Guest: Chas Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and assistant secretary of defense.
No other country in history has achieved the level of soft power the United States enjoyed for decades, with a peak in the early 1990s. Even more significant was the potent combination of military, economic and soft power, as I noted last month. That combination enabled Washington to organize and manage the world to its own liking.
On this episode of “The Diplomacy Podcast,” we discuss the factors that helped the United States become the world’s undisputed hegemon and consider the future of its role on the global stage. My guest is Ambassador Chas Freeman, a former career diplomat for three decades.
Freeman, who also served as deputy chief of mission in China and Thailand, says that U.S. diplomacy has been replaced by “outright bullying.”
He also argues that the Trump administration’s policies are quickly killing U.S. economic power, and military power will soon be the only one of three left. Soft power predisposes others to follow your lead and “inculcates trust,” he says. “We had that for much of the Cold War, and even our adversaries admired our diplomacy.”
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