Month: September 2024
Highline Public Schools, a school district in Washington state, remains closed following a cyberattack that occurred two days ago.
Two days ago Highline Public Schools (HPS), a school district in Washington state, suffered a cyber attack that caused a significant disruption of its activities.
Highline Public Schools (HPS) is a public school district in King County, headquartered in Burien, Washington, it serves more than 18,000 students.
The HPS took critical systems offline in response to the security incident.
“We have detected unauthorized activity on our technology systems and have taken immediate action to isolate critical systems. We are working closely with third-party, state and federal partners to safely restore and test our systems.” reads the first statement published by the school district on Monday.
“We understand this comes as an unexpected disruption, particularly on the eve of the first day of kindergarten for many of our families. We recognize the burden this decision places on both families and staff, but student safety is our top priority, and we cannot have school without these critical systems in place.”
Two days later, the Washington state school district is still closed due to the unavailability of its IT systems.
Following the cyberattack, the school district announced the closure of its facilities and the temporary suspension of all activities, including athletics and meetings.
“All schools will remain closed on Tuesday, September 10. All school activities, athletics and meetings are canceled. Central office will be open.” reads the statement published by the HPS on its website. “Our investigation into unauthorized activity on our technology systems is ongoing, and critical systems are still offline. We understand canceling school is a significant disruption for our families and staff, but student safety remains our top priority.”
The HPS did not provide details about the attack, however, the measures adopted in response to the incident suggest it was the victim of a ransomware attack. At this time, no cybercrime group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Unfortunately, school districts are privileged targets of cybercrime groups due to the huge amount of date they manage.
In March 2024, schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania, experienced a ransomware attack, resulting in IT outages. In September 2022, one of the US largest School districts, the Los Angeles Unified School District, suffered a ransomware attack.
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Researchers observed the RansomHub ransomware group using the TDSSKiller tool to disable endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems.
The RansomHub ransomware gang is using the TDSSKiller tool to disable endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems, Malwarebytes ThreatDown Managed Detection and Response (MDR) team observed.
TDSSKiller a legitimate tool developed by the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky to remove rootkits, the software could also disable EDR solutions through a command line script or batch file.
The experts noticed that the ransomware group also used the LaZagne tool to harvest credentials. During the case investigated by MDR, experts observed that LaZagne generated 60 file writes, likely logging extracted credentials, and performed 1 file deletion, likely to hide traces of the credential-harvesting activity.
“Although both TDSSKiller and LaZagne have been used by attackers for years, this is the first record of RansomHub using them in its operations, with the TTPs not listed in CISA’s recently published advisory on RansomHub.” reads the Malwarebytes MDR’s report. “The tools were deployed following initial reconnaissance and network probing through admin group enumeration, such as net1 group "Enterprise Admins" /do. “
RansomHub used TDSSKiller with the -dcsvc flag to try disabling critical security services, specifically targeting Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Service (MBAMService). The command aimed to disrupt security defenses by disabling this service.
Command line: tdsskiller.exe -dcsvc MBAMService where the -dcsvc flag was used to target specific services. In this instance, attackers attempted to disable MBAMService.
RansomHub is a ransomware as a service (RaaS) that was employed in the operations of multiple threat actors. Microsoft reported that RansomHub was observed being deployed in post-compromise activity by the threat actor tracked as Manatee Tempest following initial access by Mustard Tempest via FakeUpdates/Socgholish infections.
Experts believe RansomHub is a rebrand of the Knight ransomware. Knight, also known as Cyclops 2.0, appeared in the threat landscape in May 2023. The malware targets multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, macOS, ESXi, and Android. The operators used a double extortion model for their RaaS operation.
This isn’t the first time that security experts documented the use of the tool developed by Kaspersky.
The Sangfor Cyber Guardian Incident Response team reported that the LockBit ransomware gang used the -dcsvc parameter of TDSSKiller as part of their attack chain.
Attackers use legitimate tools because are not blocked by security solutions.
Malwarebytes shared indicators of compromise (IoCs) for these attacks and recommends:
- Isolate critical systems through network segmentation to limit lateral movement.
