To be sure, thanks to an extraordinarily active and well-funded foreign information campaign Russia has been able to undermine some of the West's narrative. But what it has demonstrated is that it is one thing to throw sand into the eyes and into the gears of the international system. It is quite another to actually accrue soft power, to get people to respect, like and want to support and emulate you.

It’s not an abstract question. The Obama administration’s decision to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba is banked on the belief that the United States can do more to encourage change on the island through a soft-power strategy of “engagement.” And a big part of that, in Cuba, means figuring out how to change the profile of U.S. diplomacy — and throw a good party again.

“China’s bilateral trade with Latin American will increase tremendously,” Zhang Shixue, a researcher on Latin America at the Chinese State Council–affiliated Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua. “This canal is very much in Latin America’s best interest and in China’s best interest. It’s a kind of win-win.”

This month’s concerts have been made possible thanks to organizer Morten Traavik, a trusted figure in the area of cultural exchange as far as Pyongyang is concerned. He told local news agency Yonhap that the band can draw on the division of their homeland Yugoslavia in understanding sentiment towards the separation of the Koreas at the close of Tokyo’s colonial rule.

China is practicing the gunboat diplomacy of the Western imperialist powers that it despised. From the existential threat to China of being “carved up like a melon” by the Western powers during the “Century of Humiliation” from the turbulent mid-19th century, it is ironic that it is now engaged in “salami slicing” and “cabbage harvesting” in the disputed territories with its smaller neighbors in the 21st century.

Hardliners on both sides have ramped up their efforts to sabotage the deal, while both governments are trying very hard to defend the deal and present it as a historical victory, which it truly is. The publicity that the Iran Deal debates has gotten has allowed both the Iranian and American governments to portray their countries as pragmatic, pro-diplomacy, and pro-peace—thereby enhancing their soft power, as opposed to repellently boasting about their hard power.

The outstanding question is: How should the United States become involved in the internal affairs of other countries? If there is a clear lesson from the two Gulf wars, it’s that we should stay out of the business of invasion and occupation.