The USA appears to be destroying much of the 'soft power' that it spent decades building. And it cost a tiny amount compared to the 'hard power' of the military. As an outsider, it seems very short sighted.
The BBC is also cutting jobs in the BBC World Service, which seems similarly short sighted. But I don't think the cuts are as far reaching as the US ones:
> The USA appears to be destroying much of the 'soft power' that it spent decades building. And it cost a tiny amount compared to the 'hard power' of the military. As an outsider, it seems very short sighted.
Republicans think this is a good thing because they think the US can rule the world through hard power alone. It's such a depressing monumental mistake.
Soft power is simply the capability to persuade others without coercion. So it’s usually a much less destructive tool to achieve the same goal when the alternative is “hard” power.
Whether you build the soft power ethically or unethically (and false propaganda could be one of the many unethical ways to build soft power) is upto the country in question.
And whether that soft power is deployed for “good” or “bad” purposes is also dependent on the actions and goals of the nation.
So it’s kind of as meaningless to ask whether soft power is “good” or “bad” as it is to ask whether a hammer is good or bad, except generally “soft” power tends to be a better way to achieve the goals of a country than the alternative (which involves the threat and/or actual dropping of bombs) and the methods of developing soft power tend to generally be better than the alternative (distributing medicines for Thberculosis, cultural exchanges, etc instead of building a bigger and more dangerous military).
>Soft power is simply the capability to persuade others without coercion. So it’s usually a much less destructive tool to achieve the same goal when the alternative is “hard” power.
Powerful countries don't use soft power to bring good, they use it to serve their interests - when the target country's interests and its people's inclinations are not favorable to them.
For a long time, the US announced that it wanted a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law. Countries that chose to support the same values often benefited greatly. And when other countries saw the outcome, they sometimes changed their priorities and chose to support the American world order.
>For a long time, the US announced that it wanted a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law.
Yeah, that was still bogus. It collaborated with dictators (they are good, as long as they serve it's interests, they're a "regime" when they dont), brought down democratically elected governments, funded orange "revolutions" and opposition parties, and of course bombed, invaded, etc sovereign nations.
Further more, it's no place of any single country to try to build "a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law". Even if that wasn't transparently and extremely self-serving hypocritical, not every people share its ideas about democracy, or about capitalism, or what are good laws.
>And when other countries saw the outcome, they sometimes changed their priorities and chose to support the American world order.
People often change their minds. Sometimes when the situation changes, sometimes as a response to incentives, and sometimes because they have thought about the matter and learned something new. And when enough people change their minds, entire countries change their minds.
The world order the US marketed during the Cold War was very attractive, and many countries tried to join it voluntarily. Some of them succeeded and some didn't. The US used various means to advance its interests, but that doesn't mean every other country was just a bunch of mindless zombies with no agency and no ability to make choices.
Sometimes people just make a choice, because it's objectively better than the alternatives that are available.
> Further more, it's no place of any single country to try to build "a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law".
So no country should do anything to interact with its neighbors and all diplomacy is a waste of time? I should never try to convince you that my opinion is right because what if you disagree? What a strange, insular way to approach international relations.
For example, Voice of America publishes "Learning English" radio/tv broadcasts, podcasts, and news articles. They are produced with a limited vocabulary (I think a few thousand words), shorter sentences, and are spoken slower. They often match up with native language reporting of current events so you can listen to both for context clues.
Having people all over the world able to speak a basic level of English helps further the dominant role of the US in international trade, allows our military to use friendly locals as translators anywhere they go, and gives people around the world some level of "connection" with us - shared common ground to work from.
VoA does not broadcast propaganda, they hold themselves to a very high standard of reporting only the truth. Which is why repressive governments hate it, as do people who want to create them.
Their Wikipedia page in the controversy section lists at least 5 specific examples where they were criticized for direct political messaging - so certainly not a neutral party (whatever that means).
Also you seem to think propaganda means “not true” when it more often is true things that promote your interests. What matters is someone is paying to highlight information over other perspectives.
> What characteristics distinguish “soft power” from propaganda and why is it good?
A report from the American Enterprise Institute:
> To improve the US government’s response to the exploitation of youth by terrorist groups, the report recommends (1) adopting clear criteria to be used in weighing young peoples’ vulnerability to radicalization and recruitment and in creating and targeting terrorism prevention programs, (2) fostering both attitudinal and behavioral change to build youth resilience to recruitment, (3) moving beyond a traditional focus on young men to confront the radicalization and recruitment of girls and young women, and (4) engaging the family as a potential site of radicalization and recruitment.
> Cuts to health and food programs that wind up costing lives will embitter affected populations and be exploited in propaganda by anti-American groups. This will have at least a moderate effect in boosting recruitment by terrorist organizations.
All countries are in continual struggle for influence, to further their own interests. Doing this through soft power means (student exchanges, radio programs, films, music, building roads, blue jeans etc) is surely preferable to doing it through violent means. If the US reduces it's soft power, then no doubt it's influence will wane compared to other countries.
You can do neither. Then other countries (e.g. China) will happily fill the vacuum. The Chinese aren't building all those hospitals, roads and bridges in other countries out of pure altruism.
Soft power is also building roads and hospitals in Africa (see: China) because you want the country to deal with you first (because they’ve you as a friend, even if you both know it’s a transactional relationship) when they go to sell resources they have. It’s not just trying to strong arm people into doing things they don’t want to do.
You have a deeply antagonistic view of all of this. Is there a reason? Do you think that the EU doesn’t employ soft power? That China doesn’t? Do you seriously see no difference between, for instance, seeing value in large numbers of people speaking some English and having a positive view of your country, and whatever “bombing for democracy” is supposed to represent?
Propaganda is a form of soft power, as is foreign aid, as is trade and cultural exchange. These things are "good" in the sense that they allow a nation to further its interests and strengthen its influence, and thus maintain stable and peaceful relationships with other nations, as opposed to furthering those interests through the direct use of violence.
Also what on earth does Nietzsche have to do with anything?
There is aid, and there is meddling. The two aren't always intertwined. It's best when they aren't.
If "The US" drops a bomb on civilians, by accident or not, does that make all Americans bad, when it was really just a few military people that ultimately pulled that trigger?
With regards to optics, if the picture is blurry, then maybe put on your glasses. "The US" isn't only one thing or one entity.
A lot of those money went to pushing US cultural wars themes worldwide. And many parts of the world don’t exactly share modern US (or democrats party voters) values. Then US soft power is closer to waging cultural war.
Not exactly USAID, but similar topic. In my country US ambassador openly pushed for law that more than half of population is against for cultural reasons. That feels more like attempt of soft colonialism than soft power tbh.
Another example I recently noticed. When looking for kids cartoons online, I realized I try to stay away from recent US content. Why? Too much of a chance of blatant cultural propaganda. Meanwhile asian, even Chinese, stuff feels fine in the back of my mind. I guess PLC is pushing its own propaganda too, but I don’t even notice among the dragons and all that jazz.
Well the difference between pushing for something and forcing is exactly the difference between soft power/influence and colonialism. Sure people may have different values but people can change and even in your country some people may find refreshing or even life saving to know that different perspectives exist. As you said maybe half of the population is against it... Maybe the other half is ok with it ?
