Lawfare Daily: Tom Kent on the Dismantling of American Government Broadcasting

Summary

Summary of "Lawfare Daily: Tom Kent on the Dismantling of American Government Broadcasting"

Released on March 25, 2025, The Lawfare Podcast, hosted by Benjamin Wittes of the Lawfare Institute, features an in-depth conversation with Tom Kent, former head of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and a seasoned expert in Russian affairs. The episode delves into the recent executive order aimed at dismantling the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its affiliated broadcasting organizations.

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1. Introduction

The episode opens with Benjamin Wittes introducing Tom Kent, highlighting Kent's extensive background in Russian affairs and his leadership role at Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty until 2018. Tom Kent shares his transition from journalism to academia, teaching at Columbia University and consulting on issues related to propaganda and disinformation.

2. Understanding USAGM and Its Affiliates

[03:12] Benjamin Wittes introduces the topic by asking Kent to elucidate the structure and purpose of USAGM, which oversees various government-backed broadcasters such as Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe (RFE), Radio Liberty (RFL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Radio Marti.

[05:49] Tom Kent explains that while VOA and Radio Marti are direct government agencies with civil servant employees, RFE, RFL, and RFA operate as private companies receiving grants from USAGM. He details the historical context, noting how these organizations have evolved over time to address different regions and geopolitical concerns.

3. Historical Role and Effectiveness of USAGM Broadcasters

Kent emphasizes the pivotal role these broadcasters played during the Cold War, serving as vital sources of information behind the Iron Curtain.

[10:18] Tom Kent recounts, “During the Cold War, Radio for Europe, Radio Liberty was extremely active and effective in penetrating the Communist bloc... They were very much hated by the government, which obviously felt a need to attack them.”

He cites Soviet responses, such as relentless jamming and propaganda against these broadcasts, as evidence of their impact and effectiveness. The persistent Soviet efforts to block these broadcasts underscored their significance in providing alternative narratives to communist-controlled media.

4. The Executive Order and Its Immediate Impact

[07:02] Benjamin Wittes shifts the discussion to the recent executive order aimed at reducing USAGM to its statutory minimum. He probes the extent to which this action affects the various broadcasters.

[07:33] Tom Kent explains that the full impact remains to be seen, pending court decisions. However, he notes that government agencies like VOA and Radio Marti are experiencing significant operational shutdowns, with many employees being placed on administrative leave or receiving termination notices.

5. Administration's Motivation and Rationale

Wittes challenges Kent on the administration's purported reasons for targeting USAGM, particularly claims of leftist propaganda.

[15:15] Tom Kent provides insights into the administration's long-standing frustrations with USAGM, citing attempts to reform its editorial functions and perceptions of bias. He suggests that the administration views the agency as inefficient and ideologically skewed, leveraging a collection of isolated incidents to justify sweeping changes.

6. International Reactions and Strategic Implications

The conversation explores the broader implications of dismantling USAGM on global information ecosystems.

[29:43] Tom Kent describes the Russian government's diplomatic stance, which masks internal satisfaction. Russian commentators view the shutdown as a victory, eliminating a key source of dissenting information. Similarly, authoritarian regimes in Hungary and Iran are likely to welcome the reduction of USAGM's influence, paving the way for increased dominance by Russian and Chinese information operations.

He warns of the strategic setback, noting, “These are the kinds of people and the kinds of forces that will celebrate this. ... Russia and China have sharply stepped up their information operations, they will increasingly be able to control the information space.”

7. Prospects for Reversal and Future Funding

Wittes inquires about the likelihood of reversing the executive order and securing future funding for USAGM affiliates.

[31:37] Tom Kent is cautiously optimistic, pointing to bipartisan support in Congress for these broadcasters. He acknowledges the possibility of litigation and the potential for external funding sources, such as the European Union, to step in. However, he remains skeptical, noting that the broader political climate may hinder constructive intervention.

8. Future Scenarios: Optimism vs. Pessimism

Kent outlines possible future outcomes based on the administration's actions.

Positive Scenario: Kent envisions a restructured international communication framework managed by the State Department or National Security Council, maintaining credible and rigorous journalism to counteract adversarial propaganda.

