more than just fringe.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, in the 2016 election, it especially became, it really became a part of the public discourse, right? With election interference and people began kind of pointing out these connections that you've kind of delineated for us. I think it's interesting because it has been such a big part of the public discourse.

But, in one of your papers, I think you do kind of talk about the difference between influence and confluence. And I wonder if you, kind of, could explain the difference between these two concepts and whether or not the connections between the far-right and Russia are kind of overstated in popular discourse?

Marlene Laruelle: Yeah. In fact, I think they have been overstated, right? For two reason. The first one, as I said, of course, this connection, they do exist. But if you look at the world spectrum of what is the U.S. far-right and what is the Russian far-right, the bilateral relationship, it's still very marginal. Because all these groups in their everyday action and thinking, they are mostly focused on domestic issues. And it's only a very small minority of them that is interested in engaging on international topics and international connections. So, the relationship exists, but if you look at the whole spectrum, it's still very minor for both of them.

And the second point is that there is a danger of talking too much about an influence from Russia on the U.S. far-right, because it would imply a kind of, you know, unilateral direction in the relationship. Well, in fact, it's going both ways. And that's why I prefer this notion of confluence, because it's tell you that you have actors on both side who decide jointly to share narratives and discuss with each other, engage with each other.

But it's an axis of convenience, not an influence from one over the other, right? So the U.S far-right has its own agenda. It has its own agency. And it's often they who decide to reach out to Russia, not necessarily Russia reaching out to them. So I think it's important to realize that, in fact, for the U.S., for part of the U.S. far-right, Russia has become a brand. It's a brand of resistance, of rebellion against liberalism.

So you may have U.S. actor who themselves decide to connect with Russia or decide they don't want it because it's too toxic. So we need to give back agency to the U.S. far-right in connecting or not connecting with Russia and not seeing that something that comes from Moscow and then it works on the ground.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, I think that's a fantastic point. And it's not realistic or correct to suggest that the far-right is just this sort of passive force that absorbs, you know, whatever is kind of thrown at it, right? Like, it has its own interests and there are domestic, sort of, considerations as well which I think you've pointed to.

So, I kind of want to delve a little bit deeper, you know, I want to delineate the different kind of connections throughout our conversation, you know, kind of breaking them down into financial connections, and into religious connections and then also into ideological and, sort of, intellectual connections.

And I think I'd like to start with that last one, because I think you've kind of hinted at it already. These sort of ideological or political-intellectual connections. You've already pointed to Bannon. You've pointed to Dugin, and these are big names, right? These are ones that, you know, most people in both Russia and America are familiar with Bannon in terms of, you know, his promulgating far-right narratives, in terms of often praising, you know, Russia and Putin, and then Dugin for his kind of perceived connection to nationalism in Russia.

So I think one thing I want to really dig into is one of the more troubling elements of the Russia far-right connection, which is the idea of a pan-white nation. And it seems like some extremists in America see Russia as kind of emblematic of this pan-white nation or of creating a pan-white nation. Can you provide a little bit of background on this?

Marlene Laruelle: Yeah, absolutely. This vision of Russia, the kind of, you know, the last place for the white race to survive. In fact, it was already present, as I said, in David Duke's trip in the nineties. But in fact, it's even connected to an older tradition that come from a Francis Parker Yockey and his book “Imperium” that was published just after the end of the Second World War.

And it has a lot of echoes today, with the northern ocean that is the one of Euro-Siberia. That is this idea of, you know, large continental space that would be populated by white, conservative Christian people, which is, of course, a totally mystical vision of Russia. Because Russia is a very multi-ethnic nation, but that the way it is projected. And it's a notion that was advanced by a French far-right thinkers called Guillaume Faye, and he traveled to Russia in the nineties. But he was also very influential in the on the U.S. alt-right. So he's really one of these European figure that make the connection between Russia and the U.S.

And Dugin himself has been publishing a lot of books since the nineties to know what there's about, you know, rehabilitating all these Nazi occultist theory about Aryan race, the Space of Thule, Hyperborea, so all these kind of Nazi concept about white race. And that has been, kind of, very much, kind of, in resonance with a lot of what was the tradition of the U.S. far-right.

