The State Department still needs to combat Chinese and Russian lies

Congress just killed the U.S. government office dedicated to fighting Iranian, Chinese, and Russian propaganda overseas. The specific act was the decision not to reauthorize the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, and as such, it ceased operations at the end of December. Of course, China, Russia, and Iran have no intention of ceasing their relentless information operations campaigns against the United States and its allies and partners so now Congress will have to take action to remedy this problem. 

The GEC’s death was a partisan affair, with House Republicans repeatedly blocking its reauthorization. The Republicans never expressed opposition to the GEC’s core mission — countering adversary lies overseas — but rather, they opposed the GEC’s execution of the mission. Republican lawmakers had a point when they criticized the GEC for contracting with a British firm, Global Disinformation Index, that unfairly labeled some U.S. conservative media as extremist. The Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky led reporting on this concern.

Notwithstanding the fact that the GEC contract had nothing to do with U.S. media, its purpose was to study Chinese disinformation targeting the U.S. in Southeast Asia. This contract was a bad look for the GEC. However, rather than deal with this problem head-on by acknowledging that “we screwed up and chose a contractual partner poorly,” the Biden administration avoided taking direct accountability for years.  

Republicans are also right to be concerned that disagreement is often branded as “disinformation,” and this has often served as a vehicle for partisan attacks by progressives disguised as a concern for truth. However, this was never what the GEC did. Furthermore, Republicans were off base when they alleged that the GEC was “at best indifferent to, at worst complicit in, an orchestrated and systematic effort to stretch the term ‘disinformation’ to encompass viewpoints that, among American progressives, are deemed to be politically disfavored or inconvenient.” The GEC operated exclusively abroad and was not intended to restrict Americans’ free speech in any shape or form. 

To support this claim of the GEC practicing censorship in the name of fighting disinformation, House Republicans often cite a federal appellate court ruling from 2023 that partially affirmed a preliminary injunction against certain federal agencies for violating the First Amendment in their interactions with social media companies. Yet that court ruling specifically stated, “There is no indication that State Department officials flagged specific content for censorship, suggested policy changes to the platforms or engaged in any similar actions that would reasonably bring their conduct within the scope of the First Amendment’s prohibitions.” There was simply no case for censorship against the GEC.

These domestic controversies aside, the GEC’s work was increasingly effective abroad. Its wins include its integral role in exposing Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns in Latin America, Africa, and Moldova, as well as a Russian operation that spread conspiracy theories about biological weapons. The GEC also issued comprehensive reports concerning Chinese disinformation efforts, assessing that China has invested billions of dollars in global information control via disinformation and propaganda. In January 2024, the GEC spearheaded a multi-country agreement to counter foreign state disinformation. 

The effect of the GEC might best be seen in the response of Russian state-funded and state-directed media outlets to its impending demise. The Kremlin has been directing attacks on the GEC since its inception in 2016. Hypocritically, Sputnik falsely accused the State Department of creating an army of “social media trolls to spread propaganda.” It’s never a good look to be getting praised by Russian state-owned press. 

Russia, China, and Iran do spread their propaganda and conduct information operations within the U.S. In September, the Justice Department charged two Russia Today employees in connection with the transfer of $10 million to a Tennessee-based media startup. U.S. officials accused them of money laundering and failing to register as foreign agents. This effort showed Russia’s continuous effort to pollute the information environment in the U.S. Such domestic efforts are serious threats to the U.S., but they are the responsibility of U.S. law enforcement, not the State Department.

America’s adversaries remain brazen in their lies about the U.S. overseas. Sadly, much of Washington just sits back and wrings its hands in frustration at these big, fat lies being told by our authoritarian adversaries, but the GEC was one of the few exceptions to this malaise. The GEC is dead, but the adversary’s malicious ambitions are not, and without the GEC, U.S. officials will have a gap in their ability to respond to international disinformation campaigns.

The incoming Congress and the Trump-Rubio team at the State Department must now work together quickly to rebuild the GEC’s capability under a new organization and with new leadership, but with the same broad intent — to combat the lies told overseas by Russia, China, and Iran about the U.S.

Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery is a senior director at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ivana Stradner is a Research Fellow at FDD.