Negative Scenario: The dismantling leads to the complete shutdown or transformation of broadcasters into overt propaganda tools, diminishing America's ability to influence global information spaces effectively.

9. Personal Anecdotes Illustrating USAGM's Impact

Wittes shares a personal story about how different VOA language services covered his protests against the Russian Embassy, highlighting the nuanced and targeted nature of USAGM's broadcasting efforts.

[41:59] Tom Kent reflects on the dual perception such actions generate internationally. While some Russians may view it as American propaganda, others recognize it as an exercise of free speech, thereby showcasing American values and freedom of expression to global audiences.

10. Strategic Importance of International Broadcasting

Kent underscores the multifaceted value of USAGM's broadcasts, beyond just promoting democracy and human rights.

[38:31] Tom Kent states, “I mean, you can always go back to Project 2025, and some of those things are carried out and some of them are not. ...seriously important to have that communication...militarily important, economically important.”

He draws parallels to military assets, arguing that broadcasting in multiple languages is a cost-effective strategy compared to other defense expenditures, enhancing America's strategic positioning in regions like Congo by countering anti-American sentiments fostered by adversaries.

11. The Cost-Benefit Analysis

A discussion emerges around the financial aspects of maintaining USAGM.

[38:19] Benjamin Wittes asks about the annual cost, to which Kent responds that the total for USAGM is approximately $800 million.

He contrasts this with the cost of military systems, suggesting that investments in information broadcasting are economically efficient in achieving strategic objectives.

12. Concluding Thoughts and Future Outlook

[44:07] Tom Kent expresses hope that the administration will recognize the strategic necessity of international broadcasting and seek alternative structures to sustain it. He emphasizes the importance of continuing to engage global audiences through credible journalism to support various national interests.

Kent also voices concern for USAGM journalists imprisoned in hostile countries, advocating for their release and the preservation of the organizations they represent.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• [05:49] Tom Kent: “They were very much hated by the government, which obviously felt a need to attack them.”

• [07:33] Tom Kent: “It has been put on administrative leave... it's obviously been kneecapped tremendously.”

• [12:58] Tom Kent: “The USAGM networks are very active in web, social networks, satellite broadcasting, television, radio for Europe.”

• [15:15] Tom Kent: “Some people felt that his goal was essentially to get into the editorial function and make it go in a certain way.”

• [21:17] Benjamin Wittes: “...USAGM is a real gift to our strategic information competitors...”

• [29:43] Tom Kent: “Russia and China have sharply stepped up their information operations, they will increasingly be able to control the information space.”

• [38:31] Tom Kent: “I mean, you can always go back to Project 2025... miltarily important, economically important.”

• [44:07] Tom Kent: “There is a value to being able to address foreign populations whatever the hell we want to tell them.”

Conclusion

The episode provides a comprehensive analysis of the administration's move to dismantle USAGM, highlighting the strategic ramifications for American foreign policy and global information dynamics. Tom Kent articulates the multifaceted importance of international broadcasting, ranging from promoting democratic values to serving as a cost-effective strategic tool. While he remains hopeful for alternative solutions, he underscores the potential risks of abandoning robust international communication channels, which could empower adversarial narratives and weaken America's global influence.

Listeners gain a nuanced understanding of the complexities surrounding government-backed international broadcasters, the motivations behind their recent suppression, and the broader implications for global information warfare.

Transcript

[Benjamin Wittes]

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[Tom Kent]

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[Benjamin Wittes]

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[Tom Kent]

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[Benjamin Wittes]

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[Tom Kent]

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[Benjamin Wittes]

Catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Just a quick editorial note that this was recorded before the Financial Times reported on Friday that the Czech Republic was announcing that it would step in to provide emergency support to Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty. This does not affect the conversation insofar as it applies to the Voice of America, but it does look like that at least the Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty side may be in a different place than it was last week.

[Tom Kent]

Why would you not want to have a way to communicate directly to these people? If you don't, what are they going to listen to? You know, they're obviously going to be listening to Chinese, Russian, and Lord knows what else anti American content. And then when you know US Mining engineers are trying to operate in Congo, you're going to reap the whirlwind of these people being in a super anti American mood.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Ben it's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare, with Tom Kent, former head of Radio Free Europe.