But I think more broadly, it's telling us a lot about this feeling that there is, maybe not necessarily a pan-white, but a pan-Christian, you know, European nation that you can find in Europe, in Russia, and in the U.S. And they are all united in their kind of conservative Christian identity against the world of people of color. So it's a very ethnicized but transnational vision of what is uniting U.S. and Russia beyond the geopolitical opposition.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, can you talk a little bit more about this notion of traditional, or I think you said conservative values, because Putin has often talked about traditional values, right?

And some see this as kind of euphemistic for arch-conservatism, for returning to a previous time, a previous era, rejecting modernism, rejecting liberalism to some degree. So do you think this appeal to traditional values, this contributes to, kind of, how attractive he is to a lot of far-right groups.

Marlene Laruelle: Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the big soft power narratives coming from Russia. It has a huge appeal, but not only to U.S. or European far-right, but you know, also to the Muslim world, to some constituencies in the Global South. And it's this notion of traditional values, the way it's used by Russia, it's still very weird in term of content, right?

Because you can read it as a kind of, you know, moderate conservatism, just kind of sensitive and not very favorable to LGBT rights. You can read it in a much more, like, affirmative conservatism, for example, anti-abortion or something like super reactionary, right? So you have all these kind of graduation about the level of conservatism or reactionary thinking that come around.

And it's not only about, you know, sexual identity, gender relations. It's also a conservatism in the sense of preserving the homogeneity of the nation and in that case, it's connected to nationalism or ethnonationalism, and also refusing the kind of liberal tradition of self criticizing our own culture, for example, what Europe did in terms of colonization. And so refusing all these elements that we see now in our society about, you know, trying to realize that, if the West has been the dominant force in the world historically, we need to be self critical toward ourselves.

So it's a refusal of all these elements that come indeed from contemporary liberalism. And that's why also I think the notion of conservative values matter, but also the notion of refusing liberalism and naming liberalism as the enemy is a really an unimportant intellectual links for all these groups.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it sounds like, you know, what you're getting to is there's a profoundly reactionary element here, right, which is reactionary to liberalism, to neoliberalism, to, you know, to globalization. To what extent can we necessarily classify a lot of these far-right groups as nationalist necessarily, because it seems like a lot are very critical actually of America?

So maybe you could speak to that and talk a little bit about the variation and how they relate to America as a concept and how that kind of ties into their connection with Russia.

Marlene Laruelle: Yeah. The notion of nationalism is, in itself, super complex, right? So it can be this, it can be an ethnonationalism, like very much for the ethnic group that is anti-patriotic because they consider that U.S. or America, I mean the U.S. government is not defending the ethnic nation, so you can be ethno-nationalist and kind of anti your own government. You can be both in the same time and you have the same nuances in Russia. You had nationalist groups that were super critical of the Putin's regime because they were seeing it as too much, you know, Eurasia, open to ethnic diversity, and they wanted something much more kind of ethno-nationalist.

And you have those Russian far-right who embraced Putin's narrative of diversity and Russia, the empire, the successor of the Soviet Union. So all this nuances, they are there. And you can see them in the group and in the relationship they have. Sometimes it doesn't seems to very clearly overlap. So sometimes it's not the core ideological links that explain the relationship. It can be just, you know, personal friendship or some European connection.

But of course for the U.S. and Russia, one of the key tension they have is that they may agree on this core ideological idea that there is a pan-white or pan-Christian nation that is fighting against liberalism and against people of color. But at the same time, they have geopolitical tensions, right? So when the, for the Russian nationalists, very often the West is seen as the enemy. And so they need to make a difference between, okay, we, our enemy is the liberal West, but not the conservative West.

And the same on the U.S. side. For some groups, they were very pro-Putin in the 2000 and then after Russia first war with Ukraine and annexing Crimea in 2014, they had to withdraw because there was too much geopolitical tension. And they didn't want it to look like they were betraying American interest. So all this element, they are creating tension in the relationship.

In fact, it was very visible in Tucker Carlson interview of Putin, where Putin was very critical of the role of the U.S. in the world. Well, of course, Tucker Carlson was coming with a kind of, you know, America First and Make America Great Again. And so, the relationship is complex and it's not an easy one for both side of the relationship.

