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Ka-Pow: America, Propaganda, and the Illusion of Soft Power — Transcript

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0:00In an earlier video on anime and soft
0:02power, I stated that in my opinion,
0:05there is no country, no culture on earth
0:07that has succeeded in the very
0:09intentional development of soft power in
0:10quite the way that Japan has.
0:13Specifically, I said that Japan was the
0:15best at soft power. This was met with a
0:18bit of disagreement in the comments.
0:20Mooney said one commenter, "You as an
0:22American must not realize how ridiculous
0:24your statement is. Of course, everyone
0:27outside of America knows that it is the
0:29United States that has succeeded the
0:30most in developing soft power. Our
0:33people are now buying your blue jeans
0:34and listening to your rock music, right?
0:37Anyone who has opened a textbook on
0:38global studies or international
0:40relations can tell you that America won
0:41the cold war through its soft power
0:43dominance and that the US is the
0:45undisputed global soft power hedgemon.
0:48Liberal democracy is the best system, so
0:52everyone wants to be a part of that
0:54system. But it is the very fact that
0:56every political science 101 student or
0:58player of Civilization 5 can rattle this
1:00off that betrays the truth of the
1:02matter. America's soft power dominance
1:04is not as clear-cut as it seems.
1:07Consider this. Everybody above a certain
1:09age and say Brazil loves Japan and has
1:12fond memories of Saint Seiya and Dragon
1:15Ball Z. Japan is the innocent nation in
1:18the eyes of the average Brazilian. The
1:20cool nation, the nation of good food and
1:22cool cars and anime waifuss. And by
1:25proxy, Japanese people have gone from
1:27being undesirabs in Brazil to both
1:29integrated and welcome. But what about
1:31the United States? Nobody in Latin
1:33America believes that the United States
1:36is innocent. You would have to be a
1:37fool. And yet virtually all Latin
1:40American governments align themselves
1:41politically with the United States,
1:43[music] right? Is that because of soft
1:46power? Is that because of McDonald's,
1:48the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Whiz
1:49Khalifa? Or is it something else? The
1:52answer is clear when you think about it.
1:54These governments largely align
1:55themselves with the US, even against the
1:57interests of their own people because if
1:59they don't, the Americans target them.
2:02And when these governments do cooperate,
2:04the Americans reward them. Or you see,
2:07American soft power doesn't really
2:10exist. What does exist is American hard
2:13power of which the soft power is just a
2:16shadow incapable of sustaining itself or
2:18surviving without said hard power. But
2:21we're getting a little bit ahead of
2:22ourselves. Let's start by defining our
2:24terms. Soft power is defined as the
2:26ability to obtain preferred outcomes by
2:28attraction rather than coercion or
2:31payment. In other words, it's the power
2:33to get what you want with soft influence
2:35as opposed to with hard force. And it
2:38was coined by American political
2:39scientist Joseph Nye in his 1990 book
2:42bound to lead in which he argued against
2:44the prevailing rhetoric at the time
2:46which was that the United States was in
2:47decline and that it would soon be
2:48overtaken militarily by the Soviet Union
2:50and economically by Japan. He predicted
2:53that the United States would prevail
2:54because it had the ability to achieve
2:56its goals without force but through
2:58attraction instead. And low the Soviet
3:02Union collapsed and Japan economically
3:04stagnated as predicted. The United
3:06States stood alone. This in turn
3:08elevated Nigh to the status of profit.
3:10He was right. American soft power
3:13carried the US beyond its rivals. And in
3:14the late '9s, we arrived at what
3:16political [music] scientist Francis
3:18Fukuyama called the end of history. The
3:21United States had prevailed over the
3:23world. History is officially cancelled.
3:26But just as how Nye didn't agree with
3:28the prevailing notions that America was
3:29in decline, so too were there political
3:31scholars who didn't agree with NY's
3:33theory of soft power. For as much as
3:35we've discussed soft power on this
3:36channel, as much as the East Asian
3:38powers, China, Japan, and Korea, have
3:40all put enormous resources into the
3:42development of soft power, each in
3:44different ways, there is a
3:45counterveailing argument which points to
3:47the American example as demonstrative
3:49proof that soft power cultivation, as we
3:51understand it, is not in it of itself
3:54possible without hard power. Joseph Na,
3:57you see, is what one might call a
3:58neoliberal institutionalist.
4:01And neoliberal institutionalists believe
4:03that states care more about their own
4:05welfare than about outco competing
4:07others. And thus cooperation can be
4:09beneficial for everyone even if the
4:11power is distributed unequally. If
4:13states care more about their own
4:15welfare, they argue, it is possible to
4:17utilize international law and
4:19organizations to cooperate between
4:21states to reduce uncertainty and create
4:23a rising tide that lifts all boats,
4:26which everyone should be happy with,
4:28even if some boats rise higher than
4:31others. Neoliberals presume that states
4:33and individuals, for that matter, won't
4:35care if the benefits are unfair as long
4:37as the benefits exist. If everyone is
4:40still better off, then surely these
4:41circumstances of cooperation are better
4:43than might makes right anarchy. But what
4:46if the balance is very very unfair? What
4:50if the situation is less like a rising
4:52tide and more like an animal farm? All
4:56states, all countries are equal in
4:58cooperation together, but some states
4:59are more equal than others, right? What
5:02if these powerful states were more like
5:03predators and the [music] weaker states
5:05more like prey like farmers and their
5:08cattle? Enter the offensive realists who
5:10argue that laws and institutions are not
5:12so much tools of cooperation as much as
5:14they are exercises in hegemonic power.
5:17And the arch realist if you will, the
5:19offensivist realist is one John
5:22Mirshimer who argued that American soft
5:24power. All these things that Nye
5:27identified as America's greatest
5:28strengths are just shadows of hard power
5:31of forceful use of arms or economics.
5:34Which is not to say that Mirheimer
5:35rejects the existence of soft power
5:37altogether. He merely posits that
5:39so-called attraction is really just
5:41military and economic coercion stacked
5:43up together in a trench code. that soft
5:45power and hard power can exist at the
5:47same time, but that of the two hard
5:49power leads and soft power follows. And
5:52Mirshimer put all of his ideas on soft
5:55power visav hard power into his own
5:57book, The Tragedy of Great Power
5:59Politics, where he predicted in part the
6:01decline of the American Empire and the
6:03Resuscitation of History in the most
6:05bitterly ironic year possible, the Year
6:07of Our Lord, 2001, whereupon history
6:10[music] proved that it had a few tricks
6:12left up its sleeve. Which brings us back
6:14to Japan and the United States. Nye
6:17claims America won the Cold War through
6:18blue jeans, rock music, and fast food
6:21through the superiority of liberal
6:23democracy in the free market. But
6:25Mirshimer would say that it was more
6:26like aircraft carriers, the petro
6:28dollar, the CIA, and sanctions that
6:30carried the blue jeans in rock music.
6:33But it is one thing to make the claim
6:35and another to understand it. If we are
6:37truly to understand, we must observe the
6:41context. Well, you see, the American
6:43penchant for gratuitous hard power
6:45didn't come from nowhere. It's been a
6:47thread that starts at the very founding
6:49of our nation. Let us then take a
6:51journey through American history, just
6:53as we once did for Japan, to understand
6:55the careful interplay between hard power
6:58and soft power. In so doing, we will ask
7:00ourselves the fundamental question that
7:02Mirshimer poses. Is American soft power
7:05a real thing? Is the American way
7:08somehow superior to other ways? [music]
7:11Or is the very notion merely propaganda.
7:28If history ended in 1992 with the
7:30declaration of Francis Fukuyama and the
7:32victory of liberal democracy, then the
7:34beginning of history must surely be
7:371776. At the start of liberal democracy,
7:40there's a pattern in American history
7:42that is as old as the nation itself. The
7:44United States has always prioritized the
7:47use of force, but veiled it in the
7:48imagery and messaging, the propaganda of
7:50soft [music] power. In so doing, we
7:52Americans shape the image we have of
7:54ourselves and attempt to shape the
7:56narrative of our history as it is
7:58perceived around the world. Consider our
8:00founding myth. The United States of
8:02America emerged from a union of 13
8:04separate colonies which were founded by
8:06three groups of people. There were the
8:08religious pilgrims who sought to escape
8:10tyranny and find religious freedom.
8:12There were the rugged pioneers who
8:13wanted to tame the wilds and grasp
8:15economic opportunity. And there were the
8:17political patriots, those noble men of
8:19reason, who came to the Americas in
8:21search of liberty and enlightenment. The
8:24truth, however, is less flattering. Our
8:26founding religious pilgrims, the
8:27Puritans, were so radically intolerant
8:29and little ca conservative that they
8:31left England of their own accord before
8:34settling in the Calvinist Netherlands,
8:36only to discover that the Netherlands
8:37wasn't conservative enough and that
8:39their children were fleeing their
8:40internment, which in turn caused the
8:42Puritans to travel to the Americas where
8:44they could enforce their strict
8:45religious rules without fear of having
8:47the kids run off. The religious freedom
8:50that the pilgrims desired was the
8:52freedom to restrict the freedom of
8:55others. Likewise, our rugged pioneers
8:57rolled in with their wagons not into
8:59untouched wilderness, as we Americans
9:01are often taught, but into already
9:03populated indigenous lands, which we
9:05Americans seized through conquest,
9:07broken treaties, and the spread of
9:09disease. Early Americans were colonizers
9:12who sought opportunity for themselves by
9:15pillaging it by force from others. and
9:18one of our founding fathers, our
9:19philosopher kings, who bestowed upon our
9:21great nation its virtues and
9:23equal-mindedness.
9:24Their revolution was a revolution of the
9:26wealthy to escape the payment of taxes
9:28for a war many of them directly
9:30supported and asked for. When the early
9:32US in turn overburdened its own people
9:34with heavy taxes related to war, it had
9:37no qualms about watering American soil
9:39with the blood of patriots, so long as
9:41the slaughtered were mere farmers, as
9:43was the case with the Whiskey Rebellion
9:45of 1794. The founding fathers ideas on
9:48equality and equality before the law
9:50didn't seem to apply to their many
9:52slaves either or to women for that
9:55matter. They sought liberty for
9:57themselves, but did so through enforcing
9:59surfom and even enslavement upon others.
10:02Which is to say from the very beginning,
10:04the story of America is one of violence
10:06and subjugation wrapped in the veneer of
10:08virtue. This veneer of virtue, this
10:10whitewashing, if you will, is not
10:12incidental. It is sustained through
10:14propaganda. the selective presentation
10:17of history, values, and identity in ways
10:19that make the exercise of power
10:20understandable and acceptable. But
10:22Mooney, if soft power is often defined
10:24as the ability to shape outcomes through
10:26persuasion rather than force, isn't that
10:28exactly what propaganda is? Well, not
10:30quite, because there is force. American
10:32propaganda legitimizes, but seldom
10:35replaces coercion. As Mishheimer says,
10:38soft power and hard power are not
10:39mutually exclusive. Instead, they
10:41function alongside each other with soft
10:43power moving in after hard power to
10:46smooth its edges, moralize its
10:47objectives, and obscure its costs. And
10:50this moralizing and normalizing of hard
10:53power can be seen even in early American
10:56history, with the best example perhaps
10:58being the interplay between the concepts
11:01of manifest destiny and American
11:04exceptionalism.
11:06>> You can define American exceptionalism
11:08in a lot of different ways. And the way
11:10most people, most Americans define it is
11:13that America is a noble country. It's
11:15the city on the hill. Uh and so forth
11:18and so on. And for somebody who studies
11:21foreign policy and does realism, uh it's
11:25hard to see the United States in those
11:27terms, uh as I said to you before, I I
11:30think that we are an incredibly ruthless
11:32country. Uh the amount of murder and
11:34maym that we've created around the world
11:37is just unbelievable.
11:41Manifest destiny is the idea that
11:44America was chosen by God to expand its
11:47territory from the Atlantic to the
11:48Pacific Ocean. And American
11:50exceptionalism was the idea that the
11:52American people and their principles of
11:54democracy were uniquely good or even
11:57holy. This exceptionalism was then used
12:00to couch the violence and horrors and
12:03genocide of manifest destiny, draping
12:06the latter with legitimacy and even
12:08virtue. One of the first external
12:10references of America as an exceptional
12:12country, as a people and nation above
12:15that of any other in the world comes to
12:17us in the musings of French diplomat
12:18Alexis Dtoqueville's democracy in
12:20America volume 2, part 2, chapter 9,
12:22page 36. and I quote, [music] "I
12:25consider the people of the United States
12:26as that portion of the English people
12:28which is commissioned to explore the
12:30wilds of the new world, whilst the rest
12:32of the nation enjoying more leisure and
12:35less harassed by the drudgery of life,
12:37may devote its energies to thought and
12:39enlarge in all directions the empire of
12:42the mind. The position of the Americans
12:44is therefore quite exceptional, and it
12:46may be believed that no democratic
12:48people will ever be placed in a similar
12:50one. And indeed, let us not get it
12:52twisted. America was a rather unique
12:54country at the time. The United States
12:56was the first large-scale experiment of
12:58a contemporary constitutional republic
13:00without kings or hereditary aristocrats.
13:03In America, the enlightened thinkers of
13:05Europe, who yearned to cast off the
13:07yolks of monarchs saw a blank slate onto
13:10which they could project their long-held
13:11aspirations. The violence,
13:13dispossession, and exclusion that
13:15accompanied this experiment were thereby
13:17often treated as incidental. For
13:20example, the Toqueville writes
13:21concerning American treatment of the
13:23Indians the following. The American
13:25government does not indeed rob them of
13:27their lands, but it allows perpetual
13:28incursions to be made on them. In a few
13:30years, the same white population which
13:33now flocks around them will track them
13:34to the solitudes of the Arkansas. They
13:37will then be exposed to the same evils
13:39without the same remedies. And as the
13:41limits of the earth will at last fail
13:42them, their only refuge is the grave.
13:45The Union treats the Indians with less
13:47cupidity and rigor than the policy of
13:49the several states, but the two
13:51governments are alike destitute of good
13:53faith. It appears a scathing rebuke of
13:55how the American government has treated
13:57its natives. And yet, just a few pages
13:59later, Dtoqueville writes, "The
14:00Spaniards were unable to exterminate the
14:02Indian race by those unparalleled
14:04atrocities which brand them with
14:06indelible shame. Nor [clears throat] did
14:07they even succeed in wholly depriving it
14:09of its rights. But the Americans of the
14:11United States have accomplished this
14:13two-fold purpose with singular felicity.
14:15Tranquily, legally, philanthropically,
14:18without shedding blood, and without
14:19violating a single great principle of
14:21morality in the eyes of the world. It is
14:23impossible to destroy men with more
14:26respect for the laws of humanity. Even
14:29in the extermination of peoples,
14:31Dtoqueville saw America as especially
14:33virtuous, especially moral, and
14:36especially humane. Destroying people is
14:38just what civilization does. It's
14:41natural. It's fine. [clears throat] And
14:44nobody is better at philanthropically
14:46exterminating people than the United
14:47States, says Dtoqueville, [music] in
14:49what is meant to be a compliment. Yet,
14:52the American Push Westward was anything
14:54but humane. Consider, for example, the
14:56Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed by
14:58President Andrew Jackson. The act
15:00purported to be a humane solution, a
15:02voluntary exchange of tribal lands in
15:05the east for territory further west.
15:07This is the propaganda. In practice, it
15:10became the Trail of Tears in which
15:11members of the Chuckaw Seol Creek,
15:13Cherokee, and Chickasaw nations were
15:15forced from their homelands by threat of
15:17arms. Around 15,000 Native Americans
15:20died along the way from starvation,
15:23exposure, and disease. In 1835, the
15:26United States unilaterally voided the
15:27Treaty of Moltry Creek, which gave the
15:29Indians of present-day Florida a
15:31reservation in the center of the state's
15:32territory. Upon voiding this treaty, the
15:35US demanded that all seinal Indians in
15:37Florida relocate to the newly assigned
15:39Indian territories in the state of
15:41present-day Oklahoma as per the Indian
15:43Removal Act. Folks, Oklahoma and Central
15:46Florida are very far away from each
15:48other and at least back then were very
15:50different places. For my European
15:52viewers, this is like if the government
15:53forced you to move from Paris to
15:55Bulgaria. You'd probably be a little
15:57upset, too. The breaking of the treaty
16:00and forced removal led to the second
16:01seol war in which the United States
16:03waged a brutal campaign against the Seol
16:06nation, eventually culminating in
16:08General Thomas Sydney Jessup utilizing a
16:10scorched earth strategy wherein the US
16:13systematically captured and destroyed
16:14civilian seol homes, farms, livestock,
16:18and supplies, thus starving them out. a
16:21strategy that General Sherman would
16:22eventually emulate in his own march to
16:24the sea during the American Civil War.
16:27Jessup at one point even abducted seinal
16:29leaders under the false flag of a
16:31ceasefire. This was the conquest of
16:34so-called barbarity by so-called
16:38civilization. It is impossible to
16:40destroy men with more respect for the
16:42laws of humanity. Dtoqueville was able
16:45to see the brutality of Indian removal
16:47and yet still admired it as humane, as
16:49virtuous. This is the power of
16:52propaganda. You can see the violence and
16:54still believe the story. The
16:56contradiction is not incidental.
16:58Violence is narrated as a moral
17:00necessity, thereby legitimizing the use
17:02of power. And once that logic has taken
17:05hold domestically, it becomes available
17:08as well to export provided you have the
17:11strength to enforce your narrative.
17:15There is no country in the Western
17:18Hemisphere
17:20uh that would violate the Monroe
17:22Doctrine. And that's a way of saying
17:25they understand full well that their
17:27limits on what their foreign policy can
17:29be. And if they violate those limits, we
17:32will crush them. As you all know, the
17:34United States is an incredibly ruthless
17:36great power. We don't teach that in
17:38school, but that's the way the world
17:40works. We gussy it up with all this
17:42liberal ideology about how noble we are
17:45and so forth. So, but you know better
17:47than to believe that, right?
17:55Let me ask you, dear viewers, a
17:57question. If you are an American or
17:59studied American history, can you name
18:00one war fought by the United States in
18:02the 1800s? This is actually a question
18:05that can be asked on the citizenship
18:06test, by the way, and the acceptable
18:08answers on that test are the War of
18:101812, the Mexican-American War, the
18:12Civil War, and the SpanishAmerican War.
18:15So, don't be glib and say like the
18:17Second Barbary War, because that
18:19apparently doesn't count for
18:20citizenship. That's relevant, though,
18:22because America doesn't really declare
18:24war. We just send our troops wherever we
18:26want to do whatever we want regardless
18:28of whether we are welcome or not.
18:30Between the years of 1800 and 1900, for
18:32example, the United States deployed its
18:35troops abroad in demonstrations of force
18:37and exercises of hard power a little
18:40over 100 separate times. During this
18:43period, American forces were utilized to
18:44protect American interests in Argentina,
18:47Chile, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay
18:50and Brazil, and Egypt and Korea and
18:52China and Japan and Angola and Turkey,
18:56Greece, Haiti, the Dominican Republic,
18:57Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras,
18:59Cuba, Spanish, Puerto Rico, the
19:01Argentinian Faullands, Libya, Alier,
19:02Hawaii, the Marcesus Islands, Fiji,
19:04Samoa, Drummond's Island, Johans Island,
19:06Ryuku, Taiwan, and the Philippines. all
19:08to protect so-called American interests.
19:12And remember, this is just the 1800s, so
19:15we're not even talking about either of
19:16the World Wars, the Cold War, none of
19:19it. Don't take my word for any of this.
19:22I pulled this list of, and I quote,
19:24instances in which the United States has
19:26used its armed forces abroad in
19:28situations of military or potential
19:30conflict or for other than normal
19:31peaceime purposes from none other than
19:33the Library of Congress. And these are
19:36just the quote unquote notable ones.
19:38Indeed, the 1800s marked the beginning
19:40of the era of American imperialism.
19:43Consider the Monroe Doctrine, a foreign
19:45policy platform articulated in 1823 by
19:48President James Monroe in which the
19:49president unilaterally declared that any
19:52attempt by European powers to intervene
19:53politically or militarily in the Western
19:55Hemisphere would be treated as a hostile
19:57act against the United States. In
20:00exchange, the US promised not to
20:01interfere in the internal affairs of
20:03Europe, nor in existing European
20:05colonies. This side of the world is our
20:07backyard, regardless of what the people
20:09living in said backyard might feel about
20:11it. Now, the Monroe Doctrine is taught
20:13in American schools and was portrayed in
20:15American media at the time as a noble
20:17declaration. The Monroe Doctrine was
20:19framed not as America asserting its
20:21imperialist dominion over half of the
20:23world, but instead as an
20:24anti-imperialist
20:26shield against European aggression. as
20:28the United States reluctantly stepped
20:30forward to take responsibility and be
20:33the adult in the room. In the two
20:35decades that followed the doctrine's
20:36enactment, the United States took
20:38numerous so-called enforcement actions
20:40to protect American trade. It was in
20:421846, however, during the presidency of
20:44one James K. Pulk, Napoleon of the
20:46Stump, that any facade of the United
20:48States as a guardian of Latin American
20:50interests fell away. With the US
20:52invasion of Mexico and the
20:53MexicanAmerican War, Mexico lost around
20:5650% of its total territory during the
20:58war, which included the present-day
21:00states of California, Texas, New Mexico,
21:03Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and parts of
21:05Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming.
21:08In exchange, the United States agreed to
21:09pay $15 million for the physical damages
21:12of the war that they had started. In
21:14case you're curious, by the way, $15
21:16million is about $480 million in 2026
21:20money, which is around 1/5 the cost of a
21:23single Arlay Burke class destroyer. The
21:26war, though, was framed in America as a
21:28defensive response to Mexican
21:30aggression, spilling American blood on
21:32American soil, when in actuality,
21:34President Pulk had very deliberately
21:35engineered a territorial dispute and
21:37then moved American troops into
21:39contested land, provoking a Mexican
21:41response. The use of force once again is
21:44portrayed as [music] reluctant but
21:46unavoidable. Do you see the difference
21:48here between the words and the actions,
21:50between the rhetoric and the behavior?
21:52They made us do it and we are enexing
21:54land for our safety is a classic
21:56imperialist strategy. There's an
21:59underlying question here though that
22:00gets to the heart of soft power and hard
22:02power that is not about rhetoric but is
22:04about the sequence. Which of these
22:06postures came first? Was this
22:08anti-imperialist imagery autonomous and
22:11self-generated? Or was it derivative?
22:13Was this narrative merely a framing for
22:16the use of force? In the Monroe
22:18Doctrine, the answer is self-evident.
22:20There is consistent use of military
22:22force structured under conditions that
22:24make it appear reluctant, [music]
22:26defensive, and unavoidable. It's one
22:28thing to observe the Monroe Doctrine's
22:30stated intentions. It is another thing
22:32to observe the behaviors that followed
22:35those intentions [music] and the
22:36incentives and structures that produced
22:38those outcomes. As we enter the 20th
22:40century, the relationship between force
22:42and framing becomes more explicit. For
22:44it is in the early 1900s under none
22:46other than President Theodore Roosevelt
22:48that American hard power stops
22:50disguising itself as reluctance and
22:52emerges instead as outright policy. The
22:55mask comes off, but the facade
22:58continues.
23:08When someone makes a move of which we
23:11don't approve, who is it that always
23:14intervenes?
23:16UN [music] and OAS, they have their
23:18place, I guess. But first, send the
23:21Marines.
23:24In the year 1883, Joseph Pulitzer
23:27purchased The New York World, a
23:29newspaper based here in my home city of
23:31New York. In the early 1880s, the world
23:34was losing roughly $40,000 a year.
