Title is an oversimplification of course, but the USSR fell partly because many people east of the Berlin Wall, especially young people, were clamoring to get into the Western side where everything was healthier, prosperous, and freer. Our art and celebrities were setting the standard for the world. Look at how many people showed up to Metallica in Moscow. It's like a scene from Dune.
Popularity is not true value and there were weaknesses running through the West's culture all the way back to postwar and beyond, but just look at today's situation. Our "leaders" tried to apply the same Cold War playbook to current Russia, except they built the Iron Curtain of sanctions themselves. The idea is that the Russian people would pine for the West now that they've been cut off.
But what is a young Russian person supposed to see in the West? Trannies, ugly astroturfed movie stars, mumble rap, obesity, girlbosses, low T men, gay molestation, electric vehicles, declining standards, Indian tech, decadent culture? Who is the modern day Metallica that is supposed to win over millions of Russians? Kendrick Lamar?
What is a Russian middle-aged couple supposed to think when they take a holiday to France and are confronted with Africans and Arabs, Muslim ghettoes, and rapists prowling the Eiffel Tower? In Russia, at least Dagestanis mostly stay in Dagestan.
What is a Russian supposed to make of a Western academic culture that tells people every achievement of the West was a lie built on the bodies of minorities?
Anime is the biggest cross-cultural influence today, and that's from Japan.
I'm shocked the West has any cultural cachet left. I think a lot of it is just foreigners being polite.
It's incredibly obvious. You just don't want to or would prefer to pretend you don't.
In any case, it's ironic your suggestion is to "take it less seriously" while you've written four paragraphs on a phenomenon that I would posit doesn't actually exist, and to the extent it does, should not actually matter.
Culture war with Russia? Please explain what parts of the "Russian culture" are dominating the world currently? Your analysis is confused and therefore useless. Your headline unironically manages to capture all of this.
I don't know man. You can't "actually tell?" Yet you doing "culture war analysis?" Okay.
The phenomenon obviously exists. It's called soft power. In past decades the US has projected such strong influence that the foreign policy establishment invented the term "the end of history," people openly debated whether internet access would collapse China, and Tom Friedman was writing about Mcdonalds per capita as an index of global peace. America projects soft power to influence and destabilize other countries.
Some sanctions targeting luxury goods and cars are explicitly designed around soft power. Soft power also backs up the propaganda war waged against Russia, with the idea that demoralized Russian citizens would force Russia's hand.
Rugby was leveraged to great effect to end apartheid, for another example.
Your point seems to be around the semantics of the term "war," in which case you can substitute "contest" or "initiative" or whatever makes you feel better.
It exists in the mind of the deep state.
fucking "russian culture war."
seriously fucking stupid.
OK sweetie, just let us know when you're ready to come down from your room and join the family dinner.