[Tom Kent]

If the US Government comes up with some alternative way to address the world's people in a way that is credible and not just a blast of propaganda that turns listeners off, then, you know, I suppose there's, there's some future to the whole concept of international communication.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Today we're talking about the administration's executive order dismantling usagm, the parent company of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and a bunch of other US Information broadcasters. All right, so let's start with your history with Voice of America and its related organizations. How did you come to be involved in it and what was your role?

[Tom Kent]

Well, I had a long history in Russian affairs. That was my specialty at university. And then I joined the Associated Press and worked in a number of overseas assignments, including as Moscow bureau chief. Then I came back from Moscow to become head of international news at Apollo and ethics editor of the AP and remains sort of the AP's Russianist, going back to Russia constantly through the end of the Soviet Union, the Gorbachev period and a little, little bit into the Yeltsin period. And when I left the Associated Press In 2016, I became president and CEO of Radio for Europe, Radio Liberty, which focuses heavily on on the former Soviet Union countries, although its coverage area includes Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, East Europe. And I was there until about the middle of 2018. And after that I came back to the US I teach now at Columbia University about the world information war. I write books about it and I consult the governments, militaries, NGOs on Russian affairs and questions of propaganda and disinformation.

[Benjamin Wittes]

All right, so for those who do not understand the borderlines between all of these, these organizations, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Radio Marti in Cuba, Sarwa, I mean, there's a whole bunch of different US Government backed, or at least there were until last weekend, government backed news slash counter propaganda organizations. And they are all, I think under the auspices of an organization called usagm. So explain to us a little bit about what these different organizations are and why they're separate and why they are historically grouped under this umbrella organization.

[Tom Kent]

Well, there's been all sorts of adjusting and readjusting and re sorting in these organizations over time. But at the moment they are indeed all under the US Agency for Global Media, which is usagm. And they're all a little bit different in different ways. The Voice of America and Radio Marti, which is the branch of USAGM that broadcasts to Cuba, are government agencies. So their employees are civil servants. They have all civil service protection. They are government employees. Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Middle East Broadcasting Networks are what they call grantees. They receive a grant from the government to operate. They're organized as private companies. Radio for Europe, Radio Liberty, for example, which is two organizations that were welded into one. So it has that kind of awkward name now, is a private corporation based in Delaware and receives a Grant from the U.S. agency for Global Media. Comes originally through Congress, and Congress designates a certain amount of money that it gives USAGM for Radio for Europe, Radio Liberty, and that's how we get our.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Funding at the highest level of altitude. What happened last week, last weekend, with respect to this, I mean, if you read the executive order, what it says is USAGM shall be reduced to the statutory minimum required of it. So what did that mean for Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Voice of America? I mean, how shut down are they at this point?

[Tom Kent]

Well, ultimately, the courts are going to decide. It depends how much money each of the. Each of the grantee organizations, Radio Free Europe, Middle east broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, have in their cash drawer left, Radio for Europe, Radio Liberty is still operating a good deal. We have a little bit of cash, but we're talking about a month or two. And the courts will decide what exactly statutory requirements mean. To me, it would seem that if Congress appropriates money for Radio for Europe, Radio Liberty, then there's a statutory requirement for the US Agency for Global Media to disperse that money. But, you know, it's terribly complicated, all of it legally, and we'll see.

[Benjamin Wittes]

But just to be clear for the side of it that is actually US Government agencies, which is to say Voice of America and Radio Marti, they just fired everybody, right?

[Tom Kent]

Well, they put them on administrative leave. I think there are some people who are still there, and sometimes one can see a little flicker of action on the website or. Or some transmitter still on the air, but it's obviously been kneecapped tremendously.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Yeah. And, you know, they were put on administrative leave initially, but then a whole bunch of them got termination notices as to their contracts. And I think that's. Obviously, it'll be a matter of litigation whether those are valid, but I think we have to assume that there's a certain, you know, a measure of finality. If the government really doesn't want to run a news organization, it's pretty hard to force it to.

