Most of us islanders enjoy the bliss of ignorance about the underworld — espionage against our nation, organized crime in our cities, assassinations on U.S. soil by foreign adversaries. There is, however, one element of the Dark Side that touches us all, even in paradise — the information war. It is subtle, long-standing, ongoing, has covert and overt elements, and pits Western ideals (freedom, democracy) against others, like Russia and China’s communism, Iran’s militant theocracy, or India’s religious nationalism.
That said, Washington last month began disarming our nation’s frontline fighters in this conflict. Tasked with carrying pro-democracy and pro-Western messaging into denied areas and hostile territory, they sit on the chopping block — Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Middle East Broadcasting Network, the Voice of America and the Open Technology Fund (which provides uncensored internet access to people living under repressive regimes).
Called “the hard edge” of U.S. soft power, and fighting fascism and communism throughout the 20th century, their effectiveness is proven by the amount of money that adversaries spend trying to block them. Consider that VOA alone broadcasts in 50 languages and reaches a target audience of 345 million listeners. The platforms penetrate the intangible, darkest corners of our globe’s ideological worlds — Central Asia, tribal regions of South Asia, North Korea — and are infinitely cheaper than physical weapons needed when ideological conflicts move onto physical battlefields.
This follows another recent administration decision to dismantle our nation’s defensive units in the same conflict, ones that monitor and counter adversaries’ anti-American messaging, agitprop and propaganda aimed at influencing our foreign policies and elections.
Since January, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, Homeland Security’s CISA and FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force have shuttered or redirected, and federal funding for private entities, like Stanford’s Internet Observatory, stopped. Others, like Indiana University’s Observatory on Social Media (which analyzes misinformation and social media manipulation), are under attack by administration supporters, and the White House dismantled a multi-agency effort led by the National Security Council to monitor Russia’s increasingly aggressive propaganda efforts in the U.S.
We are waving a white flag on the AI battlefield, too. The administration recently removed from its AI doctrine “misinformation” as something that needs to be guarded against. Meanwhile, Moscow brags about efforts to infect Western AI platforms with pro-Russia narratives, and the recent release of China’s DeepSeek chatbot showcases how oppressive governments can distort information provided by AI models.
Cold Warriors, psychological operations veterans, spooks, foreign policy wonks, advocates of soft power diplomacy and foreign allies are scratching their heads over the U.S. surrender. The administration’s limited attempts at explanation — finger-pointing at unnamed leftist forces and other unsubstantiated claims — ring hollow. Meanwhile, Havana, Beijing and Moscow have, in press releases, publicly cheered the U.S. withdrawal from the information conflict (without laying down their weapons).
There is an information civil war, too. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the Defense Department are now, in an unprecedented manner, controlling which news outlets have access to reporting on players and policies, with a clear preference for outlets that provide favorable reporting and providing newsmaker amateurs with seats at tables once reserved for professionally-trained journalists subject to well-established editorial processes. Our president has also started labeling as “illegal” outlets that document his policies and actions in anything but a favorable light, reflecting modern authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
Meanwhile, administration financial backers are manipulating the public’s access to information. Jeff Bezos is using his purchase of our nation’s capital’s most prominent newspaper — the Washington Post — to restrict advertising and opinion pieces that throw shade on the Oval Office.
In response, award-winning journalists and editors have resigned, and patrons have cancelled subscriptions to the 76-time Pulitzer Prize-winning paper, which uncovered the Watergate scandal. Simultaneously, the partisan leanings of the policies of Elon Musk’s X, a top source of “news” for the American public, has led many users to migrate to a different platform, BlueSky; news consumers are voting on information objectivity “with their feet.” (Mind you, the checks-and-balances offered by a free press have long been referred to in our nation as the government’s “fourth branch.”)
It is impossible to spin this story positively and still pass the giggle test. There is no fact-based explanation for how these recent developments can do anything but harm the republic. Our foreign allies and adversaries see it. Why can’t the American people?
J.P. Atwell is a former senior CIA operations officer. His two-decade career began as an intelligence analyst and took him to every continent, save Antarctica. He now calls Hawaii Island home. He welcomes your comments at island.intelligencer@gmail.com.
