Propaganda, public relations campaigns, and outright disinformation are not new phenomena in international politics. Countries have deployed these tactics against one another in various ways throughout history, both to keep strategic rivals and adversaries off balance and to paint themselves in the best possible light for domestic and international audiences. The United States and the Soviet Union spent decades in the disinformation trenches during the Cold War. As they say, information is power.
Yet today, falsehoods and fake news are spreading as quickly as the coronavirus. Frequently, the two are mutually reinforcing.
China, Russia, and Iran may not be able to compete with the U.S. diplomatically or militarily, but it’s not a stretch to say that each country has an advantage over Washington in the realm of information operations. Vladimir Putin’s Russia may run on a clunky system of lazy and ineffective bureaucrats, schemers, kleptocrats, and spies, but Moscow has proven itself to be one of the world’s most impressive spinmeisters. The Russians are also consummate opportunists, which means they will seek to exploit any situation to sow political chaos in the American body politic and damage Washington’s reputation.
The era of the COVID-19 virus has presented the Russians and Chinese with precisely that opportunity. Moscow and Beijing have both gone beyond blasting out the usual nonsense through fake social media accounts and airing ridiculous and unsubstantiated information on state television about the origins of the virus. Both are also increasing their collaboration in pursuit of a common objective: sullying the U.S. in the court of public opinion, both internationally and domestically. The U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center reports that the Chinese are borrowing Russian disinformation tactics for their own purposes and working in conjunction with Moscow to depict Washington’s response to the pandemic as befuddling and incompetent.
China specifically is stepping up its game. The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a project affiliated with the German Marshall Fund think tank in Washington, has observed an exponential rise in the intensity of Beijing’s messaging at precisely the same time the virus was making inroads in communities across America. On March 22, the New York Times reported that China ordered a full-scale disinformation operation on the COVID-19 virus, which included text messages to Americans’ cellphones about the U.S. military preparing to lock down the entire country. Europe is experiencing a similar assault from the Russians; the European Union’s East StratCom Task Force concluded that “official sources and [Russian] state-controlled media and social media channels have been running a coordinated campaign … promoting false health information.”
It all sounds a bit scary, particularly when you consider that Washington’s management of the coronavirus has been anything but ideal. But U.S. citizens of all political persuasions should take these disinformation offensives in full perspective. Bringing the U.S. down a peg is only half of the story.
The other half is that Moscow’s and Beijing’s responses to the pandemic have been about as pathetic as Washington’s. The virus is further exposing the Russian state to be a totally unprepared, inadequate, and mismanaged enterprise. Millions of Russians are left in the lurch and don’t even have access to a basic healthcare facility. Russia’s small-business community could decline by 50% this year, a trend line that doesn’t bode well for an economy already struggling with historically low crude oil prices and the weight of U.S. and EU sanctions. Putin recognizes the gravity of the moment, which is why he’s doing everything he can to distance himself from the performance of his own government.
China isn’t having much luck either. Its international image is taking a beating. European officials, typically complacent about Chinese investment, are now actively debating measures to diversify European supply lines and protect strategic sectors from being swallowed up by Chinese companies. Beijing’s so-called donation diplomacy is less about humanitarianism and more about strong-arming countries in Europe and Africa for good press. While it would be silly to say that China’s decline is imminent, the coronavirus crisis is, at the very least, forcing other countries to finally wake up to the fact that Beijing’s dominance over global manufacturing isn’t good for business or the stability of their own economies.
Disinformation is undoubtedly a problem. Look no further than the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The national security apparatus is just now beginning to get its arms around it.
But the Russians and Chinese aren’t fooling anybody about their own performance.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