[Tom Kent]

Right. And you lose all these people who obviously, I think a lot of them already had their resumes out because of all the hostile things that were said about US International broadcasting before this last action. So you're going to lose people with a lot of language and other expertise who will just go elsewhere, even if the government eventually decides it wants to rehire them.

[Benjamin Wittes]

All right, so let's talk about these organizations and their actual role in the media ecosystem. So for most Americans, these organizations are completely invisible because they don't actually serve an American audience. That's not what they're for. Let's talk first about their historic importance, because that seems to be completely uncontroversial. What was their role prior to the fall of the Soviet Union? And then we'll talk about the more contemporary role in a moment. But talk to us about where these organizations came from and what was the historic role that they served.

[Tom Kent]

They were created at different times. The first one was the Voice of America, which was created during World War II, broadcasting first in German to Germany. And then after the war, we had Radio for Europe, Radio Liberty. And the others followed after that. During the Cold War, Radio for Europe, Radio Liberty was extremely active and effective in penetrating the Communist bloc. It was about the only way that people in Soviet occupied East Europe and in the Soviet Union itself could get outside information.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Let me cut you off there for a second. How do we know it was effective? I mean, it's easy for us to sit here and say, hey, Voice of America played a really important role. Radio Free Europe played a really important role during the Cold War, but what's the actual evidence that it did?

[Tom Kent]

Well, I think what you have to do is look in the mirror and look at the Soviet reaction to what these broadcasters were doing. It was little short of hysterical. Every day or two in Pravda, there'd be some cartoon denouncing Radio for Europe or Radio Liberty. And the same thing happened in other countries that these broadcasters targeted. They were very much hated by the government, which obviously felt a need to attack them. And I would trust the Soviet government to know that its people were listening and that it was worth making such a big deal out of it. Otherwise they would have ignored it. There were Russians who were going out to their dachas on weekends, covering their. Their radios with aluminum foil, twisting them in all directions to try to find some way to hear our broadcast through the Soviet jamming. The Soviets, we estimated, spent a lot more on jamming our broadcasts than we spent on creating them. So obviously they saw it as a mortal threat.

[Benjamin Wittes]

There were important events in Soviet history that people principally learned about from these services. I'm thinking about Chernobyl, all kinds of stuff related to Czechoslovakia in the late 60s. And if you hear, like, Lindsey Graham talk about this executive order, he'll say, yeah, it played an important role in the Cold War, but, you know, not. I don't know what it's been up to since the end of the. Since the Berlin Wall came Down. My impression is that there are still a lot of people who get their news from Voice of America, from Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, et cetera. What is the current function as you.

[Tom Kent]

Understand it currently, it's what it was before. It broadcasts news for people who can't get legitimate news through other channels. So we see USAGM's networks completely active in all these places. The big difference is that a lot of people still think that we basically do radio and there is still some radio because in some parts of the world that's a way to get through. But the USAGM networks are very active in web, social networks, satellite broadcasting, television, radio for Europe. Radio Liberty has a 24 hour Russian language TV news channel. So they use all the latest technology, including an awful lot of technology to break through blockages which the Russians and others now try to put on our web services.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Right, so let's talk about that because it seems to me that this is, and I kind of mockingly argued this in a column, that if you're trying to build a foreign policy based on lies, it's actually not an obvious thing that you should want to have a first rate set of newsrooms that operate in multiple different languages. I mean, VOA alone is 4, 49 or 50 languages or something that actually gives people high quality information. That this, that this is at some level a pretty logical follow on to a policy that adopts a lot of Russian disinformation as true. And when I wrote that, I was trying to be provocative, but I actually think it's right that if you're, you know, if you're spouting Russian propaganda from the Oval Office in meetings with the Ukrainian president, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to also employ, you know, 100 Russian speaking journalists and 40 Ukrainian speaking journalists whose job is going to be to correct you. And so I'm curious, you know, your sadness and anger over the destruction of these organizations aside, are you surprised by it?

