National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Photo: NEO/File photo.
By Brian Berletic – Dec 24, 2024
As geopolitical tensions escalate, the U.S. wields its most formidable weapon—not military might, but a sophisticated network of political and informational control that reshapes nations and regions to serve its interests.
In recent months, even across the collective West’s media, growing admissions are being made about both Russia and China’s superior military industrial capacity. With Russia’s first use of the intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, it is admitted that Russia (and likely China) possess formidable military capabilities the collective West currently lacks.
Despite the collective efforts of NATO in arming, training, and backing Ukraine, Ukrainian forces continue to give ground at an accelerated rate across the entire line of contact amid the ongoing Russian Special Military Operation (SMO).
Upon closer inspection, NED and other US efforts represent the most devastating “weapons of mass destruction”
Yet, even as this new paradigm sinks in, the US has demonstrated it still possesses a powerful and so far unparalleled and yet unanswered superweapon. It used it to create conditions across the Arab World to slowly and steadily hollow out both the Syrian economy and the Syrian Arab Army resulting in the total collapse of both in mid-December 2024 after years of staving off US-backed terrorists attempting to overrun the country.
Not only did the Syrian economy, army, and thus government collapse, many across the world cheered on as UN-listed terrorist organizations seized power in Damascus and publicly carried out atrocities in Syria’s streets against ethnic, religious, and political opponents.
All of this is owed to Washington’s unanswered “superweapon” and its control over global information and political space.
Washington’s Superweapon: Political Interference, Capture, and Control
Not as glamorous as an Oreshnik missile, Washington’s superweapon is, in fact, many times more powerful and more difficult to defend against.
Beginning as regime-change operations carried out by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), it has transformed over the years into what is now known as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED*).
The NED oversees a network of subsidiaries (Freedom House, the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the National Democratic Institute (NDI)) as well as adjacent government organizations (USAID*) and private foundations (Open Society, Omidyar Network) which fund hundreds of organizations, projects, opposition groups, and political parties on every inhabited continent on Earth.
The Middle East: Setting the Battlefield for War with Iran
In recent years, it trained armies of agitators years ahead of the 2011 “Arab Spring” to return to their home nations and overthrow their respective governments. The political turmoil these US-backed agitators created was leveraged by likewise US-backed armed extremists to violently depose governments that refused to cave to political pressure.
While the NED’s own website claims it “promotes freedom around the world,” its political interference has destabilized and destroyed entire nations and even whole regions of the planet, leading to hundreds of thousands of dead and millions displaced. What is left of these nations is rendered into an internally warring failed state or a client regime serving Washington’s interests entirely at the expense of the targeted nation’s own best interests – sometimes a combination of both.
The region itself is taking a very deliberate shape aimed at encircling, isolating, and eventually targeting and toppling the nations of Iran, which represents the center of resistance to US hegemony in the region.
NED in Europe: Creating a “Democratic” Russia
Another example is Ukraine. Efforts by the US NED* to overthrow an independent and neutral Ukraine began as early as 2004, the Guardian would report. An identical operation would repeat itself again in 2014, this time succeeding. It included not only NED*-funded political agitators, but also armed extremists including Neo-Nazis joined on stage by US senators cheering them on in Kiev.
The purpose of NED*-funded political interference undermining the political independence of targeted nations is not only to politically capture the nation itself, but cobble it together with other captured states within the region to form a unified front against Washington’s chief adversaries.
In Europe, this adversary is clearly Russia.
Damon Wilson, as executive vice president of the Atlantic Council before joining the NED* as president and CEO, would talk about eliminating what he called “grey zones of insecurity” between NATO and Russia. These “grey zones” are simply neutral nations that provide a buffer between NATO and Russia.
Wilson admited in remarks made at the Atlantic Council in 2018 that:
The strategy is not meant to create new dividing lines in Europe. The aim is to anchor a vulnerable insecure zone in the certainty of a stable and prosperous and free Europe, and over the long-term, this vision includes a democratic Russia.
But the pathway to reform in Moscow might just begin with choices that are made in Kiev, Chișinău, Yerevan, and Tbilisi.
This is an admission of intent. The overthrow and political capture of Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and Georgia are meant to further encircle and isolate Russia, removing any buffer zone between NATO and Russia before eventually overthrowing and politically capturing Russia itself.
