The "soft power" of the United States as an instrument of foreign policy in the European direction on the example of the French Republic (2016-2021).

Alekseev Yurii Master's Degree, Department of Theory and History of International Relations, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 117198, Russia, Moskva, g. Moscow, ul. Miklukho-Maklaya, 6 u.alekseev@fcomofv.ru Other publications by this author     Zamaraikina Liubov Master's Degree, Department of Theory and History of International Relations, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 117198, Russia, Moskva, g. Moscow, ul. Miklukho-Maklaya, 10/2 lyubov.hm@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Anuchin Sergei Master's Degree, Department of Theory and History of International Relations, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 117198, Russia, Moskva oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Miklukho-Maklaya, 10/2 sergey-anuchin1999@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

         Since the middle of the XX century, the United States of America has been an example of a progressive, politically stable and dynamically developing state, whose cultural dominance in the world can be traced to our days (in particular, this applies to audiovisual production products: films, games, music, etc.). However, since the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States in 2016 Last year, American foreign policy underwent significant changes. The proclamation of the concept of "America first!", the withdrawal of the United States from a number of global organizations and agreements, such as WHO, UNESCO or the Paris Climate Agreement, hit the American image and reputation in the world hard. Evidence of this was the fall of the United States during the Trump presidency in the Soft Power 30 rating from first to fifth place ^[1].

Over the years, American rhetoric has also changed in relation to the closest economic, ideological and political allies in NATO – the countries of the European Union. This was reflected in the presence of numerous disagreements between countries in a number of areas such as the economy, trade, migration policy, etc., which could not but affect the "soft-power" potential of American attractiveness for modern Europe. Taking into account the key importance of France as one of the leaders of the EU in terms of economic sustainability and international attractiveness, it is necessary to determine the role and place of European countries in the strategy of US foreign policy, as well as to identify the substantive part of cultural and humanitarian American-French cooperation.

Thus, the purpose of this study is to reveal the potential of American "soft power" in relation to European countries in the conditions of isolationist policy.

Theoretical basis

         "Soft power" is a political theory of attractiveness, which implies a certain strategy for realizing the potential that the government has in order to promote its interests. Sometimes in scientific circles one can trace the opinion that "soft power" is already included in other concepts - such as "charisma" ^{[2, 241]}, "cultural imperialism" ^{[3, p. 734]}, "influence" ^{[3, p. 340]}, "hegemony" ^{[4, p. 349]}, "political propaganda" ^{[5, p. 26]} and "sociological propaganda" ^{[6, p. 112]}. The description that can be found in the definition of "soft power" by J. [7. p. 12], it sounds like this: "soft power" is the ability to influence other states in order to realize their own goals through cooperation in certain areas aimed at persuasion and the formation of a positive perception."

Public diplomacy in this context provides an opportunity to explore and analyze national projects that are described as public diplomacy projects. At the same time, it is noted that educational policy is the most measurable part of "soft power" ^{[8, p. 9]}. At the same time, "soft power" was defined as the closest to the theory of public diplomacy ^{[9, p.177]}. Thus, the educational policy according to J. Nayu accumulates the resources of "soft power", combining "culture, values, legitimate politics, a positive internal model, a successful economy" ^{[10, p.18]}.

Research methodology

For this study, the most relevant research methods are the retrospective method, which allows us to assess the changes that have occurred in D. Trump's foreign policy course towards Europe after his inauguration. Taking into account that the work focuses on the content of American educational programs implemented in Europe on the example of the French Republic, the method of content analysis was used. Among other things, a systematic approach was used in conducting the study.

Donald Trump's position on the European Union

Trump's statements about American foreign policy during the election campaign implied the undermining of the transatlantic order laid down in the times after World War II ^[11]. In this regard, the protectionist policy was initially intended as the leitmotif of the new government's foreign policy.

