Nor is soft power.

The factbook was much more a tool for propaganda than anything else. While you could trust most of the numbers, you shouldn’t expect it to be fair about any socialist or communist countries, usually classified as brutal dictatorships, while it would always be exceedingly kind to countries with US sponsored dictators.

> you shouldn’t expect it to be fair about any socialist or communist countries, usually classified as brutal dictatorships,

The World Fact Book doesn't have this kind of commentary. For example read the entry on North Korea. I've excerpted the most critical parts here, and I think they are a long way from your characterization:

> After the end of Soviet aid in 1991, North Korea faced serious economic setbacks that exacerbated decades of economic mismanagement and resource misallocation.

> New economic development plans in the 2010s failed to meet government-mandated goals for key industrial sectors, food production, or overall economic performance. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, North Korea instituted a nationwide lockdown that severely restricted its economy and international engagement.

> As of 2024, despite slowly renewing cross-border trade with China, North Korea remained one of the world's most isolated countries and one of Asia's poorest

https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.g...

I'd be interested to see concrete examples of this, if they exist.

While that is true, the current government makes heavy use of propaganda too.

Yep. This seems somewhat similar in motivation to the cuts to USAID.