Abstract:

The United States and its European allies have entered into a new era of strategic competition with Russia. Some features of this changed and changing security environment – multipolar geopolitical rivalry and more integrated and subtle approaches to conflict are already apparent. Nuclear weapons and missile defences are taking on new strategic roles. Other features, such as cyber and space weapons, will emerge with time.

Building on research in social psychology, we propose a model of survey response in which individuals’ policy preferences are characterized by two parameters: their attitude on an issue, and their attitude strength. Strong attitudes are behaviorally relevant and stable over time while weak attitudes are easily manipulated with only limited behavioral consequences. We assume that the psychological cost to individuals of not reporting their attitude depends positively on the issue strength.

Sylvie Bermann is French Ambassador to Moscow, who has previously served in London and Beijing. She is the author of China in Deep Waters (2017), a penetrating analysis of China’s current political situation. Yan Lan is Chairman and CEO of Greater China and Lazard Asia (HK) Ltd. She is the author of The Yan Family (2018), winner of a major prize in France, a sweeping account of her family’s rise through the turbulent history of twentieth-century China at the highest levels – and what it means today.

Britain and other western democracies are belatedly waking up to the threats posed by states such as Russia and China. Both countries use influence operations against adversaries, deploying tactics that fall short of traditional armed conflict in which the digital dimension is central. Hacking and leaking operations such as those conducted against the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 (and similar operations in France and Germany) are one example. Industrial cyber-espionage — theft of intellectual property — as carried out by China is another.