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Cake day: March 13th, 2026

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  • Huh? Caligula and Nero were emperors during the Julio-Claudian dynasty at the beginning of the Principate, literally the first dynasty of Roman emperors. How would they know anything about the decline of an empire? That came 400 years after their reigns. The year of the four emperors was tumultuous and violent, but it wasn’t even remotely “the empire is crumbling and being sold for parts”.











  • No, sorry.

    From an economic angle, that level of control is hard power, as removing it, or worse, putting behind an opponent, can be as damaging, and coersive

    That’s just objectively untrue. It only becomes hard power when they lean on that influence coercively. The implication that it could be taken away is the literal definition of soft power. A direct threat to take it away as leverage would be hard power.

    When China builds a port in Djibouti, the implication is that if Djibouti doesn’t conform largely to China’s geopolitical goals in the region the port could be shut down or funding pulled. That’s soft power, even though it carries conditions, because of the ambiguous and uncertain nature of the consequences. China in this example wouldn’t be exercising “hard power” unless they actively threatened to pull all Chinese shipping to and from the port or change the parameters of the loan structure to get the country to fall in line.





  • zeejoo@thelemmy.clubtoComic Strips@lemmy.worldA racial slur
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    2 months ago

    Sorry, no. Sponsoring a ballroom or paying for an inauguration are examples of soft power. Hard power is when you use coercive means to achieve your goals, in a geopolitical sense (where the terms come from) hard power is military action or the threat thereof, or economic sanctions. Funding things, building things and paying for things are examples of soft power. A billionaires version of hard power would be blackmail or a hostile takeover.