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Mr. Matthew Armstrong is a writer and speaker on public diplomacy and political warfare. Since January 2020, he has been an MPhil/PhD student at King’s College London in the Defence Studies Department. His research area is the early cold war, 1945-1965, and how the U.S. armed for the war it was comfortable with instead of the war being waged against the national interest. His book on how the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 was not just the first peacetime statutory authorization of global public diplomacy or one of the U.S. government’s first responses to Russian political warfare waged against U.S. interests abroad, but an acceptance that foreign public opinion was critical to the success of national security policies, should be available in 2023. In 2022, he was sanctioned by Russia. Source

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It’s not new, we’re just ignorant: our modern Maginot Line does little against political warfare

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
A reminder to the reader: at present, and for the past two years, I am posting at mountainrunner.substack.com. The blog you’re reading – mountainrunner.us – has largely been dormant since then, save the occasional cross-post here, like this one, to direct you to the substack page. This blog will be maintained indefinitely as it remains a resource for many and contains material cited in books and reports over nearly two decades.
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Knowing why is far more important than learning how

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
Knowing why is far more important than learning how
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Boston Marathon Memories

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
For timely updates on my writing, subscribe to my substack "Arming for the War We're In". Most posts there will eventually get copied here, but "most" and "eventually"...
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Knowing why is far more important learning how

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
Since mid-2022, my primary outlet has been mountainrunner.substack.com. The mountainrunner.us site will continue to exist, and I will occasionally repost articles from my substack here. However, these reposts, like the one you are about to read, will be neither timely nor include all of my substack work. In other words, if you want to follow my writing, I suggest you subscribe to my substack where this post first appeared on 24 April 2023.
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A Look at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Historical Look at the Politics of US Information Warfare

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
Since mid-2022, my primary outlet has been mountainrunner.substack.com. The mountainrunner.us site will continue to exist, and I will occasionally repost articles from my substack here. However, these reposts, like the one you are about to read, will be neither timely nor include all of my substack work. In other words, if you want to follow my writing, I suggest you subscribe to my substack where this post first appeared on 24 April 2023.
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Talking about Strategic Influence and Stuff

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
Since mid-2022, my primary outlet has been mountainrunner.substack.com. The mountainrunner.us site will continue to exist, and I will occasionally repost articles from my substack here. However, these reposts, like the one you are about to read, will be neither timely nor include all of my substack work. In other words, if you want to follow my writing, I suggest you subscribe to my substack where this post first appeared on 24 April 2023.
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No, the Smith-Mundt Act does not apply to the Defense Department, and it never did

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
This post appeared at mountainrunner.substack.com on 22 February 2023. It has been slightly modified here for clarity. Subscribe to my free substack for new posts through email, the web, or through the substack app. Posts are copied here when I get around to it. The misinformation around the Smith-Mundt Act now borders on willful disinformation. It is really quite fantastic.
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Eisenhower, Dulles, and USIA: can the past provide lessons for the present? (Or, “The rhyming history of US public diplomacy”)

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
This post first appeared at mountainrunner.substack.com on 7 February 2023. It has been modified slightly for clarity. Subscribe to my free substack for new posts through email, the web, or through the substack app. Posts are copied here when I get around to it. However, in the case of this post, it originated here at the MountainRunner blog in September 2018 before going to the substack, so now it has returned in a revised form.
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R changes coming?

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
This post first appeared at mountainrunner.substack.com on30 January 2022. Be sure to check there for comments on the article and subscribe to my substack for timely follow-ups and new posts through the substack app and email. It’s free! The Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, known as “R” in the State Department’s shorthand, was established in 1999 as a functional replacement for the Director of the simultaneously abolished US Information Agency.
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Sometimes the commonly accepted fact is not a fact

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By Matt Armstrong
| MountainRunner.us
This post first appeared at mountainrunner.substack.com on12 January 2022. It appears here with some edits for clarity. Be sure to check there for comments on the article and subscribe to my substack for timely follow-ups and new posts through the substack app, through email, and to participate in chats. It’s free! Have you ever read a statement of fact by a historian and wondered, “huh, that’s interesting”? Hopefully, you have and will continue to do so often. History is great.
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