On November 3, a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing to discuss U.S. strategies for countering the threat of Kremlin propaganda. Five panelists gave testimony regarding the usefulness of U.S. media projects, the Kremlin’s disinformation tactics, and the role of the Internet in dispelling propaganda.
AEI resident scholar Dr. Leon Aron testifying before senators about the U.S. response to Kremlin propaganda on November 3, 2015.
The Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on November 3 titled “Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine and the Propaganda That Threatens Europe,” at which senators heard testimony from two panels. The first panel featured Benjamin G. Ziff, deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. The second panel consisted of Dr. Leon Aron, resident scholar and director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute; Peter Pomerantsev, senior fellow at the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute; Maksymilian Czuperski, special assistant to the president and CEO of the Atlantic Council; and Heather A. Conley, senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic at the Center for Strategic & International Studies and director of the center’s Europe program. Subcommittee chairman Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) presided over the hearing.
U.S. Aid and Messaging
Deputy assistant secretary Ziff began his testimony by highlighting the current methods employed by the U.S. government to combat Kremlin propaganda. One of the methods being used is foreign aid, and in fiscal year 2015 the State Department and USAID allocated $66 million toward support for civil society and independent media in Eurasia and Southeast Europe. In fiscal year 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama will request a higher amount, $83 million. The funds for the current year have supported programs such as exchanges and training camps for journalists and opinion leaders.
Ziff said the State Department has also developed a range of “messaging strategies” through which the U.S. hopes to “help audiences identify objective reporting over the Kremlin’s noise.” As an example, he cited the use of “rapid response” counter-messaging by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in September 2015. After Russian media published Photoshopped images of U.S. Ambassador John Tefft at an opposition rally, the embassy launched into action, creating its own absurd Photoshopped images of Ambassador Tefft in a variety of settings, such as on the moon, and disseminating them on Twitter. Ziff warned against focusing too narrowly on specific pieces of propaganda, however, arguing that the “whack-a-mole” approach was reactive and therefore unlikely to prove successful in the long run.
The U.S. has also been coordinating and sharing best practices with its European allies, such as the European External Action Service, Ziff said.
Media Outlets
In the second panel, Czuperski and Aron spoke about U.S. media projects and non-governmental initiatives that aim to counter Kremlin propaganda. Czuperski praised the Atlantic Council’s report “Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine,” which collected online data—in particular selfies, videos, photos, and tweets (so-called “digital breadcrumbs”)—to piece together digital forensic evidence of Russia’s military presence in Ukraine. Czuperski said the most impressive aspect of the Atlantic Council report was that it “created the tools for the public to just go out there and verify” the truth for themselves.
Aron praised the effectiveness of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which have been recognized as “superior not just to the Russian propaganda, but [also] to the output of the oligarch-dominated Ukrainian media.” According to a Gallup poll in Ukraine, nearly 7 million adults in the country use VOA every week, which is about 18 percent of all adults in Ukraine. But Czuperski said that more advanced methods are needed, since society has passed from the information age into the “engagement age,” in which the “narratives we create are shaped by how we communicate with one another.”
Bleaker Assessment
Conley had a bleaker assessment of current U.S. strategy: when asked by Senator Johnson to rate the effectiveness of U.S. countermeasures against Russian propaganda on a scale from 1 to 10, Conley gave the U.S. a score of 3 or 4. The challenge facing the U.S. is not just one of shaping public opinion, she said, but one that “touches citizens in business, culture, [and] economics.” She expressed frustration with the relative lack of U.S. presence in Europe compared to past years, when the government sponsored cooperation with civil society groups in the young democracies of the Baltic states and Central Europe.
She accused the West of failing to identify the problems in its own systems as well -- she cited the example of Russian oligarchs buying media channels in Europe -- and called for more aggressive measures in the West for ensuring transparency in the media. Ranking subcommittee member Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) asked Conley why she did not believe that “financing a major U.S.-backed information dissemination campaign would be effective in Russia,” to which Conley responded that the U.S. should focus more on supporting creative uses of the Internet and allowing the growth of “organic,” local efforts to share information, as opposed to the traditional Cold War method of swooping in from above.
The Nature of Kremlin Propaganda
In order to formulate best practices for countering Kremlin propaganda, the U.S. first must understand the sophistication of the propaganda campaign, the panelists said. Aron explained that the RT television network does not attempt to “sell the Russia brand” in the West, but instead aims to discredit Western democratic values and “exploit several key conventions” of Western media, such as the tendency to examine both sides of a story. Russian state-backed media thus “trashes the information space,” he said.
Pomerantsev argued that the main message of the Kremlin both domestically and internationally is that “there is no difference between democracies and authoritarian regimes” and that “there is no difference between truth and lies.” The message points to a cynicism underlying the Kremlin’s philosophy that has permeated into the minds of average Russians, who do not know whom to believe anymore, said Pomerantsev. Senator Shaheen noted that 60 percent of Russians have Internet access and asked why more Russians do not see the difference between what is presented on TV and the information available online. Pomerantsev responded that the confusion and lack of trust engendered by Kremlin disinformation tactics discourage many Russians from seeking out the truth.
Next Steps
All four expert panelists agreed that the U.S. should adopt a smarter approach to fighting the Kremlin information war on the local level. Aron emphasized the need for a “rich, diverse, uncensored democratic media environment.” Czuperski advocated increasing aid to NGOs and empowering local journalists, civil society leaders, and ordinary citizens to debunk disinformation. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) asked whether the U.S. could actually be contributing to the Kremlin’s goal of warping people’s perceptions by “putting resources into a variety of different local accounts” instead of trying to tell one unified narrative. Pomerantsev said the key was to find a balance between “changing the conversation and finding what’s important to the local population” in order to regain trust as part of a “larger strategic narrative.” He said that local populations in Eurasia and Southeast Europe must become more media literate, but that the West must also “learn how to talk to people” on the ground. There is a difference, he said, between what residents say and how they behave, since in the end their motivations and needs in life are not so different from those of people in the West.
