From Consensus to Conflict: Understanding Foreign Measures Targeting U.S. Elections

Posard et al.'s 28-page report makes a significant analytical contribution in a short format: it grounds the analysis of Russian election interference in reflexive control theory — the Soviet and Russian military-theoretical framework for shaping an adversary's decision-making by controlling the information environment they operate in. This theoretical grounding explains what Russian election interference operations are actually trying to achieve, which is not primarily the election of preferred candidates but the degradation of democratic confidence and the amplification of societal divisions.

The three-part analytical framework the report develops — distinguishing between operations targeting the electoral infrastructure, operations targeting the information environment, and operations targeting political actors and institutions — provides a useful schema for thinking about the full scope of election interference as a hybrid operation. For practitioners working on electoral integrity, the reflexive control framing is particularly important: it clarifies that effective defence requires protecting the perception of electoral legitimacy as much as the technical integrity of the vote.