This post provides insights into some major elements in the US government concerned with countering foreign malign influence, highlighting some overlaps and possible discontinuities.

In September 2022, the U.S. the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) established the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), an organization chartered by Congress, an entity charged with mission of “analyzing and integrating all intelligence and other reporting” pertaining to foreign malign influence.  According to the law that created it, the FMIC is authorized to combat foreign disinformation campaigns that target not just election cycles, but also United States public opinion.  In testimony before Congress, the Director of National Intelligence asserted that U.S. efforts to counter disinformation has expanded beyond maintaining the integrity of its elections, but to go after other foreign adversaries employing this tactic.  It appears that the U.S. government appears committed to playing a game of virtual whack-a-mole against the spread of misleading, and in some cases, inaccurate information in a domain whose primary purpose is to facilitate the dissemination and transmission of information.

Per the website, FMIC is the successor organization to the ODNI Election Threats Executive, which was established in 2019 to serve as the DNI’s principal advisor on election threats and related security matters.  Organized around analytic integration, mission management, and partner engagement, the FMIC partners with the National Intelligence Council, the National Intelligence Management Council, and Intelligence Community (IC) partners.  Positioned in the ODNI, the FMIC ostensibly can harness the support of the IC to counter the soft power of information campaigns to include disinformation, misinformation, influence, and propaganda.

The creation of the FMIC is curious given the history of U.S. efforts in trying to establish a central entity in charge of managing disinformation.  Currently, U.S. agencies appear to have offices or else are starting them to contend with disinformation.  The Pentagon recently set up its Influence and Perception Management office in May 2023, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has its disinformation task forces and Protected Voices initiative, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has several offices involved in countering disinformation, to name some of the players.  The FMIC appears to be the tip of pyramid, a central organization whose position within the IC can manage or at least coordinate these efforts.  In many ways the extended areas of responsibility beyond just U.S. election cycles bears similarities to DHS’ Disinformation Governance Board, which dissolved in May 2022, four months before the FMIC’s establishment.

However, the U.S. government already has an entity charged with a similar mission.  The Department of State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) whose founding traces back to 2016 per its website, and whose mission is to “direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations.”  It appears, at least on face value, that there are many overlaps and redundancies between the two organizations, and a fair degree of uncertainty of exactly how one supports the other, and who is ultimately the true national leader.  If budget is any indication, the GEC’s current budget is USD 12 million with a request of USD 14 million for next fiscal year.  The true lead may be as simple as the one who commands the biggest budget line.

However, this situation may be indicative of a larger issue – the ongoing lack of a national strategy with respect to disinformation/misinformation/influence.  While the United States has been regularly updating and publishing its National Security Strategy and National Cybersecurity Strategy, there has been less focus put on developing and implementing a high-level information strategy that addresses the multi-faceted threats occurring in the information space.  Even the DoD’s 2023 Cyber Strategy purposefully avoided the information question, focusing on the cyber domain and not looking to establish policy for DoD’s operations in the information environment.  This leaves the 2018 doctrine the last relevant guidelines, which seems outdated now given how information is being used in support of soft power objectives.

This seems curious given the nature of how information-borne threats have garnered global attention, even though the types of activities (e.g., misinformation, propaganda, influence, etc.) occurring within that domain have been around for quite a while.  The 2023 U.S. Intelligence Worldwide Threat Assessment frequently referenced disinformation in several of the threat areas of concern for the IC, a tacit acknowledgement of how such a tactic can be used in concert with other threats facing the United States.  Like other areas such as cyber and terrorism, it seems that there should be a similar high-level blueprint with how the United States will combat disinformation, as well as having an organized whole-of-government approach to doing so.  In its 2022 report on the Information Environment two of the major questions raised to policymakers inquired about the DoD’s plan for the protection of the information environment.  The question remains relevant, and even more so, at the Executive Level.

Whether fighting Islamic extremism online or trying to grapple with how to neutralize a barrage of Internet-enabled disinformation/misinformation/influence campaigns, the United States has spent the better part of a decade entrenched in countering the effects of weaponized information against its interests.  The receipts of such endeavors have not been overwhelmingly positive.  Research on counter-messaging against ISIS had minor effect against the target audience, especially given the diversity of the backgrounds and cultures to which it is tailored.  Similarly, the government has had a difficult time parsing through the sheer volume of information facilitated by the Internet in its attempts to neutralize disinformation/misinformation activity.  The efforts thus far have been sloppy at best, with the government relying on social media platforms for support, calling in question as to what the criteria is to separate disinformation and protected free speech.  The result has been a temporary stay of communications between government and social media until a decision has been determined.

Moving forward, it behooves the United States to start formulating a national information strategy to complement its cybersecurity strategy.  The United States has preferred to keep the two separate, which has been one of the main obstacles when engaging foreign counterparts on cybersecurity in international forums like the United Nations.  The U.S. position stands in opposition to countries like China and Russia that view cybersecurity as falling under the larger information security umbrella.  With information threats becoming more prominent and socialized, and the Internet being the key instrument for their propagation, it is becoming increasingly difficult to claim that disinformation/misinformation is a serious threat and not have a cohesive plan to address it consistent with the laws and principles to which the United States adheres.

Otherwise, the United States risks looking almost hypocritical in its approach, selectively targeting some information while ignoring others that may have equal reason to be reviewed and taken down.  The information space is as big if not bigger than cyberspace, and the potential ramifications of the threats therein and as seen with COVID and political scandals, are not exclusive to election security.  The United States need to start formulating such a strategy, or else get mired down trying to put out little fires at the expense of the big one.