[Tom Kent]

The administration and voices close to it have had a lot of problems with US international broadcasting for forever. In the first Trump term, there was a Trump appointed leader of USAGM by the name of Michael Pack, who set out to reform it, as he put it. And a lot of people felt that his goal was essentially to get into the editorial function and make it go in a certain way. But you know, whoever's in the Oval Office, it seems to me, should see some value in US international broadcasting for one purpose or another. For example, we at the moment on the past few days have been bombing Yemen well, for the people in Yemen, you would think that you would want to have some way to communicate to them why the US is bombing their country to explain that it's because of the Houthis who are firing missiles at ships. And, and that maybe if they could get the Houthis not to fire missiles at ships, it would be a good thing. So whatever you're trying to do, whatever you're trying to convey, the fact that you have got an entire structure that is at your service in a total of 60 languages or so, if you count them all, seems to be a significant thing. And it has a huge listenership. Some estimates are 300 million, 400 people. 400 million people around the world. I was in a taxi just about two weeks ago in Senegal and the driver was listening to Voice of America on his car radio. So if you've got all these people.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Out there in what language, by the way?

[Tom Kent]

He was listening in French. But there are many other languages, of course, that they operate in. And even if you want to look at it, suppose you want to look at it from a really cold, hard standpoint, take away democracy and human rights and all of that, which I think there's a lot to be said for. But if you want to look at it just cold and hard, let's take a country like Congo, a country like Congo, which has all these strategic minerals, and the United States has a great interest in having good relations with and getting strategic materials and everything else. You have China and everybody else in there. The Voice of America has services in Lingala and Swahili, which are two of the major languages of Congo, in addition to French, which is widely spoken there. Why would you not want to have a way to communicate directly to these people? If you don't, what are they going to listen to? You know, they're obviously going to be listening to Chinese, Russian and Lord knows what else anti American content. And then when you know US mining engineers are trying to operate in Congo, you're going to reap the whirlwind of these people being in a super anti American mood. So, you know, why wouldn't you want to talk to them?

[Benjamin Wittes]

All right, but there's, I mean, USAGM has a additional layer which is not simply that you want to talk to them, but you want to talk to them in a non propagandistic way. Right? You want to give them actually useful news. You want to have, I mean, the example that I used in my, in my column about this is you want to have a newsroom that is actually talking to Ukrainians about Mike Johnson's attitudes toward the supplemental and has a sufficient relationship with Mike Johnson so that he's breaking news through VOA about his plans about the supplemental for Ukraine. It does not follow from the fact that you want to talk to all these people, that you want to talk to them in a fashion that is rigorous, that is journalistically serious, that employs people like you to you, a longtime reporter and Russia specialist, to run Radio Free Europe. You could put propagandists in charge of that, and many countries do. What is the case for talking to people in eastern Congo with serious journalism as opposed to rah rah Americanism?

[Tom Kent]

The case is that people can smell propaganda. To suggest that people, even in most distant Congo cannot tell the difference between propaganda and serious news is to underestimate them. People are impressed by USAGM covering in depth what the US has to say and in conducting then, as the VOA charter says, reasonable discussion thereof. So they get the sense from listening to our broadcast or reading our websites that they're getting something with different points of view that will lead to them actually having conversations and maybe leading them to expect from their own media some kind of balanced coverage. I'll give you an example. During the State of the Union broadcast by President Trump, the Voice of America broadcasts that worldwide live in languages including Russian, Ukrainian, Persian and so forth. There was no way that people in these countries and with these languages and other languages too, would have gotten such an immediate, such thorough coverage of what Trump had to say. Yes, after that VOA broadcast the democratic response. But the message to these people is that the United States is a country where there are different points of view, where you don't go to jail for disagreeing with the President. And maybe it would trigger some people to think that, well, this wouldn't be such a bad idea in our country either.

[Benjamin Wittes]

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[Tom Kent]

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[Benjamin Wittes]

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[Tom Kent]

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[Benjamin Wittes]

That sounds like a threat.

[Tom Kent]

Then how do you think we should say it?

