The End of American Soft Power; The Resurgence of American Hard Power

By Anil Madan

On March 1, 2025, Associated Press (AP) reported that the Trump administration had eliminated more than 90% of foreign aid contracts and cut some $60 billion in funding. These decisions, AP stated, left millions of people without access to life-saving care. Some 10,000 contracts with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were terminated. Letters from the administration said that the programs were being defunded “for convenience and the interests of the US government.”

The list of abandoned programs is long, and it is difficult to pick out a representative sample without feeling that one should have mentioned a deserving cause that has suffered the misfortune of neglect. With that in mind, these cuts have affected healthcare for Afghan women, independent journalism in El Salvador, landmine harvesting in Cambodia, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, vaccination and anti-malaria programs, contraception, cancer prevention, nutrition programs, sex and drug trafficking. So far, there is no explanation of how these cuts serve the convenience and interests of the US government. Don’t hold your breath waiting for one.

This is a remarkable change in America’s exercise of soft power. The conventional wisdom is that such programs bring an immense flood of appreciation for America’s outreach to the less fortunate across the world. And the hope is that such appreciation will breed goodwill. Well, perhaps not always, and that sense among some Americans that the USA’s efforts are not appreciated, may help to explain why some are willing to terminate these initiatives. That there is no congruence between justifying their views and the notion that the best reasons for charity and kindness do not include an expectation of reward merely confirms that logic plays no part in such emotions.

On February 28, 2025, with barely enough time for a 40-day flood to have receded following Trump’s second inauguration, there was the confrontation at the White House when Trump and Vice President Vance pounced on Ukrainian President Zelensky. A commentator for The Hill wrote that these events generated a sense of shock and dread, “a feeling that something terribly wrong and irreversible had just happened to America.” That commentator’s observation that the event “appeared to be a calculated decision by America’s commander in chief to berate and humiliate a strategic partner at war with a foreign invader” suggested that America was abandoning not only soft power but also backing away on the world stage from the use of its hard power. After all, if the US wasn’t willing to support even indirectly, an ally under attack, perhaps the European members of NATO and Britain should be legitimately concerned that America was no longer going to be a player on the world stage, at least not when it comes to Russian aggression.

Just two weeks earlier, Trump said: “Taiwan took our chip business away. We had Intel, we had these great companies that did so well. It was taken from us. And we want that business back. We want it back in the United States.” And there was the threat that the US would not come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese takeover.

It seemed that an American withdrawal from the world stage was happening right before our eyes.

Indeed, one commentator wrote that Trump’s actions, including his tariff war, were emboldening Chinese hardliners to push to accelerate the timeframe for unification with Taiwan, suggesting that these hardliners see Trump’s chaotic foreign policy as a golden opportunity for China to regain control of Taiwan.

Trump has never seemed a pacifist, but his calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine, a ceasefire in Gaza, a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, his deal with the Houthis, and his call for a ceasefire in Congo, suggested a reluctance to project American force. Indeed, his repeated statements that he would not get America involved in another war seemed to solidify the notion that America had a president recalcitrant about using its military might.

Then things changed. Trump ordered B-2 Stealth bombers to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities with bunker buster bombs. As I have previously written, the full extent of the damage to and setback of Iran’s nuclear program remains to be determined.

Here was a President not just projecting America’s power, but willing to use it. Just this past week, Chris Buckley, a New York Times writer commented that Trump’s decision to attack Iran “introduces another complication for China’s leaders trying to fathom how he might handle conflict over Taiwan.” Unquestionably, as I have previously written, Trump has shown not only that America still has formidable force at its disposal, but also a President willing to use it. This should come as no surprise. American presidents have the option to use massive force. Inevitably, during most presidencies, the opportunity to “pull the trigger” comes along. Few can resist. Every president since Eisenhower, not actively involved in an ongoing war, has deployed US forces in combat. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon in Vietnam, Ford in his brief tenure with the Mayaguez incident, Carter and Iran, Reagan who withdrew from Lebanon but felt compelled to take action against Grenada, George H.W. Bush with the Gulf War, Clinton with Bosnia and Syria, George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama ditto, Biden in Ukraine, and now Trump in Iran.