Since that moment, the State Department has changed its approach to the structure of interaction with the EU: the comprehensive and multilateral US-European dialogue has been replaced by one-time deals with European countries separately ^[12]. This has particularly affected the EU, whose prosperity and security still largely depend on the post-war multilateral institutions and economic order that the US-Europe partnership has created and maintained for more than half a century. That is why the EU invests so much in areas that Trump condemns, such as international action to combat climate change and the promotion of liberal values.  It will be much more difficult to advance this agenda without the participation of the United States.

In terms of economic relations, American rhetoric has changed, in many ways, in connection with two major deals - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada (CETA). The initial idea of the TTIP was to create a comprehensive framework for the further development of economic relations between the US and the EU, one of the strategic pillars of which is trade. However, the TTIP case has shown that the prospect of free trade between the EU and the USA is not only vague, but also disputed by the European public itself ^[13].

The worst thing for Europe, however, is that Trump has recently moved from simply criticizing the EU to openly attacking it. According to him in an interview with Fox News, "The European Union is probably as bad as China, only less... It's terrible what they did to us... Last year... if you look at the trade deficit... 151 billion dollars.... On top of that, we are spending a fortune on NATO to protect them."^[14] He even clearly said that "the European Union is the enemy (because of) what they are doing to us in trade" at a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki ^[15]. Trump was the first US president to view the European Union as an economic rival rather than a geopolitical ally. Although the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was able to agree with Trump in June 2018 on a truce in the transatlantic trade war, he put forward an impossible requirement that NATO member countries increase their defense spending from 2 to 4% of GDP ^[16].

As for the climate agenda, this issue occupies a special place in US-EU relations. European commitments to increase the share of renewable energy sources in the energy balance and expand cooperation in the energy market are important factors in accelerating innovation and improving energy security. Moreover, it was thanks to American funding and diplomatic support that the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement was reached. Nevertheless, the Trump administration abandoned climate diplomacy and returned to reducing emissions at home, which significantly weakened the regime to combat climate change (but will not lead to its collapse, since the first decree of J. Biden in 2021, the United States returned to the countries participating in the Paris Agreement) ^[17].

Thus, already at this stage of the study, it can be concluded that the United States under Donald Trump undermined its own international attractiveness and contributed to their "soft-power" potential in the European Union weakening in terms of economic presence and military support.

NATO as a conductor of American interests in Europe

For seven decades, the transatlantic partnership has been the foundation of the post-World War II international order, based on the shared commitment of the United States and Europe to freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law and open trade. Relying on a network of transatlantic institutions such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Community and later the European Union, as well as international organizations such as the IMF and WTO, transatlantic relations were built to provide a regulatory framework on which a liberal international order would rest ^[18].

Long before Trump's election, American administrations quite reasonably complained about the unequal distribution of the burden of ensuring Europe's security. Now defense budgets are growing again after a 12 percent drop over the past decade, but, according to Trump, European governments needed to do much more.

For example, with regard to defense, it is true that the amount of military expenditures of EU member states is significant (almost 200 billion US dollars, which is almost four times more than Russia, and only a third less than the United States) ^[19]. However, the EU does not participate in military spending jointly and therefore cannot use economies of scale or optimize the distribution of tasks. Any progress in the faster integration of European defense policy can only be welcomed. In fact, over the past two years, steps have been taken that would have been unthinkable ten years ago. At the end of 2017, 25 European countries established Permanent Structured EU Cooperation (PESCO) in the field of security and defense. In addition, nine countries, including the UK, have agreed to establish a multinational command structure to facilitate the availability and deployment of reinforcements.

Although it cannot yet be called a rapid reaction force, both doctrine and equipment are now shared within this structure, which makes it possible to make decisions faster. In addition, the European budget for 2021-27, which is currently under negotiation, will almost certainly include for the first time an item of expenditure in the amount of 1.5 billion euros per year for research and development related to defense. However, it is still necessary to develop better strategic thinking and be more ambitious at the European level, given that at present European collective defense is still excluded by the current European Global Strategy.