Soft power is usually influence when followers fall in line without a push. And at least in these parts of the world it worked pretty well till mid-00s or somewhere around the '08 crisis?
When ambassador is trying to openly meddle with democratic processes in hosting country... It's a wee more than soft power and influence. Especially when both pro- and against- sides read it as „pass those laws contraversial even in US itself or else we won't defend you from muscovites“.
Regarding different perspectives existing, anybody consuming at least a tiny bit of media (western or not), knows that different perspectives exist. No need for ambassador to say anything. Showing off your lifestyle in media in a positive light is the best way to promote it, not push it down the people throat. It worked well for decades and the trend is clear. But for some reason in the past decade or so some people decided to ditch worked well.
In that specific case, ~ 1/4 supported the law, over 1/2 were against, remaining didn't care. Ultimately the law did not pass in parliament. The smaller party that pushed the law the most is no longer in parliament. A major party that co-pushed the law lost later election, with some members of the party attributing that to overall cultural wars narrative, the party leader resigned and the new leader of that party is much more conservative.
And yes, it might be an unpopular viewpoint....but neocolonialism is necessary.
Perhaps not the right choice of word but I mean the term 'neocolonialism' here in the sense of introducing peoples to our ways of life: democracy, capitalism, human rights.
The long and short of it is that, you can only get with the web of conflicting interests, pure monetary dealings, etc so far. You don't make any lasting alliance with a peoples and a system fundamentally opposed to you. If you isolate away, they will continue falling into the trap of systems like China and Russia who are quite happy to take your place and have completely opposite ideals to you. Eventually you will be left more and more alone on the world stage with no true allies if you let them keep doing it, and one day you will be finished off by soft or hard means when those entities, who kept expanding their outreach, became powerful enough.
Tldr; Defensive fire. Its not that you want to engage in neocolonialism, but you will have to do so as long as your enemies engage in neocolonialism. The logic is no different than that behind maintaining a traditional military power really.
The problem is that neocolonialism, just like colonialism, works best if master culture is tame and at least somewhat compatible with slave cultures. Current US/west culture is quite contraversial to say the least in many parts of the world. At the same time, this culture does not seem to tolerate allies who don't sign off on the full package. This „take it or fuck off“ attitude is not helpful IMO.
I'm not surprised that China is doing so well in „global south“. US/west needs not only to return to colonialism game, but update their offer as well.
My opinion regarding this is very simple. I like honesty. If a person or culture does not believe in human rights, then it has to right to complain if we decide to kill, oppress and torture them and raze them to create civilization there. Because what argument do they have for not being tortured if they don't believe in human rights?
Afghanistan (as an example) should have been civilized, whatever effort necessary for it. If a peoples or country doesn't support human rights, capitalism, etc then what justification does it have to tell you to stop if you oppress and torture them? Human rights? Pish they don't believe that crap.
Is the disagreement because you somehow believe the Taliban are "civilized" or does one have disagreement about the fact that a person claiming not to believe in human rights is in no position to argue against being tortured?
The USA wasn't trying to fight a war there. As I note in my argument of non-believers in human rights having no right to oppose their own oppression....I don't really have any issues eliminating 90% or even higher of these elements until sanity emerges. If I were in charge I'd be flying in those with seeds of civilized thought into Western countries for training and acculturation, and destroy the hardliners meanwhile. And when the hardliners are sufficiently decimated, fly back them in as consultants or if they prefer as citizens back in Afg and so on.
>And many parts of the world don’t exactly share modern US (or democrats party voters) values.
Oh, I'm sure "the rest of the world" is cheering on the US to invade Panama, Greenland, Mexico, and Canada, which are all things that are actually on the table with the fascist right-wing agenda that currently control all branches of US government. "The rest of the world" is right now wishing Harris had won the election, not to mention half the US.
Coming from „the rest of the world“, I don't see a major difference between any US administrations in the past 15 years or so. It's the same nasty attitude pushing sleazy interests. I don't see a big difference between Obama being friendly to Putin after Georgia war and glancing over Crimea occupation and Trump doing what he is doing now. If US would have been a good cop back then, we wouldn't have a shit ton of issues today.
As for US internal matters... I don't give a damn. You guys do you. But some long-running stuff in US looks horrible. E.g. if my country had elections-without-mandatory-voter-ID, I would not trust those elections at all. Your supreme court and surrounding drama looks like a shitshow for decades. And allowing big business money in politics smells like legalized corruption. All in all, your issues does not seem to be related to Trump or Haris or any other specific person.
They even burnt the card of elon musk who was a great asset in the storytelling of US of how innovation is rewarded better here than anywhere else. Now he looks like a nazi pos, only damages the US image.
It might be an unpopular viewpoint....but neocolonialism is necessary.
Perhaps not the right choice of word but I mean the term 'neocolonialism' here in the sense of introducing peoples to our ways of life: democracy, capitalism, human rights.
The long and short of it is that, you can only get with the web of conflicting interests, pure monetary dealings, etc so far. You don't make any lasting alliance with a peoples and a system fundamentally opposed to you. If you isolate away, they will continue falling into the trap of systems like China and Russia who are quite happy to take your place and have completely opposite ideals to you. Eventually you will be left more and more alone on the world stage with no true allies if you let them keep doing it, and one day you will be finished off by soft or hard means when those entities, who kept expanding their outreach, became powerful enough.
Tldr; Defensive fire. Its not that you want to engage in neocolonialism, but you will have to do so as long as your enemies engage in neocolonialism. The logic is no different than that behind maintaining a traditional military power really.
What I find the most interesting is that to me at least it seems like there has been some strange inversion over the course of my adult life, where the same people that used to lament things like the COA VOA propaganda, warfare, instigating and stoking and orchestrating coups, subverting democratic elections, etc. are exactly the ones doing and supporting all those things they used to decry.
I get the sense that I’ve just remained consistent in my views, but it still does not expiration things like how the same “liberals” who decried the invasion and corruption of Iraq, cheer on and demand limitless warfare and corrupted spending today on the likes of the Ukraine, while the “conservatives” want to stop wars and limit profligate spending and corruption.
It’s upside down world, and terrifying to witness how quickly people can be manipulated to take directly contradictory positions.
I don’t think this in quite fair. Since the time of Reagan, I think that liberals have consistently upheld the possibility of non-military government service being of value in contrast to the Reagan-ite generalization that only military service was generally honorable.
You're confusing "liberal" with "leftist," I suspect intentionally. Liberals supported the Iraq war.
And the conservatives don't want to stop wars, they're literally the pro-war, pro military industrial complex party, and nothing they're doing is actually limiting profligate spending or corruption.
Nice bit of propaganda and misidrection though. I can tell you worked hard on it.
This. I was surprised to see the outrage over USAID, which up until now I had considered an arm of the CIA. Of course you are downvoted, because right now the progressive thing is to support these institutions and not question them. But this attitude used to be the domain of the left and so was seen differently. Now that the right is saying it, we have to downvote you.
