Typically, Americans learn about the clandestine depravities undertaken abroad by their government only decades after the offenses were committed. When the Pentagon was confronted with the report, its spokeswoman didn’t just acknowledge the existence of these sorts of programs; she appeared to defend them. The Reuters report is very much worth reading in full, a showcase of American recklessness in what may already be a new age of Spy vs. Spy psyops. But we’ve had very little reporting, or reckoning, with what the American side of that information war might look like. ), to counter adversary malign influence”; that “this process is deliberate, methodical and comprehensive”; and that this work employs “a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks.” The Chinese have been, predictably, more hyperbolic: An editorial in the Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times called the social media campaign simply “brainwashing.”

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Persons: Chris Bing, Joel Schectman, didn’t, we’ve, ” Organizations: Reuters, Department of Defense, Pentagon, Chinese Communist Party, Times Locations: Philippines, Central Asia, China, Russia