VIDEO: FDD's online harassment against critics of Trump’s State Department
The role Foundation for the Defense of Democracies served as a messaging hub for a controversial taxpayer-funded project, has never been revealed until now.
Earlier this month, Responsible Statecraft reported — based on recently obtained documents via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit — that the hawkish DC think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies was at the center of an online harassment campaign funded by the State Department that targeted Americans, including journalists, and human rights advocates, because of their opposition to Donald Trump's Middle East policy. Quincy Institute Multimedia Producer Khody Akhavi breaks the story down:
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Ben Armbruster is the Managing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He has more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of politics, foreign policy, and media. Ben previously held senior editorial and management positions at Media Matters, ThinkProgress, ReThink Media, and Win Without War.
Earlier this month in Geneva, delegates to the Antipersonnel Mine Ban Treaty’s 22nd Meeting of States Parties confronted the most severe crisis in the convention’s nearly three-decade history. That crisis was driven by an unprecedented convergence of coordinated withdrawals by five European states and Ukraine’s attempt to “suspend” its treaty obligations amid an ongoing armed conflict.
What unfolded was not only a test of the resilience of one of the world’s most successful humanitarian disarmament treaties, but also a critical moment for the broader system of international norms designed to protect civilians during and after war. Against a background of heightened tensions resulting from the war in Ukraine and unusual divisions among the traditional convention champions, the countries involved made decisions that will have long-term implications.
A short history of norm erosion
Since its adoption in 1997, the Mine Ban Treaty has symbolized what determined multilateral action can achieve. The treaty’s comprehensive prohibition on antipersonnel (AP) mines and its other comprehensive provisions established a new gold standard for humanitarian disarmament. Its impact is indisputable: millions of mines destroyed, vast areas of land returned to safe use, and countless lives and limbs saved. But the treaty now faces threats on a scale few imagined possible. And because the convention has served as a model for other humanitarian disarmament instruments and is an integral part of international humanitarian law (IHL), these developments carry risks that go far beyond the convention itself.
The crisis began in mid-2024 when Lithuania, fearing Russian aggression, decided to leave the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Walking away from a treaty governing warfare just when conflict appeared on the horizon was an unprecedented and short-sighted move. Yet the response from its allies was muted, teaching other countries exactly the wrong lesson. With the precedent set and the political price low, it was perhaps inevitable that others would follow suit. Indeed, several months later, five European countries — Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland — announced simultaneous withdrawals from the Mine Ban Treaty, again blaming Russian aggression against Ukraine.
It is clear that the security situation has evolved in Europe. But AP mines are known to cause massive human suffering due to their indiscriminate and inhumane nature, and nothing about the current security situation changes this fact. Abandoning the treaty and returning to antipersonnel mines will not deter an attack, especially by a cruel and determined enemy like Russia. Instead, laying mines in their soil will put at risk the very lives they were intended to protect. Research from the 2025 Landmine Monitor shows the 90% of recorded casualties are civilians, and almost 50% are children.
Moreover, by walking away from the legal commitments that protect civilians just when they would need to be applied, they are undermining not just the conventions in question, but the entire body of laws protecting civilians in conflict, precisely when the rules-based order is already under immense strain. The move also, paradoxically, diminishes the global values that these countries say they adhere to and claim sets them apart from Russia, particularly after Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
But by far the most serious threat facing the Mine Ban Treaty today is Ukraine’s July 2025 announcement that it was suspending its obligations under the Mine Ban Treaty. Its notification to the United Nations referred to the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Laws of Treaties, which includes rules for suspension and withdrawals. While withdrawals are damaging and disloyal to the humanitarian norm, states have the legal right to withdraw under Article 20. But the Mine Ban Treaty clearly does not permit suspension. The very idea is illogical, absurd, and extraordinarily dangerous for the convention and the broader fabric of IHL.
Suspending the ban on mines during armed conflict goes directly against the object and purpose of the treaty. The treaty was designed to apply to armed conflict, as Article 1 explicitly bans the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of AP mines “under any circumstances.” It was also intended to prevent states from leaving during war. Some argue that a declaration of suspension would amount to a state reserving the right to use these weapons in exceptional circumstances. But such reservations are also barred by the treaty as it prohibitions apply “under any circumstances”. Finally, during the negotiations in 1997, a proposal to allow suspension during conflicts with non-party states was soundly rejected.
Ukraine’s action is not merely legally flawed, it represents an existential threat to the integrity of all humanitarian law conventions. If a state can suspend its IHL obligations during wartime, then every convention establishing rules of war is fundamentally undermined. The Geneva Conventions, the conventions on chemical and biological weapons would all be vulnerable to the same logic. When times get tough, global norms need no longer apply.
