Thanks, Chairman Cardin, Rating Member Hagerty, and Distinguished Members of the Committee for inviting me to handle you right this moment. As you might be conscious, the US is engaged in what I’d characterize as a persistent, uneven competitors with authoritarian challengers that’s happening throughout a minimum of 4, interconnected, non-military domains:
Politics, and right here I’m considering primarily, however not solely, about interference in democratic processes and efforts to denigrate democratic governments;
Economics, particularly the buildup and utility of coercive leverage and the usage of strategic corruption;
Know-how, which intersects with all different domains, however is a aggressive area in its personal proper; and
Data, which will be the most consequential terrain over which states will compete within the subsequent many years.
The final is the place I’ll focus right this moment.
It’s throughout the data area that autocrats — in Moscow and Beijing, but additionally elsewhere — have leveraged a few of the sharpest asymmetries. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping intentionally unfold or amplify data that’s false or deceptive. Each function huge propaganda networks that use a number of modes of communication to disseminate their most well-liked, typically slanted, variations of occasions. Each unfold quite a few, typically conflicting, conspiracy theories designed to deflect blame for their very own wrongdoing, dent the status of the US, and solid doubt on the notion of goal fact. And each often have interaction in “whataboutism” to border the US and its approach of doing enterprise as hypocritical, whereas utilizing a community of proxy influencers to churn up anti-American sentiment around the globe. For Putin and Xi, the purpose of those pursuits is to tighten their grip on energy at residence and weaken their democratic rivals overseas. For Xi, additionally it is about positioning China as a accountable world participant.
For the US, like different democracies, an open data setting confers great long-term benefits, however it additionally creates near-term vulnerabilities that may be exploited utilizing low-cost, typically deniable instruments and ways. The place democracies rely upon the concept that the reality is knowable and residents can discern it to control themselves, autocrats don’t have any such want for a wholesome data setting to thrive. In actual fact, autocrats profit from widespread public skepticism that goal fact exists in any respect. As a result of autocrats tightly management their data environments, they’re extra insulated from critics than their democratic rivals. Though Moscow and Beijing successfully ban many Western social media platforms at residence, they can use them fairly successfully to interact audiences overseas. In doing so, they face nearly no normative constraints on mendacity or concern for business repercussions. Because of these asymmetries, autocrats have made outstanding data advances.
Up to now, the US and different liberal democracies have been sluggish to understand the character of the competition and to develop a proactive technique to push again on these advances. That is partially pushed by the problem of creating a coherent menace evaluation when a lot of the related exercise is happening on sensible telephones as an alternative of conventional battlefields. However it’s primarily a results of the hands-off method that democratic societies have historically taken to coping with data — and for good motive, provided that they threat contravening George Kennan’s admonition to not turn out to be like these towards whom they’re “coping.” These constraints make it onerous for democratic societies to deal with this problem, however they needn’t stop success.
Recognizing that competitors is in the end in regards to the pursuit and use of benefits, the US ought to develop a method to leverage myriad uneven benefits of its personal — each throughout the data area and past it — to push again on Moscow and Beijing’s data advances.
AN INFORMATION STRATEGY FOR THE UNITED STATES
To start out with, the US can seize the initiative by harnessing truthful data to defend its pursuits and the integrity of the worldwide data setting. To do that, Washington ought to take the so-called persistent engagement method that the US has utilized to our on-line world and carry it into the knowledge area. This might contain concerted campaigns which are grounded in truthful messaging designed to reveal the failures and false guarantees of dictatorship, together with corruption and repression. Such an method could be in line with a method of exploiting Moscow and Beijing’s weaknesses, recognizing that competitors is in the end in regards to the pursuit and use of benefits.
Importantly, the main focus of those efforts shouldn’t be on refuting false data, however on affirmatively highlighting the strengths of democratic governance fashions and exposing the corruption and repression of autocratic challengers. There are a minimum of two audiences for this content material. First, people who reside inside repressive societies. Second, these in societies the place democracy is backsliding or not absolutely consolidated, the place truthful data may also help construct resilience towards disinformation and propaganda.
To that finish, recognizing that impartial media retains residents knowledgeable and holds energy to account, Washington ought to assist top quality journalism overseas, notably in locations the place democracy is backsliding. And it ought to promote freedom of data globally — not simply because it’s in line with democratic values, however as a result of it places autocrats at a drawback, provided that their grip on energy is determined by strict management of data.
In the end, succeeding within the data area would require motion past it, since that’s the place a few of the United States’ most precious benefits lie. These embrace superior cyber capabilities, world monetary markets, strong rule of legislation, and a vibrant community of companions. Washington may, for instance, use its cyber capabilities to undermine the power of its rivals to hold out malign exercise on-line — because it reportedly did by taking the Kremlin’s proxy troll farm operation offline for just a few days across the 2018 midterms, by conducting an operation that focused Iran forward of the 2020 presidential election, and by conducting “full spectrum operations” earlier than, throughout, and after the midterms in 2022. Washington may additionally use the ability and centrality of its financial system to impose prices on those that perform damaging, state-backed data manipulation campaigns.