However, according to Trump, NATO is an "outdated" alliance, since it does not do enough to fight terrorism ^[20]. This will depend, Trump stressed, on whether the European allies have fulfilled "their [financial] obligations to us," in particular, whether they have reached the NATO target of 2% of GDP in defense spending. Although the issue of fair burden sharing between the US and its European allies is as old as the Alliance itself, no US president before Trump went so far as to threaten to withdraw American troops from Europe if the allies did not pay more for American protection.

Trump's mercantilist understanding of transatlantic security relations is rooted in his zero—sum approach to world politics, according to which foreign relations are a simple interaction to which the United States contributes disproportionately more than its allies and receives unfavorable deals from them and from the world order as a whole ^[21]. This sense of a bad deal requiring urgent revision by putting America's interests first became the driving force behind Trump's statements and policies and caused great concern in Europe about the US security position regarding NATO.

Attempts by some senior administration officials to soften Trump's statements, such as Vice President Mike Spence, who said at the Munich Security Conference in February 2017 that "the United States of America firmly supports NATO and will be unwavering in our commitment to this transatlantic alliance," were hardly enough to reassure Europeans. After President Trump refused to unequivocally endorse Article 5 in his speech at the NATO summit in Brussels in May 2017, a few weeks later he surprised all his national security advisers by saying at a press conference that the United States stands firmly behind Article 5.

Although Trump has changed his mind about the "obsolescence" of NATO, recognizing the importance of the alliance in the fight against terrorism, he stubbornly and bluntly criticizes the allies for not meeting the 2 percent threshold in defense spending. Moreover, during his speech at the NATO summit in Brussels in 2018, he went so far as to suggest that alliance members increase their military spending to 4%. However, the most stunning of all the contradictory statements of President Trump about NATO was reported by The New York Times. According to the newspaper, during 2018, Trump privately expressed the threat of the United States withdrawing from NATO. This idea was met with sharp criticism from the president's national security team, including then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis and former National Security adviser John Bolton ^[22].

They pointed out that the US withdrawal from the 70-year-old alliance would dramatically reduce American influence in Europe, which would harm US interests. Guided by the same views, Congress has taken measures to counteract any such move by the President. In January 2019, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved unprecedented bipartisan legislation, known as the NATO Support Act, prohibiting the US withdrawal from the alliance without Senate approval ^[23].

Although Trump's criticism of the participation of European NATO countries in the alliance is largely based on his tweets and speeches, the actual documents say something else. For example, the National Security Strategy (NSS), published by President Trump in December 2017 ^[24]. It reaffirms the US commitment to Europe, emphasizing that "a strong and free Europe is vital for the United States. We are bound by a common commitment to the principles of democracy, individual freedom and the rule of law [...]. The United States is safer when Europe is prosperous and stable and can help protect our common interests and ideals. The United States remains firmly committed to our European allies and partners.

These strategic documents clearly confirm the US commitment to Europe. The sharp contrast between the open criticism of European allies and, on the other hand, the Euro-oriented strategic policy documents published by his administration raises the question of the extent to which his controversial presidency affects the transatlantic security alliance. Thus, Trump's transactional approach to NATO governance represented an "existential threat" to the alliance, which came not so much from Trump's inconsistent political positions as from some of his core beliefs regarding world politics ^[25]. On the other hand, do not forget that Trump's influence on the transatlantic alliance should not be exaggerated. Especially if we recall the split between the United States and some of its allies, namely France and Germany, caused by George W. Bush's unilateral decision to intervene in Iraq in 2003.

In this light, even the growing tension between the US and EU member states over the Iran nuclear deal after Trump's decision to unilaterally withdraw his country from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not so unusual ^[26]. The current transatlantic crisis is primarily the result of the asymmetry of power between the United States and Europe.

