Voices supporting VOA
Daniel Fried
Former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe, former U.S. ambassador to Poland
TRANSCRIPT:
The voice of America, and I mean that in the broad sense, not the organizational sense, is an instrument that helped us win the Cold War. RFE/RL, Voice of America, Radio Marti broadcasting to Cuba, Radio Free Asia are efforts to connect with people, to tell them that their struggles for human dignity do not take place in isolation.
Ronald Reagan energized America’s commitment to values, and that’s how we won the Cold War, and that’s how the United States could still rally people to the cause of freedom in the face of foreign aggression. And the idea that we have no interest in democracy abroad, or reaching our friends abroad, or broadcasting America’s messages to the world is a message, ultimately, well a policy of weakness, withdrawal and ultimately defeat.
You can silence it and it will be replaced by other worse voices. Do we really want to give the Kremlin more space in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia? When we pull the plug on one of our instruments to reach the world, our adversaries will take heart and be encouraged. If you want to make America great again, don’t pull the plug on what has served America’s interests well.
Published
Fried served as U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from 2005–2009 and as U.S. ambassador to Poland from 1997–2000. A longtime diplomat, he became one of the State Department’s leading experts on Russia and Eastern Europe.