> how the same “liberals” who decried the invasion and corruption of Iraq, cheer on and demand limitless warfare
This is an absurdly dishonest take on Ukraine, and why “liberals” (or whatever you’re trying to say) support it.
There isn’t a single, real, person who supports “war” above and beyond “Russia should stop invading and leave” and it is extremely difficult to believe that stating otherwise was done in good faith.
Please be better than just stating a low-effort question. Are you familiar with Voice of America? Can you answer your own question? I'm not familiar with it myself, but I'm from the EU. I only know that it played an effort in the cold war propaganda effort with the (then) Munich-based Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.
What should I do better than ask a low effort question that should require a low effort but high value response?
My supposition is that the person I was responding to has not heard of voice of America broadcast recently--in spite of supporting it-- but I was hoping to be proven wrong.
It sounds like you yourself are not someone who values voice of America enough to tune in.
I'm not either. I have no idea what sort of "soft power" a radio broadcast yields these days and for whom it yields it.
I am sorry it sounds that way to you. To the best of my recollection I have never heard a voice of America broadcast and have no idea what it's doing after the Soviet Union fell.
So I was asking someone who is supporting it what hen thought about the recent broadcast.
Surely, if you support something, you have some familiarity with it?
As someone from europe, I am baffled by the ability to just fire everyone on the spot. Are there no job-protections for federal employees? This makes agencies really dependent on the political climate, right? Can he really just fire everyone? Isn't there even a 3 months notice or something?
A separate, connected thought is that I wonder why you would choose being a federal employee then. Here, the government promises job security but it usually means less pay and slower processes compared to industry. If you don't have job security, is then the government forced to be more competitive with industry positions in pay/processes?
> I am baffled by the ability to just fire everyone on the spot.
It often isn't about ability. Many of these are being challenged and courts are ordering reinstatements.
It's about leveraging sensitive, protected processes to generate so many constitutional crisis and other chaos knowing that Congress won't exercise it's safeguarding duties.
That leaves the public to engage a limited number of courts to issue orders against individual whitehouse actions - and the whitehouse undermining or outright ignoring those orders because the white house controls federal law enforcement.
Historically (for decades), stability has also been the pitch in the US, with the same tradeoff in pay and bureaucracy. I'm not sure about the exact legal authority, but no one has attempted it before. So much of our legal system depends on convention and what a given judge feels like on a given day that it's really hard to say whether this is "legal" or not.
There are protections, but not for 'probationary' employees (anyone who's been hired or transferred within the past X months).
As for the rest, they're not 'being fired', they're 'being placed on administrative leave', which is a paper-thin excuse but one that will have to wind its way through the court system like all the other bullshit the administration is pulling.
There absolutely are protections for probationary employees, just not as many as there are for those not in probationary status. Courts are already re-instating people who were clearly fired without cause. Our courts just aren't equipped to deal with these types of events as frequently and widely as they are happening now.
VOA/RFE operations were actually run by a separate non-profit org that got the vast majority of its operating funds from the feds. So, federal worker protections aren't relevant by dint of the org(s) being set up at arm's length.
That said, the current regime has had no problem acting outside of the law and existing federal employee union contracts. Tell people they're dismissed, cut off the email and building access, wait for the lawsuits, and then simply ignore the decisions weeks/months later and/or follow them with as much malicious compliance as they need to achieve their original aims.
tl;dr: No, employment protections fundamentally don't exist in the US, and doubly so for those employed by the federal government within an atmosphere of rampant lawlessness.
Republicans want to privatize everything. They want to make their rich friends richer by doing this. It's going to be a disaster for the average citizen.
> As someone from europe, I am baffled by the ability to just fire everyone on the spot. Are there no job-protections for federal employees?
There is, but Trump is ignoring them, and no one in his administration is enforcing those rules. Additionally, as of today he has started ignoring court orders.
Trump and Musk have done a coup and are violating the constitution and law. It doesn't matter though because Republicans in the Senate are complicit and the supreme court has granted Trump unlimited power with the immunity ruling.
In short: Job protection for executive employees defeats the entire point of an executive that is accountable to the people. Major magistrate positions are subject to Senate approval before being vested authority, but they are appointed and serve at the behest of the president, who literally embodies the executive.
I am having trouble understanding the document. Where is it stated? I can not exactly follow your argument. I am not sure why being accountable to the people necessitates having not any job protection?
I would have expected this to be codified (What is accountability for a federal employee). I mean regulatory bodies should also be accountable but also shielded from political influence, right?
You’re looking for the Reduction in Force Act for federal protections.
For the second part: no, US government regulatory bodies are expressly political, down to their very existence. You likely intended “partisan”, but, one party is against them existing at all, so…
It's difficult to understand the american strategy here , and even whether there is one. A state must have a strategy, it cannot be ran like a corporate, or else someone else with a strategy will become more successful.
Imagine if the roman empire went "on holiday" sometime around 100AD and just declared "Rome first!" but withdrew from the known world and let the chips fall where they may. "America first" is not some revelatory slogan, america was already first, but if it wants to be alone , that's their prerogative. But then the rest of the world is not ready to deglobalize nor does it want to. The great powers of the 19th century are no longer, so by necessity the world will have to remain globalized with an increasingly closed off america. This would be a loss for the USA - why would a scientist go to work in america if her work might eventually be subject to restrictions of collaboration.
On the other hand, the US launched an attack against the Houthi terrorists, which is a clear sign that the US is interested to maintain the world's essential trade and oil routes. So maybe america is not alone yet.
The strategy is, "this will make trump feel good today." Trump is terminally online, or in front of a tv, never ending his media diet while simultaneously absorbing no real information about the world.
There is no strategy outside of that. They are a cult and sycophants lashing out at anything they enjoy being belligerent towards. In their minds, the abandonment of soft power is being strong by just throwing away all the mamsy pansy stuff "they" wanted.
> Imagine if the roman empire went "on holiday" sometime around 100AD and just declared "Rome first!" but withdrew from the known world and let the chips fall where they may.
Actually, the ongoing collapse of the American governmental systems makes the collapse of various ancient civilizations seem less puzzling to me.
The US is at a point where the president is deliberately destroying his own government bureaucracy, ignoring the courts, and probably bringing about the end of constitutional rule. Meanwhile, Congress is just sitting back and watching it happen. Trump's wealthy backers support all this because they don't want to pay taxes or follow regulations, and Trump's voters are deeply angry and willing to lash out at whoever Trump tells them is to blame. You can't pay your mortgage because: "the EPA exists," "all our money is being given to foreign aid," "immigrants stole your job," etc.
It almost makes me think that maybe the Late Bronze Age Collapse occurred for internal social and political reasons that are impossible to piece together 3000 years later. 3000 years from now, will anyone be able to explain why the US political system imploded in the 2020s?
Here in the USA we currently have a regime that is focused on destroying all forms of American power: they are destroying our economic power, they are destroying our cultural power, they are destroying our military power. They are destroying the idea called "America." They have gone to war against each of our traditions and values. Some critics ascribe this to rational motives, such critics claim that the goal here is to make Trump wealthier, or to make Elon Musk wealthier, or to make all rich people wealthier. But I think it is a form of psychological denial to want to believe that Trump or Musk have rational motivations. It is more accurate to see this as an expression of the primitive impulses that rule them. There is no rational calculation in what they do, only rage, and a desire to destroy. Fighting against them is honorable, virtuous, and moral.
