I can’t be alone here in finding their absurd cosplay military posturing (Department of War, our “warriors” etc) the perfect illustration of arrested adolescent males desperately grasping for proof of their machismo quotient.
It takes me back to my college days. The instant reaction back then would have been "frat boys." (Which might, even then, have been unfair to many fraternity members, but the stereotype had a really solid basis.) The behaviors differ only in the scope now available them. These are just the guys who never grew up.
1 week ago
there is a tendency in the West to assume that soft=weak.
Something that anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Aikido would know is nonsense.
You can see that in the current administration, where the whole idea of soft power is considered an oxymoron, so much so that they have gone to eliminate any agency that might engage in it.
That's of a piece with their seeing everything as transactional. If you treat every interaction as unrelated to every other, then you have no allies. Merely temporary and expedient cases of aligned goals. If you have no allies, then soft power is meaningless, whether it is an oxymoron or not.
It takes me back to my college days. The instant reaction back then would have been "frat boys." (Which might, even then, have been unfair to many fraternity members, but the stereotype had a really solid basis.) The behaviors differ only in the scope now available them. These are just the guys who never grew up.
Something that anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Aikido would know is nonsense.
That's of a piece with their seeing everything as transactional. If you treat every interaction as unrelated to every other, then you have no allies. Merely temporary and expedient cases of aligned goals. If you have no allies, then soft power is meaningless, whether it is an oxymoron or not.