You thought that the Chinese surveillance balloon and the three subsequent unexplained aerial platforms U.S. aircraft shot down recently were all about threats to our national sovereignty and security, right?
That’s only superficially so. The real threat in these incidents is the persistent government secrecy that was an accepted (if unacceptable) norm during the Cold War and continues to be insistently practiced by those in power today. The justification — or rationalization — is the alleged “clear and present danger” of so-called Great Power Competition.
Here's just an abbreviated snippet of “dialogue” that took place during the two early-February press briefings the Pentagon held while the Chinese balloon was still aloft over the United States:
Journalist Question:China has said this is just a weather balloon that has veered off course. Why is the Pentagon convinced that this is a surveillance balloon? Can you give us a little bit more on the status of the balloon?
Pentagon Press Secretary Response:The fact is we know that it's a surveillance balloon, and I'm not going to be able to be more specific than that. . . . In terms of specific locations, I'm not going to be able to go into specific locations, again, other than to say it's moving eastward at this time.
Journalist:Who is controlling this balloon right now?
Pentagon:Again, we know that this is a Chinese balloon, but beyond that, I'm not going to have specifics.
Journalist:Once it's over a body of water, will you shoot it down?
Pentagon: Again, right now, we're monitoring the situation closely, reviewing options, but beyond that, I'm not going to have any additional information.
Set aside any doubts about how common such exchanges are. They’re the absolute norm in the perpetual mating ritual that goes on between those in power and the press — the public’s eyes and ears. Consider any controversial episode involving government: atrocity, corruption, friendly fire incidents, compromises of classified material, sexual assault, toxic leadership. Is the issue important in its own right?
Yes. Is it important enough the public should know about it? Yes. Should government be held accountable for dealing with the incident? Yes. If not for the press, would the public ordinarily have access to information on the issue? No. If not for the press, would government ordinarily inform the public of the incident? No.
America’s Founders believed that all human beings possess natural rights, including but not limited to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that governments, based on the consent of the governed, are formed to secure and preserve these rights. Arguably or inarguably, the natural rights the Founders didn’t specify included the right to know what government is doing, presumably on our behalf, so we can provide our informed consent.
In the balloon and UFO cases, as with all controversial issues, especially those branded national security matters, there are always two possibilities. For one, government, ostensibly representing and serving the American people, actually knows something the people — and the press acting on their behalf — don’t know but want and need to know. Government won’t provide information for fear, it claims, of compromising the sources of its information or the methods used to obtain it.
The other possibility is the government refuses to release information by arguing that it is protecting sources and methods, when the reality is that it is concealing its own shortcomings and failures, as well as its desire to avoid scrutiny and criticism.
Whichever the case, the question that commands our attention is whether the security and secrecy practices the United States adopted during the Cold War were consistent with America’s espoused values; and more to the point today, whether the current embrace of “Great Power Competition” legitimately warrants comparable practices in the face of “clear and present dangers” yet to be demonstrated.
It is self-evident that a critical free press is central to effectively functioning representative democracy, especially one that claims great-power status. Being strategic is, in important measure, about effectively exercising power that, in turn, is dependent on social cohesion and national unity born of an informed citizenry. That is why government, the press, and the people are tied to one another by a tacit, binding social contract of mutual rights, obligations, and expectations. Now, more than ever in recent memory, awash as we are in divisive misinformation and disinformation, it is crucially important that we revisit the rights and obligations of this uneasy alliance.
Government has one singular right: to govern — within the bounds of popular consent. It has several obligations: to secure and preserve the rights of the people; to govern well (effectively, efficiently, responsibly, and responsively); to be accountable to the people and the Constitution; to be lawful (and ethical); and to educate the people so that they can be civically responsible.
The people in turn have several rights: to know, to provide or withhold their consent and dissent, and to maintain their privacy. Their associated obligations are to be knowledgeable of public affairs, to be vigilant, to respect the rights of others, and to be civically responsible.
The press, in mediating between government and the people — holding government accountable and enabling the people to exercise informed consent and dissent — has two basic rights: to investigate and to report. Its obligations, accordingly, are to investigate rigorously, to report accurately, to respect the people’s rights, and to act in the public interest.
Recent polls suggest that a majority of Americans believe a so-called “deep state” definitely or probably exists. Yet when queried about their confidence in society’s institutions, Americans invariably rank the military at or near the top, while rating the news media near the bottom, only slightly ahead of Congress.
We could say that the public think so highly of the military because they “know” what the military is doing and how well it is doing it. Or we could say the opposite: that the military’s public standing derives from bureaucratically engineered public ignorance born of secrecy. Similarly, we could say that the press is so poorly thought of because the public knows the press is doing its job and exposing painful truths. Or we could say that the press is seen to have forsaken its duties in favor of biased advocacy, profit-driven “gotcha” reporting, and incestuous government co-optation.
Irony of ironies, as the United States gropes its way into a postmodern, post-post-Cold War, Space Age future, we look to the pre-modern era of our Founders for guidance. Jefferson, in idealistic moments when he himself wasn’t under attack by the press, regularly extolled the virtues of a free press and a virtuous, informed citizenry. What we must never cease demanding today is a rejection of ossified Cold War thinking and a recommitment to the transparency so essential to a democratic-principle-based strategic posture.