23:36That's about $1.3 million in today's
23:39money. By 1887, just four years after
23:42Pulitzer's acquisition, the paper was
23:44profitable enough for Pulitzer to
23:46purchase land in New York City for
23:47$140,000
23:49and construct the New York World
23:50building at a cost of around $2 million,
23:53which is the total equivalent of around
23:55$68 million today. How did he do it? How
23:58did Pulitzer turn a failing newspaper
24:00into such a profitable juggernaut in so
24:03short a time? Pulitzer is best known
24:05today, of course, for the Pulitzer Prize
24:06in Journalism, which was established in
24:081917 through an endowment in his will to
24:11Columbia University. But Pulitzer was
24:13not a journalist by profession. He was a
24:15businessman, [music] and the legacy he
24:17pioneered in American journalism was not
24:19detached, fact-driven reporting in
24:21pursuit of the truth of a matter, but
24:23the complete opposite. Kilitzer is
24:25credited with institutionalizing and
24:26arguably inventing yellow journalism.
24:29And yellow journalism has proven to be
24:31the gold standard for profitability in
24:34the field. As journalism historian Frank
24:36Luther Mott describes it, yellow
24:38journalism number one uses scare
24:41headlines and huge print, often
24:43sensationalizing minor news. Number two,
24:46lavishly uses pictures or imaginary
24:48drawings. Number three, uses faked
24:51interviews, misleading headlines, pseudo
24:53signs, and a parade of false learning
24:55from so-called experts. Number [music]
24:57four, emphasizes fullcolor Sunday
25:00supplements, usually with superficial
25:01articles and comics. And number five,
25:04creates dramatic sympathy with the
25:06underdog against the system. In other
25:08words, yellow journalism relies on
25:10sensationalist titles, emotionally
25:12charged imagery, unqualified opinion
25:14masquerading as expertise, and a
25:15performative sympathy for the underdog.
25:17All engineered to maximize [music]
25:19engagement, which is to say, it's
25:22YouTube. And more broadly, it's the
25:24global standard for modern news. It's
25:26extremely dangerous to our democracy.
25:29>> Huletter's yellow journalism was a
25:30massive success out of economic
25:32necessity. It was copied and adopted by
25:34all of his rivals and institutionalized
25:36through philanthropy such as through the
25:39Columbia [music] University Graduate
25:40School of Journalism which he founded.
25:42Now, the significance of yellow
25:43journalism is not that it made Americans
25:45more imperialistic or bloodthirsty. In
25:48fact, it was even utilized at times to
25:50criticize American power. What yellow
25:52journalism did do, however, was it
25:54trained its audience to interpret news
25:55emotionally rather than analytically. It
25:58supplied villains, victims, moral
26:00urgency and narrative in advance of the
26:02facts. And by the late 1890s, this media
26:05ecosystem was already in place, just
26:06waiting for its moment to truly shine.
26:09For you see, by this time, manifest
26:11destiny had already achieved its
26:13continental task. The US stretched from
26:16sea to shining sea, and the frontier was
26:18declared closed. The urge to expand,
26:21however, remained but for an obvious
26:23direction. The question on the mind of
26:24the American public was not whether the
26:26US should expand, but rather how and
26:29[music] where? And the answer to that
26:30question was another question. Well,
26:33what's closest?
26:36Just 90 mi off the coast of Florida,
26:38Cuba sat right at the edge of American
26:40economic and strategic interests.
26:42Remember that for decades since the
26:44Monroe Doctrine back in 1823, the United
26:46States had treated the Western
26:48Hemisphere as its natural sphere of
26:49influence. Cuba, however, was still a
26:52Spanish colony and thus stood out as a
26:53conspicuous exception. By the 1890s,
26:56Cuba had become a fixture of American
26:58yellow journalism. Spanish authorities
27:00were portrayed in American newspapers as
27:02cruel and decadent. Cuban civilians were
27:04depicted as helpless victims. And to
27:06some extent, both claims rested on real
27:08conditions. But the story removed the
27:10nuance and complex political realities
27:12were stripped of their context and
27:14flattened into a simple moral narrative.
27:16There was a ruthless regime on one side
27:18and an oppressed people on the other, a
27:20potential republic yearning to breathe
27:22free. Don't we owe it then to these
27:25people to give them the freedom they so
27:27desire? Instead of grappling with Cuba's
27:30political reality and the factual and
27:32historical context that is necessary to
27:34truly understand the events therein,
27:36readers were asked for something far
27:38simpler. How do you feel about Cuba? And
27:42as those feelings divorced from context,
27:45sloshed around in the American
27:46consciousness, they began to generate
27:48pressure for action, the powder kick
27:50required but a spark. In January of
27:531898, an American secondass battleship,
27:56the USS Maine, was dispatched from Key
27:58West, Florida to Havana, Cuba to do what
28:00else but to protect American interests
28:02during the Cuban War of Independence.
28:04The ship arrived on January 25th and sat
28:06in Havana Harbor until February 15th
28:09when it promptly and suddenly exploded.
28:11Five long tons of gunpowder charges for
28:14the ship's six and 10-in guns had
28:15detonated, blowing off the front of the
28:17ship. And as expected of when the front
28:19falls off of a ship, the USS Maine
28:22promptly sank. Of the 355 crewmen, over
28:26260
28:27perished. The cause of the explosion was
28:29not immediately clear, but the response
28:31in the American press was decisive.
28:33Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and his
28:36chief rival William Randph Hurst's New
28:38York Journal took immediately to
28:40sensationalizing the main incident,
28:42saturating the public with coverage. For
28:44a week following the explosion, the
28:45journal devoted a daily average of eight
28:47and a half pages per day to the
28:49incident. Pur himself announced a reward
28:51of $50,000, nearly $2 million today, for
28:55the conviction of those responsible. The
28:57world, on the other hand, did its part
28:59by continuously insisting that the main
29:01had been bombed or mined, and that Spain
29:03bore responsibility through purposeful
29:05action, knowledge, or negligence. Spain,
29:08the paper argued, could only atone for
29:10this heinous crime by granting full
29:12independence to Cuba. The unspoken part
29:15was that full independence for Cuba
29:17really meant dependence on the [music]
29:19United States. Privately, Pulitzer
29:21stated that nobody outside a lunatic
29:23asylum really believed that Spain
29:25sanctioned the mains destruction. But
29:27public lunacy was and remains highly
29:29profitable. Emotional investment absent
29:31context maximizes engagement,
29:33circulation, and pressure for action.
29:35And with action came more stories, more
29:37engagement, and ultimately more profit.
29:39A loop was thus cemented into the
29:41American media landscape. The more eyes
29:43on the news, the more dollar signs you
29:45get. And if you just follow the
29:46prevailing narrative, you get more
29:47exposure and more political alignment,
29:49and thus you make more money. With the
29:51right incentive structures in place, you
29:53don't need to control the press. The
29:55messaging apparatus is selfoperating.
30:01By April of 1898, the pressure had
30:03become impossible to release without
30:05action. Congress declared war on Spain,
30:07and what followed was a conflict that
30:09lasted barely 4 months. From a military
30:11perspective, the SpanishAmerican War was
30:14short and decisive. But from a political
30:16perspective, the war was transformative.
30:19The war started in April, but by August
30:21of 1898, Spain had been totally
30:23defeated, and the United States emerged
30:25from the war not merely as a great
30:27power, but as a colonial empire. Spain
30:29relinquished control of Puerto Rico and
30:31Guam and the Philippines to American
30:33rule. As for Cuba, it was granted
30:35nominal independence, [music] but in
30:37practice, the island had been placed
30:38under lasting American supervision. The
30:40war was presented as humanitarian
30:43intervention, but the outcomes and the
30:45incentives that generated those outcomes
30:47were unmistakably imperial. Hard power
30:49had done the work militarily against
30:51Spain and economically by aligning media
30:53incentives, and in turn, media framing
30:56rendered the outcome acceptable. What
30:58became though of the people whose
31:00suffering was used to justify the war?
31:03Remember the main and don't forget the
31:04starving Cubans declares this American
31:07cartoon dated May 7th, 1898. The promise
31:10is clear. Intervention would relieve
31:12suffering, but in practice, relief was
31:14narrow and temporary. Sure, the
31:16exploitation of the Spanish regime was
31:18alleviated. But at the same time though,
31:20American corporations moved rapidly into
31:22the Cuban economy, buying up plantation
31:24land, displacing small farmers and
31:27vastly increasing inequality. The
31:29structural conditions that produced
31:31Cuban poverty remained intact and in
31:33some cases even deepened under American
31:35supervision. The SpanishAmerican War
31:37exposed a contradiction that the United
31:39States could no longer manage. What
31:41exactly about the sinking of the main
31:43warranted the American occupation of the
31:45Philippines on the other side of the
31:47world? The gap between cause and
31:49consequence had grown too wide. The US
31:52was past the point of narrative
31:54restraint. What it required instead was
31:56narrative cohesion, a framework capable
31:58of reconciling the open use of force
32:00with claims of exceptionalism and moral
32:02purpose. In so doing, the press and the
32:05media at large through aligned
32:07incentives could be made functionally
32:09subordinate to hard power doctrine. In
32:11the year 1897, President William
32:13McKinley appointed one Theodore
32:15Roosevelt to the position of assistant
32:17secretary of the Navy. Roosevelt was a
32:19hawkish man with a sharp mind and a
32:21pronounced belief in the moral utility
32:24of war. Later in that same year of his
32:26appointment, Roosevelt stated on record
32:28to one of the Navy's planners the
32:29following. I would regard war with Spain
32:32from two viewpoints. First, the
32:34advisability on the grounds both of
32:35humanity and self-interest of
32:36interfering on behalf of the Cubans and
32:38of taking one more step towards the
32:40complete freeing of America from
32:41European dominion. Second, the benefit
32:44done our people by giving them something
32:45to think of which is not material gain
32:47and especially the benefit done our
32:49military forces by trying both the navy
32:52and army in actual practice. The first
32:54viewpoint you will note is the old
32:56doctrine. Our intervention is inevitable
32:58humanitarian and anti-imperialist. But
33:00note the second viewpoint there,
33:02particularly the first half of it.
33:04Second, says Roosevelt, is the benefit
33:06done our people by giving them something
33:08to think of which is not material gain.
33:10What does he mean by this? Well, what
33:12Roosevelt is articulating here is the
33:13use of war as a civic instrument, as a
33:16means of disciplining the public,
33:18restoring purpose, and of reminding the
33:20nation that it is more than a commercial
33:21enterprise. which is to say the use of
33:24war as a distraction from other
33:26problems. You might feel ecstatic, even
33:28if you are about to starve if the Mets
33:30look like they're about to win the World
33:32Series.
33:33>> It's not always about [music] the money,
33:35Spider-Man. It's about the Mets, baby.
33:37Love the Mets. All right.
33:39>> You might forget about the existence of
33:40certain compromising files exposing the
33:42unthinkably heinous crimes of the global
33:44elite or your high cost of living or
33:46your inability to buy a home if we're
33:49winning a war somewhere. This marked a
33:52profound doctrinal shift in American
33:54statecraftraft. Where earlier
33:55administrations treated war as a
33:57regrettable necessity, Roosevelt treated
33:59war as a societal benefit. War was
34:02something to be embraced, provided it
34:04was exercised for the right reasons and
34:06in the right way. [music]
34:07The problem, of course, as we saw with
34:09the main, is that the right reasons and
34:11the right way are subjective and
34:12emotional standards, and those can be
34:15easily manipulated. On September 14th,
34:171901, Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th
34:20president of the United States. And in
34:221904, Roosevelt articulated what became
34:24known as the Roosevelt corollary to the
34:26Monroe Doctrine. The original Monroe
34:28Doctrine, you will recall, was
34:29ostensibly a passive article, warning
34:32European powers against intervention,
34:34though we saw in effect how its outcomes
34:35and incentives played out differently.
34:37The Roosevelt corollary took matters a
34:39step further and did away with any
34:41pretenses of passivity. The corollary
34:43was an addition to the Monroe Doctrine
34:45that in practice stated that the United
34:47States had the right and responsibility
34:49to intervene itself in Latin American
34:51nations experiencing what Roosevelt
34:53called, and I quote, chronic wrongdoing
34:55or impotence. This simple reorientation
34:59allowed for three things to occur.
35:01Number one, it gave the American
35:03military legal justification for
35:05intervention. You don't need an
35:06exploding ship anymore. instability by
35:09itself, a very loose and subjective
35:11term, is now sufficient justification
35:13for invasion. Number two, it positioned
35:16the United States as the policeman of
35:18the Western Hemisphere, cementing
35:20American claims as a regional hegemonic
35:22power. And number three, it redefined
35:25Latin American independence and
35:27sovereignty as no longer absolute.
35:29Sovereignty would only be respected in
35:31so far as it produced order compatible
35:33with American interests. In a matter of
35:35speaking, then this was an expansion of
35:37American power, wealth, and influence,
35:39and even territory, not primarily
35:41through annexation, but through
35:43administration. Administrative
35:45expansion, however, is only credible
35:47when it is backed by force, by the
35:49persistent threat of hard power.
35:51Roosevelt understood this intuitively.
35:53[music] He described this strategy as
35:56speaking softly, but carrying a big
35:58stick. Doctrine could authorize
36:00intervention on paper, but authority
36:02still had to be demonstrated in
36:04practice. You have to see the stick in
36:06order to fear its wallup. In 1907,
36:09President Roosevelt ordered 16 American
36:11battleships to circumn the globe in a
36:13demonstration of American power. The
36:15ships were freshly painted white, their
36:17movements were carefully choreographed,
36:19and their logistics capacity put to the
36:21test. This so-called great white fleet
36:24served as a demonstration to rivals,
36:26allies, and the American public alike
36:27that the United States had a modern,
36:29disciplined navy with a global reach. By
36:32this point, the fever pitch of the
36:34Spanishamean War had long subsided, and
36:36with it, the political necessity of
36:38yellow journalism as we knew it.
36:40Sensationalist media was not quite as
36:42appealing to the American public without
36:43a sensation to report on. And media
36:46coverage of the Great White Fleet
36:47reflected this shift. The press was not
36:50required to manufacture urgency or
36:52justify intervention and thus it merely
36:53circulated images of American power as
36:56orderly, uncontested and routine.
36:58[music] In the absence of conflict,
37:00journalism and media had moved from
37:02mobilizing legitimacy of force to
37:04reflecting the normalization of it. Our
37:07power became a point of pride and the
37:09use of our power legitimized alongside
37:11that pride. This same pattern by the way
37:13can be observed in the interventions
37:15that followed the Roosevelt coralary in
37:17the construction say of the Panama Canal
37:19and in the broader management of
37:20American power in the early 20th
37:22century. But this foundation of hard
37:24power still exercised primarily through
37:26military means would soon be
37:28supplemented by another instrument. For
37:30you see hard power is not merely
37:32expressed through armies and navies
37:34alone. As we enter the administration of
37:36William Howard Taft, we begin to see the
37:38second prong of hard power, economic
37:41coercion, investment, debt, and
37:44financial leverage, which emerge as a
37:46parallel mechanism thereafter of
37:48American hard power.
37:55>> I wanted to ask you about Venezuela.
37:56When will you put fresh dollars into the
37:58country? Yeah, we're uh you know
38:02currently uh operating under a system
38:04that's been approved by the US Treasury
38:05and the Venezuelan government to recover
38:07debt that we're owed. We made some loans
38:09to their stateowned company many years
38:11ago and um and they weren't repaid and
38:13so we set up a mechanism to ensure
38:15repayment. Uh oil flows to the US which
38:17is important for US refiners. uh we're
38:20working our way through that and we'll
38:21recover the debt over the next year or
38:23so uh the final portion of it [music]
38:26and u and and then we need uh a new set
38:29of fiscal terms under which uh we would
38:32[music] invest in the country right
38:34>> in 1904 shortly after winning his second
38:36term in office Teddy Roosevelt announced
38:38that he wouldn't seek a third term in
38:401908 stepping down to honor the two-term
38:43tradition Roosevelt was immensely
38:45popular and could likely have won again
38:46but instead he settled on supporting his
38:49handchosen successor, one William Howard
38:52Taft. Or you see, Roosevelt was great at
38:54using military force, but clear hegemony
38:57required economic force as well. To that
39:00end, Taft, with his legal background,
39:02was a logical choice to continue
39:04Roosevelt's vision of American power. By
39:061908, the Roosevelt administration had
39:08asserted US hemispheric dominance,
39:10modernized the Navy, and normalized
39:12intervention. These demonstrations of
39:14power, however, did not automatically
39:16translate into long-term durability. The
39:18next phase then involved embedding
39:20American influence into legal,
39:22financial, and institutional structures
39:24that could operate quietly,
39:26continuously, and internationally. With
39:28the right structures in place, the
39:30United States could maintain its vision
39:31of order by intervening with only its
39:34economics. This new doctrinal direction
39:36became known as dollar diplomacy. Rather
39:39than occupying territory outright, the
39:42US could control the levers of power by
39:44extending credit, restructuring debt,
39:46and placing American banks at the center
39:47of foreign economies. In so doing, this
39:50approach also expands the definition of
39:52stability. Remember that the Roosevelt
39:54corollary allows for American
39:56intervention in Latin America if a state
39:57becomes quote unquote unstable. Through
40:00dollar diplomacy, the goalpost of
40:02stability can now be extended beyond
40:04political disorder or violence and into
40:06fiscal unreliability.
40:08A government that paid its debts, that
40:10protected American investments, that
40:12aligned its economic policy with
40:14American priorities, could remain in
40:15power no matter how bad said regime
40:18otherwise was to its people. Thanks to
40:20the backing of the United States, its
40:22financial institutions, and its
40:24military, the legitimacy and survival of
40:26a Latin American government then became
40:28primarily tied not to how well it could
40:30provide for the welfare of its people,
40:32but to how much they could please
40:34American financial interests, thus
40:36ironically widening inequality in
40:38creating greater instability. Where you
40:40see, loans under dollar diplomacy were
40:42never neutral, and they still aren't.
40:44Debt was used to ensure the cooperation
40:46of foreign governments to American
40:48capital markets and financial
40:49institutions. And when compliance
40:51failed, military intervention followed
40:54soon after. Consider the case, for
40:55example, of Nicaragua, which was
40:57occupied by American forces from 1912 to
40:591933 as part of what are now called the
41:02Banana Wars. Whereas American
41:04interventions at the time in Honduras
41:05and Guatemala were primarily driven by
41:07the interests of United Fruit Company in
41:09the monopolization of banana exports,
41:11the American occupation of Nicaragua was
41:13a finance centered intervention. In the
41:16early 1900s, Nicaragua was heavily
41:18indebted to European creditors. This
41:21European financial control of a country
41:23in America's sphere of influence though
41:24was considered untenable. Thus, during
41:27the Taft administration, American banks
41:28were encouraged to refinance Nicaragua's
41:31debt, and they were supported by the US
41:32government in the process, thus placing
41:34Nicaragua's finances under US
41:37supervision instead. Consider, for
41:39example, the Knox Castillo Treaty of
41:401911, which consolidated Nicaragua's
41:43debts, replaced European creditors with
41:45American ones, and placed Nicaragua's
41:47customs revenue, the country's primary
41:50source of income, under direct American
41:52supervision. Now, the treaty was
41:53ratified by Nicaragua, but failed to
41:55secure ratification in the US Senate,
41:57dying in committee. And yet, despite not
41:59having any binding treaty, US control
42:01over Nicaragua's finances were deacto in
42:04place. American banks and State
42:06Department officials managed Nicaragua's
42:08debt through informal arrangements that
42:10favored American interests, effectively
42:12implementing the substance of the
42:14agreement without its legal form. These
42:17arrangements were deeply unpopular
42:18within Nicaragua and President Adulo
42:20Diaz whose conservative party governed
42:22with American backing was widely
42:24perceived as a client of foreign
42:25financial interest. In 1912, then
42:28opposition crystallized around Luis
42:30Maya, the Nicaraguan Secretary of War,
42:32who accused President Diaz of, and I
42:34quote, selling out the nation to New
42:36York bankers. [music]
42:37With the support of the National
42:38Assembly, then Mina's opposition grew
42:40into a full-blown rebellion. And it's at
42:43this point that dollar diplomacy reached
42:44its limit. or one could even argue
42:46fulfilled its function. When the Diaz
42:48government appeared on the verge of
42:49collapse and with it the informal
42:50financial regime underpinning American
42:52influence, the US [music] deployed the
42:54Marines to Nicaragua with the stated
42:56objective of restoring order. What the
42:58Marines did in practice was secure
43:00customs houses, protect a friendly
43:02government that prioritized American
43:04interests over its own people, and
43:05ensured that debt repayments continued
43:07to flow. In other words, the United
43:10States invaded Nicaragua, put its puppet
43:12government back into power, and occupied
43:14the country with the US military to
43:16continue leeching the country's wealth.
43:18The occupation of Nicaragua lasted for
43:20over 20 years, concluding in 1933 during
43:24the height of the Great Depression. And
43:26this would hardly be the last time the
43:28United States interfered in Nicaraguan
43:30politics. In any case, the logic of
43:31dollar diplomacy is unmistakable and its
43:34legacy continues to this very day.
43:37Finance and warfare are two prongs of
43:39the same hard power fork. When financial
43:42control proves insufficient to stabilize
43:45political compliance, military
43:47intervention follows soon thereafter as
43:50enforcement.
43:52For might [music] makes right. Until
43:54they've seen the light, they've got to
43:57be protected. All their rights
43:59respected. Till somebody [music]
44:01we like can be elected.
44:05>> We now have the foundations of American
44:07hard power. Economic coercion and
44:09military intervention. But we haven't
44:11really touched much upon how soft power
44:13gets involved in that yet, except
44:15briefly and tangentially in our
44:16discussion of yellow journalism. Yellow
44:18journalism came into force as mass media
44:20became common in the form of newspapers.
44:22But the mobilization of emotion that
44:24came with it was incidental to the
44:26underlying profit seeeking. As we enter
44:28into the 1910s though, we see the mass
44:30media landscape change quite
44:32substantially just as the American model
44:33of power being built in the Western
44:35Hemisphere received its first real test
44:37in the wider world. On June 28th, 1914,
44:41Archduke France Ferdinand of Austria was
44:43assassinated on the streets of Sarvo,
44:45Bosnia. A cascade of alliances and
44:47mobilizations followed and Europe
44:49descended into war. The United States
44:51ostensibly remained politically neutral
44:53during the First World War, but
44:54neutrality did not mean detachment.
44:56American influence still found its way
44:58into the war. American banks,
45:00industries, and shipping interests were
45:01already deeply entangled in the
45:03conflict. And by the time the US entered
45:04the war in 1917, it joined not as some
45:07reluctant outsider, but as a rising
45:09power whose material interests were
45:11already deeply committed. Which is to
45:13say, economically, the US was already
45:14materially a member of the allies. But
45:16how could the US government bring the
45:18people along and commit the populace
45:20towards the deployment of that other
45:21prong of the fork, military
45:23intervention? There was no remember the
45:25main to hell with Spain. There was no
45:27Monroe doctrine. This was not a frontier
45:29war for manifest destiny, nor a
45:32hemispheric intervention. This was a
45:34distant, abstract, and industrial
45:36conflict over there. It demanded mass
45:39mobilization of national resources and
45:41manpower, economic sacrifice and
45:43political conformity on a scale that the
45:44United States had never before
45:46experienced. This was total war and the
45:49existing media ecosystem still
45:51decentralized and profit-driven could
45:53not manufacture the consent for
45:55America's participation in said war. As
45:57such, in 1917, as America entered World
46:00War I, President Woodrow Wilson created
46:02the Committee on Public Information or
46:04the CPI. The CPI was a government agency
46:07created specifically to influence public
46:08opinion to support the US war effort
46:10both at home and abroad. Unlike the
46:14yellow journalism era, where newspapers
46:15manufactured emotion chaotically in
46:17pursuit of profit, the CPI coordinated
46:20newspapers, films, education, and public
46:22speeches in the explicit service of the
46:24war effort. Now, the CPI operated
46:26through a multi-pronged approach. First,
46:28it enforced narrative discipline largely
46:30through access to information, which is
46:32to say the CPI encouraged media
46:35uniformity of message by incentive. If
46:38your newspaper followed the official CPI
46:41sanctioned narrative of the war, then
46:42you received privileged access to war
46:45reporting, to interviews, and to
46:47official materials. And if you didn't,
46:49you faced exclusion and had no access to
46:51what was on everybody's minds. Second,
46:54the CPI saturated public spaces with
46:56propaganda. Innumerous pamphlets,
46:58newspaper releases, films, and magazine
47:00advertisements were distributed
47:01nationwide. School curricula were
47:03adapted to encourage the war effort, and
47:05volunteer speakers were even trained to
47:07give patriotic speeches during 4-minute
47:09movie intermissions. George Creel, the
47:11head of the CPI, once boasted that in 18
47:13months, his 75,000 volunteer speakers
47:16had delivered over 7.5 million 4-minute
47:19orations to over 300 million listeners
47:21in a nation of only 103 million people.
