Focusing on the Media: Trump’s Cold War Strategy.
Referring to Donald Trump’s decision last week to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, the American media think tank stated: “In the current climate of global competition, the United States is facing a new kind of cold war against Russia and China, which cannot be won by military means alone.”
Strengthening hard power, such as sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine to weaken the Russian army, is only part of the necessary strategy. The other and decisive dimension of this battle is soft power, the same factor that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. At that time, media outlets such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty played an important role in changing the mentality of the people of Eastern Europe and weakening the legitimacy of communist governments.
According to this analysis, the same logic holds true today. Although missiles can destroy military targets, what undermines the governments of Moscow and Beijing from within is information. Rebuilding independent American media institutions, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, could help bring a voice into Russian and Chinese societies.
According to The National Interest, America’s soft power infrastructure has been eroded in recent years. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is in dire financial straits and has no plans to rebuild it. The United States Agency for International Development has also lost its credibility due to wasteful spending and financial scandals. Meanwhile, rivals Russia and China have devoted huge budgets to information warfare, and even countries like Qatar are investing heavily in media and lobbying in the United States to shape public opinion in their favor.
The report also considers soft power to be much more cost-effective than military means, noting that each Tomahawk missile costs about $2 million, while Radio Free Europe’s entire annual budget before the cuts was only about $150 million, equivalent to the cost of a state-of-the-art fighter jet. As a result, even with a small budget, messages can be produced that have longer-term and broader effects than a military operation.