The Cultural Cold War in Yugoslavia

Since Trump’s unexpected victory in 2016 and the subsequent Cambridge Analytica data scandal, scholars and policy makers have consistently raised the alarm about foreign interference in the American electoral process. More specifically, research has exposed the depth and breadth of state-sponsored Russian disinformation prevalent on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Back in 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice forced the multimedia news service RT (formerly Russia Today) to register as a “foreign agent,” and there seems little doubt that the Kremlin has actively deployed incendiary memes, misinformation, and rumors to manipulate targeted populations in the United States.1 But few Americans realize the history of the United States’ own efforts to confuse, manipulate, or otherwise influence foreign populations in Russia and Eastern Europe throughout the forty-five year history of the Cold War and beyond. Funneled through the United States Information Agency and into the USIS libraries and the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty broadcasts, the American taxpayer subsidized the global information war that underpinned the efforts of “public diplomacy.” Carla Konta’s excellent monograph, US Public Diplomacy in Socialist Yugoslavia, 1950–1970: Soft Culture, Cold Partners, is a fascinating case study of American efforts to influence the uniquely non-aligned communist country.

Agency (philosophy) · Communism · Diplomacy · Disinformation · Media studies · Misinformation · Political science · Politics · Social media · Sociology · State (computer science) · Superpower · Victory · Balkan and Eastern European Studies · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Law