Unrepentant incompetence, especially in the presence of a counter/restoring force being actively ignored is indistinguishable from malice.
The U.S. is not unanimous in this dismantling effort, great controversy has been and continues to be brewed, which to any competent leader should signal a slower, more cautious approach. We see no such thing.
Hanlon's razor does not apply in such a circumstance. It only serves to ease the process of bloodletting by acting as a thought terminating cliche.
I think there's an easy answer for Elon's motivation in particular: he wants to damage the US as revenge for ending South African apartheid (https://www.flyingpenguin.com/?p=65793).
it's very funny that these guys don't seem to understand anymore that programs like VoA are their thing. they think they're "owning the left" by cutting the budget for right-wing propaganda.
Awful ancient Cold War propaganda outlets that were once illegal to broadcast into the United States, welcome to the resistance.
This is the willful destruction of independent journalistic outlets that are fully funded by the US government and broadcast primarily to countries whose governments the US has expressed an open desire to overthrow.
Trump is not doing things that different than Biden in foreign policy - how much more damage can Trump do the Palestinians in Gaza that Biden didn't do?
Trump is just more honest, and this embarrasses the professional-managerial liberals who support US imperialism. He's just saying what's happening as opposed to some nonsense about how he is neutral between Palestinians and Israelis while Biden was helping slaughtering Palestinians, Yemen, Syrians, Lebanese etc. while talking about peace.
No need for propaganda outfits when you're being honest.
The lies of upper middle class white liberal imperialists have been exposed - how the US treats Palestinians hasn't changed at all.
Plus some minor things - Trump is more anti-China, which is why he's winding down the Russia thing. From a geopolitical realist standpoint it makes more sense - maybe not to neocons.
Biden had the same attitudes towards enemies like Palestine and unaligned powers in the Middle East and Africa, where the main issue is inaction.
Trump is starting trade wars with close economic allies, threatening to annex territory from other NATO members, and closing down century-old institutions overnight.
There is a difference between seeing Israel killing Palestinians and doing nothing, and actually threatening overt action against what were once allies.
Biden didn't do nothing. He stated firm support for Israel, to the point of declaring himself a Zionist, he sent billions of dollars in arms and aid to Israel, and the US under his leadership vetoed numerous UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire, as well as witheld funding to Palestinian relief organizations.
He got the nickname "Genocide Joe" because of how enthusiastic he almost seemed to be about it. Utter disregard and contempt for Palestinian lives is one area where very little daylight exists between Biden and Trump. Even Kamala Harris didn't deviate from that norm.
Biden also put sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers who were committing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and restored hundreds of millions of aid for Palestinians that had been cut by the first Trump Administration.
Strikes me as odd how one flavor of commenters who've long called for the "end of the American Empire," reductions in our "overseas military imperialism," and closure of the VoA "propaganda outlet" now stand by the institutions of said Empire to the death.
I don't hold that view point, but if even the critics can see this as something evil, that should tell you something.
You can not like your neighbors partying and playing music until 3 AM, but also have the moral compass to know that setting fire to their house is not the solution.
Either party will argue against what the other is doing, while they do it, but it's what happens as the parties swap leadership that makes it clear what the party actually dislikes.
They don't discontinue everything the other party implemented, even when it's easy to do so, and that's the true indicator that the party is okay with something, regardless of the partisan complaints made when it was initially implemented.
I don't think so. What's described isn't one party attacking another for positions they supposedly support. Neither of the mainstream parties supported the "end of the American Empire" - that's something you really only heard from paleo-socialists, anarchists and contrarians regurgitating Cold War Soviet propaganda.
It's sad that otherwise reasonable folks either aren't aware or are too embarrassed to acknowledge their political biases.
But here we are. Trump is bad(and hey, he mostly is), so now we're justified in lying in any way shape or form that it takes to inflict some harm on his ideas, actions or person. The first casualty of someone like trump is our own character. We can't admit anything he does has positive benefits because to do so would be to give an inch to literal hitler.
If you went back 20 years and asked your average liberal activist they'd be all in favor of rolling back American "imperial actions and organizations" like USAID(long suspected to work closely with the CIA since at least the 60s). But here we are, debasing ourselves for politics' sake.
The USA appears to be destroying much of the 'soft power' that it spent decades building. And it cost a tiny amount compared to the 'hard power' of the military. As an outsider, it seems very short sighted.
The BBC is also cutting jobs in the BBC World Service, which seems similarly short sighted. But I don't think the cuts are as far reaching as the US ones:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpql1vvdn58o
> The USA appears to be destroying much of the 'soft power' that it spent decades building. And it cost a tiny amount compared to the 'hard power' of the military. As an outsider, it seems very short sighted.
Republicans think this is a good thing because they think the US can rule the world through hard power alone. It's such a depressing monumental mistake.
I do some consulting work for PSM in Europe, and there are cost-cutting measures across the board, but nowhere near as earth-shattering as in the US.
What characteristics distinguish “soft power” from propaganda and why is it good?
Is it just good in a Niestczhean kind of way in that serves American interests?
Soft power is simply the capability to persuade others without coercion. So it’s usually a much less destructive tool to achieve the same goal when the alternative is “hard” power.
Whether you build the soft power ethically or unethically (and false propaganda could be one of the many unethical ways to build soft power) is upto the country in question.
And whether that soft power is deployed for “good” or “bad” purposes is also dependent on the actions and goals of the nation.
So it’s kind of as meaningless to ask whether soft power is “good” or “bad” as it is to ask whether a hammer is good or bad, except generally “soft” power tends to be a better way to achieve the goals of a country than the alternative (which involves the threat and/or actual dropping of bombs) and the methods of developing soft power tend to generally be better than the alternative (distributing medicines for Thberculosis, cultural exchanges, etc instead of building a bigger and more dangerous military).
>Soft power is simply the capability to persuade others without coercion. So it’s usually a much less destructive tool to achieve the same goal when the alternative is “hard” power.
Powerful countries don't use soft power to bring good, they use it to serve their interests - when the target country's interests and its people's inclinations are not favorable to them.
Interests are not immutable.
For a long time, the US announced that it wanted a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law. Countries that chose to support the same values often benefited greatly. And when other countries saw the outcome, they sometimes changed their priorities and chose to support the American world order.
>For a long time, the US announced that it wanted a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law.
Yeah, that was still bogus. It collaborated with dictators (they are good, as long as they serve it's interests, they're a "regime" when they dont), brought down democratically elected governments, funded orange "revolutions" and opposition parties, and of course bombed, invaded, etc sovereign nations.
Further more, it's no place of any single country to try to build "a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law". Even if that wasn't transparently and extremely self-serving hypocritical, not every people share its ideas about democracy, or about capitalism, or what are good laws.
>And when other countries saw the outcome, they sometimes changed their priorities and chose to support the American world order.
Oh, sweet summer child.
I don't understand what you are trying to say.