- Restrict Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) exploits by implementing controls to monitor and restrict vulnerable drivers like TDSSKiller, especially when executed with suspicious command-line flags such as
-dcsvc. Quarantining or blocking known misuse patterns while allowing legitimate uses can prevent BYOVD attacks.
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9AM ET 09/11/2024 Newscast
As America’s 2024 presidential campaign enters its stretch run after last night’s debate, it is tempting to believe that electing one ticket or the other will solve all our problems. Have no doubt: this is a hugely consequential election, and the slate the U.S. people elect will have enormous power to shape the future of America’s foreign and national security policy. But we must not ignore that the United States’ deepest constitutional and national security challenge involves not personalities, but structure.
Consider two hypotheticals. First, upon resuming office, could Donald Trump by tweet unilaterally withdraw the United States from every treaty, agreement, and international institution to which the United States is a party? If not, what legally could stop him? Alternatively, if Kamala Harris should become president, would current law allow her unilaterally to back into a wider war in the Middle East, out of a desire to help Israel fight Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Iran-backed militias in the Red Sea? If that would be illegal, what is to stop her?
In both cases, the sobering answer is: probably nothing. Our 21st century history teaches that in both cases, the president could likely do it and claim it is lawful, Congress would likely defer, and the courts would either decline to adjudicate or rubber-stamp the president’s actions on the merits. So the problem is bigger than personalities. The president currently has too much discretion to take acts that seem both unwise and illegal without legal check or consequence. The deeper question is: how have nearly 250 years of American history so distorted structural features of our national security system to transform the chief defender of our national security, the president, into today’s biggest potential national security threat?
My new book The National Security Constitution in the 21st Century explains the confluence of interactive institutional incentives that has brought us to this precarious state of affairs. The book culminates nearly five decades of studying the constitutional conduct of America’s foreign policy, from both inside and outside the government. When I first studied this topic during the Iran-Contra Affair, nearly four decades ago, I argued that a subset of constitutional norms, precedents, and framework laws best understood as “The National Security Constitution” govern the making of U.S. foreign policy. I further argued that two divergent constitutional visions have competed for dominance over our nation’s history: the Framers’ founding vision of balanced institutional participation, captured in Justice Robert Jackson’s landmark concurrence in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, versus the unilateralist vision of the president as “the sole organ of our Nation in foreign affairs” trumpeted by Justice George Sutherland in United States v. Curtiss Wright Export Corp. (which, when I first joined the Justice Department was called, only half-jokingly, “the Curtiss-Wright, so I’m right cite.”).
As my book chronicles, the Founders sought above all to avoid installing a new American king. But the Curtiss-Wright vision found adherents even at the Founding and has since asserted itself repeatedly over the nearly 250 years of American foreign policy; each time, the Youngstown vision has persistently clawed back. As recently as the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the Youngstown vision continued to hold sway. But with the successive 21st century presidencies of George W. Bush (“Bush 43”), Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, the Curtiss-Wright vision has taken hold with increasing ferocity. Bush 43 and Trump seized unilateral power proactively, and in Trump’s case, with naked disdain for the rule of law. Obama and Biden, saddled with weak legislative majorities, grasped unilateralism reactively. But whether proactive or reactive, the presidential grab for unilateral power has continued, with successive presidents becoming victims as much as villains in a national security process in which they bear all of the public expectations, all of the responsibility, and ultimately, all of the blame. So with each presidency this century, the constitutional pendulum has swung further and further toward executive unilateralism, climaxing in Trump’s breathtaking assertion that Article II “gives me the right to do whatever I want,” his post-defeat call for “the termination of all rules…even those found in the Constitution,” and his Supreme Court’s jaw-dropping decision in Trump v. United States apparently immunizing him for any foreign policy or national security actions so long as they can be dubbed “official.”
Many factors, both external and internal, have contributed to the rise of executive unilateralism. External factors include the end of the Cold War and the rise of a multipolar world; the growing power of nonstate actors; and pervasive threats triggered by the September 11th attacks, the Covid pandemic, and the rising threat of climate change. Internal factors include the wildly disproportionate growth of the national security bureaucracy; the collapse of the bipartisan legislative process; the decentralization of congressional foreign policy decision-making and legal advice; and the federal judiciary’s increasing proclivity to avoid adjudicating or to rubber-stamp dubious executive actions based on what Justice Sonia Sotomayor has dubbed “national security masquerades.” But indispensable actors in this process have been executive branch lawyers. (I have served as one for many years of my career, but for reasons detailed in the book, I stand by the advice I gave). Understandably, the president’s lawyers address each sequential crisis by trying to maximize the president’s ability flexibly to contain and counteract national security threats. But ironically their accumulated precedents, each written to help neutralize the particular urgent national security challenge at hand, now collectively enable the very real prospect that the president will become the greatest national security threat of all.