A “democratic Russia” is a euphemism for a Russia subjugated under US-NATO-imposed “democracy” controlled and administered by NED*-funded organizations, media platforms, institutions, and political parties.
The remarks Wilson made in 2018 have translated not only into US-NATO policy vis-à-vis Russia, but also into action within the NED* Wilson now serves as president and CEO of.
The NED in Asia: Creating a United Front Against China
The NED’s* “Asia” webpage, now stripped clean of the financial disclosures that propped up an illusion of “transparency,” boasts of over 338 projects operating in 16 countries, receiving at least 51.7 million USD in fiscal year 2023 alone.
It openly admits to involving itself in the region’s elections, the building of opposition parties, and even promoting separatism.
The page refers to what is recognized under international law as Xinjiang, China as “East Turkistan,” a non-existent entity claimed by the “East Turkistan Government in Exile,” created and based in Washington D.C.
US government support for separatism in China is a blatant violation of the UN Charter which under Article 2 states, “all Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
Not only does the US government harbor separatists in Washington D.C., through the NED it funds a number of organizations who openly seek separatism. This includes the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a US NED grantee, which openly states on its website that, “the WUC declares a nonviolent and peaceful opposition movement against Chinese occupation of East Turkistan.”
The WUC, funded by the US government through the NED, is openly conspiring to violate international law by seeking to separate Xinjiang from China. While the WUC claims it seeks to do this as a “peaceful opposition movement,” it is separatism nonetheless dovetailing into violent terrorism carried out by militant Uyghur separatists like the “East Turkistan Islamic Movement” (ETIM) currently based in Syria, having spent years fighting alongside UN-listed terrorist organization Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (aka Jabhat Al Nusra), and now openly vowing to target China, the Telegraph recently reported.
The NED’s current “Asia” webpage makes it abundantly clear that its efforts aren’t focused solely on the political capture of individual nations across Asia, but that it seeks to create a regional united front against China.
Under the euphemisms of “promoting democratic unity,” the NED* declares:
China’s rise as a regional and global power and its economic leverage have made it a powerful benefactor to and influencer of regimes in the region. Using its considerable financial power, China has signaled that respect for democracy and human rights is not a prerequisite or even a desirable feature for any potential partners.
Recognizing the need to protect and uphold democratic values, the rule of law, and rules-based institutions, and to effectively push back against the growing illiberal trends in the region, Asian democracies are exploring how to cooperate and assume a greater responsibility in the defense and maintenance of internationally recognized norms and values.
It also says:
To that end, the NED* supports a variety of initiatives focused on bolstering democratic unity and cooperation among democratic nations in Asia, as well as strengthening and expanding regional solidarity and cooperation among democratic actors. Specifically, the NED* and the core institutes support partners in the region’s leading democracies to facilitate dialogue, build support, and promote greater leadership in defense of democratic norms and values. It supports regional networks of democracy and human rights activists and advocates that work to amplify democratic voices, facilitate exchanges, and strengthen regional solidarity around key democratic issues such as media freedom, free and fair elections, digital security and protection, and fundamental human rights.
All of this is a long-winded way of admitting the US NED* seeks to create a regional anti-China movement eagerly parroting US State Department disinformation targeting China, poisoning the region’s population against China, all while expanding Washington’s influence and control over all regions in Asia along China’s periphery just as it has done in Europe vis-a-vis Russia.
ICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), could lead efforts in standing up multipolar alternatives to US-based social media platforms the rest of the world can share information on beyond the reach of US and European censorship and manipulation. Currently, Russian and Chinese social media platforms are optimized for domestic, not international use.
Finally, BRICS could also lead initiatives in exposing and confronting US (and also European) interference by encouraging regional and national NGO transparency laws and creating forums that both expose this danger and support member states taking action to confront them through legislation. This includes providing protection against US threats, sanctions, and other coercive measures aimed at forcing targeted nations to submit to US political and information control.
How the National Endowment for Democracy Serves US Interests
All of these steps are aimed at enhancing national sovereignty and upholding the self-determination of nations across the multipolar world, in line with the core principles of the UN Charter. The US National Endowment for Democracy – even in name – poses as promoting “democracy” worldwide, yet democracy is a means of self-determination and everything the NED funds is determined by and for Washington, not the nations NED funding is flooding into.