People often change their minds. Sometimes when the situation changes, sometimes as a response to incentives, and sometimes because they have thought about the matter and learned something new. And when enough people change their minds, entire countries change their minds.
The world order the US marketed during the Cold War was very attractive, and many countries tried to join it voluntarily. Some of them succeeded and some didn't. The US used various means to advance its interests, but that doesn't mean every other country was just a bunch of mindless zombies with no agency and no ability to make choices.
Sometimes people just make a choice, because it's objectively better than the alternatives that are available.
> Further more, it's no place of any single country to try to build "a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law".
So no country should do anything to interact with its neighbors and all diplomacy is a waste of time? I should never try to convince you that my opinion is right because what if you disagree? What a strange, insular way to approach international relations.
Maybe a better phrasing would be "impose their idea of a world order, with their ideas of democracy, capitalism, and the rule of their laws"
There is a vast difference between the word I responded to, “build”, and the word you substituted in, “impose”.
Hard power and violence “imposes”. Sending you TB vaccines and helping you build roads, well, “builds”.
I'm not disagreeing, nor did i claim they're the same word. but your idea of “building” always seems to come with demands, implied or otherwise.
Propaganda is a message. Soft power is a means.
For example, Voice of America publishes "Learning English" radio/tv broadcasts, podcasts, and news articles. They are produced with a limited vocabulary (I think a few thousand words), shorter sentences, and are spoken slower. They often match up with native language reporting of current events so you can listen to both for context clues.
Having people all over the world able to speak a basic level of English helps further the dominant role of the US in international trade, allows our military to use friendly locals as translators anywhere they go, and gives people around the world some level of "connection" with us - shared common ground to work from.
VoA does not broadcast propaganda, they hold themselves to a very high standard of reporting only the truth. Which is why repressive governments hate it, as do people who want to create them.
Is your claim that Va primarily produces English language learning material and the content is secondary?
>VoA does not broadcast propaganda, they hold themselves to a very high standard of reporting only the truth.
Seriously?
Do you have any specific counter examples?
FWIW I am not American.
Their Wikipedia page in the controversy section lists at least 5 specific examples where they were criticized for direct political messaging - so certainly not a neutral party (whatever that means).
Also you seem to think propaganda means “not true” when it more often is true things that promote your interests. What matters is someone is paying to highlight information over other perspectives.
> What characteristics distinguish “soft power” from propaganda and why is it good?
A report from the American Enterprise Institute:
> To improve the US government’s response to the exploitation of youth by terrorist groups, the report recommends (1) adopting clear criteria to be used in weighing young peoples’ vulnerability to radicalization and recruitment and in creating and targeting terrorism prevention programs, (2) fostering both attitudinal and behavioral change to build youth resilience to recruitment, (3) moving beyond a traditional focus on young men to confront the radicalization and recruitment of girls and young women, and (4) engaging the family as a potential site of radicalization and recruitment.
* https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/wp-content/uploa...
For example:
> Cuts to health and food programs that wind up costing lives will embitter affected populations and be exploited in propaganda by anti-American groups. This will have at least a moderate effect in boosting recruitment by terrorist organizations.
* https://www.newsweek.com/islamic-state-will-capitalize-after...
All countries are in continual struggle for influence, to further their own interests. Doing this through soft power means (student exchanges, radio programs, films, music, building roads, blue jeans etc) is surely preferable to doing it through violent means. If the US reduces it's soft power, then no doubt it's influence will wane compared to other countries.
I don’t follow the argument that if we don’t do this then we must have boots on the ground. We don’t have to do either one.
You can do neither. Then other countries (e.g. China) will happily fill the vacuum. The Chinese aren't building all those hospitals, roads and bridges in other countries out of pure altruism.
Have you ever tried to be nice to people instead of threatening them to get what you want ? That's the idea
Doesn't work if what you want is against their interests. Hence "soft power" and, if that fails, "bombing for democracy".
> Doesn't work if what you want is against their interests.
There’s a world of difference between “against my interest” and “worth my effort”. Soft power could help in that gap.
I’m not actually sure we disagree - this is more of an elaboration.
Soft power is also building roads and hospitals in Africa (see: China) because you want the country to deal with you first (because they’ve you as a friend, even if you both know it’s a transactional relationship) when they go to sell resources they have. It’s not just trying to strong arm people into doing things they don’t want to do.
You have a deeply antagonistic view of all of this. Is there a reason? Do you think that the EU doesn’t employ soft power? That China doesn’t? Do you seriously see no difference between, for instance, seeing value in large numbers of people speaking some English and having a positive view of your country, and whatever “bombing for democracy” is supposed to represent?
Propaganda is a form of soft power, as is foreign aid, as is trade and cultural exchange. These things are "good" in the sense that they allow a nation to further its interests and strengthen its influence, and thus maintain stable and peaceful relationships with other nations, as opposed to furthering those interests through the direct use of violence.
Also what on earth does Nietzsche have to do with anything?
America provides copious amounts of aid all over the world. That's soft power. It's not "propaganda", it actually helps people survive.
It’s only power if the recipients view the US positively, or if other countries view the US positively for that aid.
Unfortunately I think it backfires when US power of all sorts (both hard and soft) is viewed as meddling.
At that point is the altruism worth the negative optics? I wonder.
There is aid, and there is meddling. The two aren't always intertwined. It's best when they aren't.
If "The US" drops a bomb on civilians, by accident or not, does that make all Americans bad, when it was really just a few military people that ultimately pulled that trigger?
With regards to optics, if the picture is blurry, then maybe put on your glasses. "The US" isn't only one thing or one entity.
A lot of those money went to pushing US cultural wars themes worldwide. And many parts of the world don’t exactly share modern US (or democrats party voters) values. Then US soft power is closer to waging cultural war.
Not exactly USAID, but similar topic. In my country US ambassador openly pushed for law that more than half of population is against for cultural reasons. That feels more like attempt of soft colonialism than soft power tbh.
Another example I recently noticed. When looking for kids cartoons online, I realized I try to stay away from recent US content. Why? Too much of a chance of blatant cultural propaganda. Meanwhile asian, even Chinese, stuff feels fine in the back of my mind. I guess PLC is pushing its own propaganda too, but I don’t even notice among the dragons and all that jazz.
IMO US soft power went south a good decade ago.
Well the difference between pushing for something and forcing is exactly the difference between soft power/influence and colonialism. Sure people may have different values but people can change and even in your country some people may find refreshing or even life saving to know that different perspectives exist. As you said maybe half of the population is against it... Maybe the other half is ok with it ?
Soft power is usually influence when followers fall in line without a push. And at least in these parts of the world it worked pretty well till mid-00s or somewhere around the '08 crisis?
When ambassador is trying to openly meddle with democratic processes in hosting country... It's a wee more than soft power and influence. Especially when both pro- and against- sides read it as „pass those laws contraversial even in US itself or else we won't defend you from muscovites“.
Regarding different perspectives existing, anybody consuming at least a tiny bit of media (western or not), knows that different perspectives exist. No need for ambassador to say anything. Showing off your lifestyle in media in a positive light is the best way to promote it, not push it down the people throat. It worked well for decades and the trend is clear. But for some reason in the past decade or so some people decided to ditch worked well.