[Benjamin Wittes]

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[Tom Kent]

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[Benjamin Wittes]

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[Tom Kent]

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[Benjamin Wittes]

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[Tom Kent]

Well, there are a few things. To begin with, usagm, like any government agency, obviously could be more efficient. People question why do we need all these different networks? Don't they all do the same thing? Actually, there's an answer that we can come to if you want as to why we need these different networks. But on the surface, it looks like duplication. It's an agency that could be more efficient in many ways. As I say, it's headquarters in Washington. VOA headquarters is this huge old rat infested building. Literally. There's a lot that could be cleaned up, literally and figuratively at usagm. All that said, I don't think that that's primarily what the government is concerned with because any kind of cleaning up or reorganization can be cleaned up and reorganized. It doesn't require getting rid of the organization. I think what's operating here is that for some years there's been a. A group of people who have thought that USAGM was left wing. I don't think it is from having followed it very carefully, but they have collected over a decade or so some examples of unfortunate comments on the air, unfortunate posts by individual journalists. I'm sure that if you went to cherry pick any news organization, maybe even lawfare, you could find something, you know, in the past X years that maybe you wish you'd done differently or someone went a little too far. So they have sort of created a list of these, of these incidents which probably number fewer than 20 over the past decade and have managed to convince a number of conservatives. You can see this reflected in the, in the 2025 project and elsewhere that this organization is full of some Kind of raging leftists. So if you think that the organization is full of raging leftist journalists and you love the idea of sticking it to leftist journalists, then the opportunity to fire thousands of leftist journalists seems like a great idea. Even if you're. If you're cutting off your own ability to speak to the world.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Yeah, I mean, one way to think about it is that the administration has an ongoing war on the bureaucracy. It hates the press, and it has various initiatives that are directed at, you know, sort of contempt for foreigners. And this brings all three together. Right. It's. It's a war on an American bureaucracy composed of journalists that speaks to foreign countries in foreign languages. All right, so, you know, those of us who have been arguing that this is a real gift to our strategic information competitors, specifically to the Russians, but also the Chinese, what is the. You're a longtime Russia watcher. Among other things. What has been the reaction to this in Moscow?

[Tom Kent]

The Russian government at its highest level officially is being very diplomatic and saying, well, this is an internal affair for the United States. But Russian commentators on television and elsewhere, of course, are turning cartwheels. This is something that the Russian authorities have spent endless amounts of time and money trying to block out to their audiences, so they won't have that problem anymore. Assuming that these. That these broadcasts do end and these web services do end, there are all sorts of pro Russian groups in East Europe that feel the same way. Regimes like that in Hungary feel the same way. The Iranian ayatollahs will be pleased because USAGM provided multiple services to Iran that, for example, when they had demonstrations in Iran a year or so ago, some big anti government demonstrations, Iranians knew about these demonstrations in great part because of USAGM broadcasting that let people in one town know what was happening in another. So these are the kinds of people and the kinds of forces that will celebrate this. And certainly throughout the Middle east, all the anti American contingents there and in Africa, where Russia and China have sharply stepped up their information operations, they will increasingly be able to control the information space and sometimes they will even literally take over. There have been cases, for example, when the BBC stopped its broadcasting to the Middle east in some languages, the Chinese radio took over those very same frequencies. So when people turned on the frequency where they heard the BBC, they would then hear Chinese broadcasting.

[Benjamin Wittes]

So what are the prospects, if any, for a reversal of this decision? You mentioned that there's a possibility of litigation. There's also traditionally serious constituencies for these programs in Congress, and there not just democrats. Right. I mean, these programming instruments Actually, a lot of them have their origins in conservative politics. The fact that we shouldn't cede information space to the Soviets or to the Chinese or to the Iranians. I mean, VOA appears to be really shut down at this point. Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty are, because they're private organizations, and as you say, there's some money in the bank. They're moving along, but they're going to have to find alternative funding sources real fast to stay alive. So my question is, what's the prospect either for Congress to get involved in a constructive way, for the courts to get involved in a constructive way, or for the executive branch to realize that they've really cut off their nose despite their face here, and sort of save some of these organizations or some portions of these organizations.