Walter Russel Mead, writing in the Wall Street Journal, called Trump’s attack on Iran, “the boldest use of American power since George W. Bush launched his shock-and-awe campaign against Saddam Hussein in 2003.” Mead includes the pithy assessment that “American presidents have blundered across the region, losing trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in one ill-judged escapade after another. These costly failures alienated a generation of Americans, fueling populist isolationism on the right and socialist anti-Americanism on the left.”

At first blush, one might have expected that attacking Iran would prove to be another blunder. But not so far. Yes, we must keep in mind that Iran could retaliate.

But a strange calm has arrived. Israel and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire. The surprising thing is that although neither seems to have had anything to gain from continuing hostilities, such a consideration has never in the past deterred either from adventurism. So, was it Trump who brought the ceasefire about? It sure looks that way.

And now we have talk of an Israel-Hamas ceasefire. That may well never happen, but the subject of a ceasefire keeps coming up. This suggests an ongoing negotiation, perhaps just the indirect one, but both Israel and Hamas seem to confirm that it is happening.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s semiconductor giant has announced plans to build a massive chip fabrication plant in the US and China called on the US to use its influence with Israel to bring about a ceasefire with Iran.

Tunku Varadarajan writing in The Wall Street Journal, extolled Mead’s writing and pointed out that Mead’s observation that: “Just when the conventional wisdom that America was in terminal decline had congealed into place,” he says, “the airstrikes suggest that American power remains unique in world affairs.”

Varadarajan summarizes Mead’s analysis suggesting that it identified four distinct American approaches to foreign policy, which he called Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian and Jacksonian. “Hamiltonians regard a strong alliance between government and big business as ‘the key to effective action abroad.’” Wilsonians believe that the US has both “a moral obligation and an important national interest” in spreading democratic values throughout the world.” 

Trump is, of course, a Jacksonian at heart, believing that the security and well-being of the American people is paramount. Some might argue that Trump’s definition of “the American people” does not encompass diversity, equity, and inclusion. But however, he defines his American diaspora (albeit localized in the US and not spread around the world) it is THEIR welfare that he espouses.

 As Varadarajan explains Mead’s thinking, a Jacksonian holds that the US “should not seek out foreign quarrels, but when the US or its allies are attacked or threatened or even insulted, they can become very energized, like a hive of bees. If the hive is attacked, they will sting with everything they’ve got.”

So, Trump has felt threatened by Iran and justifiably feels that Iran has sponsored attacks on America and its interests. This approach is similar to his threats against all who would cross him on the domestic scene at home.

With so much going on, we might well ask if there is a master plan and what is going on behind the scenes? Is Trump pursuing some coherent policy that will bring peace to the world, and win him a Nobel Peace Prize, or is this just another incoherent jumble akin to one of his rambling speeches at a campaign rally which have come to be known as his “weave?”

Perhaps it is all transactional. The rare earth minerals deal with China, mining rights for American in Congo as part of a ceasefire deal with Rwanda, a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza (without mention of his fabled Riviera of the Middle East), allowing China to purchase Iranian oil notwithstanding sanctions on Iran speak to this. But how do we explain Trump’s refusal to send more defensive missile interceptors to Ukraine even after a rare earth mining deal was agreed with that country? Given all his talk about achieving ceasefires, his failing with Putin in Ukraine is singular. There is no rational explanation.

As with all things Trump, the broad strokes tell one story, the tiny brush strokes of detail are often unfinished or altogether absent. Will a giant painting with peace as its theme be enough, or are the details necessary to fill in before the warring nations see that they are part of the bigger picture? Can Trump paint a bigger picture?

Cheerz…
Bwana

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 4 July 2025