The Foreign Service Journal, May 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2023 51 degrees. So expansive was this funding that USAID set up enter- prise funds that invested hundreds of millions of dollars in small and medium-sized businesses with the purpose of teaching Western business practices. Today’s Challenges In time, many U.S.-funded programs wound down as East European countries joined the European Union and NATO. In Russia, they continued, albeit on a smaller scale, until 2012, when Putin adopted a harsh, anti-Western stance, accusing American organizations of “brainwashing Russians.” Two Russian laws tar- geting so-called “foreign agents” and “undesirable foreign orga- nizations” led to the closure of U.S. programs. After the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin even formally abrogated the 1958 U.S.-Soviet Cultural Exchange Agreement that had been renewed annually and served as the basis for joint programming. In a parallel move, the Kremlin unleashed a vitriolic campaign against international broadcasters, eventually forcing Radio Lib- erty to suspend its operations in Russia. Again, as in pre-glasnost times, VOA and RFE/RL became “external broadcasters.” They continue to produce outstanding programming, especially about the war in Ukraine, through their joint project, “Current Time,” but their access to Russia is limited. The challenges facing the United States today are more daunt- ing than the ones facing us in the waning years of the Cold War. By the 1980s, communismwas a lifeless ideology, the Soviet state inefficient, and the economy in stagnation. Most important, Soviet citizens were eager to learn about the West and become part of the modern world. They sought out foreign broadcasts, despite jamming; and when opportunities arose, they applied for grants to study in the West. Now, under Putin’s rule, Russia has turned inward, drawing on age-old xenophobia and nation- alist imperialism. According to recent polls, a large majority of Russians have bought into Kremlin propaganda and adopted a virulently anti-Western stance. Likely, we will need to confront a hostile Russia for years to come. But not just Russia. China, North Korea, Iran, and other authoritarian states are also engaged in aggressive