Latest news with #NationalEndowmentforDemocracy
AllAfrica
5 days ago
- Politics
- AllAfrica
Trump is killing civic participation in global tech governance
Not long ago US foreign assistance, alongside European and multilateral donors, helped sustain a global ecosystem of civil society efforts to safeguard democratic oversight of public policy – and, more recently, frontier technologies. I know this work well: I served with USAID for more than a dozen years, advancing democratic governance and building civil society as essential counterweights to unchecked private and abusive public power. Now, civil society's financial lifeline is being severed and that ecosystem is being dismantled — deliberately and in plain sight. The new American regime's decision to gut USAID, freeze funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, dismantle the US Institute of Peace, quit international organizations such as WHO and withdraw funding from other multilateral institutions including UN Agencies and (reportedly) NATO, is not a scattershot retrenchment. It is a coordinated retreat from the very idea that civic voices have a role in shaping global policy — particularly around the governance of frontier technologies like AI, surveillance systems and biotech. And that's precisely the point. Civil society is not collateral damage in this regime. It's the target. For years, civil society organizations and academic institutions around the world — many supported and financed by USAID and its ecosystem of partners — have helped build the infrastructure for the field of democratic tech governance. They've trained civic actors in digital rights and policy engagement, funded citizen labs that assess individual and societal risks of emerging technologies and provided indispensable funding for civil society to be able to show up at key moments where voices to hold tech firms accountable to public interest standards are most needed. They've ensured governments have access to technical support, independent research and multistakeholder processes to shape digital policy with democratic values at the center. But that is now being unraveled. By design. After all, if you don't have money, you can't travel, can't participate, can't be heard. Can't hold power to account. The Donald regime has already rescinded President Joe Biden's AI Safety Executive Order, replacing it with what amounts to sweet subsidies and deregulation for his tech billionaire buddies. At the same time, USAID's digital governance programs have been shut down. The agency's public-facing digital archives have disappeared from the web. Entire ecosystems of civic engagement — global conferences, advisory panels, technical assistance platforms — have been hobbled. You don't need to burn libraries to erase memory. In the digital age, you just take down the websites. This collapse is not limited to far-flung democracies. The same playbook is now being deployed domestically. Universities, research centers and civic infrastructure inside the US — many of which play crucial roles in public-interest tech policy — are already under attack. With the international scaffolding removed, the regime is turning inward. And the timing couldn't be worse. At the very moment the world needs stronger, more inclusive digital governance, the space for democratic participation is shrinking. Who fills that void? The answer is clear: authoritarians, opportunists and tech oligarchs. Donald and Elon may present themselves as disruptors, but they are really architects of a new oligarchic order. Their vision for global tech governance is one in which civil society is absent, democratic guardrails are gone and the rulemaking is done in private boardrooms, not public forums, by hyper-masculine white dudes. It is no accident that USAID — an agency unknown to many Americans and politically vulnerable — was first on the chopping block. It was the proof of concept. With little domestic constituency to defend it, few noticed when decades of work supporting civic participation, especially in the Global South, vanished overnight. And with it, the very notion that technology should serve people, not just profit. Unless others step up — the Global Majority with financial support from Europe, the EU, civic coalitions around the world — we risk ceding the entire digital governance agenda to those who view democracy and diverse lived experiences as an obstacle. Digital democracy won't defend itself. It must be deliberately built, protected, and expanded. That means investing in civic infrastructure, funding public-interest tech efforts, and ensuring that democratic participation — globally and domestically — is not a luxury, but a prerequisite. Because when civil society is no longer allowed to help shape the rules, it won't just be tech that is unaccountable. It will become power itself. Michael L. Bąk is a Thailand-based expert on civic participation and democratic governance of frontier technology and a non-resident senior fellow (cyber policy) at NYU Center for Global Affairs; co-founder of Sprint Public Interest, a research agency; and an advisor at the Centre for AI Leadership in Singapore. He served with USAID in Southeast and East Asia and was head of public policy at Facebook. He works with civil society, governments and academia as countervailing forces to big tech's accumulating, private power. He has lived most of his life in Southeast Asia.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - National Endowment for Democracy cuts are penny-wise, pound-foolish
