Over the past decade, Russia has stepped up its disinformation campaigns to erode trust in arms control across the nuclear, chemical, and biological domains. The new era of rapidly disseminated disinformation poses significant challenges to U.S. national security and, more specifically, to arms control verification and compliance. In this polluted information environment, offense is king. This paper examines how the Douma chemical weapons attack eroded the Chemical Weapons Convention, how Russian disinformation about fake Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories undermined trust in the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), and how Russian disinformation campaigns influenced the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. In each of these cases, Russia used diverse tactics and messaging methods—including social media, news media, and diplomatic channels—to spread false information and create political pressures. These campaigns matter for future U.S. arms control efforts because arms control agreements are inherently political tools susceptible to being undermined by political pressures.

Author: Joseph Rodgers, "Information Pollution and What It Means for Arms Control", CSIS, January 25, 2024. Full Report, Read HERE:

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