Matt Armstrong
I wouldn’t answer the question, however, because the report presents a flawed understanding of the historical and contemporary context of our international information operations’ organizational structure and practices. Moreover, the authors mistakenly suggest that policy and information are independent, emphasize reactive responses rather than proactive integration, and undervalue the impact of presidents and cabinet secretaries on our current capabilities and potential reforms. Through this glaring omission, the authors absolve the offices most responsible for the current condition—the Oval Office and the President’s direct reports, from the cabinet to the national security staff—and hope a tactical effort will fix a strategic defect.
The report implies that we “got it right” with the US Information Agency (USIA), an organization created to segregate the informational element from policy, a separation that was premised on authorities it was never granted, and, within four years, began calls for major reforms or reintegrating the operation into the State Department.1 The Active Measuring Working Group (AMWG) was created because USIA did not, institionally, do what the report’s authors think it did. As a history on AMWG notes, the “inclination to challenge Soviet disinformation declined over the 1960s until, by 1975, there was no organized, overt effort to expose Soviet disinformation at all.” And then there is the Global Engagement Center (GEC), created to both compensate for years of absent leadership at the State Department and to make something new rather than fix what is there.
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