If this diagnosis is correct, what is to be done? If the problem is structural, the answer cannot simply be stopping Donald Trump’s re-election, although his return to power would surely push the U.S. constitutional system to the breaking point. As dangerous—and as last night’s debate showed, increasingly unhinged—as Trump is, we can easily envision even more unilateralist and dangerous presidents than Trump: populist autocrats inclined to invade foreign countries, shatter alliances, and undermine checks and balances more systematically and competently. We cannot simply rely on elections to throw the rascals out, when there will always be other rascals more adept at stealing elections and grabbing unilateral power.
Our alternatives, quite simply, are acceptance, apathy, despair, or reform: now or later. In an era of legislative deadlock and political polarization, comprehensive national security legislative reform would undeniably be difficult if not impossible to obtain. Instead, the solution must be a mosaic of reforms—some executive, some legislative, and some judicial—implemented over time, and designed individually and collectively to counteract current institutional incentives. Our goal should be to dampen the dysfunctional institutional interaction that keeps driving presidents to act or react unilaterally, Congress to do nothing, and the courts to rubber-stamp and defer. If we are serious about reform, those efforts must extend to all three branches of government.
My book suggests executive restructuring by creating mechanisms to promote better national security legal advice, law enforcement independence, to reduce conflicts of interest, restrain military adventurism, and reform the bureaucracy. It suggests that Congress reform itself by creating a Joint Committee for National Security, a Congressional Legal Adviser, and better congressional tools to restrain executive unilateralism. The courts, I argue, should reduce unnecessary barriers to justiciability (as the Supreme Court began to do by rigorizing the political question doctrine in Zivotofsky v. Clinton) and modify judicial doctrines—such as the presumption against extraterritoriality and the recent Court’s unwillingness to look to foreign law in constitutional interpretation—that are ill-suited to an age of globalization. And over time, proponents of reform must empower other counterweights to executive power, including states and localities, the media, U.S. allies, private actors, and black-letter Restatements of Foreign Relations Law. The penultimate chapter explains how meaningful reform could be achieved in various areas of national security law: warmaking, international lawmaking and agreement breaking, intelligence oversight, information control, and protection of the democratic electoral process.
I harbor no illusions that such reforms will come quickly, but beginning the process is not just necessary, but a useful goal in itself; just starting a decades-long national security reform process will likely spur further reforms. Skeptics may scoff that our current extreme polarization makes even modest reform unobtainable. But in just the last few months, both U.S. presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer made unequivocal commitments to country over party. As the 21st century unfolds, I refuse to believe that there will not come a time when we can return to a shared national commitment not to “America First,” but rather, to being “Americans First.”
Nor do I have any serious concerns that such reforms would hamstring the presidency. Serving under four presidents has taught me that in genuine emergencies, executive power always finds a way. But under our current system, the president goes it alone, and the courts and Congress wash their hands of responsibility. Structural reform is sorely needed to ensure a strong president within a strong constitutional system of checks and balances. In the end, the Framers understood an important and enduring truth: that our national security is best protected if the power to conduct America’s foreign policy remains a power shared.
IMAGE: An image of the White House (via Getty Images).
The post America’s Overlooked National Security Threat appeared first on Just Security.
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A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the past 24 hours. Here’s today’s news:
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
An Israeli airstrike in the West Bank early today killed five Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it targeted a group of militants in the city of Tubas. AP News reports.
Israeli airstrikes on a designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza yesterday killed 19 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The reported death toll is lower than what had been provided by the Gaza Civil Defense, which earlier said their services had recovered 40 bodies from the site of the strike. Meanwhile, weapons experts and an analysis by the New York Times found strong evidence that Israel used 2,000-pound bombs in the strike. Ephrat Livni, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, and Abu Bakr Bashir report for the New York Times.
