The American elections: A geopolitical analysis of international impacts.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Elections in the United States have become a new issue of global affairs when they are no longer an internal affair or a simple activitythat concernsonly the American citizens, the situation is not anymore the simple internal political process of designation as is the case for any other nations. States, governments, International Medias, Non-government Organisations, political parties and several other actors from overseas are interested in the end result of this game actually. 

2020 has been a hallmark year, and the American elections were the most famous event at the planetary level after the global pandemic. In this sense, it was not the experts or political outlets from five continents that are discussing this electoral race between D. Trump and J. Biden. But, the simple citizen of the globe debates the cause because of the intervention turmoil and agitation at specifics international affairs. So, the question is if the course of the Americans elections has alarmed the international public opinion about there several politics impacts, can this include a reflex and preemptive intervention or other forms of pressure from the interesting actors trying to beneficing by changing results?

Introduction: 

The American elections have become new major international issue, which means electing a new American president is not anymore a purely internal affair or a simple decisional activity of liberty practicing of the constitutional process. The relation between the American citizen and the future President-elect is complicated now because of the multitude interactions of this operation in front of the global affairs then to be leader of the White House and the president of the United States of America you should have principles and premises about lot of external affairs. So, when the candidates debate and focus their efforts to criticise China, Russia, Iran and proposing their vision about the Middle East, Europe and all the other cases of security, defense and global commerce…etc. they try to gain more and more of politic support, consensusby accumulating international supplyfrom all official and non official actors who are interesting by this political international affair. 

We predict that the global mediatisation of this process is the important method when eachactor tries to orient the situation and shape his subject to accumulate votes for their candidate.This practices and lot as we observing long of the American electoral process turn the American election on a very important event in international political scene when the emergence of new actors and the internationalisation of the cause complicates the institutional activities and known traditions, however the subject of our studies is to identifying the interdependence of this new process and his major actor’sintervention strategies to counter this new strategy of power projection. Before concluding, we’ve taking the opportunity the confirm our hypothesis by the presentation of position of the director of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that confirm the interesting of the Russian, Chinese, Iranian and all other sorts of groups by the process of election and their attempts to orient the American opinion for one subject who’sthe reformulation of this opinion.

The political showdown between Democrats and Republicans in the last election in 2016 did not end with the election of President D. Trump. However, new stakes have appeared and are taking antagonistic forms, for example the accusations against Russia and its attempts to interfere and influence the American elections take the path of official investigations by the FBI and the CIA. Democrats continue to defend their accusations that Russia unmistakably interfered in US internal affairs when it media favored the Republican candidate over the Democrat Clinton. By some pretexts, Russia will need D. Trump's presidency of the White House in order to unblock the plight of some frozen or struggling Russian foreign policy files and interests since the Obama administration. As a result, this conspiracy rhetoric is no longer the monopoly of the Democrats; lately Republicans in the new electoral race are trying to alarm American public opinion against new Chinese and Iranian attempts to influence against the candidacy and re-election of the Republican D. Trump.

Indeed, American political life generally attracts more and more actors from outside the borders, because of their impacts they invite them and encourage them to influence the game in an indirect way and by various factors. Since the United States is a global superpower and will take part in most issues and causes at the international level, therefore influencing the behavior of decision-makers and the presidential apparatus at the internal level is a real probability in order to influence the behavior of American foreign policy towards certain causes and files. At this time, states are not the only ones in this power game. The actors are multiple including the interests of which we try to discuss them. To this end, weighed against the US electoral operation is a double-edged sword, actors across borders and internally are geopoliticizing the opportunity and making it difficult to understand.

Analysis:

The Russian Interests:

Since the 2016 elections, under pressure from the Democrats, accusations against Russia have taken official routes during the investigations issued by the FBI and the CIA. However, the investigations have not produced reliable and trusted results against the disinformation campaigns accusing Russia. Yet this will not prevent the continuation of the imputations and this time China and Iran will join the game, at this stage the precautions of the American officials continue to alarm the American citizen and the world against the growth of foreign interests towards internal political life in favor of interference in political and institutional affairs is one of the official way to confirm indirectly that the political operation is not anymore independent of his global political entourage and international geopolitical issues by presenting the American election as the most important national security issues when he’s becoming not only the part of judges working or the election institution interests but now she is one of the part of the secret services activities. 

Regarding the Russian case, firstly the objective of the operation is to counter and limit the influence of the foreign American politics and the American leader declaration about Russia. So, she needs in this case to denigrateevery anti-Russian candidate opposing Russia's interests and goals at the global level as Evanina William has confirmed. From this perspective, the findings of information warfare are the most widely used, of which the propagation of false information and the reformulation of public opinion are the preponderant practices, alongside hacking activities against certain interests by targeting electoral databases, candidates and voters as well as media efforts to amplify false or partisan data online are all the principal tactics to undermine the confidence of Americans peoples in their electoral institution and political system. 

