The Free World is Losing the Information War. Here’s How It Can Win.
Artur Kalandarov | 10.31.25
In the global battle for hearts and minds, sophisticated networks of disinformation pose a serious threat to free societies and their aspirations for a better future. China, Russia, and Iran have funded a global web of news sites, podcasters, media platforms, and influencers to support authoritarianism and perpetuate narratives of Western corruption and decline. As a result, political fringes have gone mainstream, leading to the years-long persistence of patently false narratives about the decisions and policies of democratic states. Disinformation, consisting of intentionally false content, has fostered a broader cesspool of misinformation spread by unwitting actors. If the information space continues to be dominated by America’s adversaries and their partners, nearly all the domestic and foreign policy challenges facing the United States today will likely persist or worsen.
Polls of citizens in free countries repeatedly show that narratives rooted in disinformation are succeeding. A third of Americans do not believe the media should be able to report news without state censorship. Nearly one in five believe the NATO alliance is no longer necessary. And 37 percent do not support the provision of US aid to for the economic development of developing states. At the core of each of these beliefs and many others are disinformation campaigns that overstate the dangers of free speech, distort imbalances among partners in US-led alliances, and misrepresent the costs and benefits of US foreign aid initiatives. Without a concerted effort to combat these harmful narratives, the United States risks losing the global information war, which will have deleterious effects on its ability to ensure a stable, prosperous, and rules-based global order.
To maintain and expand the positive influence of the free world on its own citizens and those in authoritarian and partly free societies, the United States and its partners must play an active role in combating the disinformation tropes perpetrated by its adversaries. There is no silver bullet that will guarantee victory in the information battle, but there are four organizing principles that can increase the chance of success.
The first is the need to ensure fact-based narratives are clearly and frequently expressed to frame global developments in an accurate manner favorable to the United States and its partners. Often, earnest efforts to correct the record are restrained by poor messaging and muddled public responses. The ties between Moscow and Beijing, for instance, are often heralded by both states as a mutually beneficial partnership among equals. The reality of Russia’s status as a junior partner with an outsized reliance on its neighbor is not raised by the United States and partners often enough. Concerted international coordination is necessary to call out Chinese, Russian, and Iranian narratives and change public perceptions.
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-free-world-is-losing-the-information-war-heres-how-it-can-win/