Salvaging the norms
Recognizing this danger, since October many countries — including Austria, Australia, Belgium, Colombia, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom — sent the United Nations Secretary General a variety of formal objections or other communications signaling their opposition to Ukraine’s suspension. Under Article 65 of the Vienna Convention, these notifications should halt the suspension’s validity.
Yet more action was needed to stop the suspension precedent from being set. In a letter to Mine Ban Treaty States Parties dated July 29, 2025, the U.N. under secretary general for disarmament affairs noted that “any dispute or objection regarding the decision of Ukraine to suspend the operation of the Convention is to be settled among the Parties to the [Mine Ban] Convention.” Instead of clarifying the legal situation itself, the U.N. placed the burden on the members of the Mine Ban Treaty,
Attention thus shifted to the convention in Geneva earlier this month, where treaty defenders pushed for language in the meeting’s final report affirming that suspension was not permitted. The goal was not to condemn Ukraine or its actions, but to ensure that any other state looking to this first-ever IHL suspension would see that suspension was not an option.
Fortunately, reason prevailed, and decisive language was adopted. The MSP Final Report stated, “The Mine Ban Treaty does not allow suspension of its operation and consequently its obligations” and referred to Ukraine as a State Party. In other words, Ukraine’s attempted suspension was invalidated, and it remains bound by the convention. The decision was backed by statements opposing suspension from dozens of countries from around the world.
While Ukraine must continue to fully respect its obligations under the Convention, compliance has already posed a challenge for Ukraine. Thus, other States Parties will need to be vigilant in both discouraging Ukraine from using and/or producing antipersonnel mines and in ensuring any reports of non-compliance are closely examined. While Russia, a non–State Party to the Convention, remains the primary perpetrator of antipersonnel mine use in Ukraine — causing unspeakable suffering and devastation — Ukrainian forces are believed to have used antipersonnel mines in the fall of 2022, and there are now growing indications of continued use as well as reports of production by Ukrainian companies and individuals.
This picture is further complicated by the United States’ announcement in late 2024 of the transfer of its stockpiled antipersonnel mines to Ukraine, the current status of which remains unclear.
Any use and/or production of such mines by Ukraine would constitute a clear violation of the Convention and would need to be addressed by States Parties.
Looking ahead
A united response protected the treaty and signaled that the erosion of humanitarian norms will not be tolerated. Thanks to vigorous diplomacy and engagement by committed states and civil society, the Geneva meeting ultimately upheld the treaty’s core principles with unambiguous language in a decisive win for the protection of civilians.
The crises facing the Mine Ban Treaty this year went far beyond any one weapon, one country, or one conflict. They represented the choices states need to make now about the kind of international system they want to uphold, one based on rules, mutual restraint, and the protection of civilians or one where norms apply only in times of peace and can be discarded when they are most needed.
I spent the last few weeks asking experts about the foreign policy books that stood out in 2025. My goal was to create a wide-ranging list, featuring volumes that shed light on the most important issues facing American policymakers today, from military spending to the war in Gaza and the competition with China. Here are the eight books that made the cut.
The Fort Bragg Cartel
By Seth Harp
There is a convenient fiction in American politics that war can be kept at arm’s length — that what happens in Kandahar can stay in Kandahar. “The Fort Bragg Cartel” is a page-turning, hair-raising refutation of that myth.
In his hit book, investigative journalist Seth Harp dives deep into a series of mysterious and often gruesome deaths at Fort Bragg, the headquarters of the U.S. military’s special forces. His investigation reveals that, during the War on Terror, the base became a hotbed of criminal activity, where a “cartel” of America’s most elite soldiers used their skills to traffick drugs, smuggle weapons, and kill anyone who stood in their way.
For Harp, the driving force behind this scandal is clear: Decades of brutal conflict, coupled with a culture of impunity, have led to a moral rot in America’s armed forces. The book doesn’t suggest a solution for this sorry situation. But it does offer a searing and highly readable account of the challenge before us.
(The Fort Bragg Cartel happens to be the only book that both RS and the New Yorker put on their respective books-of-the-year lists; we’ll let Harp decide which is the bigger honor.)
The Collapse of Venezuela
By Francisco Rodriguez
In 2012, Venezuela had a gross domestic product of $372 billion. In 2025, that had fallen all the way to $109 billion — a roughly 70 percent contraction in a little more than a decade. So what went wrong?
