[throwayedidqo]

The US is also still largely a transparent democracy. By soft-power do you mean the only modern country so defined by its achievements that it's culture is emulated across the world?

In the former Soviet Union and even in modern China it's fashionable and a sign of wealth to have American technology and fashion. Among many trade barriers, China artificially limits the number of American movies allowed in theaters to a couple a year because they're so popular.

Even countries with extremely friendly relations to the US take some actions to limit the pervasiveness of US culture. In the case of Japan, limiting the number of US baseball players on Japanese teams comes to mind.

It's telling that even with the magnitude of recent intel leaks there has been nothing found to indicate the US uses government funded propaganda. They don't need to.

Not to go too off my chain too much on why US culture is looked up to, but we're talking about the country that invented the car,microchip, transistor, computer, atomic weapons, GPS, and the internet.

Most of the great inventions of modern history were created in the United States, some of them by the government itself. Silicon valley continues to pump out the most valuable companies in the world at an astounding rate to this day.

So what is soft power exactly? Is it bad that a lot of countries look up to the US model of society? Is that unfair? Your claim is baseless, American culture is popular simply because the US is so successful.

[kristianc]

And yet the US export of soft power to the Middle East largely ended in ignominious failure.

And there's plenty of intel out there in the open that the US funds propaganda abroad, such as Omidyar's co-funding of the Ukraine resistance (https://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukrain...).

Or in Chile, where the United States overthrew a democratically elected leader and installed a dictator who went on to commit over 300 human rights atrocities.

Indeed many of the technologies you cite as being invented by the US were invented within a military context! Atomic weapons were not, I'm sorry to say, America's wonderful altruistic gift to the world.

The US has certainly been successful projecting its power around the world - arguing that that has come from the sheer force of American global popularity is more of a stretch.

[throwayedidqo]

And here we go, meandering farther and farther from the point at hand. That article is not from a respectable news source and your claims, which have nothing to do with China, are not verifiable.

However, my arguments are easily verifiable and widely known. Why do other countries feel the need to block things like US movies and sports stars? Are your seriously suggesting that such things are secretly US govt propaganda?

The most reasonable explanation is that US movies and sports stars are known for their high quality and allowing the US to compete in those countries would totally wipe out local movies and sports stars. This would obviously contribute to the spread of US culture and continue propagating the believe that the US model of society produces superior products.

Countries like Russia and China depend on their propaganda machines to keep the population complacent. Allowing foreign competition to overtake local firms and show their superiority to the local populace would result in questions those governments don't want these citizens asking.

Foreign companies find little trouble competing in the US, because the US govt by large is not concerned with the influence of foreign culture. The government is slight corrupt but not to the point that it makes widespread lies necessary to maintain order. Many foreign companies have the US as their primary market, something China and other countries that depend on propaganda for peace would never allow.