As we’ve recently debated here in the United States, government entities established to discern for the public what is truth and what is misinformation are a monumentally bad idea. That is particularly so since they will invariably attack opinions that differ from an incumbent government’s point of view, or which that government deems unhelpful to its policy aims. Government “truth bureaus” are simply incompatible with the very idea of a free society and liberal democracy.
As if to provide a compelling example of this in real time, the Ukrainian government’s “Center for Countering Disinformation”—established by President Zelensky in 2021—has this month released a blacklist of scholars, policymakers, and others whom it accuses of “promoting Russian propaganda.” (See also.) Among them is our colleague Doug Bandow.
It’s absolutely wrong for Bandow’s prolific output on Ukraine, Russia, and the current war to be labeled disinformation or “Russian propaganda.” Bandow has been writing for years about how continued movement towards bringing Ukraine into NATO’s security orbit was not in the interests of the United States, and—by heightening Putin’s perception of threats close to Russia’s borders—risked a serious Russian reaction. Furthermore, he and many others have cautioned against deepening U.S. involvement in the conflict, given the significant risk of sparking a broader conflagration: especially a war between the United States and Russia or increased risk of a nuclear exchange.
Cato and its scholars have condemned, in the strongest possible terms, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as well as President Putin’s two decades war against freedom and liberalism in Russia. But it’s simply wrong to conflate an argument that the policy of NATO enlargement impacted Putin’s security calculus with the idea that doing so excuses his war in Ukraine. And while Ukraine has a clear interest in deeper U.S. and NATO engagement in its defense, advocating for a sensible U.S. foreign policy that limits risk to American safety and security doesn’t place one on the side of Russia in the conflict.
Ukraine is entitled to its own laws and institutions—liberal or illiberal. It has been invaded by its larger neighbor and looks likely to lose some of its territory to that aggression. Devastation has been brought down upon its cities and people. That it is not holding fast to liberal ideas and values under such circumstances shouldn’t surprise libertarians.
But this kind of action—the establishment of ill‐advised truth and disinformation bureaus, and the unfair smearing of eminent scholars—does nothing to burnish Ukraine’s reputation as an aspiring liberal democracy. Nor is it likely to help its war effort. Accordingly, Kyiv should retract its charges of disinformation and apologize for having leveled them.
