Changes in the top management of the United States’ international broadcasting services over the last several weeks have attracted enormous attention and criticism from various quarters. But one change, taken before these developments, may be equally consequential and deleterious to the interests of the peoples that US broadcasting is directed at as well as to the national interests of the United States itself. At issue are reports that the management of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) plans to fold the North Caucasus Service and, perhaps worst of all, to transfer its journalists to the Russian Service, actions that will make only two people happy: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov.