The NED represents Washington’s greatest “superweapon.” Its ability to enter into and capture a nation’s political, information, and academic space circumvents even the greatest conventional armies standing in the way of US hegemony worldwide. It has participated in the destabilization and destruction of nations and regions across the globe, causing damage greater than any missile Russia can design and deploy. The future of a truly multipolar world depends on defending against all of Washington and Wall Street’s weapons, especially its most far-reaching and effective.
An example of how the US NED does this was the October 2020 “Beyond Boundaries” Facebook Live event targeting audiences in Thailand titled, “Situation of the Uyghurs in China And How We Can Help Them,” featuring former NED employee Louisa Greve, now “director of external affair for the Uyghur Human Rights Project,” an NED* grantee.
The moderators included Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, a supposed “pro-democracy activist” who participated in and promoted NED-funded subversion aimed at Thailand itself.
The purpose of the Facebook Live event was to continue poisoning receptive Thais against China, despite the nation being Thailand’s largest trade partner, investor, source of tourism, and infrastructure partner, including the building of Thailand’s first high-speed rail line.
NED*-funded opposition groups have also focused on outright blocking Thai-Chinese cooperation, including the ongoing Thai-Chinese high-speed rail project. The most overt example of this was when billionaire opposition leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit travelled to the United States to meet with representatives of the US State Department and NED*-subsidiary Freedom House as well as Arizona-based Hyperloop One before returning to Thailand to condemn the Chinese-built high-speed rail project.
Thanathorn insisted Thailand should instead invest in now defunct “hyperloop technology.”
During one public presentation, Thanathorn would insist that, “I think over the past five years we have been giving too much importance to China. We want to reduce that and rebalance our relationship with Europe, with Japan, [and] with the US more.”
Thanathorn would lead NED-backed protests in the streets of Thailand after losing the 2019 Thai general elections. In later years his party performed better at the polls, owed to the NED’s corrosive effect across Thailand’s unprotected information space.
Today, both in Thailand and across the rest of Southeast Asia, despite China offering an objectively better future, the US still wields unwarranted influence because of the NED, the networks of subversive political opposition groups, media platforms, and even political parties it controls, placing the region’s otherwise bright future in a precarious position much like Ukraine’s prior to 2014.
With the Philippines already fully captured and utilized by the US to confront and pursue conflict with China, a rising Asia still faces the possibility of being plunged into regional war like both Europe and the Middle East.
Defending Against Washington’s Superweapon
Russia and China have both devised able defenses against this US “superweapon” of political capture.
Both nations either demand transparency from so-called “nongovernmental organizations” (NGOs) funded from abroad, or ban them altogether.
Both nations have also secured their respective information space – restricting or banning US-based social media platforms working together with the US State Department to manipulate public opinion and even national identity in targeted nations, and overseeing the flow of information with their own domestic social media platforms.
Both nations have robust domestic media industries promoting their own respective values as well as international media platforms that communicate their side of the story to global audiences.
What both nations have so far failed to do, however, is extended this expertise to partner nations.
Both nations already sell a wide array of defensive systems to partner nations to defend traditional national security domains including airspace, land borders, and shores. Neither has integrated the means of defending a nation’s information space into these exports. In fact, both nations have failed so far to communicate the critical need in the 21st century to defend a nation’s information space in the first place.
Russia and China could export turn-key social media networks nations could set up and oversee within their respective information spaces, displacing US-based networks and reasserting control over the flow of information within their own borders. This would allow nations and their people to decide what information can and cannot be shared, instead of deferring to Silicon Valley and their partners in the US State Department.
A similar package could be offered to help nations set up international media platforms like Russia’s RT or Sputnik and China’s CGTN as well as domestic educational pipelines for producing local journalists, educators, and future politicians and diplomats that reflect that nation’s best interests, not Washington’s and Wall Street’s interests as programs like the US State Department’s Fulbright and Young Leadership Initiatives do.
Russia and China, as key members of BR
At first glance, the NED and other US efforts to control political and information space around the globe don’t appear to be “weapons” at all. Upon closer inspection, they represent the most devastating “weapons of mass destruction” employed this 21st century. They represent a serious threat to global peace, stability, and prosperity. Equally, serious efforts must be made to expose and defend against them.
Brian Berletic
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer who hosts The New Atlas; former US marine officer. For over ten years he wrote under the pseudonym 'Tony Cartalucci.'
