I understand that the government is now too coarse to use soft power, and maybe it wasn't even working as well as it used to, but it is bizarre to undercut the sciences when their military capability is derived almost entirely from high technology since they can't field or lose lots of soldiers. I get they want to be Rome 3.0 or some bullshit, but Rome was famous for investing in engineering.

A bunch of dunces.

Or perhaps they are so far up their own assholes that they think AI is going to do research by itself with no funding from now on.

Ironically enough, the guy that coined the term "soft power" recently died. He did his doctorate with Henry Kissinger.