The IDF released a video of a Gaza tunnel where it says six hostages were held in “horrific conditions” before they were murdered by Hamas. The video was filmed by the military last Friday and made public yesterday. Maayan Lubell reports for Reuters.
An Israeli official has floated the option of offering Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar safe passage out of Gaza once all remaining hostages in the Palestinian territory are released. Meanwhile, Israel’s Defense Minister said yesterday that its forces are close to completing their Gaza mission and their focus will turn to the country’s northern border with Lebanon. Hira Humayan and Tara John report for CNN and Reuters reports.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — U.S. RESPONSE
The Israeli military yesterday said it was “highly likely” it “unintentionally” killed a U.S. citizen near a demonstration last week in the West Bank. Responding to the comments, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for “fundamental changes” in the way the IDF operates in the West Bank, “including changes to their rules of engagement.” Blinken’s comments seemed to contrast with President Biden’s remarks hours later. “Apparently it was an accident, ricocheted off the ground and just got hit by accident. I’m working that out now,” Biden said. Karen DeYoung, Michael Birnbaum, and Loveday Morris report for the Washington Post.
Blinken asked British Foreign Secretary David Lammy last month what it would take for the U.K. to reconsider its Israeli weapons suspension, according to two U.S. officials. Lammy reportedly replied that it would involve a cease-fire and access by international human rights organizations to Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Erin Banco, Nahal Toosi, and Robbie Gramer report for POLITICO.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — REGIONAL RESPONSE
In his first statement as Hamas’s overall leader, Yahya Sinwar yesterday congratulated Algeria’s President on his reelection and thanked the country for its support to the Palestinian cause. AP News reports.
ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH CONFLICT
Israel launched several strikes on southern Lebanon over the past day, including one that killed a senior Hezbollah commander. Hezbollah confirmed the killing and said it responded by launching “dozens” of rockets and several drones toward northern Israel. No casualties were reported, according to the IDF. Mohammed Tawfeeq, Irene Nasser, and Kareem Khadder report for CNN.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
President Biden has hinted at lifting restrictions on Ukraine using U.S. long-range missiles against Russia, saying the U.S. administration was “working that out now.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously warned such action could lead to “very serious problems.” Meanwhile, Sec. Blinken and U.K. Foreign Secretary Lammy are in Kyiv to discuss the issue with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy. Thomas Mackintosh reports for BBC News.
Beijing is giving Moscow “very substantial” help to strengthen its war machine, and in exchange, China is receiving top secret Russian military technology, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said yesterday. Stuart Lau reports for POLITICO.
The West is pushing Ukraine to think about a credible plan and realistic goals for what it can achieve in the next year of war, European diplomats say. Max Colchester and Laurence Norman report for the Wall Street Journal.
Ukraine is using “dragon drones” to spew fiery substances on Russia’s front lines, according to videos that have emerged online. Yuliya Talmazan reports for NBC News.
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
The United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany will impose sanctions on key Russian and Iranian entities after Russia sent “dozens” of troops to Iran to train on ballistic missiles, a Pentagon spokesperson said yesterday. The measures include restrictions on Iran Air’s ability to fly to the U.K. and Europe, and travel bans and asset freezes on several Iranians. Patrick Tucker reports for Defense One; Matt Murphy reports for BBC News.
Russia is close to signing a new bilateral treaty with Iran soon, state media quoted top security official Sergei Shoigu as saying today. Reuters reports.
Iran’s new reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian traveled to Iraq today on his first visit abroad, hoping to solidify Tehran’s ties to Baghdad. Qassim Abdul-Zahra reports for AP News.
Around 1,200 protesters clashed with police today at a major defense expo in Australia. Some demonstrators set trash cans alight and targeted police horses, according to local media. Police say 33 people have been arrested, as tensions sparked by global conflicts deepen anger toward the arms industry. Lex Harvey reports for CNN.
Mexico’s Senate voted 86-41 early today for a judicial overhaul. The amendment would abolish the current judicial system and give citizens the power to choose nearly all judges. Diplomats, business leaders, and legal scholars have expressed alarm over the measure, with U.S. officials saying the overhaul could pose “a major risk” to the democracy of its top trading partner. Mary Beth Sheridan reports for the Washington Post.
