alt Hacker NewsThis is wrong and hilariously short sighted. Other countries don't respect America due to military might - they do so because of decades of mutually beneficial trade agreements. Soft power is infinitely more useful than hard power.
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Both play a significant role. Many countries absolutely respect us because of our military might. They rely on it because they don't want to divert funding from welfare to build out their own militaries. As such, they ally with us, creating inroads to trade et al.
Obviously, there's more than just military might, we have the most innovative and powerful economy on the planet as well.
However, with a country like Venezuela, where none of our allies truly care what we do (sure, they might blow hot air but whatever), we are free to use hard power to achieve our objectives.
You can take that into the past tense now I think.