47:24Last but not least, of course, the CPI
47:27framed disscent as dangerous and
47:29sedicious. Labor activists, socialists,
47:32and pacifists were cast as internal
47:34enemies, and war hawks were cast as
47:37patriots. This narrative environment
47:39helped to normalize the enforcement of
47:41the Espionage Act of 1917 and the
47:43Sedition Act of 1918, which criminalized
47:46opposition to the war, criticism of the
47:48government, and even disloyal or abusive
47:51language by the Constitution or
47:52military. These two acts, by the way,
47:54even during the time, were widely viewed
47:57as very severe violations of free speech
47:59by the general public. And yet, the CPI
48:01made them amendable somehow to that same
48:03public. Consider the case of Eugene
48:05Debs, a prominent socialist and one of
48:07the founders of the Industrial Workers
48:08of the World. Debs was sentenced to 10
48:10years in prison in 1918 after delivering
48:13a speech in Canton, Ohio, in which he
48:15strongly criticized the Espionage Act.
48:17Debs appealed his case all the way up to
48:19the Supreme Court which ruled against
48:20him and his conviction was upheld based
48:22on the precedent set by another case
48:24Shank v. United States which concluded
48:26that speech with the potential to
48:28undermine society or the government was
48:30not protected under the first amendment.
48:32Fun fact, the Espionage Act is still in
48:35effect today. A law so broad and
48:38unfairly drafted that mounting a defense
48:40against the Espionage Act has been
48:42described as quote unquote [music]
48:44almost impossible, if not impossible, by
48:47fairness and accuracy and reporting
48:48journalist Chip Gibbons and described as
48:51quote so broadly written that a
48:53defendant would be convicted no matter
48:55what by Trevor Tim, the executive
48:57director of the Freedom of the Press
48:58Foundation. And the American public fell
49:00for the propaganda hook, line, and
49:02sinker. The Germans were engaging in
49:04unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking
49:07our merchant ships for no good reason,
49:09despite the fact that we were selling
49:10the allies supplies, which directly
49:12threatened their war effort. There was
49:14the Zimmerman telegram, which reported
49:16to be a secret message from Germany to
49:17Mexico, which proposed that if Mexico
49:19invaded the United States, the Germans
49:21might help the Mexicans retake Texas,
49:23Arizona, and New Mexico, even though the
49:25Germans hadn't attacked us yet. Why?
49:28They could attack us at any moment, and
49:29with Mexico's help, no less. This is not
49:32meant to be a defense of Germany in
49:33World War I, mind you. What we're
49:35looking at here is strictly at how
49:37[music] propaganda functions. For you
49:39see, the propaganda utilized here is
49:40coercive in nature. Now, to be clear,
49:42not all propaganda is necessarily
49:44coercive, but this form is. The consent
49:47for war is manufactured. The media is
49:49aligned through the correct incentives
49:51and the opposition is brutally silenced.
49:53In turn, this manufactured consent,
49:56[music] which we'll broadly continue to
49:57call propaganda for convenience, is not
50:00soft power. Remember, [music] soft power
50:03is influence without coercion. And this
50:06form of propaganda is coercive.
50:17The armistice of November 11th, 1918
50:19ended active fighting between the Allied
50:21powers and Germany on the Western Front.
50:24Although the war wouldn't be formally
50:25concluded until the signing of the
50:27Treaty of Versailles on June 28th, 1919,
50:30the armistice nevertheless marked the
50:31practical end of World War I as a
50:34military conflict. The United States
50:36emerged from the war in a uniquely
50:38advantageous position. Unlike the
50:40European powers, the American homeland
50:42suffered no physical devastation.
50:44Wartime mobilization had expanded US
50:46industry. American agriculture had
50:48supplied global markets, and American
50:49banks had extended vast loans to the
50:51Allies. By 1919, the United States had
50:54shifted from a net detation to the
50:56world's leading creditor. After but a
50:58brief but sharp post-war recession in
51:001920 to 1921, the American economy
51:03entered a period of sustained expansion.
51:06This period of relative stability and
51:08industrial productivity became known as
51:10the Roaring 20s. But what happened to
51:12the CPI and all the media infrastructure
51:14that had developed around it during
51:16World War I? Well, it didn't just
51:18disappear. It was instead repurposed.
51:20Techniques pioneered by the CPI migrated
51:23into advertising, into public relations,
51:25film, and radio. Consider, for example,
51:28one Edward Bernay, one of the most
51:30influential Americans of the 20th
51:32century, but one whom you've likely
51:33never heard of. Bernese was the
51:35so-called father of public relations and
51:37pioneered the field of PR as we know it
51:40today. During World War I, Bernay worked
51:42in the CPI for its Bureau of Latin
51:44American affairs where his job was
51:46building support for the war both
51:47domestically and abroad with a focus
51:49especially on businesses operating in
51:51Latin America. Bernay described his work
51:54as and I quote psychological warfare.
51:57Not very soft power is it very hard
51:59power. Bernay later stated of his work
52:01in the CPI the following quote. There
52:03was one basic lesson I learned in the
52:04CPI that efforts comparable to those
52:07applied by the CPI to affect the
52:08attitudes of the enemy of neutrals and
52:10people of this country could be applied
52:12with equal facility to peaceime
52:14pursuits. In other words, what could be
52:16done for a nation at war could be done
52:18for organizations and people in a nation
52:20at peace. And Bernay did just that.
52:23After the war in 1923, Bernese wrote his
52:25first book crystallizing public opinion.
52:28In 1929, Bernay organized a successful
52:30advertising campaign encouraging women
52:32to smoke more cigarettes. Fun fact about
52:34that campaign, by the way, Bernay's
52:36cigarette ad campaign actually co-opted
52:38firstwave feminism. He paid women
52:40walking in the Easter Sunday parade to
52:42smoke so-called torches of freedom,
52:44including women's rights activist Ruth
52:46Hail, who was infamously filmed during
52:48the parade stating, "Women, light
52:50another torch of freedom. Fight another
52:52sex taboo." which just goes to show you
52:54the co-opting of feminism by capital is
52:57by no means new and it's something for
52:59all of us to be vigilant of. But I
53:01digress. In 1928, Bernay published
53:04Propaganda, arguably his most
53:06influential book until the engineering
53:08of consent, which was published in 1955.
53:11In Propaganda, Bernay wrote, "The
53:13conscious and intelligent manipulation
53:14of the organized habits and opinions of
53:16the masses is an important element in
53:18democratic society. Those who manipulate
53:21these unseen mechanisms of society
53:23constitute an invisible government which
53:25is the true ruling power of our country.
53:28You see for Bernay democracy wasn't a
53:30function of an informed public
53:32rationally deliberating policy as we
53:34often imagine it to be. Instead Bernay
53:37saw democracy as a function of and here
53:39is this term again manufactured consent.
53:42The role of the media, of advertising,
53:44of public relations was not to inform
53:47citizens neutrally, but to guide
53:49behavior, to reinforce their beliefs,
53:51and to align mass psychology with
53:53institutional needs. Now, to the casual
53:56observer, this resembles
53:57authoritarianism. But Bernese didn't see
54:00it that way. He saw it instead as a
54:02necessity. In a society too complex for
54:05direct understanding, persuasion is the
54:07next best thing. don't understand,
54:10instead feel. And in Bernay's logic, the
54:14capitalist system requires this to
54:16survive. Mass production requires mass
54:18consumption. There's no reason to
54:20produce a ton if there's nobody to
54:21consume it, right? Mass consumption then
54:24thereby requires managed desire. You
54:26can't get people to consume a ton unless
54:28they really want to. Managed desire then
54:31requires psychological coordination.
54:32Those who understand the mental
54:34processes and social patterns of the
54:36masses, writes Bernay, have pulled the
54:38wires which control the public mind. And
54:40to that end, Bernay saw no distinction
54:42between commercial persuasion and
54:43political persuasion. Propaganda, he
54:46writes, is the executive arm of the
54:48invisible government. This is why the
54:50American government has never needed to
54:52outright subordinate the press in the
54:53matter of authoritarian regimes. The
54:55forces of capital already discipline the
54:57media. As we've shown, doctrine
55:00subordinates journalism not through
55:01coercion, but through aligned
55:03incentives. Bernese was on to something
55:05he had identified perhaps before anyone
55:07else. The propaganda model of mass media
55:09and capitalistic democratic societies.
55:11The very same model that Edward S.
55:13Herman and Nam Chsky would later write
55:14about in their 1988 book, Manufacturing
55:17Consent: The Political Economy of the
55:18Mass Media. Herman and Chsky argue that
55:21news passes through five key filters.
55:23First, media outlets are large
55:24corporations which reflect corporate
55:26interests. That's obvious, right?
55:28Second, these corporations then depend
55:30on advertisers and thus try to avoid
55:33content that might upset their financial
55:35benefactors. Third, the journalists in
55:37these corporations rely on government
55:39and corporate sources which discourages
55:41adversarial reporting. Fourth, negative
55:44responses in the form of lawsuits,
55:45complaints, or outright political
55:46pressure punishes dissenting views. And
55:48lastly, there is a dominant ideological
55:51framework which frames what is
55:52considered acceptable discourse. Which
55:54is to say, the boundaries are
55:55established to generally exclude certain
55:57types of thinking by limiting the
55:58spectrum of acceptable opinion while
56:00simultaneously allowing lively debate
56:02inside of that spectrum which gives the
56:05illusion of free thinking all while the
56:07presuppositions of the system are
56:08reinforced by the limit of the debate.
56:11These are the aligned incentives to
56:12which Bernese hints at and which were
56:14already visible in the late 1920s. These
56:17aligned incentives, however, were about
56:18to face their first true stress test. In
56:21October of 1929, the American financial
56:23system collapsed. And what followed was
56:24a crisis not merely of economics, but
56:26also of credibility. For you see, for a
56:28decade, Americans had been told that the
56:30markets were rational, growth was
56:32permanent, and progress inevitable. Now,
56:34before their eyes, that narrative no
56:36longer described reality. What followed
56:38was what we call the Great Depression.
56:41And just as how the depression forced
56:43individuals and families to figure out
56:44how they might survive economically, it
56:46also forced institutions to discover
56:48which communicative practices still
56:50functioned under the conditions of
56:52systemic failure. Given the
56:53circumstances, reassurance based on
56:55prosperity or consumption no longer
56:57worked and persuasion that assumed that
56:59confidence [music]
57:00risked producing cynicism instead. Can't
57:03just tell people that things are great
57:04when they aren't, or people will start
57:05to disbelieve. And so the propaganda
57:08apparatus turned inwards. By such tools,
57:11electricity dispels the dark and lifts
57:14heavy burdens from human shoulders.
57:16Hence, the letters G E are more than a
57:19trademark. They are an emblem of
57:21service, the initials of a friend. Times
57:24aren't great, but we are part of what
57:26makes the rest of your life bearable.
57:28So, you know, it's not our fault. You
57:30might recognize this kind of corporate
57:32behavior during other periods of
57:33economic recession or hardship. By the
57:35way, when the system is tested, what
57:38this is is propaganda. In any case, this
57:41self-preservation mechanism meant that
57:43when the United States once again faced
57:44total war, it did so with a media
57:46ecosystem intact and already accustomed
57:48to participating in wartime mobilization
57:50from World War I. Once again, all that
57:53was needed was a spark.
57:56>> Japan, like its infamous Axis partners,
57:58[music] struck first and declared war
58:00afterwards. Costly to our navy was the
58:03loss of war vessels, airplanes, and
58:05equipment. But more costly to Japan was
58:07[music] the effectiveness of its foul
58:09attack in immediately unifying America
58:12in its determination to fight and win
58:14the war thrust upon it and to win the
58:16peace that will follow.
58:18>> The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
58:21shocked the American conscience and
58:23served as the perfect catalyst. Once
58:25again, the United States found itself
58:26dragged into a major war. But this time,
58:29at least on the home front, America was
58:31more prepared. Once again, the US
58:33government coordinated messaging and
58:34morale through centralized institutions,
58:36most notably through the Office of War
58:38Information, or OWI, established in
58:411942. Hollywood studios, radio stations,
58:44newspaper publishers, and advertisers
58:46alike rapidly aligned with the war
58:47effort, often proactively. Many of them
58:50remembered what it was like to starve,
58:52and they were eager to get back into the
58:53groove of things. Just like with the
58:55CPI, cooperation promised access,
58:57legitimacy, and thereby profitability.
58:59Whereas opposition offered none of the
59:01above, and potentially even negative
59:03responses. Everybody knew the rules of
59:05the game. The incentives were already in
59:08place. Film studios produced patriotic
59:10features and news reels and training
59:12films. Radio broadcasts blended
59:14entertainment with war news and moral
59:16framing. Even advertising adopted
59:18wartime themes, linking consumption to
59:20sacrifice and duty. The line between
59:23entertainment and propaganda became
59:25increasingly blurred. Now, it's worth
59:27noting that the United States was not
59:28unique in deploying propaganda during
59:30World War II. Of course not. What
59:32distinguishes American deployment of
59:34media in World War II is not merely the
59:36existence of propaganda, but how
59:37thoroughly said propaganda integrated
59:39into the commercial entertainment and
59:42everyday culture, specifically through
59:43aligned incentives rather than through
59:45centralized coercion. There was the
59:47overt federal government produced stuff
59:49such as Frank Capra's Why We Fight, a
59:52genuinely fascinating series of films
59:54that I've referenced multiple times in
59:55past videos. But there were also more
59:57direct private public partnerships which
1:00:00co-opted the existing commercial media
1:00:02sector. During World War II, Disney
1:00:04produced hundreds of films for the US
1:00:07government and in some cases allied war
1:00:08efforts, including training films,
1:00:10instructional shorts, morale pieces, and
1:00:12more. are often working directly with
1:00:14the Office of War Information and the
1:00:16Armed Forces themselves. Consider
1:00:18though, Disney's wartime output was not
1:00:20primarily designed to persuade Americans
1:00:22or allies that the war was just. By
1:00:241942, that question had already been
1:00:26rather decisively settled. Instead,
1:00:29Disney's films taught audiences how to
1:00:31live in a wartime society. Which is to
1:00:33say, Disney's animations were not needed
1:00:35to legitimize war. They were instead
1:00:37used to normalize war. Consider, for
1:00:40example, the Disney cartoon The Spirit
1:00:42of 43, a cartoon starring Donald Duck
1:00:44produced for the US Treasury. The
1:00:46cartoon does not show Pearl Harbor or
1:00:47give justification for the war. What the
1:00:49cartoon does is it teaches viewers to
1:00:51pay their income taxes, and it frames
1:00:53taxation as this cheerful civic duty
1:00:55with compliance linked to national
1:00:56unity. In other words, Spirit of 43
1:00:59instructs citizens how to function
1:01:00inside of and make sense of wartime
1:01:02bureaucracy. Consider also the rather
1:01:04infamous dare furer's face, a satirical
1:01:07short in which Donald Duck has a
1:01:08nightmare in which he is a Nazi instead
1:01:10of a god-fearing American. Again, the
1:01:12enemy is not up for debate. Instead,
1:01:14fascism is rendered absurd through
1:01:16caricature and ridicule. But you will
1:01:19note that there is no understanding here
1:01:21to be gleaned about what anyone actually
1:01:23found appealing about fascism to begin
1:01:25with. This is a pattern in American
1:01:27media. Once again, complex ideological
1:01:29conflict is flattened into something
1:01:31emotionally legible. The viewer is not
1:01:34asked to reason through the nature of
1:01:36fascism. They are instead invited to
1:01:38feel alignment instinctively. But
1:01:40Mooney, I can hear you say, "Are you
1:01:41really suggesting that we should have to
1:01:43think about why Nazis, fascists, or
1:01:45imperial militarists are wrong?
1:01:46Shouldn't that be obvious?" Look, the
1:01:49problem isn't about having a sense of
1:01:50right or wrong. You should have that.
1:01:53The problem is developing a sense of
1:01:54right or wrong without any foundational
1:01:57understanding. When alignment is learned
1:02:00through feelings rather than analysis,
1:02:02the alignment becomes detachable from
1:02:04its context. [music]
1:02:05Let me explain, right? If one only
1:02:07learns that Nazis were the enemy and
1:02:09that they wore skulls on their hats but
1:02:11not why they were the enemy, then when
1:02:13the same logic returns in a different
1:02:15uniform without skulls on their hats,
1:02:17will it be recognized? If there is no
1:02:19foundational understanding, if you do
1:02:21not understand the context, then your
1:02:23moral orientation becomes portable. a
1:02:26vibes-based effective understanding of
1:02:28morality can be redirected without
1:02:30arguments. And new enemies can be
1:02:32manufactured for feelings to latch on
1:02:34to, which is to say, morality built on
1:02:36feelings, but [music] without underlying
1:02:38logic or reasoning, can be redirected
1:02:40also without logic towards new heroes or
1:02:42villains. And said, villains don't even
1:02:44have to be real. They only have to feel
1:02:47real. And by proxy, once media succeeds
1:02:49in normalizing power in this way,
1:02:51legitimacy no longer depends on
1:02:52persuasion at all. It depends only on
1:02:54the continuity of narrative and control
1:02:56over framing. Consider how this was
1:02:58employed during and after World War II.
1:03:00The Japanese went from subhuman
1:03:01conniving gremlins to our beloved and
1:03:03culturally sophisticated friends. The
1:03:05Chinese went from the undesirable yellow
1:03:07peril to the people of peace and culture
1:03:08to the communist menace to our open
1:03:10market good commie neighbors to the
1:03:11nefarious enemy of the free world in the
1:03:13span of a single century. And as for the
1:03:15Russians, well, that finally brings us
1:03:17into the Cold War.
1:03:20You might call this a college town
1:03:22communist style. As part of a long range
1:03:25plan to destroy our free way of life,
1:03:28these young communists are studying the
1:03:30economic, political, and religious
1:03:32institutions that are the very heartbeat
1:03:35of America. The courses here in this
1:03:38strangest of all schools,
1:03:40espionage as a science, propaganda as an
1:03:44art,
1:03:46sabotage as a business.
1:03:49The end of World War II saw the United
1:03:51States and the Soviet Union emerge as
1:03:53the world's two dominant powers, each
1:03:55representing a fundamentally different
1:03:57political, economic, and ideological
1:03:59system. Though they had been wartime
1:04:00allies against the Axis powers, this
1:04:03partnership quickly gave way to
1:04:04conflict. In February of 1946, an
1:04:07American diplomat stationed in Moscow,
1:04:08one George F. Kennan, sent an unusually
1:04:11lengthy correspondence back to
1:04:12Washington, which would later become
1:04:13known as the Long Telegram. In it,
1:04:16Kennan argued [music] that Soviet
1:04:17behavior could not be understood through
1:04:19the lens of short-term interests or
1:04:20diplomatic misunderstandings. Instead,
1:04:22he described the Soviet system as
1:04:24fundamentally and ideologically
1:04:25committed to conflict with capitalism
1:04:27because the legitimacy of the Soviet
1:04:29regime depended on the existence of this
1:04:31conflict. At the same time, Kennan also
1:04:33observed that Soviet leaders were not
1:04:35irrational. They were riskaverse and
1:04:37primarily concerned with internal
1:04:39stability.
1:04:40>> [music]
1:04:40>> As such, Kennan believed that while the
1:04:42Soviet Union would seek to expand its
1:04:43influence wherever resistance appeared
1:04:45weak, it would avoid direct military
1:04:47confrontation with a stronger opponent.
1:04:49From this analysis emerged the strategy
1:04:51of containment, not the destruction of
1:04:54the Soviet Union, but the long-term
1:04:55prevention of its expansion. Now,
1:04:57Kennan's diagnosis carried a profound
1:04:59strategic implication. If direct war
1:05:02between America and the Soviet Union was
1:05:03both undesirable and potentially
1:05:05catastrophic, and neither side was
1:05:06committed to diplomacy, then conflicts
1:05:08could only be resolved by proxy. On the
1:05:11surface, this war of proxies appeared to
1:05:13be a clash of influence and alignment,
1:05:15where in culture, education, and
1:05:17information systems became the
1:05:18instruments through which said alignment
1:05:20was to be produced and maintained.
1:05:21[music]
1:05:22Soft power. But both sides understood
1:05:24from the get-go that this soft power was
1:05:26but a facade. In his 1961 [music]
1:05:29farewell address, President Dwight D.
1:05:30Eisenhower, a five-star general who had
1:05:32overseen the Allied victory in Europe,
1:05:34warned the American public about what he
1:05:36called the military-industrial complex,
1:05:38a permanent armament's industry
1:05:40intertwined with government planning,
1:05:41capable of shaping national priorities
1:05:43and peace time and sustaining a
1:05:45permanent war footing. Eisenhower's
1:05:47warning was not limited to weapons
1:05:49alone, though. where you see total war
1:05:51had required not merely factories and
1:05:53armies but as we saw systems for
1:05:55managing perception, propaganda offices,
1:05:58press coordination, right? And just like
1:06:00the factories, [music] just like the
1:06:01military bases, these systems of
1:06:03perception control were never fully
1:06:05dismantled either. Just like in World
1:06:07War I, they migrated, embedding
1:06:08themselves into commercial media, into
1:06:10advertising, not generally through overt
1:06:12censorship or control, but once again
1:06:14through aligned incentives. It was a
1:06:16military media axis built
1:06:18semi-purposefully, sure, but reinforced
1:06:21and cemented capitalistically. It was
1:06:24the product of this self-reinforcing
1:06:26system that theorists would later
1:06:28describe, most notably American
1:06:30political scientist Joseph Nye, as soft
1:06:33power. Soft power, you may recall, is
1:06:35defined by Nye as the ability of a state
1:06:37to shape the preferences of others not
1:06:38through coercion or payment, but through
1:06:40attraction. Where hard power operates
1:06:42through military force or economic
1:06:44pressure, soft power operates through
1:06:46culture and political values and
1:06:48perceived legitimacy. In NY's framework,
1:06:50a country gets others to want what it
1:06:51wants because its way of life appears
1:06:53more desirable than other ways of life.
1:06:55Importantly, Nye does not deny the
1:06:57existence or importance of hard power.
1:07:00His argument is not that tanks or nukes
1:07:01were irrelevant during the Cold War, but
1:07:03that they were insufficient on their
1:07:05own. Nuclear weapons constrained direct
1:07:07confrontation, and as we will see,
1:07:08economic coercion had its limits. What
1:07:11ultimately mattered according to Nye was
1:07:13which system people believed in. And
1:07:15[music] from this perspective, the Cold
1:07:17War was not won primarily on the
1:07:18battlefield, but in the realm of
1:07:19perception. Now, at first glance, NY's
1:07:22theory maps remarkably well onto Cold
1:07:24War outcomes. Here's the typical NY
1:07:26argument. The United States did not
1:07:28conquer most of Western Europe through
1:07:30force. Most of those states align
1:07:32themselves willingly with the Americans
1:07:33and allowed American military bases to
1:07:35be placed in their territory. American
1:07:37political institutions remained stable.
