September 11 and the Middle East Failure of US ‘Soft Power’: Globalisation contra Americanisation in the ‘New’ US Century

Abstract

September 11 has shed doubt over the United States’ ‘soft power’: the country’s cultural-ideological appeal. In the context of globalisation it was supposed that the US government did not need to exert any effort to broadcast the country’s values and appeal. Globalisation skews the ideological-informational playing field to US advantage: globalisation is Americanisation. In reality globalisation actually reduces the US grip on global information flows and image-making. Moreover, the US response to September 11 created even more problems in this regard, thanks to US neglect of the problems of poverty and underdevelopment that helped create the terrorist backlash. The US government has also continued to neglect cultural diplomacy, believing it can win a war against an aspect of globalisation -transnational terror -and re-impose a world split into zones of peace and zones of turmoil.