The USA ought to do all of this in coordination with different democratic societies, leveraging what would possibly effectively be its most essential strategic benefit: a robust community of companions and alliances. This could embrace sharing details about threats and collaborating on responses which are rooted in democratic values, as a result of these values are strengths. In the end, the knowledge competitors isn’t just a contest between nations, however a wrestle over methods and rules.
ADVANCING THIS STRATEGY: THE ROLE OF USAGM
The U.S. Company for International Media (USAGM) has a vital position to play in advancing this technique. As I’ve argued in a forthcoming paper, co-written with colleagues on the German Marshall Fund of the US and elsewhere, there are quite a few steps that it will probably take to replace its technique for fulfillment in an period of data competitors with autocrats. These embrace:
Focusing consideration and sources on Latin America;
Leveraging twenty-first-century digital instruments to construct a complicated image of its audiences, assess the efficiency of its content material, circumvent censorship, and enhance the attain of its most compelling materials;
Centering genuine native voices, borrowing a component of its competitor’s technique whereas maintaining its dedication to journalistic excellence;
Specializing in themes that appeal to world audiences; and
Avoiding the temptation to be in all places all the time, as an alternative prioritizing the platforms the place individuals get their information whereas using the State Division’s current Content material Commons.
Focus Consideration and Sources on Latin America
By way of the primary quarter of 2023, three of the 5 most retweeted Russian state media accounts on Twitter messaged in Spanish, and 5 of the ten quickest rising ones focused Spanish-language audiences. On YouTube too, RT en Español has additionally confirmed able to constructing massive audiences, regardless of the platform’s world ban on Russian state-funded media channels. On TikTok, RT en Español is among the many hottest Spanish-language media shops. Its 29.6 million likes make it extra standard than Telemundo, Univision, BBC Mundo, and El País. Likewise, on Fb, RT en Español presently has extra followers than some other Spanish-language worldwide broadcaster.
China too, is succeeding within the area. Its Spanish-language broadcaster, CGTN en Español, has roughly six occasions extra followers on Fb than the US’ Spanish-language outlet, Voz de América. Venezuela’s TeleSur and Iran’s HispanTV even have amassed sizeable followings.
This a minimum of partly, if not primarily, displays a useful resource prioritization drawback. In 2023, the finances for Voice of America’s Latin America division was barely greater than $10 million. That’s lower than half of the finances appropriated for its Eurasia division and fewer than 1 / 4 of the finances appropriated for its East Asia and Pacific division. Of the 12 abroad bureaus operated by VOA, none are in Latin America. This displays broader tendencies. From 2015 to 2020, U.S. public diplomacy financing overseen by the State Division (academic and cultural affairs spending, excluding broadcasting) constantly deprioritized the Western Hemisphere.
Recognizing the extent of Russia’s data manipulation efforts in Latin America — and that with Spanish the fourth-most spoken language on this planet, Kremlin content material produced for Latin American audiences may attain far past the area — USAGM ought to focus consideration and sources there. This method ought to embrace growing investments in VOA broadcasting in Spanish and contemplating the feasibility of opening a regional bureau inside Latin America. To the extent potential, it must also embrace facilitating exchanges between Spanish-language journalists in the US and their counterparts in Latin America, in addition to public-private partnerships to create low-cost distribution and content material sharing agreements that might enable for materials created by Spanish audio system in the US to achieve audiences by means of native, trusted sources.
As a rustic with 40 million native Spanish audio system and whose nationwide safety pursuits are immediately affected by occasions within the area, the US can’t afford to cede the knowledge area in Latin America to its geopolitical rivals.
Leverage Twenty-first Century Digital Instruments
What overseas audiences discover interesting about the US nearly definitely differs from nation to nation and area to area. USAGM regional bureaus are greatest positioned to create and distribute materials that resonates with their respective audiences — however not based mostly on “greatest guesses.” USAGM ought to proceed to spend money on social media evaluation instruments that allow regional bureaus to know the pursuits and considerations of their audiences. Doing so can equip them to develop tailor-made and compelling editorial propositions, that are important for staying related in a crowded fashionable media market. These instruments ought to be coupled with market analysis and social media analytics to judge the efficiency of USAGM content material, since success will rely upon constantly figuring out and prioritizing the forms of supplies which are most impactful. This method is in line with the State Division’s dedication to data-informed diplomacy.
USAGM must also proceed supporting cutting-edge open web and circumvention instruments that allow its journalists, amongst others, to supply impartial, complete, and goal information protection. Doing so brings two benefits. First, it’s a technique of combatting the censorship that permits autocrats to thrive. Second, by facilitating information protection that speaks fact to energy and promotes an engaged citizenry, it builds resilience towards disinformation propaganda in goal societies around the globe.