1:07:39Consumption expanded in cultural
1:07:41products from Hollywood to fashion to
1:07:42popular music circulated globally and
1:07:45were widely consumed even in societies
1:07:46that formerly opposed American foreign
1:07:48policy. By contrast, the Soviet Union
1:07:51struggled to generate comparable
1:07:53cultural attraction. While it possessed
1:07:55immense military power, its political
1:07:57system seems to have inspired fear more
1:07:59often than admiration, and restrictions
1:08:01on speech, movement, and cultural
1:08:03exchange appeared to limit the appeal of
1:08:06the Soviet model. If seen as a
1:08:08competition between these two visions of
1:08:10modernity, then the American model, Nye
1:08:12argues, proved more attractive not just
1:08:15to foreign governments or elites, but to
1:08:16the populations themselves. This
1:08:19attraction then shaped patterns of
1:08:21alliances by influencing newly
1:08:23decolonized states deciding which block
1:08:25to join or emulate. Soft power,
1:08:28according to Nai, is not merely about
1:08:29winning friends and influencing people.
1:08:31It's about creating durable systems of
1:08:33cooperation, which is to say, you don't
1:08:34need to threaten or coers as often
1:08:37because others already share your base
1:08:39assumptions about order and progress and
1:08:40are thereby keen to follow along. Which
1:08:43brings us back to the beginning of the
1:08:44video, right? NY's point of view is that
1:08:46American cultural influence [music]
1:08:47during the Cold War was the defining
1:08:49asset of American victory. Our system
1:08:52generated more genuine attraction than
1:08:54the Soviet system. It's a very
1:08:56comforting narrative, isn't it? If power
1:08:58can be exercised through attraction
1:09:00rather than force, then leadership can
1:09:02be benevolent instead of doineering.
1:09:05Greed, for a lack of a better word, is
1:09:07good. But as we continue, let's revisit
1:09:10a question that we've already asked.
1:09:12What order does power operate in? Does
1:09:15American culture persuade the world on
1:09:17its own? Or does it circulate because
1:09:19military, economic, and institutional
1:09:21power have already structured the field
1:09:23in which choice becomes possible at all?
1:09:25In other words, is Nye describing an
1:09:27independent form of power or is this
1:09:30soft power simply what American hard
1:09:33power looks like once victory has
1:09:34already been secured? Is joining the
1:09:37American cultural sphere actually a
1:09:39choice or is it made within a lattice
1:09:42that constrains the very capacity to
1:09:45choose?
1:09:48Neoliberal institutionalism argues that
1:09:51while the international system may be
1:09:53anarctic states are not condemned to
1:09:55perpetual conflict. International
1:09:57institutions such as alliances, trade
1:09:59regimes, norms, and organizations can
1:10:01reduce uncertainty, facilitate
1:10:03cooperation, and shape state behavior
1:10:05over time. As long as the system
1:10:07produces broadly rising prosperity,
1:10:10disparities of power can be tolerated or
1:10:12even normalized. There is however an
1:10:15older and far more pessimistic tradition
1:10:17in international relations theory upon
1:10:19which neoliberal institutionalism is
1:10:21partially built. This school of thought
1:10:23is known as realism. Realism as a theory
1:10:26of international relations is as old as
1:10:29thusidities. But it emerged into
1:10:30contemporary prominence in the aftermath
1:10:32of World War I as a response to what its
1:10:35proponents viewed as the naivee of
1:10:37classical liberal hopes for lasting
1:10:39peace through institutions and norms.
1:10:41Classical realism begins from the same
1:10:44foundational premise as neoliberalism.
1:10:46The international system is anarctic in
1:10:48nature. There's no overarching authority
1:10:50capable of enforcing rules between
1:10:52states. But modern realists draw a
1:10:55different conclusion because survival is
1:10:57at stake. Power, both military and
1:10:59economic, becomes the central currency
1:11:01of international politics. Might, in
1:11:04other words, makes [music] right. Now,
1:11:06among contemporary realists, few figures
1:11:08have been more influential than our
1:11:09friend John Mirshimer. the leading
1:11:11proponent of what is known as offensive
1:11:14realism. What's the difference between
1:11:16classical realism and offensive realism,
1:11:18you ask? Well, where classical realists
1:11:20argue that states seek security through
1:11:22power, offensive realists go a step
1:11:24further, arguing that the anarchctic
1:11:26nature of the international system
1:11:27drives great powers to maximize power to
1:11:30ensure their survival and dominance,
1:11:32which in turn makes cooperation fragile
1:11:34and often a temporary tactic of
1:11:36positioning and posturing. The safest
1:11:38position in an anarctic system is not
1:11:41balance or even advantage but hegemony.
1:11:44The safest place is to be the most
1:11:46powerful actor in your region without
1:11:49pure competitors. Mirimer then does not
1:11:51deny that culture or ideology or
1:11:53legitimacy matter. What he rejects is
1:11:55the claim that these forces operate
1:11:57independently of material hard power.
1:11:59From an offensive realist's perspective,
1:12:02attraction does not generate power.
1:12:04power generates the conditions under
1:12:06which attraction becomes possible. Which
1:12:08is to say, the United States is not the
1:12:10best at soft power, nor even number one
1:12:11at soft power. It's the best at [music]
1:12:14hard power. And the attraction is
1:12:16secondary to and structured by and even
1:12:18forced by the underlying material hard
1:12:21power. And this distinction becomes
1:12:23critical when we turn to the Cold War.
1:12:25In the United States, the Cold War is
1:12:27often taught in schools as a battle for
1:12:29hearts and minds, one that the US won
1:12:31without direct conquest. as per Joseph
1:12:33Nye. But from an offensive realist
1:12:35perspective, this framing mistakes the
1:12:37outcome for the cause. The question
1:12:39isn't whether American culture appears
1:12:41attractive, but whether that attraction
1:12:42can exist without a global system of
1:12:44military bases, covert interventions,
1:12:46economic coercion, and institutional
1:12:48control that underpins it. Because in
1:12:51truth, the Cold War was hardly cold, and
1:12:53large-scale conflict emerged only a few
1:12:55short years after the long telegram. In
1:12:571950, the United States intervened
1:12:59militarily on the Korean Peninsula,
1:13:01marking the first major armed conflict
1:13:03of the post-war order. The war ended in
1:13:05a stalemate with a divided peninsula, a
1:13:07permanent US military presence, and a
1:13:09frozen conflict that persists to this
1:13:11very day. And one of those remnant
1:13:14states, South Korea, did not align with
1:13:16the United States because of cultural
1:13:18attraction or shared values. The South
1:13:20Korean people are utterly miserable with
1:13:2280% of the younger generation wishing to
1:13:24leave Korea. 80% of young people viewing
1:13:27South Korea as hell and over 80% of
1:13:30younger and older people believing that
1:13:32people born into poverty can never
1:13:34compete with those born into wealth. The
1:13:37government is extremely corrupt. There's
1:13:38a joke in South Korea that goes
1:13:40something like this. Why does every
1:13:42president pardon the previous president
1:13:43when they come into power? So that the
1:13:45president after them will pardon them,
1:13:47too. I made a whole video on this topic,
1:13:50so I won't go back over every little
1:13:51detail, but South Korea and its
1:13:53government and its oligarchic chaballs
1:13:55persist because American power
1:13:57guarantees their survival. The
1:13:59attraction, or perhaps more accurately,
1:14:00the acquiescence follows the force.
1:14:03South Korea could not choose
1:14:05differently, and Korea established a
1:14:07pattern that would repeat throughout the
1:14:09cold war. Military force was used not to
1:14:11conquer but to stabilize environments
1:14:13favorable to American dominance which
1:14:16was then subsequently normalized and
1:14:17reinforced by American soft power
1:14:19initiatives post Hawk. America would
1:14:22vaselize instead of an X. Now in the
1:14:25equal and opposite direction, North
1:14:27Korea was utterly destroyed by the
1:14:29United States and then sanctioned
1:14:31thereafter in a campaign that was
1:14:32nothing short of genocidal. Have you
1:14:34ever seen those memes that show North
1:14:36Korea at night compared to South Korea?
1:14:38Oh, North Korea under the tyrannical Kim
1:14:40regime is so backwards and economically
1:14:42incompetent why they can't even get
1:14:45electricity to their people. You want to
1:14:47know why North Korea has such poor power
1:14:49infrastructure and development? It's
1:14:51because we, the Americans, destroyed all
1:14:54of it. 18 out of 22 of North Korea's
1:14:56major cities were at least 50% destroyed
1:14:59as per Bruce Cummings the Korean War: A
1:15:01History. Of those major cities, four
1:15:03were destroyed by the US Air Force's own
1:15:05estimates over 90%. The city of Sinju
1:15:09was completely raised to the ground with
1:15:11an assessment of 100% destruction. The
1:15:14American bombing campaign destroyed
1:15:16almost every single building in all of
1:15:20North Korea. And this included
1:15:22factories, power plants, schools,
1:15:25hospitals, government buildings, and
1:15:26civilian infrastructure. On May 13th,
1:15:291953, the 58th Fighter Bomber Wing
1:15:31destroyed Toxan Dam, drowning Pyongyang.
1:15:34That same month, we continued by bombing
1:15:36Chasan Dam and then Kuanga Dam, Nami
1:15:38Dam, and Té Chong Dam, which caused
1:15:41unbelievable damage, drowned many
1:15:44thousands of people, and swept away
1:15:45enormous swaths of valuable farmland.
1:15:48Around 15% of the entire North Korean
1:15:53population was killed during the war.
1:15:56And according to the United States, all
1:15:57of these obvious civilian structures
1:15:59were, and I quote, military targets. And
1:16:02then after we reduced all of North Korea
1:16:05to literal mud huts, [music] we
1:16:07sanctioned it, closing off North Korea's
1:16:09access to the global economy, causing
1:16:11mass starvation and continued struggle,
1:16:13which we then blame on our victims. And
1:16:15then we have the audacity to make memes
1:16:17about how they don't have lights.
1:16:20>> And the North Koreans have suffered
1:16:22because the United States has done
1:16:24everything we possibly could to destroy
1:16:25the economy of North Korea. We've done
1:16:28everything we possibly could to boost
1:16:30the economy of South Korea and then we
1:16:33condemn them because they are backward
1:16:35and and because their people are
1:16:36starving.
1:16:37>> This is the other half of our Korean War
1:16:39lesson. After the war in South Korea,
1:16:42American capital built and protected an
1:16:45allied order with investment, access to
1:16:47markets, treaties, and aid. [music] In
1:16:49North Korea, we did the opposite. We
1:16:51destroyed any and all development in the
1:16:53country. We isolated it from the global
1:16:55economy and then we treated the
1:16:56resulting poverty as proof that a rival
1:16:58system had failed on its own. If Korea
1:17:01then shows us what the open military
1:17:02intervention version of hard power looks
1:17:04like in the Cold War, the next question
1:17:06is, well, what does intervention look
1:17:08like when we don't send in the Marines?
1:17:10And for that, we have to talk about
1:17:12covert intervention and the CIA.
1:17:17We caught an American CIA agent trying
1:17:20to subvert our intelligence special
1:17:23branch officer. Bribe him so that the
1:17:26special branch officer will feed the CIA
1:17:30because the CIA wants to know what's
1:17:33happening. And I told the American
1:17:35government,
1:17:37"All right,
1:17:39we keep quiet. You take this man away."
1:17:42$100 million to the Singapore government
1:17:44for economic development.
1:17:49You know, no, no, no. Listen to me. I
1:17:51didn't tell, you know. I I never spoke
1:17:53to the Americans direct because, you
1:17:56know, they are they lack the finesse and
1:17:59you know, some they they may say, "Yes,
1:18:01they give it to you. Why not to Why
1:18:03should the Singapore government just
1:18:04give to you to me?" Which would have
1:18:06ruined me.
1:18:09But through an intermediary, they
1:18:11offered me and my party $10 million.
1:18:16I mean the insult, you know. I told him
1:18:19keep it.
1:18:25[music]
1:18:28The CIA did a lot of crazy stuff during
1:18:31the Cold War. [music] We could go into
1:18:33all of it in detail, but this video is
1:18:35long enough as it is. Like just the big
1:18:37interventions are enough for whole
1:18:39videos on their own. There's Operation
1:18:41PB Success in 1954 where the CIA
1:18:44overthrew the democratically elected
1:18:45president of Guatemala. There was the
1:18:47Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 where in
1:18:50the CIA attempted to invade Cuba. There
1:18:52was project Camelot where in the CIA
1:18:54spent tons of effort and money from the
1:18:55' 50s to the 70s trying to silence
1:18:57leftist democratic candidates in Chile
1:18:59contributing to the eventual military
1:19:01coup which put the brutal dictator Austo
1:19:03Pino in power. These examples kind of go
1:19:06against the rhetoric that all nations
1:19:07who joined with the United States did so
1:19:09due to attraction or soft power, doesn't
1:19:11it? The choice wasn't join with the
1:19:13United States or with the Soviet Union.
1:19:15It was join with the United States or
1:19:16face the constant neverending
1:19:18bombardment of CIA destabilization,
1:19:21military pressure, or outright invasion
1:19:23and economic sanction, which we'll get
1:19:25to. Though there are many examples of
1:19:27CIA destabilization, let's focus in on
1:19:29one particularly relevant example of how
1:19:31American hard power operates and how
1:19:32soft power alone is simply insufficient
1:19:35where hard power fails. [music]
1:19:37>> Um, even with your enemies, even with
1:19:39your adversaries, I do think that you
1:19:42have to have the capacity to put
1:19:43yourself occasionally in their shoes.
1:19:46Uh, and you know, if you look at Iranian
1:19:49history, the fact is is that we had some
1:19:51involvement with overthrowing a
1:19:53democratically elected regime in Iran.
1:19:56>> On April 28th, 1951, Muhammad Mosed was
1:19:59elected as the prime minister of Iran.
1:20:02Now, Mosed was extremely popular. He'd
1:20:04won the election through massive public
1:20:06support on a message of ending the
1:20:08exploitation of foreign actors in
1:20:09Iranian affairs. Mosed pursued many
1:20:12popular reforms such as introducing
1:20:13unemployment compensation, forcing
1:20:15factory owners to pay benefits to sick
1:20:17and injured workers. But Mosed's primary
1:20:20mission was to end foreign control of
1:20:21Iranian oil, which came about due to
1:20:23concessions made to the British by the
1:20:25reigning monarchs, the Shaw of Iran. In
1:20:28March of 1951, Iran nationalized the
1:20:31Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British
1:20:33controlled firm that had long dominated
1:20:35Iran's oil industry, which generated
1:20:37enormous profit, but which returned only
1:20:39a small fraction of wealth back to Iran.
1:20:41In response, the British attempted to
1:20:43impose an embargo and blockade of Iran
1:20:45and lodged complaints against Iran
1:20:47before the United Nations Security
1:20:48Council. The British government
1:20:50threatened legal action against
1:20:51purchasers of oil produced by Iranian
1:20:54refineries. And in secret, MI6, the
1:20:56British intelligence service, plotted to
1:20:58remove Mosed from power. But the British
1:21:00lacked hard power. They simply couldn't
1:21:02muster the economic or military or
1:21:04covert force necessary to directly hurt
1:21:07Iran. And so they turned to whom else
1:21:10but the United States. By 1952, the
1:21:13situation in Iran had deteriorated
1:21:15severely. Although the British embargo
1:21:17had weakened the economy and though
1:21:18political divisions had deepened, Mosedc
1:21:21was increasingly consolidating his power
1:21:22in an attempt to combat Western
1:21:24undermining of his efforts. And in this
1:21:26moment of relative weakness, the British
1:21:28and their American allies saw an
1:21:30opportunity. The very next year, in
1:21:31March of 1953, the CIA formally began
1:21:34its plot to overthrow Mosedc. By early
1:21:37June of that year, the plan was ready.
1:21:39It was called Operation Ajax. Operation
1:21:42Ajax had three core objectives. The
1:21:44first was to remove Mosedc. The second
1:21:46was to strengthen the position of the
1:21:47West's puppet leader, the Shaw. And the
1:21:49third was to prevent any intrusions of
1:21:51influence by the Soviet Union. Use force
1:21:55to lock out enemy soft power. To that
1:21:58end, the CIA encouraged and outright
1:22:00bribed the Sha Muhammad Raza Pavlov to
1:22:03issue a decree dismissing Mosed, which
1:22:05ultimately failed, forcing the Sha to
1:22:07flee to Italy. Despite that initial
1:22:08failure, the CIA tried again. this time
1:22:11by literally bribing protesters,
1:22:12creating fake mobs which were used to
1:22:14manufacture violence, forcing a violent
1:22:17response from the government which left
1:22:18hundreds dead. H that sounds kind of
1:22:21familiar, right? This violent smokeokc
1:22:23screen was then utilized by CIA backed
1:22:25pro monarchy loyalists led by retired
1:22:28army general Fazola Zahedi who stormed
1:22:30the capital, overwhelmed Mosed's troops
1:22:32and eventually arrested him. The Shaw
1:22:34was thereafter returned to power and
1:22:35Zahedi was appointed prime minister. And
1:22:38the Sha and Zahedi did what any good
1:22:39western puppet leaders should. They
1:22:41agreed to restore the flow of Iranian
1:22:43oil to world markets in substantial
1:22:44quantities. And in so doing, they gave
1:22:47control of Iranian oil over to the
1:22:48British and the Americans, changing the
1:22:50name of the old Anglo Iranian oil
1:22:52company to none other than British
1:22:55Petroleum. That's right, BP, everyone's
1:22:58favorite catastrophic environmental
1:23:00disaster of a company, was founded on
1:23:02stolen Iranian oil. But in Iran, the
1:23:04decision was extremely unpopular. It was
1:23:07so unpopular that the new government
1:23:09feared being overthrown itself. So under
1:23:11pressure from the United States, BP
1:23:13accepted membership in a consortium of
1:23:15oil companies which would work together
1:23:16to bring Iranian oil back into the
1:23:18market. This consortium coalesed in the
1:23:20form of a holding company called Iranian
1:23:22oil participants Ltd or IOP. And the
1:23:25founding members of the IOP included
1:23:26British Petroleum, Gulf Oil, Royal Dutch
1:23:29Shell, Total Energies, Chevron, Exxon,
1:23:33Mobile, and Texico. The West would have
1:23:35its pound of flesh and extract Iran's
1:23:37wealth for itself while obfuscating the
1:23:40exploitation as much as it could. But
1:23:42from the outside, all of this looks like
1:23:44soft power, doesn't it? Consider the
1:23:46narrative a Western media consumer might
1:23:48encounter. A popular demagogue seizes
1:23:50power from our noble ally, the Shaw of
1:23:52Iran. And this usurper immediately tries
1:23:55to take the oil wealth for himself. But
1:23:57his decision hurts his country so much
1:23:59that his people rise up. And the
1:24:01dictator kills a bunch of innocent
1:24:02protesters. until the people overthrow
1:24:04him and they reappoint our friend the
1:24:06sha and reinstate their democratic
1:24:08system. Now finally the women are free
1:24:10and the children can breathe easy. The
1:24:12Iranian people love freedom and
1:24:14democracy and free trade [music] is what
1:24:15is fed to the outside world. But the
1:24:18internal mechanisms that fueled the coup
1:24:20from the top down were hard power
1:24:22interventions pursued for western
1:24:24control over Iran's natural resources
1:24:26against the will of the Iranian people.
1:24:28And because the soft power pro-western
1:24:30stability of Iran was built on but an
1:24:32illusion produced by hard power, when
1:24:34the United States blinked and turned its
1:24:36hard power head away for but a moment,
1:24:37the system it had carefully constructed
1:24:39began to unravel. In the years following
1:24:41the 1953 coup, the Sha Muhammad Raza
1:24:44Pavlami, whose dynasty remains an asset
1:24:46of US intelligence, by the way,
1:24:48consolidated his power with the backing
1:24:49of the US and the UK. Political
1:24:51opposition was suppressed and the regime
1:24:53turned to its own intelligence
1:24:54apparatus, the infamous secret police
1:24:56organization, Savach, to monitor and
1:24:58silence dissenters. Are you aware of a
1:25:01CIA psychological profile about you,
1:25:03sir?
1:25:06>> No, I must admit that it's the first
1:25:08time I hear that.
1:25:09>> Truly?
1:25:10>> Yes. What is it?
1:25:11>> Would you be interested in hearing what
1:25:12the CIA had to say?
1:25:14>> Yes, why not?
1:25:15>> Really?
1:25:16>> Yes, why not?
1:25:16>> I have your permission.
1:25:17>> Yes, sure.
1:25:21You won't send me to the Sarak if I ask?
1:25:24>> Uh, no. I would spare you this terrible
1:25:27ordeal of going through torture.
1:25:30>> This secret study portrays the Sha as a
1:25:32brilliant but dangerous megalomaniac who
1:25:34is likely to pursue his own aims in
1:25:36[music] disregard of US interests.
1:25:38>> So, how could I be your man, your agent?
1:25:41>> The Shaw also undertook a massive
1:25:43westernization effort known as the White
1:25:45Revolution. The goal of the White
1:25:46Revolution was simple. The peasants and
1:25:48working class were getting crushed under
1:25:49the corrupt system as it existed and
1:25:51alleviating some pressure through land
1:25:52reform without substantially improving
1:25:54their conditions or bargaining power
1:25:56might ease their frustrations enough to
1:25:58stave off a communist revolution. It was
1:26:00meant to be a revolution without blood,
1:26:02hence the white revolution. But genuine
1:26:04revolutionary change cannot come from
1:26:06above and the Sha's revolution was not
1:26:08aligned with the interests of the
1:26:09people. Sure, the white revolution
1:26:11substantially improved literacy rates.
1:26:12It expanded women's rights, improved
1:26:14essential infrastructure and grew the
1:26:15economy. But the economic growth was
1:26:17fundamentally uneven. Oil wealth became
1:26:19concentrated once again in the hands of
1:26:21the few and often the foreign. Urban
1:26:24elites who supported this liberal
1:26:25economic system reaped the profits while
1:26:28most others suffered its consequences.
1:26:30As Irvian, distinguished professor of
1:26:33history at Baroo College states, the
1:26:35white revolution had been designed to
1:26:36preempt a red revolution. Instead, it
1:26:38paved the way for an Islamic revolution.
1:26:42This anger culminated in a revolutionary
1:26:44figurehead emerging in the form of
1:26:46Ayatollah Kmeni, a 12ver Shia cleric who
1:26:49voiced his descent at the Shaw in 1963
1:26:51by declaring him and I quote, "A
1:26:53wretched, miserable man who embarked on
1:26:55the path toward destruction of Islam in
1:26:57Iran." The Shaw, in response, knowing
1:26:59that Kmeni couldn't just be assassinated
1:27:01for fear of revolution, arrested him
1:27:03instead. Yet even just the act of
1:27:05arrest, however, caused 3 days of riots
1:27:07to follow in which as many as 15,000
1:27:09protesters were killed as a result of
1:27:11police aggression. After 8 months of
1:27:13house arrest, Komania was freed and he
1:27:14continued his agitation only to be
1:27:16rearrested and exiled in November of
1:27:181964 to Bersa, Turkey. What followed was
1:27:21a period of apparent relative calm. Oil
1:27:23wealth grew and from the outside, Iran
1:27:25appeared both modern and prosperous.
1:27:27Have you ever seen those comparison
1:27:28photos of Iranian women before and after
1:27:30the Islamic Revolution? While western
1:27:33clothes and values, the apparent result
1:27:35of soft power were backed by and
1:27:38enforced through exceptionally unpopular
1:27:40American hard power. There was massive
1:27:43economic inequality, very limited
1:27:45political participation in Sabach, the
1:27:47secret police backed by American
1:27:48intelligence continued to brutally
1:27:50silence opposition. The surface once
1:27:52again looks like an American cultural
1:27:54victory, but that cultural victory is
1:27:56only a veneer at top an ongoing
1:27:58economic, intelligence, and military
1:28:00operation. The facade was quite
1:28:02amendable to western observers. Only the
1:28:05very few and very wealthy reaped those
1:28:07benefits [music] while everyone else
1:28:08toiled to support their lifestyles.
