It’s Time for Russia To Work in a Field that America Dominates

The U.S. State Department allocated $788 million from next year’s budget to promote countermeasures against Russia. However, most of this money is not actually intended for information warfare. Some $24 million has been allocated to “fight Russian propaganda.” You can bet that the budget for counteraction against China will be twice that size.

Moreover, I assure you that we are sane and do not participate in this information warfare at all. This $24 million equals approximately 1.8 rubles, which has been provided entirely by the State Department. Given other U.S. resources, this amount could be three times as much. In Russia, we do not have this kind of money and therefore don’t need to spend it.

Even if one does not participate in information warfare, one can still become a victim. Everyone can see what is currently happening in the Czech Republic and how it was weaponized to harm Russia. A monument of Soviet Gen. Marshal Ivan Konev was torn down as a result of a public relations campaign led by American partners. Claims were made that Russians sent the Czech Republic a killer to avenge the monument, and the local press demanded that we send them a Russian ambassador.

I’d like to pose a question. How effective are our grievances against the subservient, so-called free Czech press? This is the same press that was fed freedom grants from various U.S. State Department programs beginning at the end of the Cold War when the offices of the Radio Liberty station were transferred from Germany to Prague. Even with proof, do we seriously think that confronting these media sources with their lies and manipulation of public opinion would embarrass them? Do we believe they will actually scale back on this malicious behavior?

How many Russian grants and programs do we have that support local press in Europe? The few poor Russian emigrant sites and tabloids are read only by a handful of our emigrants and don’t count. They have absolutely no influence on public opinion in Europe. So far, the tabloids Sputnik and RT are our only external information outlets. We don’t work with the local media at all. Press tours in Russia and a few of our round table events can’t be considered lobbying either. The same can be said of Russian language press conferences and Russian journalist memberships in the European Federation of Journalists. All of these events are meant to be enjoyed exclusively by their participants.

What could we possibly offer our media in our defense, when the U.S. says that it is a free country and we are not, and that freedom is better than no freedom? Who could argue with that? This becomes a whole different rating system, one that is measured by sovereignty and peace.

Where are our grants to promote these values, even outside the context of Russia? Where are the publications talking about the Czech Republic’s right to determine its own policy toward its neighbors? Prague remembers the disaster of 1968 and is grateful for its liberation by the Soviets in 1945. At the time, there were pro-European, anti-war media aimed at saving the world, but there were no pro-Russian media. Where do the publications talk about these things? They do not exist, but it’s not our fault. It is not due to our own negligence, laziness or inactivity.

We shouldn’t take offense at these attacks by the international media and merely list our undeserved grievances. Instead, it’s time we started doing the same thing.