Russian hacking exposes the weaknesses of democracy

Acapital city is paralysed by the failure of its electricity supply. A nuclear power station suffers meltdown. Banks go haywire and cash machines run dry. No one can have missed the nightmare scenarios associated with cyber-attacks and their potential to wreak havoc on a networked society.

But all the focus on these obvious calamities risks distracting us from what is actually happening. Instead of trying to inflict physical destruction or mayhem, the signs are that the West’s most sophisticated adversaries are using their hi-tech tools in more subtle and insidious ways.

Take Russia’s attempt to influence the US election campaign. The lengths to which the Kremlin is going to help Donald Trump and discredit Hillary Clinton are remarkable. The repeated hacks of the Democratic National Committee – which bear all the hallmarks of Russian intelligence – are designed to inflict maximum damage on Mrs Clinton, notably by driving as many wedges as possible between her and much of the Democratic Party.

There was the deluge of 20,000 stolen emails, carefully released just before the Democratic convention, showing how senior party figures had tried to thwart Bernie Sanders. Then came the hacks of the Clinton Foundation, apparently intended to unearth damaging material on the candidate herself. Along the way, Russian hackers even established a fake fundraising website for Mrs Clinton’s campaign, designed to entrap ordinary Democrats into giving away login information and email addresses.

Political espionage targeted against candidates for high office is, of course, as old as the hills. The new twist in 2016 is how the information has been made public, with the obvious aim of tipping the balance of the election in favour of Mr Trump.

Behind this phenomenon lies one crucial imbalance. In any situation short of all-out war, a country like Russia is probably not going to launch sudden cyber-attacks aimed at knocking out electricity supplies or disabling banking systems. The reason is simple: Russia has power stations and banks that are just as vulnerable. When two adversaries are equally exposed, they will not do their worst for fear of the possible consequences. Equal vulnerability keeps all parties in check; when everyone lives in a greenhouse, no one throws stones.

But there is one asymmetry that will never go away. America has free and fair elections; Russia does not. The Kremlin can do its best to turn the race for the White House upside down, safe in the knowledge that America cannot hit back in kind. After all, when your elections are as predictable and stagemanaged as Russia’s, they are also proof against foreign manipulation. Who cares if a sudden cascade of leaked emails were to sweep Russia? Assuming he stands, the winner of the next presidential election in 2018 will be Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Western countries are not going to abandon their habit of holding free and fair elections, so this imbalance is permanent. For as long as Russia remains an authoritarian state, meanwhile, Mr Putin will be able to target this vulnerability without fear of retribution.

And there are plenty of other openings for him to exploit. When Mr Putin sends Russian forces into action, he does not have to worry about such trifles as a vote in the country’s parliament. Today’s British MPs, by contrast, expect to have the final say whenever a government tries to order any form of military action. And experience suggests that even the flimsiest propaganda can influence a debate in the House of Commons.

A prime example was the vote on whether to strike Syria after Bashar al-Assad’s regime killed 1,400 people with poison gas in 2013. Russia’s propaganda line – endlessly debunked then and now – was that Assad had been framed and the rebels had actually carried out this attack. Many MPs who took part in that debate voiced doubts about the dictator’s culpability when, in truth, there was no reason for any doubt. It’s hard to avoid concluding that they were bamboozled by the disinformation and lies peddled in cyberspace, often by Russian outlets.

When a country holds genuine elections and allows free parliamentary debate on questions of war or peace, it lays itself open to manipulation of this kind. Russia, closed and authoritarian, is largely immune. There is no getting away from this asymmetry: the only defence is to be aware of the danger.