1:28:10Those people didn't matter to the Sha
1:28:12because they had no wealth and no power.
1:28:14Look, for the Sha, for his pro-Western
1:28:16regime, an uneducated populace is simply
1:28:18easier to rule. The wealthy get to act
1:28:20like Westerners and get education. They
1:28:22get the benefits of foreign exploitation
1:28:25of their countrymen. But the normal
1:28:26people receive no benefit. There's a
1:28:29reason why the Islamic Republic still
1:28:31exists and enjoys substantial legitimacy
1:28:34in Iran despite Western narratives to
1:28:36the contrary. There's also a reason why
1:28:38the Iranian diaspora in the West tends
1:28:40to be so anti-Islamic Republic. Their
1:28:43families were the wealthy pro-western
1:28:45families. If you're interested in
1:28:47learning more about the Islamic Republic
1:28:48of Iran, by the way, I highly recommend
1:28:50former British diplomat Alistair Crook's
1:28:52book, Resistance: The Essence of Islamic
1:28:55Revolution. In any case, the oppression
1:28:57and inequality reached a breaking point
1:28:59in the late '7s when a series of
1:29:01mysterious deaths amongst leading
1:29:02outspoken Islamist figures in Iran led
1:29:04to protests. As the protests then grew
1:29:07out of control, the Shaw attempted to
1:29:08negotiate with the protesters, promising
1:29:10full democratic elections, relaxed
1:29:12censorship, and reduced corruption. But
1:29:14the Iranian people had already
1:29:16experienced the white revolution. They
1:29:18understood that meaningful change cannot
1:29:20come from the top down because the
1:29:22powerful will always be primarily
1:29:24self-interested and not be willing to
1:29:26concede as much as the people require to
1:29:28survive. Thus, protests continued and
1:29:31were violently quashed until the
1:29:32population could take no more. In 1987,
1:29:35nationwide strikes shut down the
1:29:37production of the Iranian oil industry,
1:29:39and by late October of that year, a
1:29:40general strike was declared. The Shaw
1:29:43was paralyzed. If he shut down the
1:29:45protests, they would emerge in greater
1:29:47force. If he left them alone, they would
1:29:48continue to grow as well. The military
1:29:50leadership followed along with the
1:29:52Shaw's indecision. And so when Kmeni
1:29:54called for the military to defect,
1:29:55deserters abandoned the military in
1:29:57[music] droves. By December of 1978, the
1:30:00situation in Iran had become so
1:30:02untenable that the Carter administration
1:30:04considered pulling its support of the
1:30:05Shaw, developing a plan instead to
1:30:06create a sort of pro-western military
1:30:08huna with Kmeni installed as a puppeted
1:30:10spiritual leader. But officials in the
1:30:12Carter administration also disagreed
1:30:14with each other and thus no decision was
1:30:16finally reached. On January 16th, 1979,
1:30:19the Shaw and his family fled to Egypt,
1:30:21even as American General Robert
1:30:23Hoyister, the deputy commander of US
1:30:24European Command, entered Iran to
1:30:26discuss the possibility of a pro-Shaw
1:30:28coup with Iran's military leaders. But
1:30:31that never came to fruition. With the
1:30:32Shaw officially out, two rival
1:30:34governments established themselves. The
1:30:36first was the government of Shapor
1:30:37Baktiar who was chosen specifically by
1:30:39the Sha to help in the creation of a
1:30:41civilian government. Then there was the
1:30:43revolutionary government of Ayatollah
1:30:44Kmeni. By February of that same year,
1:30:47however, it had become clear that
1:30:48Baktiar's government lacked the support
1:30:50of the people. And by February 11th, the
1:30:52Ayatollah's rebel forces, supported by
1:30:54Islamist Marxist guerrillas, had
1:30:56overthrown the provisional civil
1:30:57government, which in turn marks the
1:30:59founding of the Islamic Republic of
1:31:01Iran. If soft power had been enough on
1:31:04its own to secure the loyalty of Iran,
1:31:07if short dresses [music] and blue jeans,
1:31:09if rock music and fast food, if the
1:31:11trappings of consumerism had been
1:31:13sufficient by their own merits, then
1:31:14there wouldn't have been a revolution
1:31:16the second the Americans dropped their
1:31:18guard. In truth, the trappings of
1:31:20American soft power, as we have seen, as
1:31:22we will [music] continue to see, and as
1:31:24we are observing in the present, were
1:31:26and are held together by extraordinary
1:31:28repression and gratuitous use of hard
1:31:31power. But there is one more weapon in
1:31:33the American hard power arsenal that we
1:31:34must discuss, and it is arguably the
1:31:36most sinister of all for both its ease
1:31:38of use and its deadliness. I am
1:31:41referring to the single American weapon
1:31:42which has killed more people than any
1:31:44other, the economic sanction.
1:31:47>> As I said to you before, I I think that
1:31:50we are an incredibly ruthless country.
1:31:53Uh the amount of murder and mayhem that
1:31:55we've created around the world is just
1:31:57unbelievable. You know, I was looking at
1:31:59a study the other day put out by Lancet,
1:32:02which is a scientific journal. Uh, and
1:32:05they did a study. This was put out, you
1:32:07can see it on the internet. It was put
1:32:08out in November of 2025.
1:32:11And, uh, what the the article did was it
1:32:15looked at sanctions, American sanctions
1:32:18from 1971
1:32:20to 2021, 1971 to 2021. And it asked what
1:32:26were the consequences of those sanctions
1:32:28and we murdered 38 million people. 38
1:32:31million people.
1:32:36We in the west for whatever reason are
1:32:38obsessed with numbers of death and
1:32:40casualties in wars and atrocities. Once
1:32:42had a good Jewish friend of mine teach
1:32:44me this important lesson. Deaths by war,
1:32:47by genocide, by famine. These things are
1:32:49counted in numbers, but they're not
1:32:51meant to be compared in numbers. It's
1:32:53not a contest. It's not a race. All of
1:32:55it, all of these atrocities are
1:32:57terrible. But in the typical Western
1:32:59mindset, we kind of consider some forms
1:33:02of genocide and atrocity worse than
1:33:03others, don't we? The Holocaust needs no
1:33:05introduction. Around 17 million people
1:33:08were killed by Nazi Germany. In the
1:33:10West, we look at the deaths of the Great
1:33:11Leap Forward, where in China attempted
1:33:13to combat a history of terrible famine,
1:33:15and we tend to blame every single
1:33:17element of that transitionary period on
1:33:18the singular policies of Maoadong,
1:33:20tallying up 35 million deaths to his
1:33:23name. And yet, when we in the West
1:33:25impose famine on others, not trying to
1:33:28fix old problems, but to purposefully
1:33:30create new ones, we suddenly don't care
1:33:32enough to count. And when others count
1:33:34for us, well, we consider the price they
1:33:37pay in their blood worth it.
1:33:40>> We have heard that a half a million
1:33:42children have died. I mean, that's more
1:33:45children than died when in Hiroshima.
1:33:48And and
1:33:50you know, is the price worth it? I think
1:33:53this is a very hard choice, but the
1:33:55price, we think the price is worth it.
1:33:58>> We think the price was worth it. That
1:34:00was Maline Albbright, who served as
1:34:03Secretary of State under President Bill
1:34:05Clinton, speaking during an interview in
1:34:061996 on the matter of sanctions while
1:34:09she was still serving as the American
1:34:11ambassador to the United Nations.
1:34:13500,000
1:34:15dead Iraqi children. To do what? to end
1:34:18the regime of Saddam Hussein and to
1:34:20prevent his development of so-called
1:34:21weapons of mass destruction. The same
1:34:24regime we put into power in the first
1:34:26place and the same regime we ended up
1:34:28toppling by force of arms a decade later
1:34:30in an alleged search for those same
1:34:32weapons which were never found. We
1:34:34killed multiple nuclear detonations
1:34:36worth of people in Iraq, literally
1:34:38starving them to death, only to invade
1:34:41anyway and cause an additional million
1:34:43in excess deaths. and to Maline
1:34:45Albbright, to Bill Clinton, to our
1:34:47Western allies in the United Nations,
1:34:49the price of achieving absolutely
1:34:51nothing was worth millions of Iraqi
1:34:53dead. Because in their inhumane and
1:34:56monstrous calculus, those Iraqi men,
1:34:58women, and children are worth nothing.
1:35:00And 0 minus 0 is zero. 500,000 may as
1:35:04well have been 5 million. May as well
1:35:06have been 5 billion. The number of dead
1:35:08doesn't matter to them. What matters to
1:35:09them is the primacy of American hard
1:35:11power, the dominance of the American
1:35:13hgemony. no matter the cost.
1:35:16Now, when we think of the economic
1:35:18sanction, we often think it works
1:35:19something like this. Let's say you're
1:35:21North Korea. You're a communist country,
1:35:24which we think is wrong, and you're
1:35:25threatening our ally, South Korea. Thus,
1:35:27to punish your behavior, we will
1:35:29prohibit Americans, American companies,
1:35:31American banks, and anyone inside of US
1:35:33jurisdiction from doing business with
1:35:34you. This is called a primary sanction.
1:35:38But sanctions often go much further. You
1:35:40can also say anyone who trades with you
1:35:42will also not be able to trade with us.
1:35:44And because everyone wants to trade with
1:35:46us, nobody trades with you and thus you
1:35:48are economically squeezed to death. This
1:35:51is called a secondary sanction and it's
1:35:53possible because of just how integral
1:35:54the United States is to the global
1:35:56economy by design. On July 1st, 1944, a
1:36:00gathering of 730 delegates from all 44
1:36:02nations of the Allies met at Mount
1:36:04Washington Hotel in Bretonwoods, New
1:36:06Hampshire, to discuss the post-war
1:36:08international monetary and financial
1:36:10order. The global economy was thought to
1:36:12be partially responsible for both world
1:36:14wars, you see, and thus an organized
1:36:17international economic order could
1:36:18hopefully lead to a rising tide that
1:36:21lifts all boats. And on July 22nd, the
1:36:24Allies walked away with a few major
1:36:26agreements in place. The first agreement
1:36:28was the creation of the International
1:36:29Monetary Fund or the IMF which was meant
1:36:31to monitor exchange rates and lend money
1:36:33donations with economic problems. The
1:36:35second agreement then after the IMF was
1:36:37the creation of the International Bank
1:36:39for Reconstruction and Development or
1:36:40IBRD which later became the foundation
1:36:43for what we call the World Bank. With
1:36:46most of Europe and Asia having been
1:36:47ravaged by war, the IBRD was supposed to
1:36:50help finance the rebuilding effort and
1:36:52eventually also assist in the
1:36:53development of poorer countries. When
1:36:55the IBRD comes with development money
1:36:57though, who decides what gets built? Who
1:36:59decides what economic model gets put in
1:37:01place and what kind of society gets
1:37:03encouraged? Well, the Americans do. And
1:37:06to top it all off, if you want to join
1:37:07the IBRD, you are also required to join
1:37:09the IMF. And this gets tied together by
1:37:11the third major agreement of Breton
1:37:13Woods, the Final Act, which built the
1:37:15entire global economy around the US
1:37:17dollar. [music] Member countries had to
1:37:19peg their currencies to the dollar, and
1:37:21the dollar was pegged to the price of
1:37:22gold at $35 per ounce. So let's say that
1:37:25your currency is the highen rupee and
1:37:27you have four highen rupees that equals
1:37:29$1. If your currency rises too much in
1:37:32value, the central bank of Hyrule can
1:37:34sell its own currency to buy dollars to
1:37:36push the value of the rupee back down.
1:37:39You will note then that while the rules
1:37:41as written allowed America vast amounts
1:37:42of control over the global economy,
1:37:44there was still a check in place. As
1:37:46long as the dollar was tied to gold, the
1:37:48United States couldn't just create
1:37:49infinite dollars without consequences.
1:37:51If the United States prints too many
1:37:53dollars and foreign governments come a
1:37:54knocking to swap their dollars out for
1:37:56gold, you have to have enough gold to
1:37:58swap or the faith in the dollar
1:37:59collapses and with it the global
1:38:01economy. Uh you can kind of imagine what
1:38:03happened next then when the checks
1:38:05became inconvenient, the United States
1:38:07simply ignored them. The Vietnam War,
1:38:09you see, had become prohibitively
1:38:10expensive and with so many dollars
1:38:12circulating, the world began to wonder
1:38:14if the US really had enough gold to
1:38:16cover its currency. In response to those
1:38:19concerns, then on August 15th, 1971,
1:38:21President Richard Nixon announced that
1:38:23the US would suspend the dollar's
1:38:24convertability into gold and then issued
1:38:27a 10% search charge on imports. In other
1:38:29words, a tariff, [music] an event known
1:38:31as the Nixon shock. The US economy
1:38:33boomed in response and the global
1:38:35economy shrank. Now, the US dollar was
1:38:37at the center of global finance without
1:38:39any checks and apparently without any
1:38:41substantial blowback or consequences.
1:38:42[music]
1:38:43The US was simply too powerful, too
1:38:45powerful militarily and economically.
1:38:47And we all live in the reality of that
1:38:49decision in the post Breton Woods
1:38:51financial system. With the dollar and
1:38:53thus currencies around the world no
1:38:55longer tied to gold, exchange rates
1:38:57began to float freely. And in that
1:38:58environment, finance became much more
1:39:00important. Currencies move and thus
1:39:02interest rates move and thus capital
1:39:04moves. And where capital moves, profits
1:39:06can be made. Think of it like this.
1:39:08Where does a nation's economic power
1:39:10come from? Well, traditionally one might
1:39:12say the workers, the peasant farming the
1:39:14land or the laborer in the factory.
1:39:16Maybe also through trade. What the
1:39:17worker produces can be bought and sold
1:39:19where that good is scarce, fulfilling
1:39:21the dynamics of supply and demand. But
1:39:22in a financialized system, economic
1:39:25power becomes primarily exercised
1:39:27through instruments like bonds or loans
1:39:29or securities. Which is to say, your
1:39:31economic power comes from the
1:39:33manipulation of money and not the
1:39:34production and distribution of goods.
1:39:36Put another way, you don't need to work
1:39:38in the factory if you own shares in the
1:39:40company that owns the factory or if you
1:39:42own the debt of the company that owns
1:39:43the factory. You don't need to ship the
1:39:45goods if you finance the shipment. If
1:39:47you ensure the cargo vessel, if you
1:39:48process the payment or underwrite the
1:39:50loan in a financialized world, then a
1:39:53country cannot simply produce its way
1:39:54out of every problem. It needs access to
1:39:56the financial machinery upon which the
1:39:58global economy is designed to function.
1:40:00You can have oil, but if nobody can buy
1:40:02your oil, nobody can ship your oil,
1:40:04nobody can ensure your ships, and
1:40:05nobody's willing to handle the payment
1:40:06transaction for the sale, then the
1:40:08economic power of having even a valuable
1:40:10resource like oil is greatly diminished.
1:40:14You might see where this is going then.
1:40:16Let's say you're in, oh, I don't know,
1:40:18Brazil, and you want to buy a rare book
1:40:20from Malaysia. The book never crosses
1:40:22into American territory, but it's very
1:40:24likely that the payment is denominated
1:40:25in US dollars as opposed to heish or
1:40:28ringit. You trigger your bank then to
1:40:30send $100 to the Malaysian seller. But
1:40:32your Brazilian bank cannot just create
1:40:34USD out of thin air. Instead, it holds a
1:40:36dollar account with a larger bank that
1:40:38has access to the US banking system. And
1:40:40the Malaysian bank likewise does
1:40:41something similar to complete the
1:40:43payment. Then the banks exchange
1:40:44instructions and adjusted balances
1:40:45between their dollar accounts in a
1:40:47process known as dollar clearing. And
1:40:49once your transaction touches upon the
1:40:50American financial system, the US has
1:40:52leverage over you and your transaction.
1:40:54Consider OFAC, the Office of Foreign
1:40:57Assets Control, which administers and
1:40:58enforces many of America's sanctions. If
1:41:01OFAC places a person or a company or a
1:41:03bank on its sanctions list, broadly
1:41:05speaking, Americans can't do business
1:41:07with them and their property in the US
1:41:08can be frozen. But what can also happen
1:41:11is other institutions like banks who
1:41:13don't want to lose access to dollar
1:41:14clearing or pay massive fines for
1:41:16violating sanctions rules will also
1:41:18decide that compliance risk isn't worth
1:41:20it and thus refuse to process
1:41:22transactions related to the sanctioned
1:41:23entity. So imagine the same scenario,
1:41:26but one party is sanctioned. Even if the
1:41:28sanction doesn't touch upon your
1:41:30transaction, even if America isn't
1:41:32directly involved, by proxy of coercive
1:41:35force, the banks may be too afraid to
1:41:37process your transaction. In other
1:41:40words, if you don't please America, your
1:41:41entire economy struggles to buy and sell
1:41:43stuff. America makes you financially
1:41:45radioactive, deadly to even interact
1:41:47with. I know this is a lot to take in.
1:41:51This section was originally both twice
1:41:52as long and totally cut at different
1:41:54points, but I felt the context was too
1:41:56important. There's a lot more we could
1:41:58discuss here from the petro dollar to
1:41:59offshore euro dollar banking to swift to
1:42:01Fed swap lines, but this isn't economics
1:42:03explained. Ultimately, we only need
1:42:06enough context to digest how powerful
1:42:08sanctions actually are as weapons. to
1:42:10observe how sanctions work as hard power
1:42:12then and how soft power fails when hard
1:42:14power fails in this circumstance. Let's
1:42:17narrow our scope to a specific case
1:42:19study by returning to the nation of
1:42:22Kuba.
1:42:36Yeah.
1:42:37>> On December 10th, 1898, the United
1:42:40States and Spain signed the Treaty of
1:42:42Paris, wherein, amongst other
1:42:43concessions, Spain renounced all rights
1:42:44to Cuba, thus ending the SpanishAmerican
1:42:47War. The United States, however, was not
1:42:49about to let Cuba just walk free,
1:42:51despite ostensibly fighting the war in
1:42:52part for Cuban independence. Cuba was
1:42:55placed under American military rule,
1:42:56which would only be lifted in 1902 after
1:42:59Cuba agreed to the eight provisions of
1:43:00the Platt Amendment. Cubis rendered its
1:43:03military, diplomatic, territorial, and
1:43:05financial sovereignty and agreed that
1:43:07the US had the right to intervene in
1:43:08Cuban politics at any time for the quote
1:43:10unquote maintenance of a government
1:43:12adequate for the protection of life,
1:43:14property, and individual liberty. By
1:43:161926, just 25 years after the Plat
1:43:19amendment, US companies owned 60% of the
1:43:22Cuban sugar industry, and the US
1:43:24imported 95% of that Cuban crop. The
1:43:27arrangement had predictable
1:43:28consequences. Cuba's economy was heavily
1:43:31dependent on a single export, which is
1:43:32to say sugar. And that export was
1:43:34controlled in large part by exclusively
1:43:36American interests. And this economic
1:43:38imbalance was maintained by a corrupt
1:43:41Americanbacked government, which in turn
1:43:42was deeply unpopular amongst its people.
1:43:45This in turn led to the government of
1:43:46Gardo Machado being overthrown by a
1:43:48genuine popular revolt. A US-backed
1:43:50provisional government was hastily put
1:43:52in place, but that quickly fell apart
1:43:54and Machado's first legitimate
1:43:55replacement, Rammon Grow, immediately
1:43:58nullified the Plat amendment upon
1:43:59assuming the presidency. In a panicked
1:44:01response, US ambassador to Cuba, Sumar
1:44:04Wells, requested US military
1:44:05intervention, and [music] President
1:44:07Franklin Delano good neighbor policy
1:44:10Roosevelt himself ordered 29 warships to
1:44:13Cuba, alerted the Marines, and prepared
1:44:15bombers. The intervention, however,
1:44:17proved unnecessary. The message had been
1:44:18sent and Grow's government starved of
1:44:20recognition was vulnerable. The United
1:44:22States tapped the head of the military,
1:44:24one Fugencio Batista, and together they
1:44:26forced Growl to resign, replacing Growl
1:44:29with a puppet president, Carlos
1:44:31Mendetta, with Batista in the shadows as
1:44:33the true ruler of Cuba and the United
1:44:34States standing behind him. Batista
1:44:37ruled Cuba from the 30s until the early
1:44:3950s. The Batista era saw Cuba's economy
1:44:42come under nearly complete American
1:44:43control with corruption rife in
1:44:45government and with Havana becoming
1:44:46notorious as a den for American
1:44:48organized crime. As US ambassador to
1:44:51Cuba Arthur Gardner puts it, and I
1:44:52quote, "Batista had always leaned
1:44:55towards the United States. I don't think
1:44:57we ever had a better friend. It was
1:44:59regrettable, like all South Americans,
1:45:01that he was known to be getting a cut, I
1:45:04think is the word for it, in almost all
1:45:06the things that were done. But on the
1:45:08other hand, he was doing an amazing job.
1:45:11This so-called amazing job came to an
1:45:13end when the Cuban people could finally
1:45:14take no more of Batista's corruption and
1:45:16America's extraction. In July of 1953, a
1:45:20young lawyer named Fidel Castro led a
1:45:23group of revolutionaries on a failed
1:45:24attack against the Batista government.
1:45:26Castro was taken prisoner, and the
1:45:28revolution appeared to fail. But the
1:45:29anger of the Cuban people was only
1:45:31building pressure. in hopes of
1:45:32alleviating some of that pressure, in
1:45:341955, Batista released many of his
1:45:36captured political prisoners in an act
1:45:38of amnesty backed by the United States
1:45:40and major corporations. And to make a
1:45:42long story short, this culminated in a
1:45:44genuine successful revolution with
1:45:46Castro and his forces overthrowing
1:45:48Batista on January 1st, 1959. The United
1:45:51States attempted to first make good with
1:45:53this new Cuban administration, hoping
1:45:54that it could win over the
1:45:55administration with its original tricks
1:45:57with bribery and corruption. But
1:46:00Castro's government, organized around
1:46:01genuine revolutionary principles,
1:46:03morals, and values that extended beyond
1:46:05mere capital accumulation, failed to
1:46:07concede to American interests. In their
1:46:09hearts, there was something greater than
1:46:12mere wealth accumulation. Cuba began to
1:46:15implement agrarian reforms and
1:46:16nationalized many of the industries once
1:46:18owned by American interests. And as Cuba
1:46:21unshackled itself from American
1:46:22exploitation, the Americans grew
1:46:23displeased. The US then imposed its
1:46:26first economic sanctions on Cuba, hoping
1:46:28to injure growing Cuban sovereignty.
1:46:30First, the US canceled the sugar quota.
1:46:32Sugar was Cuba's primary export, you
1:46:34see, and the US was its main buyer.
1:46:36Without sugar exports, the US thought
1:46:38the Cuban economy would collapse and a
1:46:40new revolution would rise up to
1:46:41overthrow Castro's government. These
1:46:43initial sanctions were followed by
1:46:45export restrictions. All exports from
1:46:47the US to Cuba were banned, save for
1:46:49food and medicine. Cuba would no longer
1:46:51have the tools of industry necessary to
1:46:53build a country. Just like with the
1:46:55Maggarian decree, however, these
1:46:56sanctions backfired and the Cubans
1:46:58responded by nationalizing even more
1:47:00formerly US-owned businesses while also
1:47:02expanding their ties with the Soviet
1:47:04Union, which in turn led to the full US
1:47:06embargo of Cuba, which began in 1962,
1:47:09not long after the CIA attempted Bay of
1:47:11Pigs invasion. All trade with Cuba was
1:47:13banned with imports and exports
1:47:14completely cut off. Cuba was also cut
1:47:17off from the global financial system.
