Soft power, public diplomacy, and modernity in China and Russia

There is now an extensive literature on the related concepts of soft power and modernity. The former is sometimes known as cultural or public diplomacy and is an international relations factor in what is now called hybrid conflict or even war. As is well-known, Joseph Nye, an American political scientist, coined the term “soft-power” in the early 20^th Century. This was useful, but its theory and practice have a pedigree that begins at least with Sun Tzu and in modern history with Niccolò Machiavelli and Carl von Clausewitz. It is essentially how states and multi-state organizations present their values and policy aims as benign or even beneficial to others. The goal is a simple one: to make friends and influence foreign public opinion through a complex of indirect appeals in which intellectual cooperation, and cultural, educational, and economic exchanges form key components. It was a major activity of the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War…