In this regard, the US authorities claim that the purpose and objective of these activities and "to disrupt the functioning of institutions to discredit the rulers, to undermine confidence and to sow discord among the citizens." In addition, these activities would have profound repercussions on confidence in the electoral process and internal politics, on democracy and the American liberal paradigm generally. By presenting all of the factors and way that the Russians use to intervening orienting the American election process, we are in the stapes to prove the existence and the reality of our hypothesisthat the declaration of every American presidential candidate to accumulate votes and exiting voters for some international cases will colliding certainly with other external strategies and super power politics.By discussing the factors we predict that the implication of this intervention process will discrediting the image of the United States for long time, it automatically weakens its diplomatic and security capacities, and therefore diplomatic obstacles in the face of plans for American leadership at the world level.

Other American experts confirm that from these activities of influence, Russia wanted to change the orientations of the United States and to push back its interests towards certain Russian objectives at the world and regional level such as for example : alongside its weakening of Europe, when D. Trump expresses his dissatisfaction with NATO and its existence - this delighted V. Putin who considers that this organization is only a Western military alliance against Russia whose weakening of transatlantic links is one of its main objectives. Also adds the file of sanctions that he suffers because of the annexation of Crimea, Russian ballistic defense missile placement in Eastern Europe and the Russian war of the Ukraine because they are very constrained against the Russian economy specifically the devaluation of the Rubble, finally V. Putin wanted recognition of Russian interests in Central Asia and the former Soviet republics which is also one of the objectives of Russia which wanted to reaffirm by confronting the American realism.

Yet, until these lines are written, Russia denounces through these Kremlin spokespersons and qualifies these accusations of interference as paranoid announcements that have "nothing to do with the truth." Contrary to the antagonistic statements of the Democratic presidential candidate J. Biden towards Russia, Russian President V. Putin knows very well how to hide his behavior and his geopolitical and geostrategic objectives in the American electoral operation. Finally, by observing this rivalry which confirms our suspicions of a larger problem, we predict the impact of this sort of declaration and investigation will not solving the problem but by another way it will complicate the solution which the game is not monopolised by the classical cold war rivalspecifically when other actors are interested. 

Chinese and Iranian interests: 

Against Russian interests aimed at influencing Democrat J. Biden by favoring Republican D. Trump, the Chinese no longer want the latter to be re-elected because he is unpredictable and unreliable. China is expanding its influence efforts to shape the political environment in the United States by the same Russian strategy, to put pressure on politicians it considers to be opposed to China's interests and to counter criticism of it, "he said. In this regard, China carries out the same influence processes as Russia as the Stanford Internet Observatory confirms to us nevertheless the interests are not the same in terms of geopolitics, because China wanted more geo-economic advantage and strategic in terms of trade agreements, technological and military development. For this, President D. Trump meant that he is his opponent when he confirmed from a tweet that China has no interests in his re-election because of what he did not to give the Chinese what they want and to case the trade war and that they cost billions of dollars and not forgetting his permanent criticism of their management on the global pandemic crisis. And because he is the toughest US president on China as he has announced, China will have no interest in his re-election. In conclusion, D. Trump wants to send us a message that if he will be defeated in his re-election then China has succeeded in its plot.

Indeed, the American security officials know very well that the game of influence and interference is a reality and the phenomenon occurs parallel to electoral activities in a secret and more organized way yet they can no longer recognize it so as not to favor a voter and train in a partisan fight. They add to this effect that nothing will prevent the existence of surprises during this course, consequently Iranian interference is also probable yet their effects are still at the lower level of behavior of China and Russia despite this it is present. 

However, this inferiority does not hide in strategic terms that Iran will have its position said that the re-election of President D. Trump will prolong the sanctions and the pressures which aim at the change of the Iranian regime in addition to the geostrategic upheavals because of the withdrawal from the nuclear deal and other issues such as the assassination of General Sulaimani. For these purposes Iran will surely be one of the major players interested in the internal politics of the American elections. Nonetheless, in terms of specificity Iran is keeping its classic tactics of circulating the same anti-American and anti-Western content on social networks and the media.

US computer giant Microsoft has backed US intelligence claims, saying hackers with ties to Russia, China and Iran are trying to spy on key figures involved in the US election. The Iranian group, Phosphorus, added that unsuccessful attempts to access the accounts of White House officials and Mr. Trump's campaign staff between May and June of this year. 