One of the most important experiences of my career as a foreign correspondent was watching Latin American countries turn from dictatorships to democracies through the power of citizens. In the 1990s, as the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union crumbled, I watched as lines of campesinos who had walked for days in the mountains of Guatemala cast their votes and proudly showed off their purple-inked thumbs. In those days, the National Endowment for Democracy and the State Department played vital roles supporting nascent democracies, from Eastern Europe to Latin America to Asia and Africa. We are now in a new era, dominated at home by a ferocious attention to cutting the budget deficit and the national debt. The Office of Management and Budget has proposed that State Department funding be cut in half and that programs such as democracy promotion eliminated. In a hearing last month of the House Appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), the heads of the National Endowment for Democracy's National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute came to plead their case for resumption of programs already approved for this fiscal year and their entities' future survival. Since its arrival in office, the Trump administration has halted 92 of 95 programs of the International Republican Institute, according to its president, Dan Twining. The institute has closed all 64 of its offices abroad and fired up to 85 percent of its staff. National Democratic Institute President Tamara Wittes testified that 97 of its 93 awards were terminated, three-fourths of its offices closed and about 1,000 people fired. Total funding for the NED represents 1 percent of the foreign assistance budget, which itself represents 1 percent of the total U.S. government budget. Both leaders testified that the return on a relatively small sum of $660 million has provided critical support for democracy, including nonpartisan training for election monitors, technical support to political parties across the spectrum, and incorporation of women into democratic political processes. In post-war countries from Lebanon to West Africa, the National Endowment for Democracy has helped countries bring disabled veterans and survivors of conflict to the polls on election day, to forestall backsliding into conflict. One of the most promising areas is the use of technology. Since 2008, the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor has invested more than $320 million in global internet freedom programs to counter censorship and provide internet access. The bureau provided VPN communications for democracy activists, including the massive Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the largest anti-regime protest in decades. During the first Trump administration, funding for the bureau quadrupled, with vital backing from South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. Since January, however, 95 percent of its programs are suspended, jeopardizing its key focus on countering China's influence and other repressive regimes. The fight is not only in China and Iran; in fact, the contest between democracy and authoritarianism is just as acute and far-flung as it was in the waning days of the Cold War. Most of the world's population today lives in authoritarian countries or in backsliding democracies. Only 87 countries, comprising about 20 percent of the world's population, are stable democracies, according to the latest Freedom House report. The endowment and the State Department have helped countries counter Russian destabilization in Central and Eastern Europe and in the conflicted Western Balkans with nonpartisan support to government, civil society and independent media. The National Endowment for Democracy was preparing to help ensure fair elections in Ukraine until funds were cut. Aid has stopped to Moldova, where a Russian-backed campaign nearly derailed a popular government in the fall, leaving open the possibility of similar interference in the coming parliamentary elections. Romania's election was annulled after the presidency was nearly captured through a shadowy influence campaign by coordinated TikTok accounts, undisclosed payments and algorithmic amplification of the virtually unknown ultranationalist candidate's bid for office, according to Romanian intelligence. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that foreign assistance will be held to a new standard under his helm, requiring that programs demonstrably make the U.S. 'safer, stronger or more prosperous to justify their existence.' Over the years, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor can claim to have contributed to this outcome, although officials — including Twining — allow that some programs can be sharpened or held to a higher standard. Rubio himself has championed many of these programs. As a senator, he sponsored legislation banning clothing imports made with Uighur slave labor. And Diaz-Balart, his fellow Cuban American, bestowed a National Endowment for Democracy award on a bishop in Nicaragua, a country that is still struggling to return to the democracy it briefly enjoyed in the early 1990s. With support from the endowment, Guatemala's new government has made progress in reducing migration, as Rubio recognized on his first trip abroad as secretary. And Venezuela's opposition provided proof that they were defrauded of victory last fall, through a meticulous organizing and poll-monitoring effort supported by the U.S. Rubio's proposal to fold the Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor into a new, expanded directorate of foreign assistance and human rights might produce new synergy and effectiveness. But unless the new directorate is empowered with senior staff and expert personnel, its span of control could be challenged, with such a wide array of responsibilities as State's major action arm for deploying all foreign and humanitarian aid and overseeing the daily execution and results. Leaders of the congressional foreign relations committees have already indicated they will closely scrutinize the proposed reorganization for its ability to carry out statutory functions established by Congress. Twining and Wittes, among others, argue that democracy programs are among the most cost-effective investments the U.S. government makes. The outside auditor, Grant Thornton, delivered a clean audit of the endowment's financial statements in March, for the 10th straight year. These small sums are dwarfed by China's $60 billion annual spending on Belt and Road projects around the world and its growing purchase of local media outlets to influence public opinion. This penny-wise approach will make it far easier for the rest of the world to turn, no questions asked, to Russia and China. Linda Robinson received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on National Defense and was a Nieman Fellow in 2001. She is now senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
