[dmschulman]

It's part of a multi-pronged approach to intentionally cede US soft power.

To what ends I'm still fuzzy on, but this discontinuation follows a pattern we've seen with this administration knee-capping or outright dismantling many of the ways this country spreads soft power such as through humanitarian services via USAID, broadcasts from Voice of America, ending international research opportunities and divesting us from the WHO, and doing everything possible to turn the US into a pariah in the eyes of NATO, just to name a few big changes.

[danny_codes]

Fox News figure-head cabinet might not be the most, ah, strategically minded group of people.

[MaxfordAndSons]

The ends are to create vacuums for big businesses to come in and provide the same services, for private profit rather than public benefit

[4fterd4rk]

I'm not saying the Trump regime is filled with people beholden to or influenced by Russia... but if they were I don't see what they'd be doing differently.

[swed420]

> this discontinuation follows a pattern we've seen with this administration knee-capping or outright dismantling many of the ways this country spreads soft power such as through humanitarian services via USAID, broadcasts from Voice of America, ending international research opportunities and divesting us from the WHO, and doing everything possible to turn the US into a pariah in the eyes of NATO, just to name a few big changes.

Seems like it's to manufacture consent for a narrow overton window of capital interests, which is nothing new to this administration in particular. It keeps up the illusion of democracy by looking like changes are happening all the time as a result of voting, but really it's a race to the bottom except for the uber wealthy.

Since most voters of both corporate parties have pretty much universally internalized and accepted they're voting for the "lesser of two evils," it's safe to conclude our political system is captured and has been for decades. Furthermore, 1/3 of people refusing to vote is not solely out of laziness. Many of them have concluded the system is FUBAR.

We're given two shit options which come about through a broken primary process and is reported on by monopolistic media. The news media and social media is siloed in such a way that people filter into one of two corporation-approved spheres of groupthink. These two spheres manufacture consent for each other in numerous ways, one of which is exemplified above. The good cop/bad cop setup makes it look like things are constantly getting broken only to have the illusion of being re-fixed by the other group, as measured by a pre-approved narratives that are disseminated.

The COVID pandemic is another great example. Sadly the CDC has been a disgrace under all recent administrations of both parties and has lots of blood on its hands:

https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...

Unfortunately the WHO has similar issues:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ZeroCovidCommunity/comments/1q87aki...

Almost as if capital interests are running the show. But what are we fighting about in 2026? That's right, whether we should or should not be affiliated with the WHO, and to what extent our CDC should be funded. Two broken institutions and a performative fight about them. Meanwhile millions have/will see their grave earlier than they otherwise would have, thanks to long COVID (many of whom will never even make that connection, including their doctors who were spoonfed the "vax and relax" / "back to normal" messaging in service to an archaic consumption-based economy.

[drstewart]

Soft power is just a buzzword to give value to things that have zero demonstrable value.

The CIA Factbook has played zero role in giving the US any measurable power.

[pseudalopex]

The McNamara fallacy (also known as the quantitative fallacy), named for Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, involves making a decision based solely on quantitative observations (or metrics) and ignoring all others. The reason given is often that these other observations cannot be proven.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

[drstewart]

True, TSA has been very valuable in airline safety. Think of it as "soft terrorism prevention".

[bjourne]

In the early days of Wikipedia many articles were taken directly from the CIA Factbook since it was public domain. Numerous Wikipedians have fond memories of it and remembers it as something the US did that was actually good and not evil shit. That and America's Army. Cheap ways to gain goodwill. Maybe in the grand scheme of things it didn't matter.

[DANmode]

America’s Army didn’t strike me as cheap at the time - but definitely was in the context of the budget of the US military.

[graeme]

Millions of people around the world looked at the CIA world factbook. It was useful. It gives you a warm feeling about the USA and the CIA. Warm feelings are useful.

If you deny this argument do you claim:

1. No one used it or it wasn't useful, or

2. They used it robotically and formed no feelings, or

3. It is of absolutely no use to have people like your organization or country.

[superxpro12]

right. because there's zero demonstrative value in USAID giving aid to foreign countries which is why we just left.

...and then china moved in.

The real problem is that the problem isnt binary or immediately causal. "This happened, and then that happened".

These problems are slowly developing with more than 1 term in the equation.

China doesnt build silk road 2.0 because of one little decision. It's an accumulation, and by then it's too late.

[drstewart]

What's the Chinese version of the factbook? European? Canadian? Why aren't they all moving in on all this sweet soft power?

[delfinom]

There is none other than a heavier source like Wikipedia (heavy because the information is there but inconsistently buried in writing), but it is death by a thousand papercuts in terms of losing soft power.

[jd24]

I agree. People use "soft power" as the reason the US should do so many things for free, but the benefits aren't coming back to the US.

[tossaway0]

The argument against abandoning soft power is that it's going to cost a lot more in hard power to maintain the same status. We'll see how it plays out.