factor of education in soft power of the united states, china and the eu: a comparative analysis

“Soft power” has been an integral part of the foreign policy Arsenal of a number of States in recent decades. Including various tools, “soft power” as one of the most effective tools used to achieve the goals, includes education. Even during the cold war, the West and theSoviet Unionactively used education to train personnel in third countries who fully share the values of one or another party. In a multipolar world, the situation has changed somewhat-now all the major States, as well as their associations, seek to use education as a means of influence and influence on their counterparts. The article considers and analyzes the mechanisms used by this actors in the implementation of the policy of «soft power» through education, using the example of theUSA,Chinaand the European Union. As the analysis carried out in the article showed, both theUS,Chinaand the EU are actively using education to achieve their foreign policy goals. At the same time, their educational policy directed from outside has significant differences. As a result, we can talk about three different models of using education as a tool of «soft power». Each of them has its own distinctive features associated primarily with the specific mechanisms of use of education, as well as the content of educational policy and its meaning and ideological content. Nevertheless, despite the serious differences, we can confidently say that all three of the subjects of international relations considered in the article use education very successfully, often achieving a positive effect for themselves in the regions of their national interests.