Matt Armstrong

“So long as we remain amateurs in the critical field of political warfare, the billions of dollars we annually spend on defense and foreign aid will provide us with a diminishing measure of protection.” Senator Thomas J. Dodd, 1961

No, the Smith-Mundt Act doesn't apply to the Defense Department mountainrunner.substack.com/p/no-the-smith…

Eisenhower, Dulles, and USIA: can the past provide lessons for the present? mountainrunner.substack.com/p/eisenhower-d…

R Changes Coming? A look at the overdue nomination for Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy mountainrunner.substack.com/p/r-changes-co…

Sometimes the commonly accepted fact is not a fact. File this one under the history of "information warfare" and public diplomacy. mountainrunner.us/2023/01/someti…

New from me... mountainrunner.substack.com/p/the-propagan…

Earlier this week, I posted a quiz asking readers to select which year an evergreen statement was made. Answers to the first 5 of the 11 statements are available now. mountainrunner.substack.com/p/who-said-it-…

This week's newsletter is a bunch of (evergreen) quotes for the reader to pick what year they were said or written... open.substack.com/pub/mountainru…

My latest: The deficiency of "information": Reflecting on the Cognitive Crucible pod interview of Russ Burgos + my Friday video chat mountainrunner.substack.com/p/the-deficien…

We don't have an organizational problem, we have a leadership problem (reshared in case you missed it last week) mountainrunner.substack.com/p/we-dont-have…

US public diplomacy, strategic communication, countering disinformation, correcting misinformation, filling in the gaps where there's no information are all critical to national security, ours and many others. But it's not a priority with virtually anyone. mountainrunner.substack.com/p/we-dont-have…

The this commission was est'd in 1948 to be on top of the issues the IG GEC report id'd + absence of the U/S for PD/PA (GPA?), training / support / integration / execution / org etc of "PD"... but won't & can't: they are simply unqualified/uninterested. mountainrunner.substack.com/p/about-the-ad…

Remembering the position of Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs actually exists... or does it? mountainrunner.substack.com/p/the-schrodin…

A primer / discussion on Smith-Mundt and responding to foreign language influence activities in the U.S. mountainrunner.substack.com/p/issues-relat…

"considering... 'gray zone' is the space between peace and war, or traditional uniform combat, this framing inherently separates peace into something else. However, it is the peace that others seek to disrupt, it is a starting point, and it is a place we must proactively defend."

"Political warfare includes all measures short of war... for hostile intent through discrete, subversive, or overt means short of open combat... Whereas gray zone tells us where along a spectrum between war and peace activities take place, political warfare tells us why."

“We are not really trying to win the cold war. We are putting our faith in arms and armaments to enable us to win another war should war come. Probably we can. But winning a hot war which leaves a cold war unwon will not win very much for very long.” — 1953 (tho could be 2022)

"We don’t have amateur military officers. Nor do amateurs manage our huge industries. Yet we have thousands of amateurs who are trying their untrained best to resist the attacks of the highly trained professional [subversives, gray zone operators, propagandists, etc]." – 1961

“This is not USIA-bashing, it is about putting the agency into proper perspective…There were a lot of impactful acts by USIA…but it was neither positioned nor charged with doing with much, if not all, the ‘bring back USIA’ genre alleges.” mountainrunner.substack.com/p/false-myths-…

Chris and I wrote an article correcting history, surfacing a better model than USIA, and pointing out that leadership is the cornerstone and not a by-product of a relevant organizational structure for US int'l info ops. 19fortyfive.com/2022/07/the-ir…

"The question of winning the war is far too complicated and far too delicate to be answered by a study of only the powers and resources of the nations in arms."