In this regard, the American attractiveness for the EU as a guarantor of security is falling significantly. Moreover, if the "soft-power influence" of the state directly depends on the institutions it supports (in this case, NATO), then under the Trump presidency, Europe has taken care of reducing dependence on the United States in the security sphere by strengthening its own defense capability.

This thesis is confirmed in an interview with French President E. Macron in a recent interview with The Economist magazine: "at a time when Trump's America has turned away from the European project and the risks of confrontation with China and authoritarian regimes in Russia and Turkey are growing, Europe needs to start thinking and acting not only as an economic, but also as a strategic power, achieving its "military sovereignty"… If we don't wake up [... there is a significant risk that in the long run we will disappear geopolitically, or at least cease to control our fate" [27].

In such a scenario, the United States will gradually remove the "security umbrella" that it has been deploying on behalf of Europe for more than 70 years, forcing Europeans to take responsibility for their own security. The main problem of the EU in this regard is that it is not a state and therefore does not have a real common foreign policy and security strategy. Even its enormous economic power is projected in fragments and is not integrated with other aspects of the strategy.

Donald Trump's Populism as an instrument of "attractiveness" in Europe

Despite numerous ups and downs in the past due to issues related to international security, trade disputes and diplomatic tensions, these values-based transatlantic relations have proved resilient to crises. However, this resilience has been seriously tested by President Donald Trump's "America first" approach to foreign policy. This approach emphasized the pursuit of US national interests as the ultimate goal, regardless of international norms and political traditions, thereby radically diverging from Barack Obama's more inclusive vision of "renewing American leadership" in a "multi-partner world" ^[28]. Unlike his predecessors, Trump rejected the very foundations of a liberal international order, as evidenced by his contempt for multilateral organizations, deep distrust of traditional US allies, and a unilateral and transactional view of security and trade unions.

In October 2018, Foreign Affairs magazine published the results of a survey conducted among a wide range of experts in the field of transatlantic relations regarding the impact of the Trump presidency on transatlantic relations. The question "Has irreparable damage been done to the transatlantic alliance?" did not cause a consensus ^[29]. Nevertheless, the majority of respondents agreed that transatlantic relations had suffered serious damage, especially in the field of security and trade, although not all of them identified it as "irreparable".

This damage was caused, according to experts, by Trump's careless and destructive rhetoric, as well as his unilateral and contradictory actions related, in particular, to NATO, the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as tariffs imposed by Trump on steel and aluminum imports. Indeed, the list of Trump's foreign policy tweets, speeches and decisions that have caused concern among Europeans about the future of transatlantic relations is quite long. Nevertheless, it is worth recalling at least three main issues that cause disagreements between the Trump administration and EU member states: Brexit, NATO and trade.

One of the first tensions between Washington and Brussels arose back in 2016, when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump called the results of the Brexit referendum a "great victory", saying that British voters had exercised their "sacred right" to regain independence and re-establish control over their country, borders and economy ^[30]. It is not surprising that former British Prime Minister Theresa May became the first foreign leader to meet Trump just eight days after his inauguration on January 28, 2017 ^[31]. To strengthen this "special relationship," Trump promised that the US would negotiate a free trade deal with the UK as soon as the country leaves the EU.

Despite the fact that in April 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Congress would block any trade deal with the UK if Brexit weakened the Northern Ireland peace agreement, some American officials, such as former National Security adviser John Bolton, said that America would enthusiastically support Brexit without consequences. To this should be added Bolton's statement that he and President Trump "were levellers before levellers appeared" in the sense that the Brexit vote paved the way for the election of Donald Trump, as it created the basis for a global anti-establishment and populist uprising, thereby giving legitimacy to Trump's call to return sovereignty to the people and "make America great again." This also reflects the eurosceptic position of the current US administration, which contradicts the traditional US foreign policy strategy towards Europe, while previous American presidents encouraged the process of integration and enlargement of the EU, based on the belief that a peaceful, stable and prosperous Europe is vital to advancing US interests and security ^[32].