Lastly, Washington must also contemplate whether or not AI methods could possibly be used to translate USAGM or different high-quality content material for dissemination in a number of languages. Latest advances may make it potential to take action rapidly and at low value, boosting the attain of USAGM’s most compelling supplies.
Middle Genuine Native Voices
Moscow and Beijing often use genuine home voices — for instance, these of native journalists and activists — to enhance the attain and resonance of their messaging, recognizing that doing so lends their content material a level of credibility. Moscow has experimented with a spread of strategies, together with co-locating trolls inside a goal inhabitants, renting the social media accounts of native customers with the purpose of utilizing them to publish political adverts or plant articles, and hiring freelance journalists to write down political tales for a web-based publication secretly run by people linked to the Web Analysis Company (IRA), amongst others. Beijing, for its half, has lengthy used foreigners in Chinese language Communist Social gathering (CCP) propaganda. “We’ve all the time hooked up nice significance to ‘borrowing a mouth to talk’ and used worldwide pals to hold out overseas propaganda,” proclaimed Zhu Ling, then-China Day by day editor-in-chief, in a speech celebrating the newspaper’s thirtieth anniversary.
With out wavering from its dedication to uphold journalistic excellence, report information with out bias, and prioritize editorial transparency, USAGM may borrow a component of this method and heart the voices of native investigative journalists and civil society leaders, together with rights defenders, in its content material. Doing so might assist that content material ring a bell with native audiences, particularly in locations the place the US is probably not inherently trusted. It’s an method that can also be in line with USAGM’s dedication to participating and empowering native populations.
Give attention to Themes that Appeal to International Audiences
The USA and different liberal democracies have struggled to develop a coherent post-Chilly Struggle message. Because of this, Washington has often defaulted to emphasizing assist for human rights and efforts to root out corruption — narratives that will resonate primarily with elites, or worse, be seen as hypocritical. As a substitute, U.S. public diplomacy ought to give attention to themes that proceed to draw world audiences, together with the US’ capability for innovation and entrepreneurship, its technological and scientific achievements, and its assist for freedom of expression.
In its protection of the US, VOA mustn’t hesitate to current the American expertise in its full complexity. This consists of critically assessing U.S. coverage. It’s a signal of power, not weak point, for a United States Authorities-funded entity to reckon with its challenges. In actual fact, doing so might resonate in societies which are struggling to ascertain or consolidate their very own democracies.
As acceptable, USAGM networks and packages may spotlight authoritarian efforts to undermine democratic societies and establishments, in addition to tales of resilience and resistance to repression. When related and as prudent, they might contemplate calling consideration to the knowledge manipulation methods of Russia and China — specifically, whataboutism — giving care not to attract consideration to content material from Moscow and Beijing that might have in any other case gone unnoticed. Within the reality of whataboutism, they need to resist the temptation to rebut every declare, recognizing that doing so solely prolongs the dialog on the competitor’s phrases.
Don’t Attempt to be In every single place all of the Time
As it really works to disseminate content material that audiences not solely belief however use, USAGM ought to give attention to the locations the place individuals get their information: in lots of nations, Fb and YouTube, way more so than Twitter. Drawing on the data {of professional} content material entrepreneurs, it may additionally discover whether or not there are greatest practices for reaching audiences on Whatsapp, given its recognition as a supply of reports in lots of contexts. There may be knowledge in USAGM’s acknowledgment that it can’t undertake each new platform in each goal market.
On the identical time, USAGM may additionally share its originals throughout the State Division’s Content material Commons in order that they could be amplified by related public diplomats. The Content material Commons is a vital useful resource that gives public diplomacy professionals entry to a searchable library of on-demand, cleared, license-free content material. However customers report that the present repository gives restricted, and at occasions underwhelming, choices — particularly in video format. A sharing association may assist mitigate that problem, whereas serving to to facilitate the dissemination of USAGM materials to new audiences.
LOOKING AHEAD
The rising competitors between the US and its authoritarian challengers is uneven in nature, and more and more happening removed from conventional battlefields. Digital applied sciences are making it more and more potential for autocrats to take advantage of the openness of democratic societies to disrupt them from inside and to unfold deceptive propaganda around the globe, to the detriment of U.S. pursuits. The USA wants a method for pushing again on these actions — one which meets the second and attracts on its appreciable strengths. There are myriad steps such an method may entail, some throughout the data area, others past it. USAGM can play a central position. By focusing consideration and sources on Latin America, leveraging twenty-first-century digital instruments, centering genuine native voices, specializing in themes that appeal to world audiences, and avoiding the temptation to be in all places all the time, USAGM can place itself for fulfillment in right this moment’s data setting.