In that specific case, ~ 1/4 supported the law, over 1/2 were against, remaining didn't care. Ultimately the law did not pass in parliament. The smaller party that pushed the law the most is no longer in parliament. A major party that co-pushed the law lost later election, with some members of the party attributing that to overall cultural wars narrative, the party leader resigned and the new leader of that party is much more conservative.
And yes, it might be an unpopular viewpoint....but neocolonialism is necessary.
Perhaps not the right choice of word but I mean the term 'neocolonialism' here in the sense of introducing peoples to our ways of life: democracy, capitalism, human rights.
The long and short of it is that, you can only get with the web of conflicting interests, pure monetary dealings, etc so far. You don't make any lasting alliance with a peoples and a system fundamentally opposed to you. If you isolate away, they will continue falling into the trap of systems like China and Russia who are quite happy to take your place and have completely opposite ideals to you. Eventually you will be left more and more alone on the world stage with no true allies if you let them keep doing it, and one day you will be finished off by soft or hard means when those entities, who kept expanding their outreach, became powerful enough.
Tldr; Defensive fire. Its not that you want to engage in neocolonialism, but you will have to do so as long as your enemies engage in neocolonialism. The logic is no different than that behind maintaining a traditional military power really.
The problem is that neocolonialism, just like colonialism, works best if master culture is tame and at least somewhat compatible with slave cultures. Current US/west culture is quite contraversial to say the least in many parts of the world. At the same time, this culture does not seem to tolerate allies who don't sign off on the full package. This „take it or fuck off“ attitude is not helpful IMO.
I'm not surprised that China is doing so well in „global south“. US/west needs not only to return to colonialism game, but update their offer as well.
My opinion regarding this is very simple. I like honesty. If a person or culture does not believe in human rights, then it has to right to complain if we decide to kill, oppress and torture them and raze them to create civilization there. Because what argument do they have for not being tortured if they don't believe in human rights?
Afghanistan (as an example) should have been civilized, whatever effort necessary for it. If a peoples or country doesn't support human rights, capitalism, etc then what justification does it have to tell you to stop if you oppress and torture them? Human rights? Pish they don't believe that crap.
Is the disagreement because you somehow believe the Taliban are "civilized" or does one have disagreement about the fact that a person claiming not to believe in human rights is in no position to argue against being tortured?
Afghanistan is called grave of the empires for a reason :)
The USA wasn't trying to fight a war there. As I note in my argument of non-believers in human rights having no right to oppose their own oppression....I don't really have any issues eliminating 90% or even higher of these elements until sanity emerges. If I were in charge I'd be flying in those with seeds of civilized thought into Western countries for training and acculturation, and destroy the hardliners meanwhile. And when the hardliners are sufficiently decimated, fly back them in as consultants or if they prefer as citizens back in Afg and so on.
>And many parts of the world don’t exactly share modern US (or democrats party voters) values.
Oh, I'm sure "the rest of the world" is cheering on the US to invade Panama, Greenland, Mexico, and Canada, which are all things that are actually on the table with the fascist right-wing agenda that currently control all branches of US government. "The rest of the world" is right now wishing Harris had won the election, not to mention half the US.
Coming from „the rest of the world“, I don't see a major difference between any US administrations in the past 15 years or so. It's the same nasty attitude pushing sleazy interests. I don't see a big difference between Obama being friendly to Putin after Georgia war and glancing over Crimea occupation and Trump doing what he is doing now. If US would have been a good cop back then, we wouldn't have a shit ton of issues today.
As for US internal matters... I don't give a damn. You guys do you. But some long-running stuff in US looks horrible. E.g. if my country had elections-without-mandatory-voter-ID, I would not trust those elections at all. Your supreme court and surrounding drama looks like a shitshow for decades. And allowing big business money in politics smells like legalized corruption. All in all, your issues does not seem to be related to Trump or Haris or any other specific person.
That makes sense. But then this kind of journalism/talk radio, would not be included.
They even burnt the card of elon musk who was a great asset in the storytelling of US of how innovation is rewarded better here than anywhere else. Now he looks like a nazi pos, only damages the US image.
I am afraid he looks like one because he is one. The modern Henry Ford.
Why try to divert the discussion into an off topic quagmire?
He’s saying this is bad because it reduces soft power. I’m asking why that’s a bad thing.
Because getting what you want through persuasion is cheaper and less bloody than through coercion.
Also the world is not a zero sum game and cooperation generally produces much greater rewards then hostile competition.
Why is it inevitable that we if we didn’t have US propaganda we would just be shooting people instead? I just don’t follow that.
It's not inevitable. It is merely extremely likely if history is a guide.
That's not to say it will be the US doing the shooting. The natural state of the world is not one of peaceful co-existence.
Soft power benefits Americans. The foreign aid and cooperation is helpful to both sides.
You don’t seem dumb enough for that to be a good faith question.
I think you'd be better off explaining why you think these changes are good for the country or the world. Otherwise it just comes off as Sealioning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
This is a basic high school question. It serves no purpose other than to deflect the discussion.
If you genuinely don't understand soft power, Google is your friend.
There are several different replies here and they are all very different. Some replies even say it is bad, but that it’s a kind of necessary evil.
So no I don’t think I’m asking a leading question and no it’s not obvious. That’s a reply that’s used when you don’t want to test your answer.
And why would we be so naive to think that Google would discern the intent of American political propaganda for us?
(copying another reply)
It might be an unpopular viewpoint....but neocolonialism is necessary.
Perhaps not the right choice of word but I mean the term 'neocolonialism' here in the sense of introducing peoples to our ways of life: democracy, capitalism, human rights.
The long and short of it is that, you can only get with the web of conflicting interests, pure monetary dealings, etc so far. You don't make any lasting alliance with a peoples and a system fundamentally opposed to you. If you isolate away, they will continue falling into the trap of systems like China and Russia who are quite happy to take your place and have completely opposite ideals to you. Eventually you will be left more and more alone on the world stage with no true allies if you let them keep doing it, and one day you will be finished off by soft or hard means when those entities, who kept expanding their outreach, became powerful enough.
Tldr; Defensive fire. Its not that you want to engage in neocolonialism, but you will have to do so as long as your enemies engage in neocolonialism. The logic is no different than that behind maintaining a traditional military power really.
VOA is the old world propaganda network. Twitter/Facebook are the new ones. Direct mirror image of TikTok effects.
What I find the most interesting is that to me at least it seems like there has been some strange inversion over the course of my adult life, where the same people that used to lament things like the COA VOA propaganda, warfare, instigating and stoking and orchestrating coups, subverting democratic elections, etc. are exactly the ones doing and supporting all those things they used to decry.
I get the sense that I’ve just remained consistent in my views, but it still does not expiration things like how the same “liberals” who decried the invasion and corruption of Iraq, cheer on and demand limitless warfare and corrupted spending today on the likes of the Ukraine, while the “conservatives” want to stop wars and limit profligate spending and corruption.
It’s upside down world, and terrifying to witness how quickly people can be manipulated to take directly contradictory positions.