Pakistani police yesterday freed the president of the opposition party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a day after he was detained for allegedly inciting violence, his party said. AP News reports.
The Islamist candidate who lost Algeria’s presidential election three days ago filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court yesterday, citing “false figures” and contesting turnout rates. AFP reports via Le Monde.
Jamaica’s Prime Minister yesterday announced that his government will send an initial deployment of 24 security personnel to Haiti to bolster an international security mission aimed at helping battle gang violence. Reuters reports.
Nicaragua said yesterday “it was revoking the citizenship and seizing the property of 135 people who were expelled from the country last week after serving prison sentences in a government crackdown on dissent.” The Supreme Court of Justice announced the action in a press release. Gabriela Selser reports for AP News.
U.S. FOREIGN RELATIONS
The United States is gradually moving aircraft and commandos into coastal West Africa in a fight against Islamist militants. U.S. forces were evicted this summer from their regional stronghold in Niger, and now the Pentagon is aiming to adopt a smaller military footprint, including refurbishing an airfield in Benin, and stationing forces in Ivory Coast and Chad. Michael M. Phillips and Benoit Faucon report for the Wall Street Journal.
Iraqi security officials said an explosion targeted a U.S. military facility next to Baghdad airport late yesterday. The statement said Iraqi forces were unable to determine the “type or causes of the explosion, and no party has claimed responsibility for it.” No damage or casualties have been reported. Qassim Abdul-Zahra reports for AP News.
U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS
The 13 U.S. service members killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul in 2021 were honored posthumously yesterday in a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony at the Capitol. Kaia Hubbard and Melissa Quinn report for CBS News.
An alleged attack on a New York City store owner over a poster of Vice President Kamala Harris displayed in her window is being treated as a hate crime, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said yesterday. Bill Hutchinson reports for ABC News.
The Pentagon is urging the Senate to confirm Lt. Gen. Ronald Clark to a senior Army role after Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) announced he is blocking the promotion. Tuberville’s spokesperson said the senator “has concerns about Lt. Gen. Clark’s actions” during Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization, which had initially been clouded in secrecy. Rebecca Falconer reports for Axios.
A former CIA officer and contract linguist for the FBI who spied for China in exchange for bribes faces a decade in prison if a U.S. judge approves his plea agreement today. Jennifer Sinco Kelleher reports for AP News.
A jury has been selected and opening statements are expected today in the federal trial of three former Memphis police officers charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols. Two officers have already pleaded guilty to federal charges, with the remaining three officers facing life sentences if convicted. Robert Klemko reports for the Washington Post.
Jury deliberation is underway today in Florida in the trial of four activists accused of illegally acting as Russian agents to help the Kremlin sow political disharmony and meddle in U.S. elections. AP News reports.
The post Early Edition: September 11, 2024 appeared first on Just Security.
What Will Be Trump’s “October Surprise”? –
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Donald Trump has overtly taken the side of dictators including Putin, Xi, Orbán, and Kim over the past eight years, most likely because he admires the way each has crushed efforts toward democracy and ruled their respective nations with an iron fist.
Now US intelligence agencies say their big worry is that one or more of these nations will reciprocate Trump’s love by launching some sort of October Surprise to push voters closer to Trump in time for this fall’s election. Such an action could swing our election toward Trump, but also risks provoking a third world war.
The phrase October Surprise, of course, refers to the successful deal that the Reagan campaign cut with Iran’s Ayatollah’s government to hold the American hostages in the US Embassy in Tehran until after the 1980 election to destroy President Jimmy Carter’s chances. Both Iran’s then-president, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, and the former Lt. Governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, have verified the plot, the latter last year in The New York Times.
An earlier (unknown until the past two decades) plot by the campaign of candidate Richard Nixon to blow up the 1968 Paris peace talks and thus sabotage President Johnson’s deal with the Vietnamese was the first known successful Republican effort to use treason to steal an election. It qualified for the October Surprise label, but wasn’t known until well after Reagan’s efforts had earned the title.
And, of course, there was the October Surprise in Florida in 2000 when Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s administration got the 68% Black and Hispanic list of Texas felons from his brother, Texas Governor George W. Bush, and used them to purge tens of thousands of Black and Hispanic Florida voters with similar names from the Florida voter rolls in the months immediately before that year’s election.