1:47:19The US then mobilized its hard power
1:47:21squeeze to push its allies to follow its
1:47:23sanctions, turning Cuba into a regional
1:47:25trade pariah as well. And long after the
1:47:28Cold War ended, to this very day, Cuba
1:47:30continues to be under withering
1:47:32sanctions, which deprived the island
1:47:33nation of fuel, natural resources, and
1:47:36access to global markets. In 2023, the
1:47:38United Nations estimated that the total
1:47:40economic damage to the Cuban economy was
1:47:42in the trillions of dollars since the
1:47:44inception of the embargo. Despite these
1:47:46long decades of sustained economic
1:47:48pressure, despite the American imposed
1:47:50economic dysfunction, however, Cuba has
1:47:52been able to persevere. Cuba has, for
1:47:55example, with its limited resources been
1:47:56able to invest heavily into
1:47:58biotechnology and pharmaceutical
1:47:59research, developing pioneering vaccines
1:48:01in cancer treatments domestically.
1:48:04Consider this. In 2015, Cuba became the
1:48:06first country in the world to eliminate
1:48:08motherto- child transmission of HIV and
1:48:10syphilis as validated by the World
1:48:12Health Organization. Cuba demonstrates
1:48:15to us how the reach of soft power is
1:48:17limited by the reach of hard power.
1:48:19Where hard power could not produce
1:48:21compliance not through intervention nor
1:48:23military invasion nor economic coercion,
1:48:25soft power also failed to gain a
1:48:28foothold. Soft power does exist as we
1:48:30stated, but in this case it exists
1:48:32largely within hard power boundaries and
1:48:35geopolitical realities. What about
1:48:38however situations in which economic
1:48:40coercion does succeed because the hard
1:48:42power fundamentals are in place.
1:48:53Consider Japan in the 1980s. In 1985,
1:48:56the US pressured Japan, West Germany,
1:48:58France, and the UK into agreeing to push
1:49:00the value of the dollar down against
1:49:01their currencies, including the yen,
1:49:03thereby making American exports more
1:49:05competitive. For Japan in particular,
1:49:08this was a terrible deal, but the
1:49:10Japanese could not refuse as failing to
1:49:12agree would result in trade war with the
1:49:14United States. The yen appreciated
1:49:16dramatically. Japanese exporters came
1:49:19under pressure and the Japanese response
1:49:21inflated an asset bubble, the collapse
1:49:22of which led into the lost decades,
1:49:25which persists, by the way, to this very
1:49:27day. The dollar giveth and the dollar
1:49:29taketh away. Cuba shows us what happens
1:49:32when economic coercion fails against an
1:49:34enemy outside of the American order.
1:49:36Japan shows us what happens when
1:49:37economic coercion succeeds against an
1:49:40ally inside of it. But both examples
1:49:43point us back to the same place.
1:49:44American economic power is strongest
1:49:46where American military and political
1:49:48power have already structured the field
1:49:50and American soft power arrives
1:49:52downstream of them all. But we're
1:49:54getting ahead of ourselves for now.
1:49:56Let's return to the most visible form of
1:49:58hard power in military intervention.
1:50:02What are the consequences? What happens
1:50:04to soft power when military intervention
1:50:07itself finally fails?
1:50:11>> You know, there's lots of things you
1:50:12expect in war, carnage, the sleepless
1:50:15nights. But what they don't prepare you
1:50:17for is the incessant use of fortunate
1:50:20sun.
1:50:28Vietnam is often remembered as the
1:50:30moment when American media finally
1:50:31turned against state narratives when the
1:50:34great moral awakening of journalism
1:50:35occurred. In this version of events, the
1:50:38outcome of the war serves as proof of
1:50:39the free press's ideological superiority
1:50:42that liberal media possesses an internal
1:50:45corrective which over time favors
1:50:48exposure and not enforced consensus. And
1:50:51this interpretation is frequently
1:50:52invoked by neoliberal institutionalists
1:50:54who point to Vietnam as a demonstration
1:50:56of legitimacy succeeding over coercion
1:50:59of open societies exposing their own
1:51:01failures and surviving while
1:51:02authoritarian systems collapse under the
1:51:05weight of enforced narrative. The
1:51:07American dream survived the failure of
1:51:09Vietnam. But the Soviets didn't survive
1:51:11Afghanistan, right? This is proof that
1:51:13our system works. Well, let's hold on a
1:51:15moment and observe the Vietnam War more
1:51:17closely. By the early 1960s,
1:51:20anti-communism was the organizing force
1:51:22of American political legitimacy. There
1:51:25was McCarthyism, the red scare, which
1:51:27treated communist thought as a virus
1:51:29that could infect your co-workers,
1:51:30friends, and loved ones with
1:51:32anti-Americanism.
1:51:33A person could have their reputation
1:51:35torpedoed, their careers ruined, not
1:51:37even necessarily for being communists,
1:51:39but for not being anti-communist
1:51:41enough. Nobody needed to be instructed
1:51:44to frame communist expansion as a
1:51:46threat, nor did editors require pressure
1:51:48to portray American intervention as
1:51:50defensive in nature. As we discussed,
1:51:53the incentives were already in place,
1:51:55and the audience had already been
1:51:56conditioned through generations of
1:51:58political mythmaking and institutional
1:52:00reinforcement to understand that America
1:52:02and its professed values were
1:52:03exceptional and morally sacrosan. And
1:52:06the Vietnam War was at first processed
1:52:08through that same framework. American
1:52:10involvement was framed as limited and
1:52:12advisory. Even as the United States
1:52:14military geared up for war, the American
1:52:16puppet state of South Vietnam was
1:52:18portrayed as flawed but necessary. Even
1:52:20as the deeply corrupt regime of Nodeen
1:52:22pursued repression and sectarian
1:52:24favoritism, which generated growing
1:52:26popular discontent, it's a familiar
1:52:29pattern to us now, isn't it? Escalation
1:52:31and American intervention seemed
1:52:33inevitable. Let's go back in time a
1:52:36little bit, right? When the Japanese
1:52:37invaded the colony of French Indo-China
1:52:39during World War II, it exposed to the
1:52:41Vietnamese people that the French were
1:52:42not invincible. As a result, the
1:52:44Vietnamese anti-colonial movements
1:52:46arose, ready to unshackle the nation
1:52:48itself once and for all from the
1:52:50imperial ambitions of foreign powers.
1:52:52And of these movements, the most
1:52:54significant was a Marxist Leninist
1:52:55anti-colonial movement led by one Hochi
1:52:58Min. In 1945, Ho declared Vietnam
1:53:01independent of French rule. But France
1:53:03was not ready to give up her colonial
1:53:05possession. What followed was the first
1:53:07Indochina war which ended in a decisive
1:53:09French defeat in 1954 and the subsequent
1:53:11Geneva conference which partitioned
1:53:13Vietnam into two separate entities at
1:53:14the 17th parallel. The independent
1:53:17communist North Vietnam and the
1:53:19pro-western South Vietnam. The intention
1:53:22was eventually that nationwide elections
1:53:24would be held and the country would be
1:53:25reunified. Those elections never
1:53:27happened though. The United States,
1:53:30newly emergent as the dominant western
1:53:32power, viewed the ongoing war through
1:53:33its strategy for the Cold War, which is
1:53:35to say containment. Communism, the
1:53:38strategy proposed, as we discussed, had
1:53:40to be prevented from expanding beyond
1:53:41its existing borders. Vietnam then was
1:53:44not important because of the territory
1:53:45of Vietnam per se, but because of what
1:53:47it represented, the first domino in what
1:53:49American policymakers came to call the
1:53:51domino theory. If Vietnam falls to
1:53:54communism, all of Southeast Asia might
1:53:56too, thereby undermining American
1:53:58credibility. American involvement in
1:54:00Vietnam crept in slowly. Familiar song
1:54:03and dance, right? First, in the 1950s,
1:54:05there was financial aid, military
1:54:06advisers, and political backing for the
1:54:08pro-western government of South Vietnam.
1:54:10>> At this time, however, the Americans in
1:54:12Vietnam are there only as advisers.
1:54:15There are no United States combat units
1:54:17as such. By the early 1960s, so-called
1:54:20American military advisers had grown in
1:54:22number to the tens of thousands. And by
1:54:23the summer of 1964, American involvement
1:54:26in Vietnam had already grown to the
1:54:27point where conflict seemed inevitable.
1:54:30Even as the American public believed
1:54:32that US troops were in Vietnam merely to
1:54:34keep the peace, the military had already
1:54:36shifted its planning from support to
1:54:38[music] outright engagement. All that
1:54:40remained was a cas belly, a cause for
1:54:43war capable of aligning public framing
1:54:45and strategic intentions. Thus, on
1:54:47August 2nd, 1964, the US Navy destroyer
1:54:50USS Maddox reported an engagement with
1:54:52North Vietnamese patrol boats in the
1:54:53Gulf of Tonkin. 2 days later, on August
1:54:564th, the Johnson administration
1:54:57announced that a second attack had
1:54:59occurred. This time, both unprovoked and
1:55:00in international waters. Remember the
1:55:03main to hell with Spain. The second
1:55:05attack, it turns out, never happened, by
1:55:07the way. Now, ostensibly, internal
1:55:10communications inside the government
1:55:11reflected some uncertainty. Radio
1:55:13signals were ambiguous and so when our
1:55:15readings were inconsistent and the
1:55:16weather was poor and doubts emerged as
1:55:18to whether any attack had actually
1:55:19occurred at all. But the uncertainty
1:55:22didn't really matter. The war had
1:55:24already been decided on and declared
1:55:26well before the public was made aware of
1:55:28it or any vote was cast. On August 7th,
1:55:30Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkan
1:55:32resolution with near unonymity granting
1:55:34the president broad authority to use
1:55:36military force in Southeast Asia without
1:55:38a formal declaration of war. The
1:55:40resolution did not specify limits,
1:55:42objectives, or duration. It effectively
1:55:43outsourced Congress's constitutional
1:55:45warmaking authority to the executive
1:55:47branch. Initial coverage treated the
1:55:49government's account as authoritative
1:55:50with headlines echoing the official
1:55:52language, while editorials emphasized
1:55:54restraint while endorsing the response.
1:55:56The ambiguity of the evidence underlying
1:55:58the call to war was acknowledged, but as
1:56:01a matter of secondary concern. Despite
1:56:03the flimsy moral reasoning, around 59%
1:56:06of Americans were in favor of the war at
1:56:08its outset. American air strikes began
1:56:11and then intensified. Troop deployments
1:56:13surged. The military-industrial complex
1:56:16was unshackled, operating at massive
1:56:18scale with a staggering indifference to
1:56:20human life.
1:56:26>> [music]
1:56:32>> During World War II, the United States
1:56:34dropped a total of 2,150,000
1:56:37tons of bombs in all theaters of the
1:56:39war. During the Vietnam War, around
1:56:417,662,000
1:56:44tons of explosives were dropped. That's
1:56:46nearly four times the amount. [music]
1:56:49Horrifying chemical weapons like Agent
1:56:52Orange were deployed which obliterated
1:56:53the environment and caused devastating
1:56:55long-term effects to Vietnamese civilian
1:56:57populations in the form of cancers and
1:56:59birth defects. An extreme war of
1:57:02attrition was waged with the assumption
1:57:03that American industrial might would
1:57:05eventually exhaust our primitive enemy.
1:57:07But the enemy refused to break. For
1:57:09while the Americans fought against
1:57:11communism, the Vietnamese were not
1:57:12fighting for communism. They were
1:57:14fighting for independence, for freedom.
1:57:17Freedom from France. freedom from Japan
1:57:20and freedom from the United States. And
1:57:23as the costs mounted and escalation
1:57:25failed to produce resolution, the gap
1:57:27between the official framing and
1:57:29material reality widened beyond repair.
1:57:31The hard power failed first. On January
1:57:3515th, 1973, the United States suspended
1:57:37all combat activities in Vietnam. And on
1:57:40April 30th, 1975, Vietnamese forces
1:57:42captured the capital of the pro-western
1:57:44regime, marking the end of the Vietnam
1:57:46War. The United States had waged one of
1:57:48the most barbarous campaigns of war
1:57:50imaginable, committing innumerable war
1:57:52crimes against a people it had no
1:57:54business fighting, but for strategic
1:57:55goals of ideological containment that
1:57:57proved disconnected from local political
1:57:59realities. And it had achieved nothing.
1:58:03The war was immensely unpopular with US
1:58:06polling in 1978 revealing that 72% of
1:58:08Americans believed that the war was
1:58:10fundamentally immoral and wrong. The
1:58:12total cost of the war was nearly 2
1:58:14trillion in today's dollars. And the
1:58:15legacy of the war continues to be felt
1:58:17even to this day in both Vietnam and
1:58:19here in the United States. Back at home,
1:58:21there were protests and media coverage
1:58:23reflected the eroding of public trust.
1:58:25Faith in the government was fractured.
1:58:27The moral authority of the American
1:58:29state was openly questioned. As
1:58:31Secretary of Defense McNamera once wrote
1:58:32to President Johnson, "The picture of
1:58:35the world's greatest superpower killing
1:58:37or seriously injuring 1,000
1:58:38non-combatants a week while trying to
1:58:40pound a tiny backward nation into
1:58:42submission on an issue whose merits are
1:58:43hotly disputed is not a pretty one."
1:58:46Now, there's this prevailing narrative
1:58:48in the United States that it is this
1:58:49unpretty image, it is the home front,
1:58:52that sank the warfront. If the public
1:58:54hadn't been such pansies, we'd have
1:58:56eventually bowled over the North
1:58:57Vietnamese and won the war. But in
1:58:59Vietnam, like in Iran, like in Cuba, we
1:59:02see how soft power does not operate
1:59:04independently of hard power, but emerges
1:59:06instead downstream of it, contingent on
1:59:08the successful establishment of
1:59:10political order through hard power. The
1:59:12homeront was lost because the warfront
1:59:15was lost. The public opinion shifted
1:59:17because we failed in our hard power
1:59:19[music] deployment. The failure of our
1:59:21hard power produced failure in our
1:59:23influence at home and weakening of it
1:59:25abroad. Consider though at the same time
1:59:27how our hard power was affecting other
1:59:29places around the world. Hard power
1:59:31during the cold war remained decisive in
1:59:33Europe, in Japan and Korea and other
1:59:35places where material reconstruction and
1:59:37security guarantees and institutional
1:59:39integration produced regimes that could
1:59:41be normalized and eventually
1:59:43internalized by their local populations.
1:59:45All of which came only after the
1:59:47successful application of hard power.
1:59:49Vietnam lacked those conditions. No
1:59:52amount of media coordination or cultural
1:59:53messaging could manufacture legitimacy
1:59:55for a regime that its own population
1:59:57experienced as imposed and corrupt.
2:00:00Where force did not succeed, neither
2:00:02thereafter could influence. The outcome
2:00:05of the Vietnam War reveals to us that
2:00:07without successful hard power, once
2:00:08again, the American model of soft power
2:00:11simply cannot follow. What then was the
2:00:13takeaway in Washington from this whole
2:00:15debacle? Well, I'll tell you what, it
2:00:17wasn't give peace a chance. It wasn't,
2:00:20well, maybe if we improve the material
2:00:22conditions of people, our system will
2:00:24look more enticing. No, the hegemonic
2:00:27superpower did what hegemonic
2:00:28superpowers always do. It sought new
2:00:31ways to use hard power to maintain its
2:00:34hegemony.
2:00:37The Vietnam War formally ended in 1975,
2:00:40and for a short time thereafter, the
2:00:42United States shied away from foreign
2:00:44conflict. In 1973, Congress passed the
2:00:46War Powers Resolution, which ostensibly
2:00:48prohibited the president from
2:00:50unilaterally sending the US armed forces
2:00:51into action without Congress's statutory
2:00:54authorization, or in the case of a
2:00:56national emergency created by attack
2:00:57upon the United States, its territories
2:00:59or possessions, or its armed forces. But
2:01:02remember that soft power is held
2:01:03together by hard power. And if America
2:01:05wanted to maintain its soft powers, the
2:01:07interventions could not stop. We saw
2:01:10what happened in Cuba, Iran, and now
2:01:11Vietnam. When American hard power
2:01:13flinches, its soft power collapses. So,
2:01:16America started to lean away from the
2:01:18use of outright military invasion and
2:01:19lean harder on the other two elements of
2:01:21hard power, economic coercion and
2:01:23clandestine operation. Consider this.
2:01:26From the moment the United States
2:01:27articulated the Monroe Doctrine, Central
2:01:29America had been treated less like a
2:01:30foreign territory and more like a
2:01:32special economic zone, a region where
2:01:34American power was presumed legitimate
2:01:36by default. There was the big stick
2:01:38policy in dollar diplomacy and that's
2:01:40not imperialism. We're there to maintain
2:01:43order, right? By the late 1970s and 80s,
2:01:46however, the discontent of Central
2:01:47American peoples over their USbacked
2:01:50corrupt dictatorships boiled over into
2:01:52revolution. You will recall, for
2:01:53example, that the United States occupied
2:01:55Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933 during the
2:01:58Banana Wars. While after the occupation
2:02:00period, the United States installed a
2:02:02hereditary military dictatorship led by
2:02:04the Samosa family as a pro-American
2:02:06puppet government. Under the rule of the
2:02:08Samosa family, Nicaragua was faced with
2:02:10rising inequality and political
2:02:11corruption and a government that
2:02:13prioritized the interest of American
2:02:14multinational corporations over those of
2:02:16its own people. Nothing new there,
2:02:18right? In the early 1980s, this outrage
2:02:20culminated in the Sandinista National
2:02:22Liberation Front, one of a handful of
2:02:24different leftist insurgencies that
2:02:25arose to challenge Americanbacked
2:02:27dictators throughout Central America. To
2:02:29American policymakers steeped in the
2:02:30rhetoric of the Cold War, this was
2:02:32intolerable. Not because Nicaragua posed
2:02:34any kind of military threat, but because
2:02:36the revolution threatened American
2:02:38credibility, not soft power credibility,
2:02:40but hard power credibility. A
2:02:42large-scale invasion, however, was
2:02:44politically impossible after Vietnam. An
2:02:46open-ended war would provoke backlash,
2:02:48and Congress, reflecting public
2:02:50exhaustion, explicitly prohibited
2:02:51funding for efforts to overthrow the
2:02:52Nicaraguan government through a series
2:02:54of restrictions called the Boland
2:02:55Amendment. But the president at the
2:02:57time, none other than Ronald Wilson
2:02:59Reagan, remained committed to defeating
2:03:01the Sandinistas and preserving the image
2:03:03of American hemispheric hegemony. With a
2:03:05law so against him, however, and the
2:03:07public so extremely united against
2:03:09further interventions in wars, well,
2:03:11Ronald Reagan had no choice. He just
2:03:12gave up and attempted to diplomatically.
2:03:15No, of course not. Reagan simply
2:03:16circumvented the law and ignored public
2:03:18opinion to exercise American hard power.
2:03:20The Reagan administration funded,
2:03:22trained, and provided weapons to
2:03:24counter-revolutionary or contra militias
2:03:26fighting against the Sandinista
2:03:28government. But where would they get
2:03:29these funds? Congress would never
2:03:32approve of this, right? Well, with the
2:03:34assistance of the CIA, the Reagan
2:03:36administration secretly approved the
2:03:38sale of American weapons to our old
2:03:40friend, Iran, a country that on paper
2:03:43was officially an enemy of the United
2:03:44States and which was subject to an arms
2:03:46embargo. Now, the plan was simple. The
2:03:48CIA would secretly and unlawfully sell
2:03:50American weapons to Iran using the
2:03:52smokec screen of trying to free American
2:03:54hostages in Lebanon. They would then use
2:03:56that money to fund the Contras. It was
2:03:59foolproof. we would leverage our
2:04:01economic coercion using our intelligence
2:04:03apparatus and exercise our hard power
2:04:05without having to put boots on the
2:04:07ground. So Ronald Reagan sold weapons to
2:04:09a hostile state, violated America's own
2:04:12embargos in the process, laundered the
2:04:14money, then used it to finance a war
2:04:16that nobody wanted and that Congress had
2:04:17expressly forbidden. This fiasco became
2:04:20known as the Iran Contra affair. The
2:04:22operation was exposed in 1986 to much
2:04:25public outrage. Investigations were
2:04:27launched and General Oliver North was
2:04:28thrown under the bus, indicted and then
2:04:30subsequently acquitted. The whole thing
2:04:32was framed as a scandal, a rogue
2:04:33operation by General North. But everyone
2:04:36got off scot-free. The plan had worked.
2:04:40What the Iran Contra affair proved was
2:04:42that you could use hard power without
2:04:44any form of legitimacy whatsoever. So
2:04:46long as intervention remained plausibly
2:04:48deniable and was shielded from sustained
2:04:50public scrutiny, it could continue even
2:04:52in direct violation of the law.
2:04:54Intervention was a necessary element of
2:04:56American hygemony and thus the use of
2:04:58hard power sat de facto above the law,
2:05:02above Congress and above the people.
2:05:04Iran Contra then far from being an
2:05:06aberration, far from being a scandal,
2:05:09became a prototype for American
2:05:10intervention for the decades to come.
2:05:12Consider, for example, Operation
2:05:14Cyclone, one of the longest and most
2:05:15expensive covert operations in history.
2:05:17Through the CIA and primarily by proxy
2:05:20via the Pakistani intelligence service,
2:05:22the United States funneled weapons,
2:05:24funding, and training to Afghan
2:05:25insurgent groups fighting the Soviet
2:05:27Union. Ayatollas in Iran, Russians in
2:05:29Afghanistan. Right. In the Soviet Afghan
2:05:33war, no American troops were deployed.
2:05:35No war was declared. No congressional
2:05:37authorization was sought. The war was
2:05:39fought by proxies and largely invisible
2:05:42to the American public. Instead, the
2:05:44public was fed a narrative of brave
2:05:46Mujahedin fighters standing up against
2:05:48Soviet aggression. The very same brave
2:05:50Mujahedin fighters, it turns out, didn't
2:05:52exactly appreciate America either. But
2:05:55that comes later.
2:06:03Over the course of the 80s, the Soviet
2:06:05Union was drawn into a grinding
2:06:07asymmetric conflict that drained its
2:06:08resources and eroded its national
2:06:10morale. In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew
2:06:13in an embarrassing defeat and just two
2:06:14years later, the Soviet Union itself
2:06:17collapsed. This outcome is often
2:06:19narrated as a failure of Soviet
2:06:20legitimacy of the USSR losing the
2:06:23confidence of its people and crumbling
2:06:24under its own contradictions. But note
2:06:26the order of operations, right? The
2:06:28Soviet Union didn't lose legitimacy
2:06:30first and then suffer defeat. It
2:06:32suffered sustained material pressure,
2:06:34military exhaustion, economic collapse,
2:06:36and then legitimacy failure came
2:06:39afterwards. The soft power here could
2:06:41not survive without the hard power
2:06:42backing it up. And that hard power
2:06:44includes military and economy. Operation
2:06:47Cyclone then seemed to represent a
2:06:49successful resolution of the Vietnam
2:06:51problem. The United States had learned
2:06:53how to bleed an enemy while keeping
2:06:54political costs at length. Or so it
2:06:57thought. But as the 1980s ended, the
2:06:59world changed yet again. The Soviet
2:07:01block was collapsing and the Cold War
2:07:02order was coming apart. The United
2:07:04States was already the leader of the
2:07:06free world. And with no other world but
2:07:08the free world, why the US was de facto
2:07:10king of the world. And under those
2:07:12conditions, hard power no longer needed
2:07:14to be so subtle. Which begs the
2:07:16question, how will the United States
2:07:17behave in a world without rivals, where
2:07:20its dollar is God and its word is law?