02-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
National Endowment for Democracy cuts are penny-wise, pound-foolish
One of the most important experiences of my career as a foreign correspondent was watching Latin American countries turn from dictatorships to democracies through the power of citizens. In the 1990s, as the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union crumbled, I watched as lines of campesinos who had walked for days in the mountains of Guatemala cast their votes and proudly showed off their purple-inked thumbs. In those days, the National Endowment for Democracy and the State Department played vital roles supporting nascent democracies, from Eastern Europe to Latin America to Asia and Africa. We are now in a new era, dominated at home by a ferocious attention to cutting the budget deficit and the national debt. The Office of Management and Budget has proposed that State Department funding be cut in half and that programs such as democracy promotion eliminated. In a hearing last month of the House Appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), the heads of the National Endowment for Democracy's National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute came to plead their case for resumption of programs already approved for this fiscal year and their entities' future survival. Since its arrival in office, the Trump administration has halted 92 of 95 programs of the International Republican Institute, according to its president, Dan Twining. The institute has closed all 64 of its offices abroad and fired up to 85 percent of its staff. National Democratic Institute President Tamara Wittes testified that 97 of its 93 awards were terminated, three-fourths of its offices closed and about 1,000 people fired. Total funding for the NED represents 1 percent of the foreign assistance budget, which itself represents 1 percent of the total U.S. government budget. Both leaders testified that the return on a relatively small sum of $660 million has provided critical support for democracy, including nonpartisan training for election monitors, technical support to political parties across the spectrum, and incorporation of women into democratic political processes. In post-war countries from Lebanon to West Africa, the National Endowment for Democracy has helped countries bring disabled veterans and survivors of conflict to the polls on election day, to forestall backsliding into conflict. One of the most promising areas is the use of technology. Since 2008, the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor has invested more than $320 million in global internet freedom programs to counter censorship and provide internet access. The bureau provided VPN communications for democracy activists, including the massive Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the largest anti-regime protest in decades. During the first Trump administration, funding for the bureau quadrupled, with vital backing from South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. Since January, however, 95 percent of its programs are suspended, jeopardizing its key focus on countering China's influence and other repressive regimes. The fight is not only in China and Iran; in fact, the contest between democracy and authoritarianism is just as acute and far-flung as it was in the waning days of the Cold War. Most of the world's population today lives in authoritarian countries or in backsliding democracies. Only 87 countries, comprising about 20 percent of the world's population, are stable democracies, according to the latest Freedom House report. The endowment and the State Department have helped countries counter Russian destabilization in Central and Eastern Europe and in the conflicted Western Balkans with nonpartisan support to government, civil society and independent media. The National Endowment for Democracy was preparing to help ensure fair elections in Ukraine until funds were cut. Aid has stopped to Moldova, where a Russian-backed campaign nearly derailed a popular government in the fall, leaving open the possibility of similar interference in the coming parliamentary elections. Romania's election was annulled after the presidency was nearly captured through a shadowy influence campaign by coordinated TikTok accounts, undisclosed payments and algorithmic amplification of the virtually unknown ultranationalist candidate's bid for office, according to Romanian intelligence. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that foreign assistance will be held to a new standard under his helm, requiring that programs demonstrably make the U.S. 