C. G. P. Grey’s “Rules for Rulers” is illuminating on that front, but I don’t think you mean soft power. I think you mean gangsters. And I think that most US presidents avoid such a thing by virtue of being the C in C of the biggest military on the planet. Though maybe they get a little bit of it from the Pentagon, I dunno.
I wonder how much of that is true for any president. Like did Obama get a “talk” when he became president?
C. G. P. Grey’s “Rules for Rulers” is illuminating on that front, but I don’t think you mean soft power. I think you mean gangsters. And I think that most US presidents avoid such a thing by virtue of being the C in C of the biggest military on the planet. Though maybe they get a little bit of it from the Pentagon, I dunno.
Obligatory: ‘Rules for Rulers’ is a very condensed summary of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith’s ‘The Dictator’s Handbook’.