I don’t think this in quite fair. Since the time of Reagan, I think that liberals have consistently upheld the possibility of non-military government service being of value in contrast to the Reagan-ite generalization that only military service was generally honorable.
(E.g., VOA, diplomatic service, DOJ)
You're confusing "liberal" with "leftist," I suspect intentionally. Liberals supported the Iraq war.
And the conservatives don't want to stop wars, they're literally the pro-war, pro military industrial complex party, and nothing they're doing is actually limiting profligate spending or corruption.
Nice bit of propaganda and misidrection though. I can tell you worked hard on it.
This. I was surprised to see the outrage over USAID, which up until now I had considered an arm of the CIA. Of course you are downvoted, because right now the progressive thing is to support these institutions and not question them. But this attitude used to be the domain of the left and so was seen differently. Now that the right is saying it, we have to downvote you.
Edit:
Some pre-2025 links:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/03/cuban-twitter-and-other...
https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AA2RFE4CPSKBZ78P
https://mronline.org/2008/09/23/usaid-key-weapon-in-dirty-wa... (from a socialist magazine, so take w/ a grain of salt)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/coup-connection...
Please do not be blinded by your well deserved distaste for trump. People calling for the ending of USAID are not all MAGA.
> how the same “liberals” who decried the invasion and corruption of Iraq, cheer on and demand limitless warfare
This is an absurdly dishonest take on Ukraine, and why “liberals” (or whatever you’re trying to say) support it.
There isn’t a single, real, person who supports “war” above and beyond “Russia should stop invading and leave” and it is extremely difficult to believe that stating otherwise was done in good faith.
In the USA, Republicans build the military and Democrats wield it.
I'm interested in what you thought of recent Voice of America broadcasts.
Please be better than just stating a low-effort question. Are you familiar with Voice of America? Can you answer your own question? I'm not familiar with it myself, but I'm from the EU. I only know that it played an effort in the cold war propaganda effort with the (then) Munich-based Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.
What should I do better than ask a low effort question that should require a low effort but high value response?
My supposition is that the person I was responding to has not heard of voice of America broadcast recently--in spite of supporting it-- but I was hoping to be proven wrong.
It sounds like you yourself are not someone who values voice of America enough to tune in.
I'm not either. I have no idea what sort of "soft power" a radio broadcast yields these days and for whom it yields it.
It seems like it is more the cavalry ca. 1950
It sounds like you’re not actually interested, and would like to make a point instead.
I am sorry it sounds that way to you. To the best of my recollection I have never heard a voice of America broadcast and have no idea what it's doing after the Soviet Union fell.
So I was asking someone who is supporting it what hen thought about the recent broadcast.
Surely, if you support something, you have some familiarity with it?
> Surely, if you support something, you have some familiarity with it?
You'd really hope that's the same logic used when someone doesn't support something too.
Rarely are people's opinions that well informed unfortunately.
As someone from europe, I am baffled by the ability to just fire everyone on the spot. Are there no job-protections for federal employees? This makes agencies really dependent on the political climate, right? Can he really just fire everyone? Isn't there even a 3 months notice or something?
A separate, connected thought is that I wonder why you would choose being a federal employee then. Here, the government promises job security but it usually means less pay and slower processes compared to industry. If you don't have job security, is then the government forced to be more competitive with industry positions in pay/processes?
> I am baffled by the ability to just fire everyone on the spot.
It often isn't about ability. Many of these are being challenged and courts are ordering reinstatements.
It's about leveraging sensitive, protected processes to generate so many constitutional crisis and other chaos knowing that Congress won't exercise it's safeguarding duties.
That leaves the public to engage a limited number of courts to issue orders against individual whitehouse actions - and the whitehouse undermining or outright ignoring those orders because the white house controls federal law enforcement.
Historically (for decades), stability has also been the pitch in the US, with the same tradeoff in pay and bureaucracy. I'm not sure about the exact legal authority, but no one has attempted it before. So much of our legal system depends on convention and what a given judge feels like on a given day that it's really hard to say whether this is "legal" or not.
There are protections, but not for 'probationary' employees (anyone who's been hired or transferred within the past X months).
As for the rest, they're not 'being fired', they're 'being placed on administrative leave', which is a paper-thin excuse but one that will have to wind its way through the court system like all the other bullshit the administration is pulling.
There absolutely are protections for probationary employees, just not as many as there are for those not in probationary status. Courts are already re-instating people who were clearly fired without cause. Our courts just aren't equipped to deal with these types of events as frequently and widely as they are happening now.
ah ok, thanks for the clarification! But there shouldn't be too many probationary employees, right?
So what's administrate leave exactly? Just relieved from your responsibilities? I guess you still get paid.
In theory, it should come with still being paid (https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-ad...) but I'm sure the current administration will find ways to conveniently lose the checks in the mail.
As someone from europe, I am baffled by the ability to just fire everyone on the spot. Are there no job-protections for federal employees?
There are, but these actions are intentionally designed to be so rapid and so numerous that the media and the legal system can't keep up.
The White House hasn't even been shy about it. They're calling it "flooding the zone," itself a sports reference.
VOA/RFE operations were actually run by a separate non-profit org that got the vast majority of its operating funds from the feds. So, federal worker protections aren't relevant by dint of the org(s) being set up at arm's length.
That said, the current regime has had no problem acting outside of the law and existing federal employee union contracts. Tell people they're dismissed, cut off the email and building access, wait for the lawsuits, and then simply ignore the decisions weeks/months later and/or follow them with as much malicious compliance as they need to achieve their original aims.
tl;dr: No, employment protections fundamentally don't exist in the US, and doubly so for those employed by the federal government within an atmosphere of rampant lawlessness.
Republicans want to privatize everything. They want to make their rich friends richer by doing this. It's going to be a disaster for the average citizen.
> As someone from europe, I am baffled by the ability to just fire everyone on the spot. Are there no job-protections for federal employees?
There is, but Trump is ignoring them, and no one in his administration is enforcing those rules. Additionally, as of today he has started ignoring court orders.
Trump and Musk have done a coup and are violating the constitution and law. It doesn't matter though because Republicans in the Senate are complicit and the supreme court has granted Trump unlimited power with the immunity ruling.
Article II of the Constitution exists and you can read it anytime:
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/
In short: Job protection for executive employees defeats the entire point of an executive that is accountable to the people. Major magistrate positions are subject to Senate approval before being vested authority, but they are appointed and serve at the behest of the president, who literally embodies the executive.
I am having trouble understanding the document. Where is it stated? I can not exactly follow your argument. I am not sure why being accountable to the people necessitates having not any job protection?
I would have expected this to be codified (What is accountability for a federal employee). I mean regulatory bodies should also be accountable but also shielded from political influence, right?
You’re looking for the Reduction in Force Act for federal protections.
For the second part: no, US government regulatory bodies are expressly political, down to their very existence. You likely intended “partisan”, but, one party is against them existing at all, so…
It's difficult to understand the american strategy here , and even whether there is one. A state must have a strategy, it cannot be ran like a corporate, or else someone else with a strategy will become more successful.