George “won” the 2000 election by 537 votes (he lost the national popular vote by a half-million), although the Florida Supreme Court-ordered recount that was blocked by five corrupt Republicans on the US Supreme Court would have revealed that setup and several other ways Jeb had rigged the election that year for his brother, and put Al Gore into the White House.
Two of the three October Surprise events employed by Republican candidates for president involved colluding with foreign governments to harm a Democratic candidate; Reagan’s hit on Carter was particularly treasonous and effective. Nixon’s — appropriate to remember on Memorial Day — caused the death of an additional 20,000+ American GIs in Vietnam.
So, it’s entirely reasonable to assume that Trump — still in touch with Putin, Kim, and Xi, even if only through media proclamations — is either planning or expecting help this fall from his autocratic pals.
Putin, desperate for more weapons to crush democracy in Ukraine, has formed a strong alliance over the past year with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, trading battlefield weapons for submarine and other technology that Kim can use along with nuclear weapons to threaten the US.
In an NBC News article from May 24th titled “Are Russia and North Korea planning an ‘October surprise’ that aids Trump?” reporters Cortney Kube and Carol E. Lee note that there could be serious consequences arising from the fact that North Korea is today giving Russia more weaponry to use against Ukraine than all of Europe has been able to provide to President Zelenskyy:
“U.S. officials are also bracing for North Korea to potentially take its most provocative military actions in a decade close to the U.S. presidential election, possibly at Putin’s urging…
“The increasingly close relationship between Putin and Kim represents a major shift from when Russia worked with the U.S. in the past to try to rein in North Korea. Now, Moscow is using its veto power on the U.N. Security Council to give Pyongyang cover to evade sanctions enforcement measures intended to constrain its nuclear program.”
North Korea firing missiles into the demilitarized zone between it and South Korea to help Trump could represent a major escalation of tensions in the region, as would an October nuclear test or attack on South Korea’s border islands. It could also precipitate a major war in the region with the potential to spread worldwide.
While China has, in the past, counseled Kim to refrain from overly bombastic or provocative behavior to keep tensions in the region low, their increasingly bellicose actions and rhetoric toward Taiwan suggest they may welcome regional chaos which Xi could then use as a pretext to attack that island nation.
As Michael Schuman wrote for an article titled “Why Xi Wants Trump to Win” in The Atlantic:
“By weakening U.S. standing abroad and democracy at home, Trump would offer Xi more opportunities than Biden to extend Chinese influence and win hearts and minds within the developing world.”
Our government has noticed: Three months ago, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) published their Annual Threat Assessment. It was unambiguous about what they’re already seeing in the works for this election year:
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] may attempt to influence the U.S. elections in 2024 at some level because of its desire to sideline critics of China and magnify U.S. societal divisions. PRC actors’ have increased their capabilities to conduct covert influence operations and disseminate disinformation. … The PRC aims to sow doubts about U.S. leadership, undermine democracy, and extend Beijing’s influence.”
Similarly, The New York Times reported last month that China — in a move reminiscent of Putin’s millions of Internet Research Agency troll posts promoting Trump on Facebook leading up to the 2016 election — is all in on using social media, including, apparently, TikTok, to crush Biden and lift Trump into the White House:
“Some of the Chinese accounts impersonate fervent Trump fans, including one on X that purported to be ‘a father, husband and son’ who was ‘MAGA all the way!!’ The accounts mocked Mr. Biden’s age and shared fake images of him in a prison jumpsuit, or claimed that Mr. Biden was a Satanist pedophile while promoting Mr. Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan.”
Any of these actions by China could be a trigger for an international conflagration pitting America and Asian democracies against an axis of China, North Korea, and Russia. If Europe jumped in to help, we’d be in the middle of World War III faster than most imagine possible.
Another hostile dictatorship that believes a Trump presidency would work to its advantage is Iran, which has worked with Republican presidential candidates before. It’s today run by the heirs to the regime that successfully handed the 1980 election to Reagan, and tried to help Trump get elected in 2020.
