“. . . rival states compete in the twenty-first century as much over information as in any other terrain.”  (Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy. “Making Cyberspace Safe for Democracy,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2020.)

Democracies see the free flow of information as a right of the people. Authoritarian regimes view information as a weapon to control.

Rosenberger believes the United States and other democracies lack a proper understanding of this difference. Thus the U.S. was vulnerable to Russia’s attempt to influence U.S. elections in 2016.

In another example, a manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted support of Hong Kong democracy protests. The National Basketball Association had to apologize to the Chinese government. Otherwise, they would have been refused access to the Chinese market.

While U.S. newspapers are folding at unprecedented rates, Russia and China invest in media outlets in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

The United States must wrestle with tradeoffs: “maintaining the country’s technological competitiveness, and keeping data flows relatively open while preventing that information from falling into authoritarian hands.”

Above all, the American people must guard against the “weaponization” of politics by nondemocratic hard left and hard right forces in our own country.

Rosenberger ends her article by ominously warning: “Democratic leaders who weaponize information and disregard the principles of democratic governance will make their societies less resilient, fail to demonstrate an alternative to the authoritarian model, and accelerate the very degradation of the information space that authoritarians seek. In the information contest, the United States cannot advance a democratic vison if its leaders do not embody it.”