FROM OUR INBOX
Kim Iskyan Response: Mike W., thanks for your e-mail. Soft power is about the medium as well as the message – and by not sticking up for NATO and by leaving the Paris Agreement (that is, abandoning the medium), the U.S. was signaling that it wasn’t interested in sitting at the front of the global table. Even if the U.S. has good reason to be exasperated with the rest of the world, it’s still – I’d argue – overwhelmingly in the best interest of America to play a big, central, and defining role in the organizations where the countries
in the Accords when all membership did was require us to pay the majority of its expenses? Why should the U.S. pay the majority of the funding for WHO when it apparently was lying about COVID for the Chinese and was effectively controlled by them? Other countries may have resented our ending the indiscriminate funding of their favorite organizations, since they now had to take up their fair share of the burden, but I think we gained increased influence and respect by showing the rest of the world that the U.S. would operate in its own interest, instead of just being Uncle Sugar for everyone else. Since the USwill never be loved, I’ll settle for being respected. – MikeW.
of the world come together to talk. And even if (as you suggest) the U.S.
operates in its own interest, if it does it as part of, rather than apart from, international organizations, its influence (in terms of soft power) will remain far greater than if it’s a lone wolf that turns its back on the rest of the world. You can influence others if you’re part of the group... If you’re in your own corner, it’s a lot more difficult. You are absolutely correct on the damage done to our privacy, but totally missed the ball in relation to two mentioned in passing – WHO and Paris Climate. Both of those are designed to steal our freedom. WHO is corrupt to the core. It is merely there to parrot the findings of those in control of the central governments of the world. As for Paris, simultaneity does NOT necessarily imply causality. Yes, call me a denier. When I was in high school, the boogeyman was the coming ice age. Then Paul Ehrlich and the coming true of Malthus. You need to see the pressures on our freedoms from all sides. – Tim P.
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September 2021
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