At what stage of demoralization are we? One generation? Two?
We're familiar now with the term Active Measures. So what is 'Active Measures' exactly? For those new to the term, think of it as socio-political judo--the redirection of your target's already-existing energy and inertia toward the goal of destabilizing, befuddling, and ultimately neutralizing your opponent. It requires at least two generations of targeting to be effective.
It begins with sociological studies of your target. Polarizing topics are located--in the US''s case, topics like abortion, gun rights, racism, misogyny, etc.
That done, studies are then made on how best to exacerbate those bigotries, etc in the target area, with the end goal of utterly destabilizing the society, of turning brother against brother, as it were.
Though the tactic itself was probably invented by the Chinese in or around the 8th century BC, around 2800 years ago, the first contemporary(ish) Russian 'Active Measure' that I'm personally aware of was the careful forging, assembling, and distribution of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' back in 1903. This action was staged by then Imperial Russian intelligence, at the time called the Okhrana, to exacerbate anti-Jewish sentiment in order to justify the anti-Jewish pogroms and the like that occurred under Czar Nicholas II. It was long considered (until the wildly successful and cost-efficient, social media operation that has so roiled our current state of affairs) the most successful operation of this type in recent history, and is in fact the Protocols are still used by anti-Jewish groups today as evidence of a Satanic Jewish Conspiracy, such is its lasting appeal.
I believe the term 'Active Measures' was first officially used in the 1920s, when Stalin took over after Lenin's death. Russian expertise in the strategies, tactics, rituals, and forms of the ancient Chinese art now called 'Active Measures' soon began to grow, and the practice was gradually adopted by other intelligence services, on all conceivable sides.
Active measures began being used against American civilians by fascist-leaning members of our own intelligence services as early as 1951, as the notion of Anti-Communism as American state religion began to take hold. Groups like the Christian Crusade, the John Birch Society, the Young Americans for Freedom, the Committee for the Defence of Christian Culture emerged, all benefiting greatly from funds generated by organized crime and fascist groups in Asia and Eastern Europe. American-sponsored Active Measures against its own citizens found their heyday in the 1970s, destroying Jimmy Carter's presidency and leading to the election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan's campaign manager Bill Casey was a Putin-scale master of these tools.
Active Measures have made up the majority of Russian intelligence operations since Brezhnev, I've been told, and under Putin have made up the vast majority of them. So, knowing what we know today, I'd say we've been under a full-throated attack by the Kremlin since around 2000, and by elements of our own intelligence services since the 1950s. If we count a generation as 20 years, we are approaching our fourth generation.
