News Analysis: Making the case for ‘soft power’

By Robert Koenig and Mary Ellen Noonan Koenig >>

After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the United States – in addition to basing thousands of troops there – built dozens of “America House” cultural centers to help Germans learn about America. And when the Soviets blockaded Berlin in 1948-49, the U.S. sent thousands of flights there – not to drop bombs but to provide food and supplies. West Berliners fondly remembered those “candy bombers” for the rest of their lives.

During the Cold War, when the official news sources of Russians and Eastern Europeans were limited to communist propaganda, U.S. broadcasts such as the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty transmitted American news and music to hundreds of thousands of listeners. At the same time, U.S. cultural and educational exchange programs helped project a positive image of America in the Soviet bloc.

Those U.S. initiatives are examples of what political scientist Joseph S. Nye later defined as “soft power” – that is, convincing people in other nations to want the outcomes that your country wants. Unlike “hard power” – deploying or threatening military or economic force – “soft power” aims to co-op people or nations rather than coerce them.

“Hard power is push; soft power is pull,” wrote Nye, adding: “Hard power is like brandishing carrots or sticks; soft power is more like a magnet.”

The U.S. government’s soft power initiatives – sometimes called “public diplomacy” – have traditionally included international broadcasting; academic exchanges such as the Fulbright program; exchanges of legislators, journalists and other professionals; programs to promote U.S. higher education and the English language; as well as an array of efforts to foster cooperation among international museums, libraries, and scientific researchers. The goals of such programs include projecting an image of the U.S. as a generous, open and just society, as well as demonstrating our international leadership in diverse fields.

In countries where there is a strained bilateral relationship, such as Russia and China, educational and cultural programs are capable of reaching a wide range of citizens, including students, artists, journalists and civic leaders – and keeping the door open for diplomacy. For example, after the U.S. imposed sanctions in response to Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014, Moscow started shutting down direct contact with U.S. government officials. But many cultural and exchange programs continued, giving American diplomats and private citizens opportunities to maintain contact with Russian counterparts.

Another major example of soft power is food security and health care, until recently administered through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which President John F. Kennedy created in 1961 — at the height of the Cold War – to counter Soviet influence abroad. Studies have estimated that, in recent decades, such programs in Africa – with shipments often labeled “From the American People” – have helped save the lives of nearly three million children and more than a million women of reproductive age. 

In its initial months, the administration of President Donald Trump – with the main goal of cutting federal spending – has taken steps to weaken or eliminate some of the nation’s major tools of soft power, including decimating USAID and unplugging the VOA. Other federal spending cuts also might eventually impact the State Department’s educational and cultural affairs programs.

While most news coverage about USAID cuts has focused on its food security and health initiatives in Africa, the agency’s grants in more than 100 countries also promote democracy and support disaster relief, infrastructure and economic growth. Those initiatives support U.S. farmers, pharmaceutical companies, and U.S.-based non-governmental organizations that purchase and distribute such aid under USAID contracts. 

Soft power initiatives also extend to volunteers, including American families that host international students; universities that welcome foreign scholars under the Fulbright and other educational exchange programs; and U.S. professionals who meet foreign counterparts through the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

It is challenging to measure the impact of soft power initiatives, as opposed to the metrics used to assess hard power such as military actions or economic sanctions. However, studies indicate that soft power is effective over time, creating a cadre of foreign citizens who better understand and appreciate the United States. At its height, the VOA’s Jazz Hour was listened to by an estimated 30 million people around the world. Host Willis Conover’s politics-free broadcasts were credited for fostering connections between the U.S. and people in Soviet satellite states, as well as helping listeners learn English.

Charles Allen, a Clayton resident and teacher of Russian literature who worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Paris from 1980-89, says studies suggest that “foreign broadcasting clearly played a role in the unraveling of the Soviet Union.” That, he says, shows “the importance of soft power as a vehicle of influence.”

After the Soviet government opened to economic reforms and the discussion of different views in the late 1980s, Allen says, Russians “turned increasingly to foreign radio as an independent source of critical news and commentary.” In fact, Russian President Boris Yeltsin “acknowledged that Radio Liberty had been a critical information channel” when his government survived an attempted coup in 1991.

The Bell, one of the last independent news sites covering Russia, suggested in March that “closing Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty now, when the organization is relevant once again and its work is in demand, seems highly short-sighted.” The site said the Current Time television station, co-produced with the Voice of America, is, alongside TV Dozhd, the only Russian-language TV broadcaster that is independent of Kremlin control.

Up until the Trump shutdown this year, surveys showed that VOA’s broadcasts in dozens of languages reached hundreds of millions of listeners. The charter called on VOA correspondents to present American policies “clearly and effectively,” without regard to the politics of the U.S. administration. (During his first administration, Trump had criticized what he claimed was VOA’s liberal bias.)

One measure of soft power’s reach is how authorities in China and Russia reacted to the Trump administration’s dismantling of U.S. international broadcasting. In March, Chinese state media praised Trump’s decision to decimate VOA, which has often broadcast critical coverage of Chinese and Russian human rights. Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan, editor of the Kremlin-backed RT network, called Trump’s decision “awesome.”

Will the cutbacks in U.S. soft power initiatives impact the image of America abroad? A 2024 survey of people from more than 100 countries by BrandFinance – a leader in assessing the reputations of nations and corporate brands – found that the United State and China were the most influential soft-power nations. But the reputation of the U.S. had declined after the divisive 2024 presidential campaign. And the report cautioned that the future of soft power under Trump looked uncertain.

That trend is disturbing. While the U.S. is cutting back on its soft power initiatives, China is bolstering its already extensive propaganda and foreign aid programs, especially in Asia and Africa. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which some have compared to the U.S. Marshall Plan for Europe after World War Two, is spending billions on roads, bridges and railroads in Asia and dozens of other countries.

Meanwhile, the China International Development Cooperation Agency, known as “China Aid,” the nation’s foreign aid and international development agency, moved recently to intensify its emphasis on using foreign aid to advance Chinese foreign policy goals, more than strictly financial and trade goals.

Nye says the ability of a nation to take advantage of soft power can change if the country’s policies change. For example, if foreign views of American foreign policy, political values and its culture become less positive, that decline in image will weaken the nation’s soft power potential.

Even many U.S. officials who wielded hard power warn against the dismantling of U.S. foreign aid and other soft power initiatives. In an amicus brief filed March 17 in a federal court case challenging the USAID cutbacks, a bipartisan group of former senior officials contended that halting most foreign-aid funding is causing “irreparable” damage to U.S. standing abroad and is helping China, Russia and other adversaries.

Those who signed the brief included former CIA Director Michael Hayden; former Defense Secretaries Chuck Hayden and William Perry; and former top Defense Department official Eric Edelman. They argue that the freeze on U.S. foreign aid funding has “created vacuums of need all around the world, ceding influence and permitting China and Russia to seize those opportunities left behind.”

Mary Ellen Koenig is a retired U.S. diplomat with expertise in public diplomacy, having served overseas and in Washington, D.C.  Robert Koenig is a former Post-Dispatch correspondent who analyzed Russian propaganda for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.

Note: The amicus brief mentioned above was filed in support of plaintiffs in AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION, et al., v. PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, et al.    Case No. 1:25-cv-00352 (CJN)

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