These very activities are logically justified in terms of policy because of the harassment continues against the Iranian regime henceforth the authorities in Tehran followed the path of the Russians and the Chinese and qualify these statements as "grotesque" and not no credibility. Finally, Iran doesn't care who is going to occupy the White House ”Saeed Khatibzadeh” said.

We have presented some issues that make the internal political operation of the United States a transnational affair nowhere a citizenship activity when specific actors, states, intelligence services ... etc, try to influence against the citizens will and choice. Even the divergence of interests between these actors regarding the US electoral operation and who will be D. Trump's successor in the White House, the US election process has truly become a crossroads of global politics and strategic cunning. Henceforth major geopolitical stakes in international affairs not only because States are interested in it, yet other actors demonstrate their wish to join the race.

Non-state actors: 

The geopolitical interventions are multiple during the American electoral processand have as a common goal the discrediting of the operation and the general political environment and undermine confidence in the American model. However, this operation is no longer the monopoly of the States and of the official services concerned, yet the benefits are numerous and are also attracting new players such as groups of causes and activists as well as other paramilitary troops.

 Peaceful movements and groups of causes: 

The movements of activists and universal groups of causes also take the opportunity and the occasion to express the importance of this operation for them and for their causes. Through their activities and demonstrations, the latter also influence the electoral operation from their networks of universal activity and international solidarity, for example feminist associations accuse President D. Trump of supporting patriarchal and anti-feminist concepts by denouncing the sexual aggression in the latter's campaign against women generally and the 2016 Democratic candidate H. Clinton.

To this end, the networks of American feminism and all their international supporters are mobilizing their activists and efforts by invading the web with words and hash-tags discredit President D. Trump and support Democrats. Added to this, peaceful movements for the civil rights of black citizens who continue to express their permanent refusal to re-elect D. Trump. The pacifism of these movements determines only one principle, when meeting with other groups the demonstrations perpetually turn into dramatic riots.

Armed groups of patriotism: 

Another issue is being formulated are the armed right-wing groups supporting the re-election of D. Trump, alarms are emerging against their attempts to influence the American electoral operation by way of armed force and planting fear and horror bitewing citizens. Their weight in internal political affairs continues to increase by attracting and recruiting more and more right-wing supremacists and conservative whites, regroup and discuss on specific forums and platforms, one of these extremist groups is recently accused for planning a kidnapping operation of the governor of Michigan. So the radicalization of political action in the United States weighs on the stability of the electoral operation when it is known that these groups declare that with only the re-election of the current president the United States recovers its economic, strategic and political recovery.

Protesters from various groups could clash after the authorities transfer in January. It happenedlots of time during the Trump presidential and electoral process by shooting and killing protestors itch others. “There is a good chance that we will see militiamen, armed groups or armed Trump supporters at the polls,” said Cassie Miller, senior researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Not only are these people ready to participate in voter intimidation, but they hope to create this chaotic moment. There is a reluctance to accept anything other than a Trump victory.

Terrorist activities: 

Terrorist activities undoubtedly have repercussions against the American elections and on the stability of the electoral operation generally, which would be the ulterior motive of the attacker the result of the attack will directly support or weaken a candidate over another. An analysis from L. Nardon published in a newspaper says that the Orlando attacks of 2016 played good for the Republican candidate because they oriented the presidential candidate debate around certain causes like immigration, the radical Islam and the weapon of which D. Trump won because he understood how convinced the American citizen not by the prohibition of their weapons of protection yet the ban on immigration from certain countries is the solution. Certainly the terrorist activities join the appeasements that we have discussed during this article and make the American elections a national security issue surrounded by various geopolitical challenges of long and short terms impacts.

Finally to conclude, we are therefore faced with a critical situation with multiple issues of security and internal stability, experts in internal affairs and national security at the international level are worried about the situation when she coming a case who encourage the negative mobilisation again stability and political institution on every country.

Recommendations:

In term of practice we recommend consolidating the role of state and encouraging their control over this political process by insuring the responsible engagement of privet and public services.

Concerned services must increase their resilience against the issues of the information warfare generally and concentrate the efforts to neutralize the riots by negotiation not by the force using. 

Major actors of the internal politics must have a unique vision around the strategic cases and future candidate must be formed and informed deeply around challenges faced their nation.

Through the emerging of the state in this domain by monopolising the control, respect for the law and the establishment of security and stability will be guaranteed definitively.

Finally we intend by this article the anticipation for equal or similar situation for other countries and nations who want to protect their democratic legacy and his independent choices from foreign intervention. 

Kezzoute Mhammed is a Nonresident fellow at the CGSRS | Centre for Geopolitics & Security in Realism Studies. He may be contacted at kezzoute.m@cgsrs.org 

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