As the DNI’s Annual Threat Assessment noted:
“Ahead of the U.S. election in 2024, Iran may attempt to conduct influence operations aimed at U.S. interests, including targeting U.S. elections, having demonstrated a willingness and capability to do so in the past. During the U.S. election cycle in 2020, Iranian cyber actors obtained or attempted to obtain U.S. voter information, sent threatening emails to voters, and disseminated disinformation about the election.
“The same Iranian actors have evolved their activities and developed a new set of techniques, combining cyber and influence capabilities, that Iran could deploy during the U.S. election cycle in 2024.”
Given Iran’s role in supporting Hamas’ brutal raid on Israel last October and the increased pressure the Biden administration is putting them under, disrupting our election to put Trump — no fan of democracy — into office apparently makes a lot of sense to the violent mullahs clinging to power in that country. At the very least, Trump may dial back (as he did when president before) the efforts of Voice of America and other US propaganda and outreach efforts aimed at destabilizing the Iranian regime.
Combine Iran’s efforts with those of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu — who is both openly hostile to President Biden (as he was to President Obama) and fond of Trump — and an expansion of conflict in the Middle East also has the potential to both influence the US election and lead to a larger international war.
Netanyahu, under indictment for bribery and corruption with the cases against him paused until he’s no longer in office, has a powerful personal incentive to drag out the war (and the deaths of Gazans) just to stay out of prison. An alliance with a second Trump presidency would be political gold for him.
Every time Netanyahu commits another war crime or gives America and the international community the middle finger over his use of famine as an instrument of war, more young Americans peel away from Biden in frustration. While they probably won’t vote for Trump, polling from 2020 shows that if they hadn’t shown up for Biden in that election, Trump would have held onto the presidency. And Netanyahu knows it.
This past week, Trump told a group of wealthy Jewish donors that if student protests of Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza happened during his presidency, he would not only arrest them but he would strip them American citizenship and deport them from the country. It’s his most explicit shout out so far to Netanyahu, and will certainly encourage the Prime Minister to continue to ignore President Biden and enrage the Democratic base.
Finally, Russia’s President Putin knows that a second Trump term will be like a gift from the gods. He’s lost over a half-million soldiers and a massive amounts of equipment in his brutal war against Ukraine, and is facing rising anger at home. Trump, who has essentially promised to cut off US support for that besieged nation, could literally save Putin’s life if his generals are thinking of taking him out the way Hitler’s tried to do.
To that end, Russia and Saudi Arabia recently collaborated to cut oil production by 1.4 million barrels a day in an effort to drive up gas prices here in the US, just like they did in October/November of 2022. Since Trump let the Saudis buy the largest refinery in America (at Port Arthur, Texas), expect gas prices to be over $5/gallon this fall.
The stakes are incredibly high for Putin; he may well think an attack against a NATO country, if not answered with a swift, massive response, would reveal weakness in the Biden administration that could help Trump this fall. And if NATO does respond vigorously, that could toss us into WWIII.
Most recently, Trump shouted out to Putin in an echo of Reagan’s traitorous embrace of Iran, essentially asking him to humiliate Biden by holding onto imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich until after the election. This has to encourage Russia’s truculence in the face of international pressure to stop killing Ukrainian civilians.
Both the American Civil War and World War II came about when explicitly authoritarian leaders used military force to try to violently destroy democratic nations’ way of life. A predatory new axis has formed including Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China that is every bit as opposed to representative government as was Hitler’s Third Reich.
And Trump empowered them by killing the Iran nuclear deal President Obama had negotiated, allowing them to resume making nukes; embracing Kim and Xi; and giving top secret information to Putin.
Meanwhile, three of those nations are actively involved in propaganda operations — principally exploiting social media and Republican politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and JD Vance — to denigrate democracy and majority rule and elevate oligarchy and strongman rule.
Will one of these “help Trump get elected while advancing our own interests” scenarios by one or more of these axis nations lead to the end of democracy in America or a third world war? At this point it’s too early to tell, but EU and Asian democracies are increasingly worried about that exact scenario.
In war, things can change suddenly in ways nobody anticipated; events frequently spiral out of control (as did the events leading to WWI). We all need to stay alert and remain outspoken about the dangers Trump represents, and do what we can to support democracy worldwide.
Forewarned is forearmed: pass it along.
