"Members of the government’s new #SoftPower council, set up by ministers earlier this year, warned the #BBC World Service, the British Council, and #universities – regarded as the bodies at the forefront of the UK’s soft power efforts – all face major financial pressures."

#UKPol #Education

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/07/ministers-accused-of-being-asleep-at-the-wheel-over-uk-soft-power-around-the-world

We'll be attacking Science next, just like Gilead.

We're run by people who know the price of everything but do not understand it's value. People for whom the AI hustle sounds like a great idea, because they have no imagination and do not understand what it means to be a person.

South Korea has invested heavily in their Art and Culture, and now we're all watch K-dramas and K-Pop.

The UK is just pissing it all away,

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/07/ministers-accused-of-being-asleep-at-the-wheel-over-uk-soft-power-around-the-world

#UKPOL #UKPOLITICS #SoftPower #Fascism #Culture

"The Trump administration misses a major dimension of power. Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. This goal can be accomplished by coercion, payment, or attraction. The first two are hard power; the third is soft power. In the short term, hard power usually trumps soft power, but over the long term, soft power often prevails. Joseph Stalin is thought to have once mockingly asked, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” But the Soviet Union is long gone, and the papacy lives on.

The president seems inordinately committed to coercion and the exercise of American hard power, but he does not seem to understand soft power or its role in foreign policy. Coercing democratic allies such as Canada or Denmark more broadly weakens trust in U.S. alliances; threatening Panama reawakens fears of imperialism throughout Latin America; crippling the U.S. Agency for International Development undercuts the United States’ reputation for benevolence. Silencing the Voice of America mutes the country’s message.

Skeptics say, So what? International politics is hardball, not softball. And Trump’s coercive and transactional approach is already producing concessions with the promise of more to come. As Machiavelli once wrote about power, it is better for a prince to be feared than loved. But it is better yet to be both feared and loved. Power has three dimensions, and by ignoring attraction, Trump is neglecting a key source of American strength. In the long run, it is a losing strategy.

America’s decline may not be a mere dip but a plunge.
And soft power matters even in the short run. If a country is attractive, it won’t need to rely as much on incentives and penalties to shape the behavior of others. If allies see it as benign and trustworthy, they are more persuadable and likely to follow that country’s lead..."

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/end-long-american-century-trump-keohane-nye

#USA #Trump #SoftPower #Imperialism #PoliticalEconomy #Diplomacy #InternationalRelations #Geopolitics