[Tom Kent]

You're right that traditionally Congress has had a real bipartisan support for these broadcasters, and they were coming from different sides. When I would go to meet with Congress as president of RFERL and we had to go and explain to them what we were doing and justify our budget, some people in Congress would say to me, you know, what we like about you is you broadcast the truth and all sides of fair and objective, and that's really great, and that's why we support you. Other people would say, we hope you're giving Putin a taste of his own medicine, implying that they thought that we should go off and do disinformation or anything else to advance America's goals. So whatever you wanted, however you imagined in your mind, USAGM Networks to be, there was a strong support. What there will be now is, you know, obviously going to be a function not only what people think about RFERL and the other networks, but, you know, the American. The overall relationship between the Congress and the President, which is, which is subject to many other factors. The courts will see they can demand that USAGM hand this money over to, to the grantee agencies. But USAGM has many ways, since it administers the funds and does accounting and so forth, as many ways, it could probably make life miserable for the, for the, for the grantee networks. In any case, there's been talk of the eu. I was just at an EU conference in Brussels a couple days ago, and there's talk of the EU picking up some of the funding for rferl, and that could happen. But there's, There's a larger question, too. And here, you know, maybe we could say something positive potentially about the administration, and that is that maybe it considers that USAGM is a rotten old husk and it's you know, can think what it wants. But the question then is, so what? So what do you want to do? I think that the administration ought to realize that there is a value to being able to address foreign populations whatever the hell we want to tell them. And so there could be some kind of other structure, something potentially more related to the State Department, which is what Project 2025 referred to, or to the National Security Council or whatever. I don't think that the USAGM structure as it exists now is necessarily the only way in the cosmos that this kind of international communication can take place. I think it would have been wise to leave it there while they were figuring out something else. But we are where we are. And if the US Government comes up with some alternative way to address the world's people in a way that is credible and not just a blast of propaganda that turns listeners off, then I suppose there's some future to the whole concept of international communication.

[Benjamin Wittes]

So that's super optimistic of you, and I love that. But I want to ask, is there any evidence that that's what they're thinking?

[Tom Kent]

I don't know. I mean, you can always go back to Project 2025, and some of those things are carried out and some of them are not. But there seems to be a recognition among the kinds of people who did that that we do need to have that communication. It seems to me that if I were the State Department or I were the National Security Council, or I were the Department of Defense, which also has a. A potent communications capability, that I would want some way to get messages out fast to people, if only because, you know, if we're gonna. If we're gonna wind up intervening in some country or another, you know, to free an American or attack terrorists or whatever, it helps a whole lot if the local population knows something about the United States, feels some sympathy for the US Understands why the US Acts as it does. It's a huge force multiplier, if you want to look at it just in very crudely strategic terms. And the incremental cost of having these kinds of broadcasters that can, to use the military terminology, shape the battlefield to affect hearts and minds where U.S. forces may be engaged, where U.S. business may be engaged, where U. S. Citizens may be in peril. It sounds of some value. If you take. Take something like the. I referred earlier to Swahili and Lingala services of Voice of America. You know, those services cost a million dollars or $2 million. An Apache attack helicopter costs $52 million. So you would hope that when it comes to the point, and it will at some point somewhere that those Apache helicopters have to set down. You would hope that the population there would not be totally under the sway of hostile anti American propaganda from our adversaries.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Right. So what is the total cost per annum of USAGM? I know VOA is something like 230, $240 million, but what's the rest of USAGM together?

[Tom Kent]

You put it all together and it's around $800 million.

[Benjamin Wittes]

So again, less than a single one of these highly bespoke weapon systems iterated once.

[Tom Kent]

Yeah, yeah. And you know, it all depends on how you want to view it. I mean, I obviously am a, I come from a journalism background. I believe in free press, I believe in democracy, I believe in human rights. I believe in modeling responsible journalism because I think, I think that countries that are democracies are less likely to attack each other and create the kinds of wars that the United States seems always to get dragged into. So I think there's a lot to be said for democratic countries. But even if I were just sitting there in the Pentagon with 100 medals on my chest thinking about how are we going to obtain our military objective, I would want to have a capability to have people around the world on our side.