Olivia Manes: Right. I mean, it sounds like there are a lot of internal contradictions that both sides kind of have to grapple with. Maybe we could talk a little bit more about two things. One, I think, you mentioned Ukraine, which I would be really curious to see how you think this plays into that relationship. If it's made it more difficult or if, you know, how far-right groups in the U.S. are reacting to that.

And then, from a historical perspective I wonder if we could delve a little bit deeper into, you know, the historical precedent for this, in that Russia has kind of always tried to stir up tensions in America, and I wonder how this plays into kind of like a long-term strategy, if it is a long -erm strategy. Maybe on the former point, like how does Ukraine play into this?

Marlene Laruelle: Yeah, so Ukraine is also, it's a kind of paradoxical situation because from the U.S. far-right perspective, you have some groups that are pro-Ukrainian because they see Ukraine as a kind of white race, also nation, fighting for its ethnic survival. And you had some far-right guys who went to fight on the Ukrainian side, right? And also a lot of European far-right fighters on the Ukrainian side because the European far-right is as divided as the U.S. far-right on the Ukrainian issue.

And then you have the other side that is part of the U.S. far-right to consider that, you know, Ukraine is just the victim of liberal global elites, and therefore Russia is in its right to defend itself. So the war in Ukraine has really divided both the U.S. and the European far-right into the kind of pro-Russian or pro-Ukrainian narrative. And so, depending if they want to focus on the geopolitical relationship or more on the ethnic survival aspect that may explain if they will go for Ukraine or if they will go for Russia.

So it's pretty complex. And that tells you that geopolitical relationships are not overlapping with ideological one, right? They may, but sometimes they are, one is saying the contrary to the other.

Olivia Manes: You've pointed to something else, which is that there are certainly connections between the European far-right and the American far-right, but they don't always have the same interests, right?

And so, what is the difference, maybe, between the relationship that the European far-right has to Russia versus the relationship that the American far-right has to Russia? How do those relationships kind of differ?

Marlene Laruelle: So the American far-right is still much further away from Russia than the European far-right, which is very closely connected to the Russian one. So it's a big difference in scale, right? The Russia-European far-right connection, they are deeper. People were visiting each other much more. There was a lot of translation, joint events, even if, of course, after February 2022 and Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, it declined because, you know, Russians couldn't travel anymore to Europe. Everything Russia-related was under sanction. It was becoming too toxic.

And also a big difference between the U.S.-Russia and the Europe-Russia far-right relationship is that the Europe-Russia one has been much more institutionalized, right? You have more mainstream far-right party that had very official meeting in Moscow. Marine Le Pen, for example, from France, met directly with Putin. The FPO, the far-right party in Austria, has an agreement with the presidential party in Russia, United Russia. Matteo Salvini Lega in Italy also had like very institutionalized relationship. We know that the AfD people in Germany were also having official meeting in Russia.

So it's a totally different dimension that you wouldn't find on the side of the U.S.-Russia far-right relationship, which is much at a lower level of institutionalization and much more fringe that what you can find in Europe.

Olivia Manes: Absolutely. Yeah, on that institutionalization point, I think maybe now would be a good time to talk a little bit about kind of disaggregating the American sort of alt-right and far-right from mainstream conservatism in the U.S. How is the far-right and the alt-right different from the mainstream sort of right-wing party in the U.S., especially in relation to their, you know, connection with Russia? How do they kind of diverge?

Marlene Laruelle: So that's a great question. And of course, it's a question that is evolving because the situation has been evolving a lot these last decades, right?

For very long, it was clear that you had a kind of fringe radical far-right that had a relationship with Russia. But that's, you know, the core of the Republican Party, for example, was always, by tradition, super anti-Russians, voting, you know, laws against Russia, putting Russia under sanction. So it was really two dissociated world.

And in fact, it's only in the 2010 when the Christian right reconnected with Russia and with the Russian Orthodox Church around the conservative values. Yet, you could feel that even inside the kind of official Republican Party and kind of mainstream conservatism, you had some figure who were thinking, well, you know, okay, maybe we are geopolitically in competition, but we like Putin and his traditional values. And so that's what the first kind of moment of really the kind of pro-Russian narrative arriving into something that was much more mainstream.