![Following a largely preordained election, Vladimir Putin was sworn in last week for another six-year term as president of Russia. Putin’s victory has, of course, been met with accusations of fraud and political interference, factors that help explain his 87.3% vote share. If this continuation of Putin’s 24-year-long hold on power makes one thing clear, it’s that he and his regime will not be going anywhere for the foreseeable future. But, as his war in Ukraine continues with no clear end in sight, what is less clear is how Washington plans to deal with this reality. Experts say Washington needs to start projecting a long-term strategy toward Russia and its war in Ukraine, wielding its political leverage to apply pressure on Putin and push for more diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict. Only by looking beyond short-term solutions can Washington realistically move the needle in Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the U.S. has focused on getting aid to Ukraine to help it win back all of its pre-2014 territory, a goal complicated by Kyiv’s systemic shortages of munitions and manpower. But that response neglects a more strategic approach to the war, according to Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who spoke in a recent panel hosted by Carnegie. “There is a vortex of emergency planning that people have been, unfortunately, sucked into for the better part of two years since the intelligence first arrived in the fall of 2021,” Weiss said. “And so the urgent crowds out the strategic.” Historian Stephen Kotkin, for his part, says preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty is critical. However, the apparent focus on regaining territory, pushed by the U.S., is misguided. “Wars are never about regaining territory. It's about the capacity to fight and the will to fight. And if Russia has the capacity to fight and Ukraine takes back territory, Russia won't stop fighting,” Kotkin said in a podcast on the Wall Street Journal. And it appears Russia does have the capacity. The number of troops and weapons at Russia’s disposal far exceeds Ukraine’s, and Russian leaders spend twice as much on defense as their Ukrainian counterparts. Ukraine will need a continuous supply of aid from the West to continue to match up to Russia. And while aid to Ukraine is important, Kotkin says, so is a clear plan for determining the preferred outcome of the war. The U.S. may be better served by using the significant political leverage it has over Russia to shape a long-term outcome in its favor. George Beebe of the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft, says that Russia’s primary concerns and interests do not end with Ukraine. Moscow is fundamentally concerned about the NATO alliance and the threat it may pose to Russian internal stability. Negotiations and dialogue about the bounds and limits of NATO and Russia’s powers, therefore, are critical to the broader conflict. This is a process that is not possible without the U.S. and Europe. “That means by definition, we have some leverage,” Beebe says. To this point, Kotkin says the strength of the U.S. and its allies lies in their political influence — where they are much more powerful than Russia — rather than on the battlefield. Leveraging this influence will be a necessary tool in reaching an agreement that is favorable to the West’s interests, “one that protects the United States, protects its allies in Europe, that preserves an independent Ukraine, but also respects Russia's core security interests there.” In Kotkin’s view, this would mean pushing for an armistice that ends the fighting on the ground and preserves Ukrainian sovereignty, meaning not legally acknowledging Russia’s possession of the territory they have taken during the war. Then, negotiations can proceed. Beebe adds that a treaty on how conventional forces can be used in Europe will be important, one that establishes limits on where and how militaries can be deployed. “[Russia] need[s] some understanding with the West about what we're all going to agree to rule out in terms of interference in the other's domestic affairs,” Beebe said. Critical to these objectives is dialogue with Putin, which Beebe says Washington has not done enough to facilitate. U.S. officials have stated publicly that they do not plan to meet with Putin. The U.S. rejected Putin’s most statements of his willingness to negotiate, which he expressed in an interview with Tucker Carlson in February, citing skepticism that Putin has any genuine intentions of ending the war. “Despite Mr. Putin’s words, we have seen no actions to indicate he is interested in ending this war. If he was, he would pull back his forces and stop his ceaseless attacks on Ukraine,” a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said in response. But neither side has been open to serious communication. Biden and Putin haven’t met to engage in meaningful talks about the war since it began, their last meeting taking place before the war began in the summer of 2021 in Geneva. Weiss says the U.S. should make it clear that those lines of communication are open. “Any strategy that involves diplomatic outreach also has to be sort of undergirded by serious resolve and a sense that we're not we're not going anywhere,” Weiss said. An end to the war will be critical to long-term global stability. Russia will remain a significant player on the world stage, Beebe explains, considering it is the world’s largest nuclear power and a leading energy producer. It is therefore ultimately in the U.S. and Europe’s interests to reach a relationship “that combines competitive and cooperative elements, and where we find a way to manage our differences and make sure that they don't spiral into very dangerous military confrontation,” he says. As two major global superpowers, the U.S. and Russia need to find a way to share the world. Only genuine, long-term planning can ensure that Washington will be able to shape that future in its best interests.](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/media-library/following-a-largely-preordained-election-vladimir-putin-was-sworn-in-last-week-for-another-six-year-term-as-president-of-russia.jpg?id=34283894&width=600&height=600&quality=90&coordinates=483%2C0%2C483%2C0)