In “The Collapse of Venezuela,” Francisco Rodriguez, the former chief economist of Venezuela’s national assembly, offers a novel and insightful account of one of the most remarkable economic and political breakdowns in recent history. Rodriguez frames the problem as one of winner-take-all politics: Both the Maduro regime and the opposition, in jockeying for control of the all-powerful executive, carried out scorched-earth strategies aimed more at crushing their enemies than improving the lives of Venezuelans. For President Nicolas Maduro, this meant ratcheting up repression, and for the opposition, it meant backing an extraordinarily harsh regime of American sanctions.
Rodriguez’s book, which includes a blueprint for major institutional reforms, is essential reading as the U.S. steps up its efforts to oust the Maduro regime, with little apparent planning for what might come next.
The Trillion Dollar War Machine
By William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman
It’s almost impossible to imagine a trillion dollars. In $1 bills, a trillion-dollar stack would wrap around the Earth 2.7 times. In $100 bills, it would stretch from Milwaukee all the way down to Atlanta. So how in the world does the U.S. military manage to spend this vast sum each year?
“The Trillion Dollar War Machine,” by Ben Freeman and William Hartung, is an invaluable attempt to answer this question. Freeman and Hartung provide a forensic look into the network of weapons makers, lobbyists, officials and politicians who have conspired to pour an ever-growing amount of taxpayer money into their own pockets (and campaign coffers). The book argues that all this investment in defense makes America less safe by increasing the incentive to enter costly wars abroad; to paraphrase Madeleine Albright, what's the point of having a massive military if we can't use it?
For those looking to break out of this cycle, Freeman and Hartung offer an incisive look at America’s military-industrial complex — and a clear roadmap for reigning it in. (Note: Both Freeman and Hartung work at the Quincy Institute, which publishes RS.)
First Among Equals
By Emma Ashford
American foreign policy hands agree that the post-Cold War unipolar moment, in which the U.S. bestrode the world like a colossus, is coming to an end. But few have seriously grappled with what that means for U.S. foreign policy.
In “First Among Equals,” Emma Ashford of the Stimson Center charts a path for a practical approach to an increasingly multipolar world — one that tries not to reshape the world order but to advance U.S. interests within it. Her proposed strategy of “realist internationalism” holds, among other things, that the U.S. should dramatically pare back its military presence in Europe in order to better focus on the balance of power in Asia. But this doesn’t mean a complete retreat from the rest of the world. Instead, Ashford argues that any military retrenchment should be accompanied by a doubling down on trade and diplomacy.
All in all, the book is a readable guide for navigating an increasingly tumultuous world. An ambitious reader may peruse it alongside the Trump administration’s recently released National Security Strategy, which defines its approach as “realistic without being ‘realist.’”
From Apartheid to Democracy
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man and Sarah Leah Whitson
The book sprang from a chance encounter. On a four-hour train ride from New York to Washington, DC, human rights activist Sarah Leah Whitson happened to sit next to a lobbyist from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and a heated debate over Israel-Palestine ensued. “Mr. AIPAC,” as Whitson calls him, concluded the discussion with a pointed question: “What’s your solution?”
“From Apartheid to Democracy” is Whitson’s answer. In the sweeping-yet-slim volume, Whitson and her co-author, journalist Michael Omer-Man, lay out an ambitious plan to transform the “undemocratic one-state reality into a democratic one,” with a focus on securing equal rights for all Israelis and Palestinians.
The book doesn’t claim to offer all the answers. Whitson and Omer-Man acknowledge that their plan could only be implemented after a dramatic shift in how Israelis view Palestinians, and they leave most of the details to the roughly 15 million people who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. But these caveats do little to undermine the boldness of their work. By offering a plan of their own, Whitson and Omer-Man are daring other analysts to reevaluate how they view the conflict — and maybe even propose some new ideas of their own.
Devils’ Advocates
By Kenneth P. Vogel
There are a lot of ways to make money in D.C. But few are more controversial, or more lucrative, than lobbying on behalf of foreign powers.
In “Devils’ Advocates,” investigative journalist Kenneth Vogel takes readers on a ride through the seedy underworld of foreign influence in Washington. Hunter Biden and Rudy Giuliani receive title billing, but the true star is Robert Stryk, who openly claims to have “helped fix an election in a very important African country based upon U.S. interests.” Stryk alone earned some $19 million during the first Trump administration for lobbying on behalf of authoritarian states like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia — lobbying that helped ensure that American weapons kept flowing to these countries.
