Are we remembering the same Factbook? It had summary statistics for every country and some brief blurbs about their history, climate, economy, etc. Strictly speaking yeah it generated some legitimacy to publish a resource like this and I find it hard to believe the CIA can't scrape a few quarters together to keep it running, but most of it's value is sentimental.

Or maybe a conscious decision, as neoconservative Robert Kagan writes:

"President Trump has managed in just one year to destroy the American order that was and has weakened America's ability to protect its interests in the world that will be. Americans thought defending the liberal world order was too expensive. Wait until they start paying for what comes next,"

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/04/nx-s1-5699388/is-the-u-s-head...

One of Trump administration's main goal is to destroy US soft power

I remember this from literally 20 years ago.

Maybe the traffic made it not worth the cost?

And 'soft power'? Like lying about stats and using it for propaganda? Otherwise its just objective and someone else can do the work. For some reason I never attributed it to the US or CIA.

What is this soft power and what can the US do with it?