'safer, stronger or more prosperous to justify their existence.' Over the years, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor can claim to have contributed to this outcome, although officials — including Twining — allow that some programs can be sharpened or held to a higher standard. Rubio himself has championed many of these programs. As a senator, he sponsored legislation banning clothing imports made with Uighur slave labor. And Diaz-Balart, his fellow Cuban American, bestowed a National Endowment for Democracy award on a bishop in Nicaragua, a country that is still struggling to return to the democracy it briefly enjoyed in the early 1990s. With support from the endowment, Guatemala's new government has made progress in reducing migration, as Rubio recognized on his first trip abroad as secretary. And Venezuela's opposition provided proof that they were defrauded of victory last fall, through a meticulous organizing and poll-monitoring effort supported by the U.S. Rubio's proposal to fold the Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor into a new, expanded directorate of foreign assistance and human rights might produce new synergy and effectiveness. But unless the new directorate is empowered with senior staff and expert personnel, its span of control could be challenged, with such a wide array of responsibilities as State's major action arm for deploying all foreign and humanitarian aid and overseeing the daily execution and results. Leaders of the congressional foreign relations committees have already indicated they will closely scrutinize the proposed reorganization for its ability to carry out statutory functions established by Congress. Twining and Wittes, among others, argue that democracy programs are among the most cost-effective investments the U.S. government makes. The outside auditor, Grant Thornton, delivered a clean audit of the endowment's financial statements in March, for the 10th straight year. These small sums are dwarfed by China's $60 billion annual spending on Belt and Road projects around the world and its growing purchase of local media outlets to influence public opinion. This penny-wise approach will make it far easier for the rest of the world to turn, no questions asked, to Russia and China. Linda Robinson received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on National Defense and was a Nieman Fellow in 2001. She is now senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘There's an information war, and we've disarmed ourselves' — ex-US diplomat on Trump cuts to counter Russian disinformation
Russia has used information warfare to promote its interests and undermine opponents across the world as a part of its foreign policy for decades. The Russian state was spending an estimated $1.5 billion annually on its foreign disinformation campaigns, Christopher Walker, National Endowment for Democracy vice president for studies and analysis, told Congress in 2023. These campaigns skillfully take advantage of already existing divisions in society, inflaming tensions to divide and destabilize countries around the world, according to experts. In the U.S., the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC) had acted as the main tool to expose Russia and China's disinformation campaigns abroad since it was reformed in 2016. But in 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration shut the center down, citing concerns about free speech and the rights of American citizens. The Kyiv Independent spoke with James Rubin, a former diplomat who led the GEC for two years starting in 2022, about the consequences of Trump's decision, as well as Russia's continued information operations worldwide. During Rubin's tenure, the center, which focused exclusively on what Russia and China information campaigns outside of the U.S., exposed four major Russian disinformation operations around the world, including in Latin America, Africa, and Moldova. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Kyiv Independent: How do Russia's disinformation campaigns work? James Rubin: Russian disinformation operations, or what we used to call covert operations, mean they're putting messages into the information system in Europe, in Ukraine, in Africa, that are lies and that are unattributed. They're hiding their hand. The most important thing we did was last September, when we showed that the Russian television network RT and its parent company were a clearinghouse for covert intelligence operations in the information domain. Our highest intelligence director told me it was one of the most comprehensive intelligence downgrades. Find out who's telling you something. Don't just believe it. (The RT network) used its business model to do computer and cyber sweeps, where it would generate money for the Russian army. They used their cyber intelligence tools to suck up information. And they used Russian television all over the world to discredit any country that disagreed with them. We exposed that with the help of our intelligence community. The most important thing we did was sanction RT's parent company so that it could not use dollars anywhere in the world. It had a real impact. In my understanding, these sanctions are still in place under Trump's administration. The lesson here for everyone is: find out who's telling you something. Don't just believe it. Wait and see who the source of the information is. In (the United States), we got into a big debate about censorship. Who could say what, when? But the issue is not censoring information. It's providing more information. It's being sure that someone knows that it's the Kremlin apparatus that's coming up with these crazy ideas. The Russians spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to skew the election in Moldova. And they failed partly because European countries, the U.S., and the Moldovan government got together and shared information on what Russia was doing, who they were paying, and how they were using phony politicians to pay off local journalists who then put out phony information. They lost that election, which shows that we can beat them. There's an information war going on around the world, led by the Russians, including the Chinese. But in the U.S., battling it is especially hard