At the same time, both Trump's opinion about EU allies and Brexit served as a wake-up call for closer security and defense cooperation for the EU. This is reflected in the EU's Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy (EUGS), published in June 2016, just a few days after the results of the Brexit vote ^[33]. It stresses the need for the EU to achieve "strategic autonomy" from US security guarantees. From this point of view, Brexit can help the EU deepen military integration projects within the framework of the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), such as the Permanent Structures Cooperation (PESCO) launched by 25 EU member states in 2017.

To this should be added the proposal of the former President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker on the creation of the European Defense Fund (EDF), which will be financed from the European budget for a total amount of up to 13 billion euros. In a document on the future of European defense in June 2017, the European Commission stated that "more has been achieved in the last two years than in the last 60" ^[26].

Thus, Trump's populism only exacerbated contradictions with "continental" Europe and forced it to redirect funding to military projects. For this reason, a natural question arises: how did the cultural and humanitarian interaction of the United States with Europe change under the condition of confrontational rhetoric in the field of defense and trade? To do this, the list of language and cultural and educational programs of the United States in France, which initiated the creation of the European defense forces as opposed to American dominance in Europe, will be studied. 

 Education as a tool of the "soft-power" influence of the United States on France

Since educational policy is one of the key elements of "soft power", it is necessary to understand how it is implemented within the framework of American-French cooperation in order to conduct a study. If we proceed from the position that American foreign policy during the presidency of D. Trump took an isolationist position, then how could the "soft-power" component of the foreign policy of the United States and France be implemented? It is worth noting what material resources are spent by the French Government on education (which includes cultural events and the dissemination of the French language).

Based on data from 2016 to 2021, the French budget for educational spending has reached a historic low over the past decade. Nevertheless, despite the possible reduction in the number of cultural, linguistic and educational programs, their cumulative and substantial volume has not changed ^[27]. Therefore, it is possible to assess the completeness of the use of the basic "tool" of relations between the USA and France in the line of cultural and educational cooperation, namely, thematic areas of student exchange within the framework of the Campus France-USA project ^[29]:

Within the framework of these programs, thousands of American students receive degrees and professional programs in France every year, the total number of which reaches 17 thousand people annually ^[31]. Meanwhile, the number of French students studying in the USA is equal to 7.8 thousand people ^[31].

In this regard, based on the concept of J. Speaking about the ability to influence other countries through cooperation, the following result is obtained. The areas of cooperation, for the most part, are focused on management (including public administration), law and international relations. Since US citizens study at these programs, it can be assumed that after graduation these citizens will become receptive to French, European values and traditions of doing business. Thus, if we consider "soft power" in its purest form as a cultural and value environment, thanks to which the object of influence begins to make decisions in favor of the subject of the relationship, then under D. Trump, the French Republic was able to take leadership positions in this area, bypassing the United States.

Conclusion

         Summing up the above, it is worth recognizing that the presidency of Donald Trump really had an ambiguous, in some aspects destructive effect on the development of the "soft power" vector in American foreign policy. Despite the fact that, de jure, the US military departments called in the documentation for the leading role of the European Union in ensuring global security and maintaining NATO's activities, de facto, Trump's rhetoric undermined the traditionally friendly attitude of Europeans towards the United States. Since the perception of "attractiveness" is a key element of "soft-power" influence, the results of this study give grounds for the following conclusions.

In the period from 2016 to 2021, American influence on Europe was weakened not only by provocative statements and actions regarding NATO funding, contradictions on trade and economic agreements and problems with the Paris Climate Agreement, but also by the elaboration of the cultural and educational vector of foreign policy.  Thus, by 2021, the United States had a weakened influence on the French Republic, which allowed the French side to strengthen its influence on American students and strengthen its own position in the American intellectual and managerial environment.