We're Losing the Information War to Russia

Former U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey believes we’re in an existential struggle with the Kremlin. It’s not a shooting war that we can see, but rather, an information war, aimed at sowing dissension in the United States and weakening our standing abroad.

For him, the worst aspect of this is, we don’t know we’re in it, and we’re losing it because we’re doing so little to defend against it.

“What’s missing is an information offense, that is, advocacy that persuades others of the advantages of freedom and the rule of law,” he said. “During the Cold War it was advocacy, not news, that persuaded the Soviet people that life was better on this side of the Iron Curtain.”

Humphrey started out as a Cold Warrior serving on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. “I was doing everything I could devise to make life as miserable as I could for the Soviets,” he said.

His view changed 180 degrees when the Soviet Union fell.

“Russia was on course toward having the rule of law, and it even looked to some Western leaders that Russia might qualify to become a member of NATO,” he said, reflecting on the early 1990s.

During this time, he made 16 business trips to the former Soviet Union, and his attitude toward the country and its people changed to admiration and even affection. The Russians speak of soul-level friendships, and repeatedly, he experienced these deep friendships.

Unfortunately, his current view of Russia is a wrenching change from the view he held shortly after the Soviet Union fell.

“With the advent of Putin, Russia is being thrown back into the worst of the Stalinist times,” he said. “The days of neighbors informing on neighbor have returned. People are afraid to confide in their friends.”

Russia is acting not just as an adversary but as an archenemy, he said. Russia is spending billions of dollars on information warfare, designed to convince the world that America is chaotic, divided and unstable. Russian disinformation uses social media to amplify existing social and political tensions, creating an image of a weak country unable to effectively govern itself.

“By remaining stuck in a reactive mode, we’re doing nothing to counteract this,” he said. “Not doing so costs us allies, encourages adventurism among China, Iran, North Korea and Russia itself and greatly increases the likelihood of war.”

America isn’t doing more to counteract the Russian narrative, even though it once had the ability to do so. The U.S. once spent .04% of our national GDP telling our story. It’s now roughly .006%. This is largely because the US Information Agency (USIA) was abolished in 1999 at the end of the Cold War.

This was done as an economic measure. However, Humphrey points out that disbanding the USIA has meant, “We lost their talent and expertise, and even the structure that enabled us to tell our story.”

The consequence is the meteoric rise of our adversaries’ ability to influence other nations. For instance, in the 2022 U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, 40 countries either voted against the resolution or abstained.

Humphrey wants the United States to revive the ability to tell our story. To create USIA.2, he wants the President to:

1. Make a public commitment to winning the information war.
2. Have the National Security Council create a strategic plan to win the Information War.
3. Hire a forceful expert in the arts of persuasion and strategic communication. Put that person in charge of a structure outside the State Department.
4. Get Congress to allocate the billions of dollars needed for telling our story and putting our adversaries on the defensive.

With the right structure and the right budget, Humphrey believes, “We can easily win. Freedom works. It means higher standards of living, more economic growth and stronger protections for the human rights that give people a chance at personal happiness.”