Trash balloons and psychological warfare

June 18, 2024

SEOUL – After the end of the Cold War, the first president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, confessed that his lifelong fight against Communism and for democracy was inspired by propaganda broadcasting from the US government. As a dissident, poet and playwright, he spent a few hours every night listening to the Voice of America or Radio Free Europe that broadcast news and pop culture from the US and the West. Through those programs, he began to yearn for freedom and democracy.

In fact, many experts believe propaganda broadcasting from the West as part of psychological warfare during the Cold War was instrumental in bringing down the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe. Information about free and opulent Western societies as well as rock and jazz music coming from US short-wave radio led the youth in the region to question and challenge their systems and desire blue jeans and Hollywood, advancing the Cold War’s end.

More than three decades later, those crude and seemingly primitive propaganda tactics are back in style as the new Cold War unfolds. The Voice of America and other state-run broadcasters of the US became less intrusive and provocative, but their counterparts in authoritarian regimes in China and Russia are growing more vocal and propagandistic. RT, formerly Russia Today, works faithfully as the mouthpiece of Putin, blasting the US and the West as imperialists. Additionally, the Kremlin allegedly employs social media to interfere with elections in the West with malicious disinformation and misinformation. China’s state media, such as the China Global Television Network, which have traditionally focused on just promoting and praising their system, are also increasingly