In the fight against foreign information manipulation, the US can’t afford to disarm
As its adversaries wage an information war, the United States is retreating from the front lines. Washington has dismantled key programs for countering foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Foreign Influence Task Force. This leaves a dangerous vacuum in the US national defense posture. If left unaddressed, this vulnerability will degrade public trust, fracture civil society, and threaten US military cohesion.
Because conflicts between states increasingly occur in a gray zone—involving actions that fall just short of war—the United States must treat foreign information manipulation as an act of hybrid war and build societal resilience to match the threat.
Feeding false narratives
The Trump administration’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence makes clear that China, Russia, and Iran are using evolving information warfare tactics to sow dissension and conflict among Americans. TikTok accounts linked to a Chinese propaganda apparatus targeted candidates from both political parties in the 2022 midterm elections. Beijing uses these covert influence operations to “weaken the United States internally” and cast doubt on US institutions.
Meanwhile, Russia is deploying deepfakes using artificial intelligence (AI) to obscure its involvement in information manipulation while feeding false narratives to increase public divisiveness on already polarizing topics, such as abortion. Iran, too, has combined cyberattacks with information manipulation. Ahead of the 2024 election, Iran sponsored fake websites posing as news outlets for veterans, using them to spread narratives that painted both major political parties as betrayers of military interests. And Iranian cyber actors linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accessed email accounts associated with US President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign to weaponize internal communications, spread manipulated narratives, and erode trust in the democratic process. Leaked or fabricated content from such breaches can be used to stoke conspiracy theories, cast doubt on the fairness of the election, and convince voters that the system is rigged. All of this can undermine the legitimacy of the outcome before ballots are even counted.
Defending speech and the information environment
Despite these threats, Washington has scaled back key defenses against foreign influence, framing preexisting defenses as threats to free speech rather than tools to protect it. In February, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency paused all election-related disinformation monitoring. In April, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio disbanded the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a State Department office tasked with tracking and coordinating FIMI across the federal government, claiming that the organization “nearly destroyed America’s long free speech history” by policing domestic discourse. These concerns are not without merit. GEC grants did, at times, fund organizations like the Global Disinformation Index, which targeted US independent media by labeling outlets on the political right as sources of disinformation. But “unilaterally disarming” the information space reflect a false choice: between defending the freedom of speech and defending against foreign manipulation.
Free expression is not protected when foreign adversaries are allowed to distort the information space unchecked. Defending the United States against FIMI is not about silencing debate but ensuring that US citizens can engage in it free from foreign interference. The solution is not returning to the controversial models that brought the United States to this moment, but learning from states that are already innovating.
Building information resilience
The Trump administration’s executive order on national resilience calls on state and local governments to lead on preparedness. States can, and should, play a more active role in defending the information environment, but the United States must take a whole-of-society approach that empowers state-level innovation while reinforcing federal coordination. States are already testing cyber and information defense models that have the potential to be scaled. But without federal backing, these efforts will remain fragmented and vulnerable to political swings or resource gaps.
A scalable example is Ohio Cyber Reserve which has both preventative and responsive functions. The reserve trains local students, business, and governments on cyber best practices while maintaining the capacity to respond to cyberattacks when they occur. This architecture should be adapted to the information domain. The Cyber Reserve’s mission could expand to include key elements of information integrity such as detecting deepfakes, recognizing coordinated influence campaigns, and promoting responsible digital engagement. This model would foster societal resilience against foreign manipulation by engaging directly with local communities. When suspected foreign information campaigns emerge, these units could collaborate with local media, civil society, and trusted community leaders to provide timely, accurate information without suppressing speech. Such action would operationalize bottom-up information resilience and should be institutionalized through statewide information security readiness plans and integrated into existing emergency response frameworks.
Similarly, the Ohio National Guard’s 179th Cyberspace Wing, established to enhance cyberspace capabilities for the Air Force and to drive innovation in information warfare, offers a valuable blueprint for expanding military response to foreign information threats. Before the Cyberspace Wing reaches full operational capability in 2027, the Department of Defense should develop and embed a “FIMI response” unit into its mission set. This unit would provide distributed, nonpartisan rapid-response capabilities that can respond to and monitor emerging information threats, especially during elections or national security events. These capabilities must be designed to remain strictly nonpartisan, be nonintrusive for US citizens, and have clearly delineated safeguards to prevent encroachment on protected speech.
Finally, to maintain superiority for twenty-first-century warfare and keep pace with adversaries such as China, the Trump administration should formally integrate “information integrity” into its National Cyber Strategy. By explicitly recognizing foreign information manipulation as a form of cyber-enabled threat, Washington can better mobilize public-private partnerships, enhance attribution capabilities, and equip local actors to respond. Incorporating information integrity into the cyber agenda would ensure that acts of foreign information manipulation, from deepfake personas to AI-generated propaganda, are treated as strategic incursions demanding whole-of-nation defense.
As adversaries grow more agile in exploiting digital vulnerabilities, the United States must adopt an innovative defense posture that matches the pace and complexity of foreign influence operations. Promoting information resilience as a core pillar of national security is a strategic imperative for winning in the era of hybrid warfare.
Bailey Galicia is a project assistant with the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
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Image: Flag of the United States displayed on a laptop screen and binary code displayed on a screen are seen in this multiple exposure illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on September 27, 2022. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto) REUTERS