The legendary head of the KGB's disinformation department, Ivan Agayants, was convinced that free speech protections were the Achilles' heel of Western democracies—and a competitive advantage to be exploited by the closed societies of the Soviet Bloc.

History proved him wrong. Yet in the 21st century, open democracies are perhaps more convinced than ever that Agayants was right—that free speech is a Trojan horse and that disinformation constitutes an existential threat.