Part IV: Soft Power, Hard Truths
What We Lose When Diplomacy Is Dismissed
Series: Retrenchment or Reimagination?
The Quiet Work of Influence
Soft power doesn’t show up in parades.
It doesn’t drop bombs.
It doesn’t trend on social media.
But it does something harder—and often more lasting:
It builds trust.
It opens doors.
It shapes how nations think, act, and align.
And for decades, America led the world not just through strength, but through presence.
Diplomatic, cultural, educational, humanitarian—each a thread in the larger fabric of global credibility.
But today, that fabric is fraying.
The War on Quiet Power
Since taking office, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has:
Terminated 1,300 career diplomats and civil servants
Defunded Voice of America
Dismantled most refugee resettlement programs
Withdrawn from UNESCO
Eviscerated USAID
He defends these moves as reforms—“cutting bloat,” as he puts it.
But the real consequence is this:
America is speaking less—and being heard less.
Our embassies are hollowed out.
Our cultural programs have vanished.
Our influence is now measured in leverage, not legitimacy.
And the world has noticed.
Diplomacy Is National Defense
There’s a misconception—often amplified in MAGA circles—that diplomacy is “soft,” and therefore weak.
But diplomacy is not weakness. It is risk management.
It’s how you prevent a skirmish from becoming a war.
How you turn a rival into a partner—or at least keep them from becoming a spoiler.
Diplomacy is how you buy time, build coalitions, and shape outcomes before violence erupts.
Cutting it doesn’t make us stronger.
It makes us blind.
Transactional Foreign Policy: The Faustian Bargain
In the Trump-Rubio doctrine, foreign policy is increasingly transactional. It’s:
Quid pro quo over principle
“What do we get?” instead of “What do we stand for?”
Short-term deals in place of long-term partnerships
We’ve seen this in:
The El Salvador detention deal, where migrants are warehoused with minimal oversight.
Fast-tracked asylum for white South African applicants, while broader refugee programs are shuttered.
Visa revocations for foreign students who protested the war in Gaza.
Each of these might win political points.
But collectively, they send a message:
America is no longer a beacon.
We’re a broker.
The Collapse of Credibility
Soft power works on one essential currency: trust.
Not perfection. Not popularity.
Just the belief that when America shows up, it brings more than self-interest.
It brings values.
When that belief erodes, everything else becomes harder:
Allies hedge their bets.
Rivals exploit the vacuum.
Movements that once looked to the U.S. for moral support stop looking at all.
That’s the hidden cost of retrenchment: a credibility deficit that compounds over time.
Why This Matters Now
We live in an age of strategic competition:
Russia is probing the edges of Europe
China is exporting its model of surveillance and control
Authoritarians are learning from one another
In that world, soft power is not a luxury—it’s an asymmetric advantage.
It’s how we:
Undermine repression without firing a shot.
Inspire change from within instead of imposing it from without.
Keep the world tethered to the idea that liberal democracy still has a future.
Without it, we’re just another great power throwing elbows.
A Closing Reflection
The most powerful influence is often the quietest.
A teacher in Kabul.
A Fulbright scholar in Nairobi.
A diplomat in Warsaw.
A USAID nurse in Caracas.
These are not footnotes to American power.
They are American power.
And if we silence them—if we reduce diplomacy to theatrics, or eliminate it altogether—we may still have the strongest military, but we’ll no longer have the world’s attention. Or respect. Or trust.
Up Next:
Part V: Reclaiming Coherence—Is a Principled Retrenchment Possible?
Because the answer isn’t to spend endlessly or retreat entirely.
The answer is to reclaim clarity:
What are our interests?
What are our values?
Where do they align—and where don’t they?
Next, we’ll explore whether America can cut wisely, speak clearly, and lead credibly—without succumbing to either moral exhaustion or ideological theater.
Author’s Note
As this piece goes live, the world is watching two critical developments: the Putin–Trump summit, and meetings at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and key European leaders.
It is too soon to judge their outcomes, but they remind us that diplomacy is never abstract. It unfolds in real time, with real stakes.
Let us make space for these conversations — and hope they yield not division but direction, not spectacle but substance, and the best outcome for all.