Exclusive: America falters in fighting the information war
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Americans are unknowingly being bombarded with media manipulated by China, Russia and Iran, despite U.S. efforts to stem the tide, according to an analysis first shared with Axios.
Why it matters: The messaging stokes stateside divisions and undermines support for some of Washington's most pressing security pursuits — Taiwan, Ukraine and Israel.
What's inside: The new report published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, whose experts include former military members and senior government advisers, examines how authoritarian regimes have for years swayed thinking at home and abroad.
- China hopes to exhaust and subdue Taiwan, which it considers a renegade province. It also wants to deflect criticism as its neighborhood belligerence is captured on camera.
- Russia tries to bend international thinking in its favor. It is also exploiting domestic issues to pacify its people.
- Iran threatens dissidents, amplifies messaging from anti-American and anti-Israeli groups, and supports a constellation of proxies in the region.
Threat level: The net result is a digital minefield that demands a much more concerted response from Washington, according to the report's half-dozen authors.
- Among the recommendations: "Go on the offensive" and break through foreign bubbles.
- Past efforts to reach people where they live — on sites and apps they're familiar with — have been "clumsy and pedestrian," the report reads.
What they're saying: Successive administrations "have resisted offensive information warfare efforts inside China, Russia, and Iran for fear of 'provoking' them," writes Bradley Bowman, the senior director of FDD's Center on Military and Political Power and a former Black Hawk pilot.
- But "Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran suffer from no such reluctance when it comes to aggressively waging information warfare inside the United States."
- When there "is no overt conflict, Americans can be lulled into a false sense of security."
Flashback: Russian influence campaigns made headlines following the 2016 presidential election.
- Moscow at the time hoped to undermine faith in democracy and damage then-candidate Hillary Clinton, according to an intelligence community review.
- Tactics evolved for the 2020 contest, when Russia laundered narratives through prominent U.S. officials, including some close to the Trump camp.
- Russian strategies changed yet again ahead of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The intrigue: U.S. Cyber Command has exposed troll farms, and its elite hacking teams are unearthing network weaknesses and malware.
- These teams were dispatched to Ukraine before the Kremlin's war machine rolled across the border and were sent to Albania in the wake of Iranian cyberattacks that forced government services offline.
What we're watching: Malicious information will mushroom in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.
- Increasingly popular generative AI — capable of carrying a conversation or crafting fake but convincing photos, videos and audio — may fuel the fire.