[Benjamin Wittes]

So I want to tell you a personal story about VOA offices, different language services, and then just get your response to it. So, as you may know, in one of my non lawfare lives, I do a series of protests at the Russian Embassy where I use projectors and lasers to put symbols of Ukraine as well as various obnoxious slogans on the face of the embassy. And the Russians really don't like this, but both, at different times, both the Ukrainian Language Service and the Russian Language Service of VOA have covered it, and they've covered it in very different ways. So the Ukrainian Language Service covered it in quite a bit of depth as part of a long story about the Russian Embassy neighborhood and how they have rallied. The block across the street from the embassy has really rallied in favor of Ukraine. And it's kind of like a human interest story about, about American neighbors of the Russian Embassy rallying to Ukraine. It was received a lot of attention in Ukraine and, and not the projections in particular particular, but the, the idea that this neighborhood was kind of rallying to Ukraine. The Russian Language Service covered it in a different way, which was that I, when Ambassador Antonov, the last Russian ambassador, left, I projected a farewell message to him and the Russian Language Service covered that, which I thought was really interesting. They, they kind of broadcast into Russia that some American guy was taunting the Russian ambassador on his way out. And so I think it's an interesting micro picture of your point that VOA and these other AGM services give the United States the ability to talk in fairly micro targeted ways to individual communities, some of which are language based, some of which are regionally based about things that maybe the American population doesn't care that much about. So I'm just interested for any thoughts that that example brings up for you.

[Tom Kent]

Sure. I mean, one thing that comes to mind is that, you know, what is a Russian to think when he sees a broadcast about how you're projecting images onto the Russian embassy? Now some Russians will think, oh, these are horrible Americans doing all this anti Russia propaganda. But at another level, I think the thing that sinks in is that an individual American, you know, this Ben Wittes, whoever he is, has the right to do this. He's not arrested. I mean, he can go and operate from a window across the street or the sidewalk or whatever you do. And, and this is like freedom of speech. And this can happen. I mean, I think that is the, you know, the amazing thing. And so a lot of the VOA's coverage of the United States, which on its surface might look one way, can have a different effect. For example, the VOA covered the George Floyd protests in the United States. And if you were, you know, an American propagandist, you might say, well, oh, this is terrible. The VOA shouldn't cover George Floyd demonstrations because it makes America police look bad. But the fact that people could demonstrate against the police in the United States was just stunning for listeners in so many countries. And that is, you know, that is really the message. And it makes people think that, gee, despite everything we hear, the Americans have got something there that I think rebounds to our benefit.

[Benjamin Wittes]

So I want to ask you to look forward over the next few months and describe what a positive scenario for the next few months in this area looks like and what a negative. I mean, I suppose a negative scenario is that these organizations wither and die or become simple propaganda outlets. If we're inclined toward optimism, what should we be looking for to happen over the next few weeks and months?

[Tom Kent]

If we're inclined toward optimism, we would look for indications that the State Department or the NSC or somebody is going to get back into the international communication business. That could be through broadcasting, which I think is absolutely essential, and web services. All the things that USAGM does now, perhaps in a different structure. And also things like, you know, international exchange programs and educational programs and things that have such a huge impact when you go abroad. People are always saying, you know, important people are always saying, when I was a student, I got this trip to the US through the US State Department that paid for it. And ever since then I've really understood the United States and I'm a fan. So all of this international communication is important. I think it's strategically important. I think it's militarily important, I think it's economically important. And I can't imagine that we would want to leave that completely fallow in terms of other optimism or pessimism. A huge amount of it in my mind turns around the 10 USAGM journalists who are currently in prison in places like Vietnam, Iran, Belarus, Russia. And I'm just horrified at the thought that the US Government will just sort of let them rot, that, you know, they'll take away the organizations that they worked for and that the US Embassies in these countries, you know, sensing the hostility toward these organizations by the administration, will do nothing. I mean, this administration has been pretty good at getting out of jail, a number of Americans and people who are close to US interests in various ways. So my greatest hope is that these people will not be forgotten.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Thomas Kent teaches at Columbia University. He is the author of Striking Back, Overt and Covert Options to Combat Russian Disinformation and How Russia Loses. And of course, he was the president of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, prior to 2018. Tom, thanks so much for joining us today.

[Tom Kent]

Thanks so much.

[Benjamin Wittes]

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