Were Stryk and his companions’ efforts necessary for securing the interests of these foreign powers? It’s hard to say, given the many factors that go into any political decision. But foreign states certainly think the lobbyists are worth the dough. “Such ambiguity and confusion about influence and deliverables is a defining feature of foreign lobbying, and it serves all involved,” Vogel writes. “Devils’ Advocates” is an essential book for the second Trump administration, in which Attorney General Pam Bondi, a former lobbyist for Qatar, is now in charge of deciding when foreign influence crosses from unseemly to illegal.
Retrench, Defend, Compete
By Charles L. Glaser
Since 1979, American policy toward Taiwan has rested on a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” whereby U.S. policymakers refuse to say whether they would defend the island nation from a Chinese invasion. In his provocative new book, political scientist Charles Glaser argues that it’s time for a new strategy — one based on a clear declaration that the U.S. will not start World War III over Taiwan.
“Retrench, Defend, Compete” offers policymakers a practical roadmap for a strategy that protects U.S. interests in East Asia while removing China’s biggest complaint about America’s presence in the region. Glaser writes that, even as the U.S. pulls back from militarily defending Taiwan, it should deepen its commitment to its treaty allies in the region, like South Korea and Japan. For Glaser, such an approach is crucial to ensuring U.S. credibility in the region, putting Washington on a stronger defensive footing and dramatically reducing the risk of catastrophic war.
Tomorrow Is Yesterday
By Hussein Agha and Robert Malley
For three decades, world leaders have insisted that a two-state solution, based on a pair of documents quietly negotiated in Oslo in the 1990s, is the only way to end the Israel-Palestine conflict. “Tomorrow is Yesterday” reveals the corrosive nature of this diplomatic fiction.
Written by former advisers to American and Palestinian negotiating teams, the book provides a uniquely balanced look at this failure. Hussein Agha and Robert Malley reserve most of their scorn for the U.S. and its “pernicious” approach to the conflict, which casts aside the dueling historical narratives of Israelis and Palestinians in favor of “fables” about the inevitability of a two-state solution. Agha and Malley argue that the U.S. chose time and again to double down on a delusional policy, which rested on the false premise that a deal could be reached through technocratic negotiations that included secular elites at the expense of more complex characters, like Palestinian Islamists and Israeli settlers.
The book’s most important contribution is its powerful rebuke of the idea that conflict can be solved through technocratic deal-making. As my colleague Khaled Elgindy wrote in a review for Foreign Policy, the book is “a treatise on the importance of empathy—not simply in moral terms but, perhaps more crucially, as a practical and analytical tool essential for successful diplomacy and statecraft.”
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Top image credit: People walking on Red square in Moscow in winter. (Oleg Elkov/Shutterstock)
After its emergence from the Soviet collapse, the new Russia grappled with the complex issue of developing a national identity that could embrace the radical contradictions of Russia’s past and foster integration with the West while maintaining Russian distinctiveness.
The Ukraine War has significantly changed public attitudes toward this question, and led to a consolidation of most of the Russian population behind a set of national ideas. This has contributed to the resilience that Russia has shown in the war, and helped to frustrate Western hopes that economic pressure and heavy casualties would undermine support for the war and for President Vladimir Putin. To judge by the evidence to date, there is very little hope of these Western goals being achieved in the future.
The first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin, sought a radical break with communism and based his rule on the negation of his country’s — and his own — past, leaving Russia with a profound sense of negative identity. Vladimir Putin, upon assuming office, presented a more positive vision centered on integration with the West (albeit on Russian terms and predicated on retaining Russian independence), but it foundered in the face of irreconcilable differences between Russia and the West.
The state has since struggled to articulate a coherent conception of identity that would define Russia’s distinctiveness. Only World War II emerged as a potential unifier, with the majority of Russians expressing their pride in Russia’s role in it, and it acquired an almost religious reverence within the leadership’s narrative.
Apart from pride in the “Great Patriotic War” (as World War II is known in Russia), the overall public response to identity construction was for a long time lukewarm. When the war in Ukraine started, without any warning to the Russian public, it was initially met with disbelief, confusion, and bewilderment. Most were concerned with their chances to navigate the troubled waters rather than providing support for their country.
No longer. Nearly four years of war has profoundly transformed Russia. Fostered by state propaganda, many ordinary Russians have developed a sense of pride that Russia has survived in the face of Western hostility. This feeling has been fed by Western expressions of contempt toward the Russian people and Russian culture — insults that are assiduously quoted by the state-controlled Russian media. The Russian public struggles to see how the situation can be viewed from the other side and acknowledge that Western concerns may have grounds behind them; for example, the Kremlin’s attempts at meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections better explain the negative attitudes toward Russia in Washington, rather than pre-existing cultural prejudices.