And then in a sense with the Trump phenomena, it got totally mixed, right? Because now it's much more difficult to identify very clear boundaries between what you would identify as far-right and what you would identify as mainstream conservatism and Republican Party. So, around Trump and the MAGA movement and the role of Tucker Carlson, you had a kind of entry of some far-right topics and relationship to Russia becoming much more mainstream.

So if you look at what is happening at the Congress, you would still have a majority of Republican being like super critical of Russia by tradition, but you can feel that the boundaries have been evolving, right? Not only on this geopolitical issue, but more globally dissociating what is mainstream conservatism and what is far-right has become much more difficult in the U.S. as it is in Europe.

It's the same phenomenon of kind of fluidity of narrative, you know, social media influence, conspiracy theories circulating, which were very fringe before, and who kind of got mainstream-ized by, you know, Elon Musk and other actors of the social media world. So it's much more difficult now to identify.

But clearly, and we will see how it will be evolving now that we will have a second Trump administration, how the relationship to Russia and the relationship to Ukraine will be impacting the concrete, you know, policy work of the Congress that will be interesting to see because it could go both direction. You could have, continuing to have some voices that seems to be pro-Russian on some aspect. But at the same time continuing sanction and kind of pushing for geopolitical competition. So it's still a very fluid and open space and I'm not sure we really know how it will be evolving in the forthcoming months.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, I think what you're pointing to is there's no longer such a clear, you know, delineation, I think. I think this is a good point at which we can kind of segue a little bit away from those more sort of ideological, less concrete connections and, kind of, move to maybe some of those connections that we actually see actual policy or, like, financial connections, which are actually concrete.

So, in the financial realm, we've had some DOJ indictments, kind of, that have alleged that Russia has been kind of funneling money into far-right groups. And so to the extent that it's doing that, we've seen media, you know, what are the main channels it's doing that through? Is it mostly media groups or are there other avenues it's exploiting those financial connections, that it's kind of sending money to support far-right groups?

Marlene Laruelle: So it's quite complicated because of course it's not very visible to external eyes and also because in Russia it's a huge web of support and it's largely decentralized.

So there is no one, you know, source of funding and decision making in Russia in relation to U.S. or European far-right and you have different groups working with different groups abroad, they sometimes don't know what the other are doing or they know, but they are competing with each other. So, it's pretty difficult to, kind of, identify exactly who is doing what.

So we know that it can be going through state media company like Russia Today. It can be going through what we call ideological entrepreneurs, so people who have their own pocket of money and act as private entrepreneur, but in the name of the bigger Russian cause and to build their own influence. So we all knew about Yevgeny Prigozhin media empire. It can be Konstantin Malofeev, who is one of these other ideological entrepreneur working mostly with the European far-right.

And it can be the intelligence agencies, right? The security services. And in that case, they work, you know, with proxy, with different offshore structure. And so then it's very difficult to identify even if you are on the receiving side, right, the U.S. side? You may not know who is funding you exactly, because there are so many proxies and, kind of, screens that doesn't allow you to really identify the source of money.

And then we know that there are a lot of, you know, so, relationship that are purely transactional, you know, Bitcoin exchanges, you know, going through some subculture, you know, video games. Mixed martial arts. So there are probably a lot of flaws going on, but we don't really see them, and we are even not sure U.S. actors themselves who are receiving this money understand that money is coming from Russia, so it's a pretty complicated hub.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, I mean, I think the classic image is like Vladimir Putin, you know, ordering, you know, money is spent, sent to so-and-so group, right? But, you know, you're pointing to the fact that it's much more diffuse, much more difficult to pinpoint, which I guess in many ways makes it, you know, more difficult.

Marlene Laruelle: You see the Russian political regime, it's functioning by what we call signaling. So the presidential administration sends signals about what matters, but then they are not micromanaging, right?

They let a large group of factors, which can be inside the state structure or outside, transforming the signals into concrete policy. But it's not Putin or even the government that are micromanaging that. And first it gives them plausible deniability, and then it costs less money. Then if this actor fail, it's not the responsibility of the Russian state, in itself. So that's why it's much more decentralized than just imagining that, you know, Putin take all decision and micromanage everything.

