The United States Needs a Public Strategy for Deterring Disinformation

To give the disinformation threat the credence it deserves, the government must create a public strategy on combating disinformation, with deterrence as a main component.

This leads to a critical lesson on the future of cyber conflict and American democracy: the security of the democratic process effectively does not matter if media, citizens, adversaries, and even public officials peddle enough mis- and disinformation so as to completely undermine public trust altogether.

Despite all the attention to disinformation, the United States still lacks a comprehensive strategy for deterring it.

Foreign adversaries, frankly, are indifferent if not emboldened by the perceived low punitive costs of engaging in disinformation campaigns against the United States.

The U.S. government's deterrence strategy must therefore inflict punishment so great as to change adversaries' calculus on disinformation campaigns.

Because the private sector majority owns the social and digital infrastructure exploited by disinformation campaigns, from television networks to social media platforms, the U.S. government should take a backseat in the second component of a disinformation deterrence strategy: denial.

To change threat actors' cost-benefit calculus in this conflict, the United States must show that disinformation efforts will at best have limited success.
 

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/united-states-needs-public-strategy-deterring-disinformation-183373