Inside the Russian plot to create controlled chaos and disrupt the US ahead of the presidential election

If you feel like the world seems more chaotic as of late, you can lay some of the blame at the feet of Vladimir Putin. Russia has stepped up its campaign to sow “controlled chaos” in the US as the presidential election approaches, experts warn.The Justice Department said in September it had busted a coordinated campaign generated by Moscow, which saw $10 million funneled to a Tennessee-based content creation company which paid US influencers, who then spread Russia-friendly content — sometimes not even realizing who their paymasters were.It’s all part of a formulated master-plan.“Russia has a standing doctrine that was developed on Putin’s orders,” Rebekah Koffler, former senior intelligence analyst with the US Defense Intelligence Agency and the author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told The Post. “It is called controlled instability and sometimes it is referred to as controlled chaos.

The strategy is about destabilizing the United States and the West.[It is] just below the threshold of a direct [land] war.”Britain’s MI5, the UK’s equivalent of the Secret Service, agrees with the assessment.

Ken McCallum, head of the counter-intelligence agency, told BBC last week that Russia’s special services are “on a permanent mission to create chaos on the streets of Britain and Europe.”Russia’s tools for doing it, he added, include “arson and sabotage” as well as radicalizing people online.McCallum added 25% of cases of online extremism they investigate are now for “extreme right-wing terrorism,” of the type promoted by Russia, rather than Islamic extremism.In America, the spreading of disinformation, encouraging radical activities and tampering with elections are part of the mix.“By creating mayhem, they spread our counterintelligence services thin,” said Koffler “We have finite resources.

So we’re not spending as much time trying to figure out what is on Putin’s mind” – and more time on dealing with issues like campus u...