now that we've unilaterally disarmed one of our tools — the ability to expose Russian covert operations in the information domain. The Kyiv Independent: With Russia spending nearly $1.5 billion annually on its foreign disinformation campaigns, how do you think the U.S. will fare in this disinformation war with Russia and China now that the center that countered it is shut down? James Rubin: I think that number is low and that it's much more than that. It depends on how you count it and if you include all the facilities they created through RT, and you include all the people who are in the business. I read a book called 'Active Measures (:The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare' by Thomas Rid), which was about what the Soviet Union did with Eastern European countries during the Cold War. (The authors of the book) were able to get real information because when the Cold War ended, the Eastern European countries opened their files and showed how much effort went into what were called 'active measures," meaning forgeries or other covert operations in the information space. Back in the 1970s, they were spending $4 billion (annually) on that program. It didn't go away. It just changed its location. It's changed its form. So I think (Russia is spending) tens of billions of dollars all over the world (on disinformation). The Kyiv Independent: What other goals does Russian disinformation pursue worldwide? James Rubin: We learned that these people take information warfare very, very seriously. They wake up in the morning and they say: 'OK, what can we do today, somewhere in the world, to undermine the U.S., undermine the West, undermine democratic institutions?' They took this idea from the novel and tried to implant it into the minds of the people. One of the things I was most proud of, in addition to (exposing the work of state-controlled) RT media, was what we did in Africa. It was particularly pernicious there because the Russians were going to create a phony argument, using an idea that came out of a John Le Carre novel, that biological weapons were being used on innocent Africans by the big pharmaceutical companies. And so they took this idea from the novel and tried to implant it into the minds of the people in Africa, so that they wouldn't go to the Western medical centers and wouldn't use Western medicine. Then the U.S. and the West wouldn't get the so-called "soft power" benefit of helping the people of Africa. We were able to expose that before it took hold. And that's the real lesson here — if we ever get serious again about the information war, you have to act early, ideally before the operation starts, but certainly in the first few days and weeks. Because once information takes hold, it's very hard to put it back into so-called Pandora's box. By preventing Russia from doing that last year, we were able to convince Africans not to avoid Western medicine, but to take advantage of it. And we know that that has helped save lives. I suspect they'll work in Latin America and try to play off the fact that President Trump is unpopular, and try to change people's minds about the war in Ukraine using President Trump's own arguments. The real tragedy of it is that the Trump administration has accepted some of the arguments about who caused this war. Unfortunately, some in the Trump administration have used the arguments Putin and his friends use. The cause of the war is in the Kremlin. But somehow, some people have persuaded other people that this war is somehow Ukraine's fault, the United States' fault, NATO's fault, although it was Vladimir Putin's choice to wake up one morning and invade his neighbor. And I suspect Russia is going to try and spread those official American statements to try to change minds. Hopefully, the world has already made up its mind about whose fault the war is, and nothing anyone says is going to change the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine. Read also: How US right-wing podcasters shape pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine sentiments The Kyiv Independent: Speaking about official U.S. statements, would you agree that the Trump administration dismantled the Global Engagement Center (GEC) that you were leading, which helped expose Russian propaganda, in part because it currently aligns with some of the Russian statements? James Rubin: I don't know exactly why they did this. But I can say that in the time I served in government, it was certainly true that some American congressmen would repeat Russian arguments. They would repeat Russian lies about Zelensky's yachts, or corruption in Ukraine, or biological weapons (allegedly developed in Ukraine with NATO to target Russia). When we rejected those arguments as untrue, some in the Republican Party, I'm sorry to say, felt that we were censoring Americans who agreed with Russia. Let me say this clearly: Americans have a right to agree with Russia. Americans were being paid by Russia to promote the idea that instead of giving arms to Ukraine, we should be shutting down our southern border. We don't control American points of view. But there's nothing wrong with telling people that it's also a Russian argument. And then people can decide for themselves whether the fact that they're repeating the argument of a country that invaded its neighbor is relevant. I'm sure that one of the reasons they closed down these efforts to stop disinformation is because they began to feel that by opposing Russian information operations, we were somehow opposing the points of view of certain members of the Republican Party. We found out that a group of Americans were being paid by Russia to promote the idea that instead of giving arms to Ukraine, we should be shutting down our southern border. Those arguments were actually used by members of Congress to delay aid to Ukraine. Outside