Olivia Manes: Right, which makes it a lot more difficult to kind of, you know, pin down or you know, I guess in, in the case of intelligence, stop entirely. So, you know, I think that, that sort of decentralized nature is something we maybe can't understand entirely in the U.S. or in a democratic nation, right, where in theory, we're supposed to be controlling how funds are being distributed.

So, yeah and it seems like there's just like a plethora of, you know, these financial connections, many of which we don't know about, right? The DOJ indictment is the exception, not the rule.

You know, moving from the, sort of, the more financial, concrete components of this relationship, I want to kind of go back to something that you mentioned earlier, which is the religious connection, which it seems like you believe is much stronger than a lot of these other connections. So can you talk a little bit more about the religious connection and specifically the Russian Orthodox Church and how that plays into this?

Marlene Laruelle: Yeah. So it's a really interesting relationship because there you see that it has been a kind of back and forth movement. It's not one has been influencing the other. It has been going both ways, right? So in the early nineties, it's really the U.S. Christian right, which arrived in Russia and was politicizing and making a policy and business connection.

And then in 2010, so at the moment where here we are in kind of a Obama presidency, progressive, you know, LGBT rights are a big issue that suddenly the U.S. Christian right realize that you have this huge contrast between Obama's policies and what Putin is building around the kind of Christian conservative values.

And at the moment where the Russian Orthodox Church realized that they have a soft power that they can talk to U.S. Christian right. And so a lot of this, all these conservative institution in the U.S. defending the so called, you know, natural family, are becoming really super pro-Russia. And the key power broker has been the World Congress of Families, which is originally a U.S. institution. But it has been, since then, really developing a lot of networks in Russia in all the kind of Eastern European post-communist world. And then a lot of other, you know, association, the American Family Association, Liberty Council, praising Putin.

And then there was even some visits. So some very high level official from the Russian Orthodox Church visiting American evangelics in the U.S. in the 2000, going to some Presbyterian churches in Texas, even having meeting with former U.S. President George W. Bush. So that relationship was a pretty strong one, around, united around this kind of conservative values. And we saw it up to Trump first presidency, where, for example, at the National Prayer Breakfast, you had really important Russian delegation that were there both to talk about conservative values, but also to do business, or to develop networks.

And I think that will continue because it's a super strong movement in the U.S. and in Russia, and it's a way to not to be too fringe and too radical and not to be too top-level official relationship, which is difficult because of the geopolitical relationship. So it's just at the right level, enough institutionalized, but not too much to be one of the way the two countries and the two far-rights can talk to each other.

Olivia Manes: Religion is, you know, obviously, has often traditionally been used to establish those transnational connections. Do you feel that that connection, the sort of religious one, is strong enough to, kind of, create larger institutional connections? I.e. the ones you point to in Europe, to kind of actually start influencing policy, or are they kind of purely relegated to the religious space, do you think?

Marlene Laruelle: So here, also, it's evolving. It's clearly relegated, that's my impression, at the same time they are more and more working together, you know, borrowing mechanics, ideas, lobbying strategies to develop. And so you can see it has been getting more and more influence, even if because of the geopolitical tension now, it's more difficult to articulate publicly, but the relationship is still there.

And I think at the moment where the geopolitical tension will be less visible, you know, in case we would get a ceasefire, for example, in Ukraine, I think we will see that relationship re-emerge and being a pretty kind of strong links between both countries. It's also a way to do lobbying, you know, and business without saying it like that.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, definitely. Moving away from the religion point, I think one word, you know, I'm thinking about, you know, both the right in Russia and the right in America, and Russia more largely. I think the word fascism has been used a lot to describe the far-right in America and then also increasingly some people are calling Russia a fascist state.

Do you think that's an accurate term to, kind of, describe these two groups and their communications and the kind of platform that Russia is encouraging in the U.S.? Is it accurate to call it sort of a fascist movement that connects these two?

Marlene Laruelle: So I think we should be careful when we use the term, right? Because it's a very heavily loaded term and it has been, I think, overused. And it's dangerous if it's overused because then we are losing the nuances that we need to have. So yes, some of these groups are fascist by their ideology, both on the U.S. side and on the Russian side. And we should name them because they fit the kind of academic definition of fascism. So we should use that.

But the global relationship is much more than that, right? The religious relationship cannot be only labeled fascist. It's more complicated than that. And then this kind of mainstream conservatism against everything identified as liberal and progressive. I'm also not sure we should be calling it fascist. Fascist should be reserved to really very, some specific groups.

