TRANSCRIPT:
Voice of America helps us to advance our interests abroad. When I was the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Voice of America was critical for Russians understanding both what our actual policy was, not just what Putin described it as, but also introducing Russians to America, American society, American culture. And I think those instruments are very valuable for us to advance our prosperity, our security, our values.
It can’t just be the military alone, and it can’t just be diplomats alone. We need this portfolio of soft power instruments to prevail when we’re especially dealing with these very powerful, autocratic countries who subsidize propaganda around the world to tell a different story, an untrue story. We have to be able to tell the true story.
If VOA is no longer part of our mission around the world, the Chinese win the 21st century. It’s just that simple. If we are going to unilaterally disarm and not invest in organizations like Voice of America, the Chinese are not. They are investing heavily in their international media. And let’s just be clear, it is propaganda. It’s not independent media, and it is watched by hundreds of millions, if not billions of people around the world. And the idea that we’re going to disarm and just hope that the Chinese will not participate in this space, I think is extremely naive.
And it’s the same with the Russians. Russia Today, their budget is big. They’re watched all over the world. It is propaganda. It is not the truth. We have to compete with those international media organizations if we are going to protect our own interests in the world today.
Published
McFaul served in the Obama administration as senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council (2009–2012) and then as U.S. ambassador to Russia (2012–2014). A political scientist now at Stanford University, McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others.