truth over lies, light over darkness

For the past several years, the Big Idea I’ve been shouting into the abyss is that to keep our country safe from foreign interference, we need to look inward and repair the societal fissures our adversaries are amplifying and weaponizing. Tomorrow, I am testifying (virtually, alas!) before the House Armed Services Committee, discussing how the Department of Defense and the broader U.S. Government can rise and reorganize to better meet the challenge of countering hostile-state disinformation. Yes, I will talk about building DoD’s and the wider civil service’s capabilities to identify and push back against disinformation campaigns. I’ll talk about interagency coordination and international cooperation. But for every testimony I’ve given (as of tomorrow, to four separate committees on four related-but-distinct topics) I always take time to remind my (hopefully) captive audience of their own role in maintaining and protecting our information ecosystem. Tomorrow, I will tell the assembled Members:

“Our adversaries use information operations to exploit open societies and undermine our values; therefore, they must remain the center of gravity for any approach to countering hostile interference. Preserving our transparency, openness, and commitments to freedom of expression and human rights will ensure the United States continues to provide an alternative to authoritarian regimes. We must act not only as the staunchest defender and guarantor of these values among our allies abroad, but lead by example, underlining that disinformation knows no political party and that the United States is committed to reversing its normalization in our own political discourse.”

President Biden seems to recognize this. As he addressed a joint session of Congress last night, outlining perhaps the most ambitious government investments in the American public since the New Deal, he pondered:

“Can our democracy deliver on the most pressing needs of our people? Can our democracy overcome the lies, anger, hate and fears that have pulled us apart?
America’s adversaries—the autocrats of the world—are betting it can’t. They believe we are too full of anger and division and rage. They look at the images of the mob that assaulted this Capitol as proof that the sun is setting on American democracy.”

We cannot fact-check (or moderate, or shadowban, or deplatform) our way out of the crisis of truth and trust that we face. But we might be able to govern our way out of it. Some American politicians, however, cannot bear to let go of disinformation as a political strategy. It riled up their base. It got them into power. It sells their merch and raises them valuable campaign dollars, facilitating their reelection. And so disinformation—and the political strategies that support it, that undermine Americans’ trust in government and faith in democracy—persist.

But it’s not teneble in the long term. Look at Vladimir Putin, whose regime runs on disinformation. Yes, he has been in power since 2000, and has set himself up to rule Russia until 2036. But in the past several weeks alone, his actions embody not a ruler who is secure in his power, a shark resolutely and constantly circling, but a poor swimmer who is flailing in the water, drowning, taking his regime along with him.

Even after jailing dissident Alexey Navalny, who nearly died when he went on a hunger strike after being denied medical care in prison, Putin still sees enemies everywhere as his country struggles with stagnation, with the pandemic, and with a growing group of citizens who distrust their leader. He labeled Navalny’s political network as extremist, forcing it to disband. He slapped independent media outlet Meduza with a “foreign agent” label, limiting its ability to report and endangering its correspondents. Radio Free Europe, too, has been the target of this modern day scarlet letter, forcing it to relocate its key staff from Moscow to Prague or Kyiv. And, worrying many, Putin oversaw the largest buildup of Russian forces on the Ukrainian border since his illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Why? The official explanation, “military exercises,” didn’t quite pass muster. More likely, the buildup was another bargaining chip for Putin’s personalist autocracy, potentially meant to buoy his support at home while testing the Biden administration. As Timothy Frye writes in an essay adapted from his new book Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia:

No amount of shrewdness can overcome the agonizing tradeoffs of running Russia the way [Putin] does. Cheat enough in elections so that you don’t risk losing, but not so much that it signals weakness. Rile up the base with anti-Western moves, but not to the extent that it provokes an actual conflict with the West. Reward cronies through corruption, but not so much that the economy collapses. Manipulate the news, but not to the point where people distrust the media. Repress political opponents, but not enough to spark a popular backlash. Strengthen the security services, but not so much that they can turn on you. How the Kremlin balances these tradeoffs will determine Russia’s immediate future. But the trend toward greater repression over the last four years, and its likely continuation, does not bode well for Russia or its leader.

Much more operable and sustainable than a personalist autocracy fueled by disinformation is a government built on the contributions of many, not the shoulders of one. At their core, that’s what Biden’s plans—investing in early childhood and secondary education, providing for paid family and medical leave, investing in clean energy to stimulate the economy and create jobs—do.

So yes, tomorrow I will once again push for the bureaucratic nuts and bolts necessary to build a governmental counter-disinformation infrastructure. But the foundation—the investment in American citizens, in our resiliency, in our values—has to be there first. As the President said, America must choose “hope over fear. Truth over lies. Light over darkness.”