2:07:24It was in Panama then that the United
2:07:26States saw an opportunity and an answer.
2:07:29You see, since the construction of the
2:07:30Panama Canal in the early 1900s, the
2:07:33country, like much of Central America,
2:07:35but even more so, functioned less like a
2:07:37sovereign state and more like a
2:07:38logistical artery of US global
2:07:40dominance. The CIA maintained deep ties
2:07:43with Panameanian leadership, including
2:07:44one Manuel Niega, a you guessed it,
2:07:47military strong man who had long
2:07:49cooperated with the US as an asset. When
2:07:52Niega ceased his compliance though and
2:07:54began asserting autonomy and threatening
2:07:56Cal Security, President George HW Bush
2:07:59launched Operation Just Cause in
2:08:01December of 1989.
2:08:03Now you know where the video games name
2:08:05comes from. In any case, more than
2:08:0727,000 troops were deployed in an
2:08:09invasion of Panama. The Panameanian
2:08:11Defense Forces collapsed within days and
2:08:13Norie was captured, transported to the
2:08:15United States, tried and imprisoned. The
2:08:17entire operation lasted mere weeks and
2:08:20as a result there was no legitimacy
2:08:22crisis at home. No draft, no prolonged
2:08:23occupation, no troubles. Media coverage
2:08:26framed the invasion as mere law
2:08:28enforcement rather than war. A police
2:08:30action to restore order, protect
2:08:31democracy and uphold international
2:08:33norms. Moving forward, America was to be
2:08:35the global police and our military, our
2:08:37sanctions, our intelligence were
2:08:39medicine for a sick world. The great
2:08:42game was over and America was the
2:08:45winner.
2:08:47winner is [screaming]
2:08:52[singing]
2:08:58>> in 1989, a few months prior to the fall
2:09:00of the Berlin Wall and Operation Just
2:09:02Cause, political scientist and
2:09:04international relations scholar Francis
2:09:06Fukuyama published an essay arguing that
2:09:08with the final defeat of fascism and
2:09:10communism, there was no longer any
2:09:12serious competition for liberal
2:09:13democracy in the market economy. In the
2:09:16realm of ideas, said Fukuyama,
2:09:18liberalism had won, and since there were
2:09:20no longer any competitors, it was only a
2:09:22matter of time before liberal democracy
2:09:23and market economy spread throughout the
2:09:25world. What remains of history will be
2:09:28peaceful, boring, even Pax Americana,
2:09:31the great and final age where the only
2:09:33puzzles left to solve are those of quote
2:09:36economic calculation, the endless
2:09:38solving of technical problems,
2:09:40environmental concerns, and the
2:09:41satisfaction of sophisticated consumer
2:09:43demands. In hindsight, well, this all
2:09:47seems to be pretty quaint, doesn't it?
2:09:50But at the time, people genuinely
2:09:51believe this to be true. As hard as it
2:09:54is for many of my younger viewers to
2:09:56imagine, in the '90s, people by and
2:09:58large genuinely believed that the world
2:10:00was getting better day by day and that a
2:10:01brighter future was on its way for all
2:10:03of humanity. America just needed to keep
2:10:05things stable, to keep the bad actors in
2:10:07line and protect the status quo. In
2:10:091990, for example, following the Iraqi
2:10:12invasion of Kuwait, the United States
2:10:14assembled a broad international
2:10:15coalition and launched the Gulf War. The
2:10:18war was swift, it was effective, it was
2:10:19decisive, and it was very one-sided. In
2:10:22a matter of weeks, Iraqi forces were
2:10:24expelled from Kuwait, and American
2:10:25casualties were minimal. The war had a
2:10:27clear objective and a satisfying
2:10:29conclusion. No single country on Earth
2:10:31could challenge the liberal democratic
2:10:33free market American system or it would
2:10:34meet the same fate as [music] Iraq. And
2:10:38throughout the '9s, the United States
2:10:39continued to intervene, always for the
2:10:41stated intention of protecting democracy
2:10:42and international norms. History's great
2:10:45ideological struggles truly appeared
2:10:47over, and all that remained was
2:10:49management. But the cracks were already
2:10:51there. The system had not, in fact,
2:10:53eliminated conflict, nor had it resolved
2:10:55its internal contradictions. And the
2:10:58United States, in its position of
2:10:59unchallenged dominance, imagined itself
2:11:01invincible and unassalable.
2:11:04If you watched my videos in the past,
2:11:06you know that I am a native New Yorker.
2:11:07[snorts]
2:11:08I was here on September 11th, 2001.
2:11:13I remember the events of that day
2:11:14vividly. I remember the panic in
2:11:16people's faces, the fear of my own
2:11:18family and the quiet relief that
2:11:20everyone was okay. I remember the scent
2:11:22of the chalky ash that coated every
2:11:24building, every car, everything. That
2:11:27sweet, sickly smell. And I remember the
2:11:30emotions of that day, the horror
2:11:32followed by astonishment. then sorrow,
2:11:34then anger. And the feelings kept
2:11:36flashing back and forth until only anger
2:11:38remained. We must do something to
2:11:40prevent this from ever happening again.
2:11:42We must strike back. The desire to fight
2:11:45back is only natural when your world,
2:11:47once peaceful, is shaken by violence to
2:11:49its very core. And thus, whenever we
2:11:51Americans or one of our allies bombs
2:11:54innocent civilians, which in turn causes
2:11:55the rise of violent resistance groups, I
2:11:58ironically perhaps remember 9/11 and my
2:12:01own sorrow, confusion, and anger. In a
2:12:04twisted way, that's kind of what Osama
2:12:05bin Laden wanted all along. He wanted in
2:12:07part for Americans to experience what
2:12:09we'd been putting others through for two
2:12:11centuries. He wanted us to suffer as the
2:12:13world has suffered at our hands. But
2:12:16what we Americans took away from 9/11
2:12:18was not stop bombing civilians because
2:12:20look how it feels. It was now more than
2:12:22ever we must be as American as possible.
2:12:25In that wave of extreme nationalism
2:12:27manifested itself in new wars of foreign
2:12:29aggression against a new and ultimately
2:12:31insurmountable enemy. Not Osama bin
2:12:33Laden, not his home base of Afghanistan
2:12:36and not his sponsors in Saudi Arabia,
2:12:38but the nebulous concept of terror. In
2:12:42October of 2001, the United States
2:12:44invaded Afghanistan, targeting Bin
2:12:46Laden's al-Qaeda and the Taliban
2:12:47government that harbored them. At first,
2:12:50the war appeared to go well. The Taliban
2:12:52government quickly fell. Allied forces
2:12:53captured the city of Kabul by November.
2:12:55The last city under Taliban control,
2:12:57Kandahar, fell on December 9th, but Bin
2:13:00Laden was nowhere to be found, and it
2:13:01was thought that he might be hiding in
2:13:02the mountainous border between
2:13:04Afghanistan and Pakistan in one of the
2:13:05many caves of the Tora Bora mountain
2:13:07range. And as the conflict dragged on,
2:13:10the priorities began to shift. As
2:13:12American hard power failed to bring
2:13:13about the expected results, the war
2:13:15started with the goal of dismantling
2:13:17al-Qaeda and bringing bin Laden to
2:13:18justice. It evolved then into
2:13:20stabilizing Afghanistan and from there
2:13:22to rebuilding Afghanistan in an American
2:13:24model and then protecting that new
2:13:25Afghan government from collapse. But as
2:13:28many of you likely lived through, the
2:13:29American Empire was not satisfied with a
2:13:31petty victory in Afghanistan. Let's
2:13:34return to the Gulf War for a moment.
2:13:36After the liberation of Kuwait, the US
2:13:38declared that its objectives had been
2:13:40achieved and that the war was a success.
2:13:42What the US did not do, however, was
2:13:44invade the capital of Iraq, Baghdad,
2:13:45[music] and remove its leader, Saddam
2:13:47Hussein. Instead, the US tried to get
2:13:49the Iraqi people to remove Saddam
2:13:51Hussein, in part through clandestine
2:13:53operations, but also through vicious
2:13:55sanctions, no-fly zones, and periodic
2:13:57air strikes. Despite all of that,
2:13:59though, Saddam Hussein remained
2:14:01stubbornly [music] in power. By the late
2:14:03'9s, frustration with the status quo was
2:14:05growing inside of Washington. For
2:14:07example, the Project for the New
2:14:08American Century, we'll call it PAC, a
2:14:11neoonservative think tank based in DC,
2:14:13wrote an open letter in 1998 to then
2:14:15President Bill Clinton calling for the
2:14:17removal of Saddam Hussein by military
2:14:19force. This letter was signed by such
2:14:22notable neoonservatives as Robert Kagan,
2:14:24Elliot Abrams, Richard Pearl, Paul
2:14:26Wolawitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and John
2:14:28Bolton. and rather notably Francis
2:14:31Fukuyama, Mr. End of History himself,
2:14:33making sure that history stays ended.
2:14:36Pak had also previously released a
2:14:38statement of principles which described
2:14:39the US as the world's preeminent power
2:14:42and stated that the US must shape a new
2:14:44century favorable to American principles
2:14:46and interests by increasing defense
2:14:48spending and promoting political and
2:14:49economic freedom abroad. This statement
2:14:51was signed by all of the aforementioned
2:14:53neocons, but also figures like Dick
2:14:55Cheney, Scooter Libby, Jeb Bush, and
2:14:58surprise surprise, Francis Fukuyama
2:15:00again, which sort of goes to show you
2:15:02that even the foremost proponents of
2:15:04American soft power didn't really
2:15:06believe [music] in it. That there was
2:15:07always a sort of underlying
2:15:09understanding that soft power needs a
2:15:10nudge, that it cannot stand alone. And
2:15:13soft power was failing massively in
2:15:15Iraq, even with all the economic and
2:15:17clandestine hard power pressure. In 2002
2:15:20then with Afghanistan having reached a
2:15:22stalemate the administration of George
2:15:24W. Bush whose cabinet appointees like
2:15:26Pearl Wolawitz Rumsfeld and Cheney all
2:15:29of whom emerged out of Pac made the case
2:15:31that to win the war on terror a
2:15:32preemptive strike against Iraq [music]
2:15:34was necessary. In January of that year
2:15:37President Bush called Iraq as part of
2:15:38his State of the Union address part of
2:15:40an axis of evil alongside Iran which was
2:15:43blindsided by this declaration as an
2:15:45enemy of Iraq. Oh, and there was North
2:15:48Korea as well. just thrown in there for
2:15:50good measure. What exactly unites the
2:15:52three of these entities into an axis of
2:15:54evil? Well, absolutely nothing. But in
2:15:56the American logic, this makes total
2:15:57sense. The evil that unites Iraq, Iran,
2:16:00and North Korea, isn't a military
2:16:02alliance or economic support. It's a
2:16:04rejection of the American world order.
2:16:07And to oppose America, to oppose God's
2:16:10chosen country, the exceptional, the
2:16:12city on the hill, is to be evil. And so
2:16:17by September of 2002, the administration
2:16:20concluded that Iraq was in possession of
2:16:21weapons of mass destruction that Saddam
2:16:23Hussein as an irrational dictator could
2:16:26use at any time. Why Iraq was even
2:16:29reconstituting its nuclear program. They
2:16:31may have been just a week away from a
2:16:34nuclear weapon. On February 5th, 2003,
2:16:36then Colon Powell addressed the United
2:16:38Nations Security Council. He presented
2:16:41satellite images and intercepted
2:16:42communications and diagrams of alleged
2:16:44weapons facilities. And on March 20th,
2:16:462003, the United States launched a
2:16:48surprise military invasion of Iraq
2:16:50without a declaration of war under the
2:16:52code name Operation Iraqi Freedom.
2:16:54Supported by a coalition of the willing,
2:16:56consisting of 40 other governments. By
2:16:58April of 2003, Baghdad had fallen and
2:17:00Saddam Hussein's government collapsed.
2:17:02Coalition forces poured into the
2:17:04country, scouring it for the hidden
2:17:05weapons of mass destruction, only to
2:17:08find that there weren't any to begin
2:17:10with. No stockpiles of chemical weapons,
2:17:12no active nuclear program, nothing. The
2:17:16United States had torn apart Iraq for
2:17:18nothing. Or so it seemed. But remember,
2:17:21the weapons of mass destruction were
2:17:23only the smoke screen. Heck, even the
2:17:25oil prize was only a secondary
2:17:27condition, although I'm sure Dick Cheney
2:17:28was quite happy about it. The primary
2:17:30consideration was the maintenance of
2:17:32American hijgemony of making a point to
2:17:34North Korea and Iran that they could
2:17:35either conform to the American world
2:17:37order or die. That is not soft power in
2:17:41action. The only task that remained was
2:17:43turning Iraq into a proper puppet state
2:17:45like Iran was under the shaw. The United
2:17:47States just needed to quell the
2:17:48insurgency and assert its hard power
2:17:50dominance. It had always worked before,
2:17:52so why not now? There was no ideological
2:17:55rival, right? So, this isn't the same as
2:17:57Vietnam. It should work this time. We
2:17:59just need to find the right puppet
2:18:01leader to replace Saddam Hussein. Help
2:18:02prop him up no matter how corrupt he is.
2:18:04As long as he supports our regional
2:18:06interests and resource extraction and it
2:18:08is all golden, right? Well, here's the
2:18:10problem. Saddam Hussein was our puppet
2:18:12leader. He was our strong man to begin
2:18:14with. During the Iran Iraq war, we
2:18:16backed Saddam Hussein as a bullwark
2:18:18against regional instability. By our
2:18:20reckoning, he backstabbed us and invaded
2:18:22Kuwait, forcing us to respond to him.
2:18:24No, what the Middle East needed, the
2:18:26argument was, was not further puppet
2:18:27regimes, but Americanstyle marketdriven
2:18:30democracy, [music] liberal democracy. We
2:18:32could prove Fukuyama right once and for
2:18:34all. It's the end of history. There are
2:18:37no alternatives. And by wiping the slate
2:18:39clean in Iraq, we can build the
2:18:40groundwork for a thriving democracy. In
2:18:43reality though, what we did was we
2:18:45opened the Iraqi market to looting by
2:18:47foreign interests. In 2003, the American
2:18:50Transitional Government, the Coalition
2:18:52Provisional Authority, or CPA, vested
2:18:54itself with executive legislative and
2:18:56judicial authority over the Iraqi
2:18:58government. Its very first act, CPA
2:19:00order 1, was the debathification of
2:19:02Iraqi society. [music]
2:19:03The former ruling party was to be
2:19:04purged, which removed not only loyalists
2:19:07to Saddam, but almost the entirety of
2:19:09the administrative apparatus that had
2:19:10kept the country functioning. The CPA's
2:19:13second act, CPA order 2, then formally
2:19:15disbanded the Iraqi army, as well as
2:19:17other public servants, including doctors
2:19:19and nurses, which immediately created
2:19:21500,000 unemployed and largely
2:19:23militarily trained young men. At the
2:19:26same time, the CPA set about dismantling
2:19:28Iraq's centrally planned economy, which
2:19:30prohibited foreign ownership of Iraqi
2:19:31businesses. CPA order 17 granted all
2:19:34foreign contractors operating in Iraq
2:19:36immunity from the Iraqi legal process. A
2:19:39move taken straight out of the unequal
2:19:41treaty imperialism of the 1800s. CPA
2:19:44order 49 provided a tax cut for
2:19:45corporations operating in Iraq. You get
2:19:48the picture, right? Iraq was to be paged
2:19:50by foreign interests. So the average
2:19:52Iraqi was suffering, their economy was
2:19:54being pillaged, and there was no army to
2:19:55maintain order, no bureaucracy to
2:19:57provide services, and no state to hold
2:19:59the country together. just this foreign
2:20:01occupying power that had destroyed their
2:20:03homes, killed their loved ones, and
2:20:04invaded their country under false
2:20:06pretenses. [music] From that sorrow,
2:20:08that confusion, that anger, the very
2:20:10same we all felt after 9/11 arose the
2:20:13insurgency. The Americans had ostensibly
2:20:16sought to bring freedom and democracy to
2:20:18Iraq. But now the Iraqi people were
2:20:20rising up to fight for freedom on their
2:20:22own terms. The United States fought
2:20:24against the insurgency with great
2:20:26brutality. And as the war grew desperate
2:20:27with increasing cruelty as well, imagery
2:20:30of civilians suffering due to the
2:20:31American occupation started to emerge in
2:20:33foreign media. The horrific acts of
2:20:35torture that were perpetrated by the
2:20:36army and the CIA and Abu Grey prison
2:20:39became known to the public. For example,
2:20:41American hard power was failing and soft
2:20:43power was failing alongside it. And
2:20:45before long, the war became a quagmire,
2:20:47a black hole into which America dumped
2:20:49men and resources. After 911, President
2:20:52Bush's approval rating hit as high as
2:20:5390%. On May 1st, 2003, Bush stood in
2:20:57front of a banner that read, "Mission
2:20:58accomplished and declared that major
2:21:00combat operations had ended." His
2:21:02approval rating at that point was around
2:21:0369%. By 2005, as the situation in Iraq
2:21:07deteriorated into outright civil war,
2:21:09Bush's approval rating dropped to 35%.
2:21:12And by 2008, in the midst of the Great
2:21:14Recession, his approval rating cratered
2:21:15to as low as 25%.
2:21:18The cracks had begun to show in
2:21:19America's hard-powered dominance, and
2:21:20with it, the soft power veneer cracked,
2:21:23too. Sure, Obama came after, and he was
2:21:25charismatic. He promised change, and he
2:21:27received a Nobel Peace Prize for the
2:21:29simple act of not being George Bush, but
2:21:31he was still fundamentally a neoliberal,
2:21:33and his policies were not altogether
2:21:34that different from his neoonservative
2:21:36counterparts. So tonight, let us ask
2:21:39ourselves,
2:21:40if our children should live to see the
2:21:43next century,
2:21:44if my daughters should be so lucky to
2:21:47live as long as Anne Nixon Cooper, what
2:21:50change will they see? What progress will
2:21:54we have made? They all still believed in
2:21:56and needed to support American primacy
2:21:58at any cost. And they still utilized
2:21:59American hard power to achieve that
2:22:01primacy. If you don't believe the
2:22:03theory, then argue with this logic. Why
2:22:05did Reagan and Obama both go after
2:22:07Gaddafi? Thanks, Killer Mike. At the
2:22:09same time, alternatives were emerging.
2:22:11Competitors were emerging in the
2:22:13marketplace of ideas. Cuba and Iran were
2:22:15proving in different ways that nations
2:22:16could still thrive and even threaten the
2:22:18United States while completely cut off
2:22:20from international markets. The rise of
2:22:21China showed that perhaps other systems
2:22:23could meaningfully compete against
2:22:25neoliberal free market capitalism, maybe
2:22:27even outsmart it. In the present, the
2:22:29United States has declining popularity
2:22:31throughout the world. More and more
2:22:33countries, including our own allies,
2:22:34view the United States as irresponsible,
2:22:36irrational, and unreliable. China's
2:22:39approval rating, in contrast, has only
2:22:40grown. On April 3rd, 2026, Gallup
2:22:43reported, for example, that China had
2:22:44edged past the United States and global
2:22:46approval ratings. This is what the end
2:22:48of history actually looks like. This is
2:22:51the end of the American Empire. But
2:22:53we'll talk more about the present in
2:22:54[music] just a moment. Before we talk
2:22:56about the decline of America in the
2:22:58present, let's talk a little bit about
2:23:01Japan.
2:23:14What you just watched was a video of US
2:23:17military personnel allegedly violating
2:23:19OPSSEAC during a recent highar strike on
2:23:22Iran to make a cute video with their
2:23:25doll of Shian Yorigami, the I kid you
2:23:28not god of poverty in Japanese bullet
2:23:31hell video game franchise Tohjo just
2:23:35casually sending poverty to Iran with
2:23:37the power of God in anime. But I
2:23:39digress. My point is, Japan is the best
2:23:43at soft power. That's right. I spent
2:23:45like a quarter of a year grinding this
2:23:47video and lectured you for over 2 hours
2:23:49as a retort to YouTube comments. I will
2:23:52never do this again for as long as I
2:23:53live. And if I try to, please stop me.
2:23:56As I've said like a hundred times in
2:23:57this video, American soft power is a
2:23:59shadow of American hard power. You see
2:24:01rock music and western clothes and the
2:24:03free market, but behind it there are
2:24:04military bases, economic coercion, the
2:24:06CIA, and the threat of penalties if one
2:24:08fails to cooperate. The American hard
2:24:11power framework built out of coercive
2:24:13force leaves no choice for most state
2:24:15actors but to accept said framework. But
2:24:18Japan Japan is trying something very
2:24:21different and we will see if it can
2:24:22succeed on its merits. Japan, you see,
2:24:24is not a hegemonic power. Unlike the
2:24:26United States, Mirshimer's model of
2:24:28offensive realism gets a little wonky
2:24:30here. Japan is undoubtedly an
2:24:32economically powerful country, but it is
2:24:34not allowed to become a regional
2:24:35hedgeimon through hard power, nor is it
2:24:37allowed to become an economic hedgeimon
2:24:38through hard power, as it is militarily
2:24:40and economically constrained by the
2:24:42United States, which imposes
2:24:43restrictions on its sovereignty. And
2:24:45Japan's government is propped up by
2:24:47American intelligence. Consider, for
2:24:49example, that the ruling Liberal
2:24:50Democratic Party of Japan at its
2:24:52founding received millions of dollars in
2:24:54funding and support from the CIA, as
2:24:57well as assistive CIA quote unquote
2:24:59influence in elections thereafter, such
2:25:02as the plan to influence the 1965
2:25:04Okinawan elections. In just 2025, the
2:25:07declassified Kennedy assassination files
2:25:09revealed that the CIA had a physical
2:25:12office in Tokyo operating to manipulate
2:25:15Japanese politics. The LDP officially
2:25:17has stated that it wasn't aware of this
2:25:18covert assistance, but behind closed
2:25:20doors, these declassified documents
2:25:23revealed that the foreign minister and
2:25:24LDB president back in 1994 had intimate
2:25:27knowledge of the CIA's presence, as he
2:25:29stated to US Ambassador Manddale the
2:25:31following. and I quote, "The LDP can
2:25:34deal with rumors and even unconfirmed
2:25:36leaks, but official confirmation of CIA
2:25:38activity in Japan would be an entirely
2:25:40different affair. Threatening to damage
2:25:42both the conservative political
2:25:43leadership as well as the US Japan
2:25:45security relationship." Those are his
2:25:47words, not mine. The conservative
2:25:49leadership you placed here and prop up
2:25:52will be damaged, as will the hard power
2:25:54relationship that underlines our
2:25:56obedience. The LDP has a long history of
2:25:58couch having to American interests over
2:26:00the interests of its own people.
2:26:02Consider how Japan's economy is at the
2:26:03mercy of American finance. Remember the
2:26:05Plaza Accord or more recently the 2025
2:26:08US Japan Framework Agreement in which
2:26:10Japan committed $550 billion in
2:26:12investments and loans into US sectors
2:26:14like energy and semiconductors in
2:26:16exchange for reduced US tariffs. Many of
2:26:19those tariffs were challenged in court
2:26:20and in some cases found to be unlawful,
2:26:22suggesting that Japan may have been
2:26:24pressured into concessions under a
2:26:25framework that was at best dubious and
2:26:27at worst coercive. But while Japanese
2:26:30media has discussed withdrawing those
2:26:32investments made under pressure, no such
2:26:34withdrawal has happened even as the
2:26:36Trump administration implements new
2:26:37tariffs on Japan, citing the Japanese
2:26:40use of quote unquote forced labor as its
2:26:43reasoning. There's also, of course,
2:26:44Japan's military development, which is
2:26:46directly stifled by the American drafted
2:26:48post-war constitution of Japan. What
2:26:50then can Japan do to project its
2:26:52influence? How can it get around
2:26:54America's de facto hard power embargo?
