Military Narratives and Profiles in Russian Influence Operations on Twitter

Since 2016, Russia has engaged in a dedicated influence operation against the United States. Although distinctly modern in its use of social media platforms, the current methods align with old Soviet doctrine using information warfare to gain a strategic edge over competitors. Using the WARP framework, a heuristic tool for understanding narrative weaponization for mobilization and radicalization, we focus on Russia’s use of narratives to exacerbate existing cleavages in American society and to undermine US national security. Using data from Twitter’s comprehensive data archive of state-backed information operations, we find that military and patriotic narratives constitute one of the most frequently deployed narrative sets (second only to Trump), comprising 12.9% of the 1,357 million English-language tweets. The Russians weaponized these narratives and profiles to support or smear a variety of political actors and to escalate the urgency of various social causes. Moreover, these narratives actively recruited audiences to embrace New War cultural identity, an anti-government ideology focused on defending their families from an increasingly hostile state and world. Using a variety of persuasive strategies, the Russians leveraged these narratives to deliver emotionally resonant signals about allies and perceived enemies, both foreign (e.g. Muslims and immigrants) and domestic (e.g. government officials and the media), and to set the groundwork for potentially violent mobilization. Impersonating military profiles increased message resonance, and posturing as credible sources may have aided normalization and legitimization of New War cultural identity and divisive messaging. We conclude the Russians used military and patriotic narratives and profiles to wrap anti-government sentiment in patriotic trappings and to set the stage for Americans to engage in armed domestic conflict.