Cold War victory rested on instruments beyond hard military and economic power—soft-power tools like USAID, Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and the National Endowment for Democracy that advanced ideas of freedom—and the Trump administration's dismantling of these (rather than reforming them) amounts to disarming in the idea-competition with China, which keeps investing in such tools.

causalpending

Speaker

Michael McFaul

Evidence Quote

we can't disarm... the Chinese, they've been shut down there.

Source

“They’re Not Like Us”: Michael McFaul on Autocrats vs. Democrats and the Fight for the 21st CenturyHoover Institution
Created: 6/18/2026, 1:57:41 PM

My Notes

Loading notes...