2:26:56While it only has soft power, Japan has
2:26:59been very purposefully utilizing its
2:27:00cultural and media products to generate
2:27:02goodwill and feelings toward the nation
2:27:04in ways that are outside of the scope of
2:27:06American control. The LDP, for example,
2:27:08has very specifically singled out anime
2:27:10as a means of aligning audiences with
2:27:12Japanese values. And the government
2:27:14subsidizes, promotes abroad, and
2:27:15proliferates anime for that purpose.
2:27:18Japan relies on its cultural exports. It
2:27:20relies on cool Japan. And it relies on
2:27:22fashion, design, anime, cuisine, video
2:27:24games, tourism, music, TV, and even
2:27:26foreign aid and education programs to
2:27:28project its influence and power
2:27:30throughout the world. Japanese cultural
2:27:32products are beloved the world over.
2:27:34Japanese cuisine is seen as fancier and
2:27:36more highbrow than the cuisine of its
2:27:38neighbors. And we've all seen the meme,
2:27:40right? Thing thing Japan. If you think
2:27:43of Japan as a beautiful country of anime
2:27:45and takoyaki that can do no wrong than
2:27:47when the topic of say war crimes or
2:27:49xenophobia comes up, you may be more
2:27:51inclined to defend not just Japan but
2:27:54the talking points of LDP foreign
2:27:56policy. Which is to say that the war
2:27:57crimes are overstated/ a hoax and that
2:28:00xenophobia is different and necessary in
2:28:01Japan to protect its perfect culture.
2:28:04Don't take my word for it. Here's the
2:28:06stated intention. a direct quote as per
2:28:08this 2024 report from the intellectual
2:28:10property strategy headquarters issued
2:28:12directly from then Prime Minister
2:28:14Kishida's cabinet and I quote
2:28:16simultaneously as the international
2:28:19political and economic situation becomes
2:28:21unstable increasing the number of Japan
2:28:25fans note the wording here not anime
2:28:27fans not manga fans not J-pop fans Japan
2:28:31fans increasing the number of Japan fans
2:28:34in the world is also important from the
2:28:36perspective of security. In addition to
2:28:39increasing the number of Japan fans
2:28:41around the world, we will work to
2:28:42enhance the brand value of Japan so that
2:28:45the people who make political and
2:28:47economic decisions and have influence
2:28:49[music]
2:28:50in countries and regions around the
2:28:52world will also become Japan fans,
2:28:55making Japan an indispensable presence
2:28:57in the international community. End
2:29:00quote. That is soft power. The ability
2:29:04to get others to do what you want
2:29:05without coercion. But of course, these
2:29:08realities are also not completely
2:29:10detached from hard power. Japan is still
2:29:12a major economy and thus has economic
2:29:14hard power leverage. Japan is aligned
2:29:16with US security architecture and in the
2:29:18recesses of its policym has military and
2:29:21imperialist ambitions of its own, even
2:29:22if it likes to hide them. But when
2:29:24compared to the United States, the
2:29:26difference is night and day. The US has
2:29:28far more limited soft power than one
2:29:30thinks. One can hardly call America the
2:29:33best at soft power. It's the best at
2:29:35hard power. And that hard power provides
2:29:37an illusion of reality. An illusion that
2:29:40is soaked in blood and death. And a
2:29:42reality that is built on and maintained
2:29:45by violence.
2:29:49Imagine if you will that you are a
2:29:51student at a large school and this
2:29:54school has a bully, one bully who is way
2:29:56stronger than everyone else. The bully
2:29:58has the largest group of friends. is the
2:30:00largest click and nobody dares to defy
2:30:02him because if they do, he and his
2:30:04friends will beat them up. If you're a
2:30:07student in this school, what do you do?
2:30:09Well, if you don't want to get beaten
2:30:10up, you stay out of the bully's way and
2:30:11you try not to get his attention. If you
2:30:13want the perks of being the bully's
2:30:15friend, though, you can do as he says.
2:30:17Maybe you and the bully hang out after
2:30:19school. Maybe you help him beat up kids
2:30:21who he considers his enemies. But
2:30:23inside, you know, if you had the chance,
2:30:25you'd escape his orbit and perhaps be a
2:30:27better person. Maybe you can form your
2:30:29own group of friends, but the threat of
2:30:32force keeps you docel and obedient.
2:30:34Let's say though one day the bully beats
2:30:36up a kid, but you can tell that the
2:30:37bully seems more tired than usual. The
2:30:40fight took longer than expected, and he
2:30:42has more bruises than you've ever seen
2:30:43on him. The bully in his hubris sees
2:30:46only the mangled body of his victim on
2:30:47the ground. But everyone else notices
2:30:50not the victim's suffering, but the
2:30:51bully's weakness. Slowly but surely, the
2:30:54bully can no longer control the school
2:30:56as easily as he did before. cracks begin
2:30:58to form. The students at the school stop
2:31:00asking, "Well, what happens if I defy
2:31:02him?" And they start considering
2:31:04instead, "Well, what happens if everyone
2:31:06else defies him together?" In time, the
2:31:08bully begins to notice that his quote
2:31:10unquote friends are pulling away. He
2:31:12notices that when he bullies kids,
2:31:13they're more willing to fight back
2:31:15instead of pay up. He sees other strong
2:31:17kids banding together to resist him, and
2:31:19he finds that he can no longer push them
2:31:20around. As the fear of the bully slowly
2:31:24subsides, so too does his ability to
2:31:26control the school. And the other
2:31:28students who remember the bully's
2:31:29cruelty abandon him the moment he grows
2:31:31too weak to enforce his regime. The fear
2:31:34of the bully is what predicates American
2:31:36soft power. But as we're seeing play out
2:31:39in real time, America is still reaching
2:31:41for the same tools it has used for two
2:31:43centuries. The Monroe Doctrine, now
2:31:46called the Donro Doctrine, dollar
2:31:48diplomacy, sanctions, debt, military
2:31:51force, and stability language for the
2:31:53purposes of extraction. The difference
2:31:55between the past and the present,
2:31:56though, is that the old bargain is
2:31:58breaking down. The fear of being beaten
2:32:00up is fading, and the perks of being the
2:32:03bully's friend are also fading. What
2:32:06incentive then is there to side with the
2:32:08bully? For most of the 20th century,
2:32:10American hegemony could present itself
2:32:12as a rising tide. The system was
2:32:14unequal, yes, but its defenders could
2:32:17argue that the inequality was tolerable
2:32:18because everyone was still better off
2:32:20inside the system than outside of it.
2:32:22But what happens when the tide stops
2:32:24rising? What happens when the system
2:32:26offers all of the coercion and none of
2:32:28the bargain? All of the dependency and
2:32:29none of the security, all of the
2:32:31discipline, but none of the prosperity.
2:32:33What happens when you omit, speak
2:32:35softly, and only carry the big stick?
2:32:37What happens when you go all stick and
2:32:39no carrot? All me, but no you? This in
2:32:43essence is the problem of America first.
2:32:46It is a fundamental misunderstanding of
2:32:47American liberalism and the coercive
2:32:49power it [music] wields. It is believing
2:32:51your own propaganda that the superiority
2:32:54of the American system is what keeps the
2:32:56American world order in place. The
2:32:58American first stance of Donald Trump
2:33:00and his political base on the right,
2:33:01whatever you choose to call it, sees the
2:33:03carrot parts of liberalism as
2:33:04superfluous and even charitable. Why do
2:33:07we have these expensive military bases
2:33:09everywhere? Why do we have these trade
2:33:10deals that allow Mexico or the EU or
2:33:12Canada or China to take advantage of our
2:33:14markets? Why are we giving all this
2:33:16money to the UN or to humanitarian
2:33:18causes through US aid? Why do we allow
2:33:20others to take advantage of us? Their
2:33:22solution to the weakening influence of
2:33:24the bully is to be an even bigger bully.
2:33:26No more perks. If you don't obey us, you
2:33:27get beat up. You get tariffed. You get
2:33:29trade war. You get couped. You get
2:33:31sanctioned. You get your country bombed.
2:33:32Quote unquote back to the stone age.
2:33:35What they don't understand is that
2:33:36America first means America alone. And
2:33:39to be fair, the liberal doesn't
2:33:40understand either that NAFTA/ the USMCA,
2:33:43the WTO, the IMF, US A, and the like
2:33:46aren't soft power [music] either. Ask
2:33:48many African nations how they feel about
2:33:50the IMF and the World Bank, for example,
2:33:52or how most Canadians view trade with
2:33:54the United States. At best, they see
2:33:56these things as pragmatic necessities in
2:33:58an American dominated world. At worst,
2:34:01they consider these things neoc colonial
2:34:03and extractive. Any deal with America is
2:34:06a Fouian bargain. If you deal with the
2:34:09devil, you reap the consequences.
2:34:14>> So, let's see how you respond. America
2:34:17is backing you with overwhelming
2:34:20strength and devastating force. Now is
2:34:22the time to seize control of your
2:34:24destiny and to unleash the prosperous
2:34:27and glorious future that is close within
2:34:30your reach. On February 28th, 2026, the
2:34:34United States and Israel launched a war
2:34:36against the second nation in Bush's axis
2:34:39of evil, targeting the so-called rogue
2:34:41nation of Iran. Why is Iran a rogue
2:34:45nation? Because, according to Vice
2:34:46President JD Vance, it doesn't act like
2:34:49a quote unquote normal country. And if
2:34:52only Iran was willing to [music] act
2:34:53like a normal country, it would be
2:34:55treated by the United States like a
2:34:57normal country. But what is a normal
2:35:00country? Is a normal country a non-
2:35:03theocracy? Well, that can't be it
2:35:04because Saudi Arabia is a theocracy, and
2:35:06that's one of our allies. [music] No. A
2:35:09normal country is a country that goes
2:35:10along with the rules-based international
2:35:12order. A set of global rules based on
2:35:15economic and political liberalism that
2:35:17benefits primarily the United States. If
2:35:20Joseph NY's rising tide lifts all boats,
2:35:23we should all be happy. But the tide
2:35:25isn't rising for everyone. And indeed,
2:35:28the water has been trickling down more
2:35:29than it's been rising up. And as even
2:35:32that trickle dries up, as liberalism
2:35:34marches headlong into the inevitable
2:35:36technofudalism of latestage capitalism,
2:35:39the cracks in the American international
2:35:41order are growing simply too big to
2:35:43ignore. America no longer has the
2:35:45overwhelming military power necessary to
2:35:47crush any other country on Earth that it
2:35:49once did. It struggled in [music] Iraq
2:35:51and Afghanistan. It is outright failing
2:35:53in Iran. It doesn't have the
2:35:55manufacturing capacity to sustain
2:35:57conflict against even far weaker
2:35:58regional opponents. It cannot protect
2:36:01its own military bases or allies against
2:36:02the weapons of an enemy it has
2:36:04economically sanctioned for decades. It
2:36:06with the largest and most advanced navy
2:36:09in the world with its 11 nuclearpowered
2:36:11aircraft carriers and 75 guided missile
2:36:14destroyers cannot stop a nation whose
2:36:16naval capabilities have been reduced to
2:36:18speedboats and flying lawnmowers from
2:36:20closing a straight of water only 20 to
2:36:2230 m wide. [music] America's economic
2:36:25power is waning as well. In the year
2:36:272000, the United States was the largest
2:36:29trading partner of virtually every
2:36:31nation on Earth. Take a look at the year
2:36:332024 in comparison. China has reached a
2:36:36degree of trade dominance that even the
2:36:38United States [music] at its peak
2:36:39couldn't reach. And with that declining
2:36:41economic power, even the almighty dollar
2:36:44is starting to slip. When Iran charged
2:36:46tolls for transiting the trade of
2:36:48Hormuz, it did so in Chinese yen.
2:36:50Because with Chinese economic dominance
2:36:52growing, [music] there's an economy that
2:36:54exists now outside of the US scope of
2:36:56influence. We've even seen American
2:36:58clandestine power weaken with botched
2:37:00operations recently in Mexico and Iran.
2:37:03[music] We've been shooting wildly from
2:37:05the hip, oftentimes blind to the
2:37:06intentions of our friends and enemies
2:37:08alike. There's even been a decline in
2:37:10American media control and propaganda.
2:37:12In January of 1948, the US Congress
2:37:15passed the US Information and
2:37:16Educational Exchange Act to develop
2:37:18regulated broadcasting of programs for
2:37:20foreign but not domestic audiences
2:37:23produced under the guidance of the State
2:37:24Department i.e. government propaganda.
2:37:27This act was modernized as part of the
2:37:292013 National Defense Authorization Act,
2:37:32which in turn authorized $600 billion
2:37:35for defense, a number which has since
2:37:37ballooned to $900 billion in 2026. And
2:37:41the Trump administration has requested
2:37:43$1.5 trillion for fiscal year 2027. Even
2:37:48with a frankly almost infinite amount of
2:37:51money and permission to directly deploy
2:37:52propaganda weapons against all peoples,
2:37:54both foreign and domestic, the narrative
2:37:57war is failing. Because one cannot just
2:38:00lean on the might of so-called American
2:38:01soft power, the alleged superiority of
2:38:04our system when hard power is failing.
2:38:07Leaders from Canada, the UK, and Europe
2:38:09engage more openly with America's
2:38:10hedgemonic rival in China. For example,
2:38:13in January of 2026, Canada signed a
2:38:16reciprocal trade agreement with China,
2:38:17allowing Chinese electric vehicles into
2:38:19Canada in exchange for lowered
2:38:21agricultural tariffs. If the deal goes
2:38:23well, the Chinese may even begin
2:38:25manufacturing electric cars in Canada.
2:38:28Canada gets jobs in manufacturing in
2:38:30China. Well, China gets to sell its cars
2:38:32in North America and potentially even in
2:38:34the United States. We've seen Southeast
2:38:36Asian countries cozying up to China,
2:38:38too. In just April of 2026, China's
2:38:41foreign minister Wang Yi visited
2:38:42Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar,
2:38:44positioning China as the major power
2:38:46defending stability, trade, and
2:38:48cooperation in the region. Thai foreign
2:38:50minister Siokqao in the meantime
2:38:53criticized the United States for
2:38:54offering no help with the Iran wars
2:38:56fallout. Even Vietnam, which has deep
2:38:59historical animosity towards China, is
2:39:01strengthening ties. Vietnamese President
2:39:04Tolam's first overseas trip since his
2:39:06election just a week prior was to China.
2:39:09Lam stated, according to the Associated
2:39:11Press, that quote, "Vietnam would regard
2:39:14developing relations with China as its
2:39:16objective need, strategic choice, and
2:39:20top priority." Global perception is
2:39:23shifting. According to Gallup, China's
2:39:24global approval rating in 2025 edged
2:39:26past the United States by the widest
2:39:28margin in nearly two decades. And this
2:39:31discrepancy is only likely to grow.
2:39:33There's a reason why everyone's in a
2:39:34very Chinese time of their life right
2:39:36now. And it has much to do with the rise
2:39:37of China as it does with the fall of
2:39:39America. China is the perfect example of
2:39:41how a communist centrally controlled
2:39:44economy can grow beyond even the power
2:39:45of the hegemonic US if the US buys into
2:39:48its own soft power rhetoric and
2:39:49propaganda. The theory was this. If we
2:39:52brought China into the World Trade
2:39:53Organization and opened our markets to
2:39:55China and flooded China with Western
2:39:57capital, our wealth flowing into China
2:39:59will cause China to become more like us.
2:40:02This theory was called convergence.
2:40:04Ultimately though, the very opposite
2:40:06occurred. As American companies entered
2:40:08China and became fabulously wealthy
2:40:10there, they developed incentives to
2:40:11defend their access to Chinese markets,
2:40:14Chinese labor, and Chinese
2:40:15manufacturing. As such, instead of China
2:40:18simply becoming more like America,
2:40:19Western capital became structurally
2:40:21invested in the rise of China, going so
2:40:24far as to lobby for Chinese interests, a
2:40:26theory called reverse convergence. But
2:40:29Chinese soft power is a video for
2:40:32another time. And don't comment
2:40:34something like China isn't communist,
2:40:35Mooney, or the next 3-hour video I said
2:40:37I wouldn't make is going to be targeted
2:40:39at you. The point is, as Mao Dong once
2:40:42said, political power grows out of the
2:40:44barrel of a gun. And sure, offensive
2:40:47realism is just a theory. It is but one
2:40:49model which is not necessarily
2:40:50universally applicable. But a chore is
2:40:53applicable to the United States. We are
2:40:56making the same mistakes again
2:40:57predicated on the same poor
2:40:59understanding of history and context. I
2:41:01mean for goodness sake with regards to
2:41:03Hezbollah in Lebanon, Donald Trump says
2:41:06Syria will do the job. That's right.
2:41:08Ahmad al- Alshara and the HTS, the
2:41:10successor group to Jabbat al-Nusra, the
2:41:13official affiliate in Syria of Al-Qaeda,
2:41:16is our secret weapon. And I'm sure our
2:41:19brave Mujahedin fighters will work out
2:41:22for us this time. Robert Kagan, Arch
2:41:25neoonservative and member of PA, claims
2:41:27that the end is nigh for Trump in the
2:41:29Iran war. Francis Fukuyama has stated
2:41:31that he was wrong about the end of
2:41:32history and about the China model, which
2:41:34he now claims is potentially superior to
2:41:36that of the United States. when we look
2:41:37at material results for the people. And
2:41:40as for Joseph Nye, well, he passed away
2:41:42at the age of 88 back in May of 2025.
2:41:45You never got to see the coup in
2:41:46Venezuela or the war in Iran or whatever
2:41:48war is coming next, be it Cuba or Mexico
2:41:50or Colombia. He got to see his theory of
2:41:53soft power, his perspective of so-called
2:41:55ethical hegemony fade over his lifetime.
2:41:58But he will be fortunate enough not to
2:42:00experience it die altogether. It is all
2:42:03of us who must live in the shadow of its
2:42:05consequences. And as America's carefully
2:42:08constructed global house of cards
2:42:09collapses, it faces the same conflict
2:42:12that many failing empires in history
2:42:14encountered. It can do things the easy
2:42:16way and adapt to a multipolar world, or
2:42:18it can do things the hard way and
2:42:20attempt to restore its position through
2:42:22force, coercion, and escalation. But
2:42:25history teaches us, unfortunately, that
2:42:28great powers more often than not choose
2:42:31the hard way.
2:42:33There's nothing wrong with criticizing
2:42:36your government when it's doing
2:42:38something foolish. In fact, one could
2:42:40argue that that's the highest form of
2:42:42patriotism. That you're willing to
2:42:45criticize your government. You're
2:42:47willing to subject yourself to being
2:42:50criticized for being anti-American or
2:42:53not a good American. But that's not my
2:42:56idea of what a good American is. or
2:42:59>> Mooney, I can hear you say after all of
2:43:02this negative talk about America, you as
2:43:04an American must really hate your
2:43:07country. Well, nothing could be further
2:43:09from the truth. I love my country. But
2:43:11loving your country, like loving your
2:43:13child or your sibling or your partner,
2:43:15doesn't mean loving it blindly. When we
2:43:18put anything on a pedestal, when you
2:43:19idealize it, when you idolize it, you
2:43:22detach yourself from reality and erode
2:43:24both your agency and the agency of what
2:43:26you pedestalize. After all, if one is
2:43:29without flaws, then why change? To love
2:43:32your country means wanting it to become
2:43:34the best version of itself. America
2:43:37isn't holy. It isn't exceptional in some
2:43:39way, but it isn't all bad either. There
2:43:42is a version of America worth loving as
2:43:45well. The America I love is its people.
2:43:48We the people who have always had to
2:43:50drag this country kicking and screaming
2:43:52towards some brighter, less bloody, more
2:43:54cooperative future. We the people who
2:43:57fought and died to end the grotesque
2:43:58practice of slavery. We the people who
2:44:01struggled to gain equal rights for
2:44:02racial, sexual, and gender minorities.
2:44:05We the people who organized in
2:44:07factories, [music] fields, and offices
2:44:08for the dignity and humanity of every
2:44:10worker around the world. This is the
2:44:13America I love. That is the America
2:44:15worth fighting for. That is the America
2:44:18I believe in. And yet, as I speak, the
2:44:21other America, the unaccountable
2:44:22America, the exceptional America, the
2:44:25imperial America, the corporate America,
2:44:27is starving Cuba and North Korea,
2:44:29enabling genocide in Gaza, and
2:44:31threatening genocide in Iran. There's
2:44:34someone right now, at this very moment,
2:44:36who is dying of hunger due to our
2:44:38sanctions. There are children out there
2:44:40who are terrified of clear blue skies
2:44:42because of our drone strikes. There is a
2:44:44world held hostage by our greed, our
2:44:47pride, and our hubris. Who could
2:44:50possibly believe in that America? That
2:44:54America is not believed in by choice. It
2:44:56is instead tolerated at gunpoint. But as
2:45:00the fire in the cave sputters out, as
2:45:02the light fades, so too does the shadow.
2:45:05All that remains is a stark realism.
2:45:09that is in every sense of the word
2:45:13offensive.
2:45:15I've been your host, Mooney. I know
2:45:18there's a lot we didn't get to, but this
2:45:19is a topic with enough nuance for a
2:45:21thousand videos, and I did my best for
2:45:23you in one. I started working on this
2:45:26video back in November of 2025, and a
2:45:28lot has happened geopolitically since
2:45:30then. I, as a lawyer, usually make
2:45:33content around law and video games, but
2:45:35I do have a background in political
2:45:36science and international relations. So,
2:45:38if this kind of content is interesting
2:45:40to you, let me know. Maybe we can do
2:45:42some more of it. Nothing this long,
2:45:44though. In any case, Moon Channel
2:45:46donates 10% of its gross income to
2:45:48Doctors Without Borders. Your patronage
2:45:50here on YouTube, but especially on
2:45:52Patreon, makes that a reality for us. We
2:45:55together can make a difference. We must
2:45:57not give into the nihilistic notion that
2:46:00we are powerless. A special thanks then
2:46:02to Lorita Shine, CA Gunner, and Moon
2:46:04Channel's dearly beloved patrons,
2:46:06without whom none of this would be
2:46:08possible. And thank you all of you for
2:46:11tuning in to Moon Channel.
2:46:16The song I'm about to sing for you is a
2:46:18parody of a Christian hymn originally
2:46:19performed by social activist Pete
2:46:21Seager. You know, funny thing, Pete
2:46:24Seager, Donald Trump, and I all come
2:46:26from the same denomination of
2:46:27Christianity, and we are all New
2:46:29Yorkers. Trump and I used to attend the
2:46:31same church even. In any case, here's
2:46:35the parody.
2:46:38What a [singing] friend we have in
2:46:41Congress. [music]
2:46:44Who will guard [singing] our every
2:46:46shore? [music]
2:46:49spends 3/4 of our taxes
2:46:55fighting endless [singing]
2:46:57foreign war.
2:47:00Guns must make our [singing and music]
2:47:02coastline break
2:47:05and we have to [singing] fill the skies
2:47:10[music]
2:47:11full of drones and [singing] guided
2:47:14missiles.
2:47:17They'll be paid for by and by.
2:47:22Have you [singing] noticed all the
2:47:25progress [music]
2:47:28of our [singing] mighty naval fleet?
2:47:31[music]
2:47:33By the time a ship adopted, [singing]
2:47:37[music]
2:47:39it's already obsolete.
2:47:44Modern bombs [singing] are sure [music]
2:47:46to carry
2:47:49loads of glory, joy, and thrills.
2:47:53[singing and music]
2:47:55What a privilege to bear
2:47:59[singing and music]
2:48:01all the dead or money kills.
2:48:06Never [singing] mind the widows weeping.
2:48:12misreard [singing] the orphans cries.
2:48:16[music]
2:48:17When God wakes the dead and sleeping,
2:48:26they'll be [singing] paid [music] for by
2:48:29and

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