For some time now, patriotism has appeared to be ascendant: recruitment progresses steadily, men are willing to serve (admittedly in return for extremely high wages), and the “Help the Army” movement by women and pensioners shows no sign of abating. Speaking against the tide is considered socially unacceptable as well as dangerous.
Even though it was Russia that invaded Ukraine and that continues to attack the formerly ‘brotherly nation’, many in Russia view the war as defensive in nature and inevitable. A perception of external threat united much of the nation, and anti-Westernism became pervasive. Many Russians have become convinced that the West means Russia no good and, given an opportunity, would seek to inflict harm, unless it is strong enough to protect itself.
The state, which has a responsibility to protect, should be supported — paradoxically even when, as exemplified by the Kursk incursion, it has failed to do so. Accounts of civilians who were trapped for seven months under Ukrainian occupation brought the realities of war home to many Russians, while attacks on the Russian territory, which resulted, according to the official figures, in 621 civilian deaths, instilled a sense of insecurity in European Russia. Trump’s arrival marked a departure from hostility towards the U.S., but the prevailing attitude toward his peace initiatives is skepticism.
This new sense of national identity is not only rooted in the war. It also stems from economic dynamism. The Russian economy, the most heavily sanctioned globally, experienced sustained growth for three consecutive years. Despite inflation, there is a widespread mood of optimism about the future. The war has stimulated innovation. State and private manufacturers drive technological advancement, similar to what occurred during World War II when Katyusha rockets and T-34 tanks were created. While not all inventions may be groundbreaking, they are numerous and heavily publicized.
The Russian development model constitutes another key identity pillar. Large state obligations, public investment, affordable utilities, and low taxes are the customary norms that Russian citizens anticipate and that form the components of the social contract between them and the state. They believe that their counterparts in the West are disadvantaged in this regard.
The nation is also experiencing something of a cultural renaissance. While the public was initially shocked by the cancellation of Russian culture in the West in 2022, perceiving it as collective punishment, this has become the new normal. Consequently, attention has shifted toward domestic resources and the Russian public. Numerous new theaters, plays, music concerts, art galleries, and cultural venues have opened in major cities, catering to the growing demand for these offerings. Already, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Russians discovered their own country through travel, leading to a surge in domestic tourism, including previously inaccessible regions such as Dagestan and Chechnya.
At the start of the war, around 170 cultural figures fled Russia in protest, including Alla Pugacheva, the 76-year-old Russian diva, and Chulpan Khamatova, an actress, who starred in the internationally acclaimed “Good Bye, Lenin!” and the Russian TV series “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes.” Out of all emigrés, perhaps these two had the widest acclaim as iconic faces of Russian popular culture. Pugacheva, moving between Israel, Cyprus, and Latvia, still commands interest among older-generation Russians due to her extravagant personality, but, as a performer, she lost prominence. Ironically, her ex-husband, Philipp Kirkorov, who stayed in Russia, became the country’s no.1 entertainer. Khamatova performs at a theater in Riga, Latvia, with the sole notable cinema role in which she is featured being a film about immigration. So far, the only cultural figure who has managed to achieve a successful career in the West is director Kirill Serebrennikov, while others have audiences chiefly among the Russian emigre circles.
Initially, the exodus of well-known figures disturbed educated Russians, but it also created space for others to move in, such as “Shaman” (Yaroslav Dronov), a prince of patriotic pop, or Yura Borisov, a leading character in the Oscar-winning “Anora” movie, who attracts offers from major international directors. Gradually, the plight of Russian figures abroad, facing alien cultural terrain and with no mass audiences or stable funding, started to generate derision back home. The thinking is that, if the Russians who left believed that their anti-war position would be rewarded by new careers in the West, they were mistaken.
Emphasis on Russian culture has become more pronounced, and not only because of the war. Russia, having rejected ‘woke’ ideology when it emerged onto the global stage, has presented itself as the ‘true,’ or traditional, 20th-century Europe. This appeals even to many liberal Russians, who aspired to join the Western civilization of the past, but not what it has become today. Even among Russians who strongly opposed the war, there is a feeling of satisfaction that Russia no longer has to defer to the West culturally.
Russia today is therefore a different country from the one that entered the war, with a greater sense of social cohesion and confidence in its own viability as a nation. In the long run, this may lead to profound changes in Russia’s identity. In the short term at least, it will sustain public willingness to continue the war.
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