US President Trump receives a football from Russian President Putin as they hold a joint news conference. Photo: REUTERS/Grigory Dukor.

We recently suggested that President Trump organize two task forces in order to address the most serious domestic and foreign threats facing America:

Red Task Force: Communist and socialist dictatorships: China, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba; and authoritarian Russia.

Green Task Force: Islamist dictatorships of all variants: Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey and Qatar, ISIS and Al-Qaeda, plus Saudi Arabia (though reforming).

We also suggested that President Trump:

• Design these task forces to employ a “whole-of-government” approach, as he did with the recently-established Coronavirus Task Force.
• Bring together representatives of key government agencies to hold seats on these task forces, including from the Departments of Defense, Treasury, Justice, and Homeland Security, along with academics from a variety of related disciplines.
• Appoint a White House Special Advisor on Cultural Safety to guard the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, as well as American values, from America’s ideological enemies.

The US and other Western democracies are vulnerable to disinformation and manipulation from within and outside our borders. Our Red and Green enemies are experts in cultural warfare and propaganda, both the offensive and defensive sides.

Sadly, America has lost its expertise in both offensive (truth-based propaganda) and defensive (self-education of values) capabilities, which were developed and successfully used during both World Wars and the Cold War. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, there has been the delusion that we are “at peace.” We may not be firing bullets or bombs or missiles at each other, but our enemies are allowed to pour billions of dollars into our “educational” system in order to shape curriculum and even entire departments.

We have learned the hard way that there is no such thing as “peacetime.” The Reds and the Greens have declared war on Western civilization, each for nearly 100 years.

The Greens increased their attacks after 9/11 in the US and, together with the Reds, during the previous administration. We were slow to respond, but in many cases there was simply no response. Or, in the case of Iran, president Barack Obama effectively gave the rulers of the world’s number one anti-US terrorist regime enormous economic relief, a mountain of cash that it uses to support worldwide terrorism, and a pathway to the nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them — all “negotiated” while its “supreme leader” was leading public chants of “Death To America!”

Now we must provide the resources necessary for this two-front war. We must relearn how to defend our Constitutional rights and values by reeducating the population on a non-stop basis, both in school, post-school, and through the media, internet, and public events.

Offensively, we must culturally attack anti-democratic autocrats of the Red or Green variety. The US taxpayer-funded Voice of America must be revamped with new management to properly represent our values.

Similarly, foreign language communication channels must be used to intellectually fight the lies and disinformation of both Reds like China and Greens like Iran.

And, as with the Coronavirus Task Force, the top leadership must be high-level in terms of knowledge and experience, and report directly to the president. Above all, President Trump must insist on US victory in these ideological wars. We have been trying to accommodate or pacify both the Reds and the Greens for too long. Now it is time to fight.

Ken Abramowitz is the president and founder of SaveTheWest. Jon Sutz is a consulting editor and videographer at SaveTheWest.com.