of my work in the State Department, I happen to know that Russia believes that these groups were serving effectively as useful idiots for Russian propaganda inside the U.S., persuading American congressmen to focus on immigration rather than aid to Ukraine. It harmed the speed at which we were able to provide aid to Ukraine, when it took six to nine months under (former) President Joe Biden to get the military aid through Congress. The Kyiv Independent: Within the U.S., what tools do you think Russia uses to influence the American public other than paying bloggers and influencers? James Rubin: All sorts of social media, all sorts of communications tools are being deployed all over the world to try to undermine Western support for Ukraine. Let's face it, it happens every day, because the only way Russia can win this war is if everyone quits. But with all the work they're doing, they failed to stop Western support for Ukraine. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Disinformation and other forms of ‘sharp power' now sit alongside the ‘hard power' of tanks and ‘soft power' of ideas in policy handbook
'The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must.' So wrote Thucydides in the 'History of the Peloponnesian War,' and the Greek historian's cold-eyed observation still holds. But in today's world, strength doesn't always present itself in the form of armies or aircraft carriers. The means by which power manifests has expanded, growing more subtle, more layered and often more dangerous. As a result, it's no longer enough to talk about power in purely military or economic terms. Rather, we need to distinguish between three overlapping but distinct forms of power: hard, soft and sharp. These three concepts of power are more than just academic abstractions. They are real-world tools to, respectively, coerce, attract and manipulate the people and governments of other nations. They are used by governments to shape the choices of others. Sometimes they operate in concert; often, however, they collide. Hard power is likely the most familiar of the three powers – and the one relied on by nations for much of history. It refers to the ability to coerce through force or economic pressure. It's the stuff of tanks, sanctions, warships and threats. When Russia bombs Kyiv, when the United States sends aircraft carriers through the Taiwan Strait or when China uses trade restrictions to punish foreign governments, that's hard power in action. Hard power doesn't ask. It demands. But coercion alone rarely brings lasting influence. That's where soft power comes in. The concept, popularized by American political scientist Joseph Nye, refers to the ability to attract rather than compel. It's about credibility, legitimacy and cultural appeal. Think of the global prestige of American universities, the enduring reach of English-language media or the aspirational pull of Western legal and political norms – and Western culture, too. Soft power persuades by offering a model others want to emulate. Yet in today's climate, soft power is losing ground. It depends on moral authority, and that authority is increasingly in doubt for governments around the world that previously leaned into soft power. The United States, still a cultural juggernaut, exports polarization and political instability alongside prestige television and tech innovation. China's efforts to cultivate soft power through Confucius Institutes and diplomatic charm offensives are consistently undermined by its authoritarian reflexes. The values once seen as attractive are now viewed, fairly or not, as hypocritical or hollow. This has opened the gap for the third concept: sharp power. Sharp power operates as the dark mirror of soft power. Coined by the National Endowment for Democracy in 2017, it describes how authoritarian states in particular, but not excusively, exploit the openness of democracies to manipulate them from within. Sharp power doesn't coerce, it doesn't attract … it deceives. It relies on disinformation, covert influence, cyberattacks and strategic corruption. And it doesn't want your admiration – it wants your confusion, your division and your doubt. This is the domain of Russian election interference, Chinese control of social media algorithms and the covert influence operations the U.S. engages against China. Sharp power is about shaping narratives in foreign societies without ever firing a shot or closing a trade deal. And unlike hard power, it often goes unnoticed – until the damage is done. What makes today's diplomatic landscape so difficult is that these forms of power aren't cleanly separated. They bleed into one another. China's Belt and Road Initiative combines hard-power leverage with soft-power branding and is quietly backed by sharp power tactics that pressure critics and silence dissent. Russia, lacking the economic heft or cultural appeal of the U.S. or China, has mastered sharp power out of necessity, using it to destabilize, distract and divide. For liberal democracies, this creates a profound strategic dilemma. They still enjoy hard-power dominance and residual soft-power appeal. But they are vulnerable to sharp power – and increasingly tempted to use it themselves. The risk is that in trying to fight manipulation with manipulation, they hollow out their own institutions and values. This article is part of a series explaining foreign policy terms commonly used but rarely explained. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Andrew Latham, Macalester College Read more: The Thucydides Trap: Vital lessons from ancient Greece for China and the US … or a load of old claptrap? What is isolationism? The history and politics of an often-maligned foreign policy concept What is a 'revisionist' state, and what are they trying to revise? Andrew Latham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
