> Very little reason to believe they aren't, for the most part, as bunglingly ineffectual as they were then
Really? I thought there was plenty of reason. There has been lots of reporting on Russian troll farms and concentrated Russian efforts for Brexit, Donald Trump. There was also quite good reporting against the propaganda war in the Central African Republic between the French and Russian armies/intelligence services.
The existence of these efforts doesn't say much about their effectiveness, which is marginal at best. Notice how the 'successes' are always in perfect conditions. Decades of Soviet propaganda did next to nothing, yet suddenly, Russian propaganda is the most effective thing imaginable. Or a US-government-sponsored letter writing campaign by the better-off Italian Americans to their Italian relatives is credited with helping influence an election in struggling post-war Italy. There's a huge selection bias for the times there's even a hint of any kind of effect.
Very little reason to believe they aren't, for the most part, as bunglingly ineffectual as they were then, especially when it comes to efforts tied to intelligence services or people trying to sell a service, like CA.