Foreign Disinformation in America and the U. S. Government's Ethical Obligations to Respond

The U.S. no longer has a free marketplace of ideas. Instead, the marketplace is saturated with covert foreign-backed disinformation. And despite the ethical obligations to act, successive administrations have done nothing. Additionally, the decline in trust has left the door open for populism and illiberalism to enter. Some believe the very fabric of American liberalism is at stake. So what are the ethical responsibilities of the executive branch to counter covert campaigns such as the one coming from Russian-backed disinformation circulating within the US? Why has the government failed to act? So far, the practical challenges are daunting if the executive branch addresses the threat to the homeland. The process to limit this problem is wrought with profound political implications. By its very nature, social media-based disinformation is inextricably linked with existing complex societal cleavages, the First Amendment, and politics. But the failure to do anything is a serious abdication of the government’s ethical responsibilities. This raises the question of where the line is for government intervention. This work provides answers. Preface 6 Contents 9 About the Author 12 Introduction 13 Baselining Disinformation 18 1 Disinformation’s Three Criteria 19 1.1 Framework Criteria 27 2 Disinformation Versus Misinformation and Propaganda 31 3 Non-state Actors and Disinformation 33 Disinformation and Democracy 35 1 Illiberal Speech 37 2 Polarization 38 3 Disinformation 40 4 Populism 44 The Ground Swell of Scholarship 46 The Disinformation Problem 54 1 State to State Disinformation 57 2 A Distinctly Russian Version of Disinformation 59 3 Russia’s Utilization of Domestic Disinformation 62 4 The Bigger Schema 66 Disinformation and Behavior 68 1 Disinformation and the Change of Technology 69 2 Disinformation and the News 71 3 Disinformation and Data 73 4 Disinformation and Communication Structures 73 5 RCSMO and State-to-State Relations 76 6 Disinformation and Social Media 77 7 Disinformation, Identity and Polarization 81 8 Disinformation and Business 85 Disinformation and National Power 89 1 Disinformation as an Element of Military Strategy 91 2 Russian Disinformation Objectives 94 3 Countering the Americanization of Russia 98 4 Disinformation and the Whole of Nation 101 5 The American Target. Scope, Scale, and Depth 103 6 Disinformation and Strategic Surprise 105 7 Disinformation’s Aftermath 105 8 A Sign of Success 107 9 Beyond Elections 109 The Role of the Executive Branch 111 1 Authorities 114 2 The Discipline of Analysis 117 3 The Pendulum 119 4 Collaboration 120 5 The Executive Branch and Speech 123 6 The Debate over Speech 127 7 All Three Branches 130 Executive Branch Ethical Obligations 133 1 The Role of Ethics 135 2 Ethics and Threat 138 3 Ethics, Frameworks, and Philosophers 141 4 Limits, Ethics and Scoping 147 5 Ethical Frameworks 148 6 Ethics and Legitimacy 150 7 Legitimacy and Balance 156 8 Trust and Legitimacy 158 9 The Minority 159 Executive Branch Solutions 162 1 Best Practices 164 1.1 Sweden 165 1.2 Finland 167 1.3 Lithuania 167 1.4 Estonia 168 2 Domestic Solutions 169 3 Lines of Effort 170 3.1 LOE 1: Collection and Integration of Both Domestic and Foreign Intelligence 171 3.2 LOE 2: The Full Exploitation of Open-Source Intelligence 172 3.3 LOE 3: A Rebalancing in the Education System 180 3.4 LOE 4: Proactively Tagging RCSMO Accounts 183 3.5 LOE 5: Physical Disruption of the Threat 187 3.6 LOE 6: Establishment of an Integrated Center 188 From Portland to January 6th to Election 2028, Assessing the Impact of Russian Disinformation 193 1 Portland 194 2 January 6th 199 3 Portland vs. January 6th 203 4 Election 2028 204 Conclusion 207 Glossary 211