So you have, yes, you have a fascist connection and you have a religious and a mainstream conservative connection. And even more globally, Russia is talking so many different ideological languages, right? Russia is also talking to the left. In Europe, Russia is talking to the Global South. So Russia is talking different ideological languages to all those who are opposed, opposing liberalism, but for different reasons.

So we can use fascism, but for very specific relationship. Otherwise, I think we should be more careful and that's why I'm personally using this notion of illiberalism to describe the key element that unified all these group is that it's against liberalism. Right? It's a critic of liberalism, which can come from the left, from the right, and when it's from the right, it can come from a mainstream conservative up to the radical fascist groups.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, which I think goes back to your point about, you know, influence versus confluence, right? You know, there are factors domestically and in all nations that Russia might try to exploit or that, you know, it has its own interests that it brings together these two strands, rather than like a clear unidirectional influence. It's a bi-directional thing, right? And there's not like a clear necessarily, as clear a sort of influence as some people would make it out to be.

So, you know, on that point, I kind of want to start thinking about, you know, the future. You know, I think we've already tried to sort of delineate the complexity of this relationship and the fact that it's not, it can't be simplified to, you know, Russia wants something and it's getting people in the United States to do it. But I do wonder if you think, nonetheless, these connections pose a threat to our democracy. Are they part of an overall strategy of undermining democracy through disinformation interference?

Marlene Laruelle: Yeah, and of course that's a great question and it's a super sensitive one because it's both a question of how we interpret, but it's also influencing what can be the policy, right, to counter this relationship? And so my interpretation is that the threat is domestic, and so we should focus on domestic issues and not on the external threat, the external threat in itself or this transnational connection, they are not dangerous in themselves if at home there is no pressure and tensions. They become dangerous because we have tension at home.

So for me, the domestic element is the core one. We need to address, you know, grievances of voters and take them seriously to decrease the threat at home. And in that case, the external connection will become very secondary. So, for example, there was a lot of debates about, you know, how to fight Russian so-called disinformation, propaganda, interferences, whatever the terminology was used.

But the amplification mechanism is at home, right? It's our own social media. So if you don't begin by a huge discussion about how do we regulate social media and Silicon Valley, Big Tech, discussing how to stop Russian interference is a very secondary element. You need to begin with what is happening at home, right? So for me, that's the core element.

And is that an overall strategy of Russia? Yes, it is, but Russia is having multiple strategies of weakening the liberal hegemony. Some of these Russian strategies are legal, you know, using United Nation platform, creating the BRICS, you know, talking to the Global South. So some of Russia's strategies are legal. It's just playing with what the international system is. And some are what we call hybrid warfare, that are much more, kind of, illegal or using the kind of gray zone of our liberal system.

But for me, the core is really that we need to look at what is happening in our own countries, and in that case, the external relationship. Yeah, of course, they play an amplifying role. They are an echo chamber, but they are an echo chamber of something that is domestic before all.

Olivia Manes: Right, so fortifying our own institutions, fortifying our own sort of mechanisms for dealing with internal divisions, it seems like is what you see as key.

That said, do you feel like these connections, I mean, let's say we continue on route. Let's say we don't address these internal divisions. Let's say we don't sort of fortify our own institutions, whether they be sort of in terms of regulating social media, regulating Big Tech. Do you see these connections as growing stronger or weakening over time? Or do you think it's kind of impossible to predict that?

Marlene Laruelle: Well, I would imagine they would grow stronger. Because I think the more there will be division in our own societies, the more actors who want to challenge the liberal world order will be using the chaos we have at home and the division we have at home.

And it will be not only Russia, can be, you know, China, Iran, a lot of other countries. So, I think there are a lot of actors in the world now that like this kind of chaotic atmosphere and who are used to play very transactional policies and kind of aggravating division because that serve their own strategic interest.

So I think it will be increasing, and the more we will be kind of dominated politically, and polarized by social media, the more there will be actors, both external and domestic, who will overuse all these tools to kind of advance their own political projects against the liberal one. 

Olivia Manes: I think that's a really good note to end on, so, thank you.

Marlene Laruelle: Thank you so much.

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