Imagine if the roman empire went "on holiday" sometime around 100AD and just declared "Rome first!" but withdrew from the known world and let the chips fall where they may. "America first" is not some revelatory slogan, america was already first, but if it wants to be alone , that's their prerogative. But then the rest of the world is not ready to deglobalize nor does it want to. The great powers of the 19th century are no longer, so by necessity the world will have to remain globalized with an increasingly closed off america. This would be a loss for the USA - why would a scientist go to work in america if her work might eventually be subject to restrictions of collaboration.
On the other hand, the US launched an attack against the Houthi terrorists, which is a clear sign that the US is interested to maintain the world's essential trade and oil routes. So maybe america is not alone yet.
The strategy is, "this will make trump feel good today." Trump is terminally online, or in front of a tv, never ending his media diet while simultaneously absorbing no real information about the world.
There is no strategy outside of that. They are a cult and sycophants lashing out at anything they enjoy being belligerent towards. In their minds, the abandonment of soft power is being strong by just throwing away all the mamsy pansy stuff "they" wanted.
Edit: sorry for the tone; I'm a bit perturbed.
> Imagine if the roman empire went "on holiday" sometime around 100AD and just declared "Rome first!" but withdrew from the known world and let the chips fall where they may.
Actually, the ongoing collapse of the American governmental systems makes the collapse of various ancient civilizations seem less puzzling to me.
The US is at a point where the president is deliberately destroying his own government bureaucracy, ignoring the courts, and probably bringing about the end of constitutional rule. Meanwhile, Congress is just sitting back and watching it happen. Trump's wealthy backers support all this because they don't want to pay taxes or follow regulations, and Trump's voters are deeply angry and willing to lash out at whoever Trump tells them is to blame. You can't pay your mortgage because: "the EPA exists," "all our money is being given to foreign aid," "immigrants stole your job," etc.
It almost makes me think that maybe the Late Bronze Age Collapse occurred for internal social and political reasons that are impossible to piece together 3000 years later. 3000 years from now, will anyone be able to explain why the US political system imploded in the 2020s?
Here in the USA we currently have a regime that is focused on destroying all forms of American power: they are destroying our economic power, they are destroying our cultural power, they are destroying our military power. They are destroying the idea called "America." They have gone to war against each of our traditions and values. Some critics ascribe this to rational motives, such critics claim that the goal here is to make Trump wealthier, or to make Elon Musk wealthier, or to make all rich people wealthier. But I think it is a form of psychological denial to want to believe that Trump or Musk have rational motivations. It is more accurate to see this as an expression of the primitive impulses that rule them. There is no rational calculation in what they do, only rage, and a desire to destroy. Fighting against them is honorable, virtuous, and moral.
Don't attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence.
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Yup, it looks like a Russian stooge has been installed in the White House.
It's both
Unrepentant incompetence, especially in the presence of a counter/restoring force being actively ignored is indistinguishable from malice.
The U.S. is not unanimous in this dismantling effort, great controversy has been and continues to be brewed, which to any competent leader should signal a slower, more cautious approach. We see no such thing.
Hanlon's razor does not apply in such a circumstance. It only serves to ease the process of bloodletting by acting as a thought terminating cliche.
I think there's an easy answer for Elon's motivation in particular: he wants to damage the US as revenge for ending South African apartheid (https://www.flyingpenguin.com/?p=65793).
it's very funny that these guys don't seem to understand anymore that programs like VoA are their thing. they think they're "owning the left" by cutting the budget for right-wing propaganda.
They’re cutting the budget for neocon power. Trump et al are not neocons, that’s been the democrats bag since Obama took it over
Awful ancient Cold War propaganda outlets that were once illegal to broadcast into the United States, welcome to the resistance.
This is the willful destruction of independent journalistic outlets that are fully funded by the US government and broadcast primarily to countries whose governments the US has expressed an open desire to overthrow.
Trump is not doing things that different than Biden in foreign policy - how much more damage can Trump do the Palestinians in Gaza that Biden didn't do?
Trump is just more honest, and this embarrasses the professional-managerial liberals who support US imperialism. He's just saying what's happening as opposed to some nonsense about how he is neutral between Palestinians and Israelis while Biden was helping slaughtering Palestinians, Yemen, Syrians, Lebanese etc. while talking about peace.
No need for propaganda outfits when you're being honest.
The lies of upper middle class white liberal imperialists have been exposed - how the US treats Palestinians hasn't changed at all.
Plus some minor things - Trump is more anti-China, which is why he's winding down the Russia thing. From a geopolitical realist standpoint it makes more sense - maybe not to neocons.
Biden had the same attitudes towards enemies like Palestine and unaligned powers in the Middle East and Africa, where the main issue is inaction.
Trump is starting trade wars with close economic allies, threatening to annex territory from other NATO members, and closing down century-old institutions overnight.
There is a difference between seeing Israel killing Palestinians and doing nothing, and actually threatening overt action against what were once allies.
Biden didn't do nothing. He stated firm support for Israel, to the point of declaring himself a Zionist, he sent billions of dollars in arms and aid to Israel, and the US under his leadership vetoed numerous UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire, as well as witheld funding to Palestinian relief organizations.
He got the nickname "Genocide Joe" because of how enthusiastic he almost seemed to be about it. Utter disregard and contempt for Palestinian lives is one area where very little daylight exists between Biden and Trump. Even Kamala Harris didn't deviate from that norm.
Biden also put sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers who were committing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and restored hundreds of millions of aid for Palestinians that had been cut by the first Trump Administration.
Sure, sure, but it’s one thing to genocide your enemies and another thing entirely to turn on your friends.
That's true.
Remind me which countries Biden threatened to annex? I'm drawing a blank on that.
Strikes me as odd how one flavor of commenters who've long called for the "end of the American Empire," reductions in our "overseas military imperialism," and closure of the VoA "propaganda outlet" now stand by the institutions of said Empire to the death.
I don't hold that view point, but if even the critics can see this as something evil, that should tell you something.
You can not like your neighbors partying and playing music until 3 AM, but also have the moral compass to know that setting fire to their house is not the solution.
Either party will argue against what the other is doing, while they do it, but it's what happens as the parties swap leadership that makes it clear what the party actually dislikes.
They don't discontinue everything the other party implemented, even when it's easy to do so, and that's the true indicator that the party is okay with something, regardless of the partisan complaints made when it was initially implemented.
I don't think so. What's described isn't one party attacking another for positions they supposedly support. Neither of the mainstream parties supported the "end of the American Empire" - that's something you really only heard from paleo-socialists, anarchists and contrarians regurgitating Cold War Soviet propaganda.
It's sad that otherwise reasonable folks either aren't aware or are too embarrassed to acknowledge their political biases.
But here we are. Trump is bad(and hey, he mostly is), so now we're justified in lying in any way shape or form that it takes to inflict some harm on his ideas, actions or person. The first casualty of someone like trump is our own character. We can't admit anything he does has positive benefits because to do so would be to give an inch to literal hitler.
If you went back 20 years and asked your average liberal activist they'd be all in favor of rolling back American "imperial actions and organizations" like USAID(long suspected to work closely with the CIA since at least the 60s). But here we are, debasing ourselves for politics' sake.