U.S. Soft Power: The War On Liberation

In light of the recent bombings in Iran, it is important to remember that bombs and boots on the ground are only some of the ways that the U.S. wages wars. “Grants,” “development,” “capacity-building,” and “civil society” are among its most effective weapons. USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and a network of well-funded NGO’s form the backbone for a global counterinsurgency strategy. These are tools that the U.S. uses to control countries where direct military intervention is too risky, too visible, or too unpopular. We are told this network delivers aid and kickstarts progress; in practice, it means regime change, debt, and suffering.

The recent dismantling of USAID under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) exposes the truth that aid has never been about solidarity. It has always been a tool for managing political outcomes, and when that management no longer serves U.S. interests, the “aid” disappears with it.

Soft power is not soft. It is a covert war.

Soft power is not the opposite of direct military force. USAID and NED do not simply “assist development” or “promote democracy.” They fund violent opposition movements, rewrite civil society in the image of the U.S., and undermine popular movements that threaten the neoliberal order. 

For clarity, the neoliberal order is a global system that insists on prioritizing free markets and privatization over collective welfare and democratic control through mechanisms like sanctions and austerity. 

This is well documented. In Venezuela, the NED funneled money to anti-Chávez parties and media outlets, helping shape the conditions for the 2002 coup. Between 1998 and the end of Chávez’s presidency, the NED exclusively funded opposition campaigns and messaging. They framed the leader who won four democratic elections as “semi-authoritarian” because he dared to build power outside the party system and center the working class in his decision-making. In Cuba, USAID and the US State Department transition plans even wrote a script for an economic and political handover to U.S.-backed politicians, assuming the socialist government would collapse. In both cases, the U.S. defined socialism as illegitimate by default, regardless of its material outcomes for the people. Then used “aid” to try to change the political realities. 

In 2025, the DOGE purge has exposed the cracks in America’s soft power empire.

This, however, is not the end of soft power. Earlier this year, Elon Musk and his team cut over 6,000 USAID programs. Included were global public health systems, emergency food, maternal care, and more. These cuts were in effect overnight. What is really telling is that the programs that were cut were the most localized and affordable. Meanwhile, the large private contracts worth billions were preserved. Since the cuts, a series of leaked memos warning of millions of preventable deaths, lawsuits from religious organizations, and direct pressure from lobbyists have restored a small fraction of the programs. 

What this moment reveals is that these programs were never accountable to the people they claim to be serving. They are accountable to political expediency. This means that the ways in which the United States appears altruistic or in solidarity with marginalized communities are, in reality, just different channels through which suffering and people’s dreams for it to end are managed and made acceptable within the empire. 

In Latin America, USAID did not build stability; it has funded the backlash.

The contradictions of U.S. soft power and its “aid” programs are clear. Including Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, “civil society” was the battlefield the U.S. sought to win. Troops weren’t needed if USAID could fund student groups, religious groups, and media campaigns that align with the empire.

In Venezuela, the promotion of democracy meant funding technocratic parties aligned with the U.S. as opposed to popular institutions. Even after Chávez was democratically elected, the U.S. funded the coup. When the coup failed, they continued to fund opposition parties,

In Cuba, the transition plans called for cutting subsidies and privatizing public services. Notably, these are some of the same measures that the IMF demands countries take before accessing international funding. In Cuba, when the socialist state didn’t collapse on its own as expected, USAID instead shifted to funding dissidents, “independent” media campaigns, and strict sanctions. 

Suppose USAID and the NED are focused on funding the opposition to democratically elected leaders because of economic and social policy. In that case, the U.S. is interested not in democracy, but in control and obedience. 

The Sahel’s push for sovereignty exposed the soft grip of colonial power.

The same logic is playing out now in West Africa. In 2023, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). They cut ties with French military influence in the name of African self-determination. Foreign troops were expelled, and the 3 nations charted a new course rooted in Pan-Africanism. They were immediately labeled authoritarian and dangerous.

In the following months, media portrayals highlighted “rising jihadist violence,” military repression, and fractured civil society, avoiding the popular support for reclaiming sovereignty. The U.S. and Europe have begun their war, not through bombs, but through sanctions, media narratives, and the same tactics that are trademarks of soft colonial power.

We do not want “better” aid. We need liberation.

There is no fixing this system. We can learn from the collapse of USAID: if life-saving programs can be ended simply because billionaires do not like them, the programs were never about saving lives. 

To move forward, we must not mistake resources for relationships. USAID is a weapon and therefore cannot be reformed. It needs to be defunded and replaced by structures accountable to the people it serves and not a foreign government. We do not want more equitable programming. We want sovereignty. We want reparations. We want the right to build, to experiment, to grow, to fail, and to rebuild without prioritizing foreign economic interests at every step, at any step. 

-RC