Joseph Nye Article

This Joseph Nye article from Soft Power makes some good points, but it also makes some points that I do not necessarily agree with. First, Nye defines "soft power" as the ability to shape the preferences of others and "hard power" as the use of military or economic power to shape these preferences. He then goes on to describe the three main resources of a country's soft power: culture, political values, and foreign policies. Governments are able to control all of the hard power assets, but not all assets of soft power lie in government's hands-popular culture often reacts to government actions, as in the Vietnam war. Similarly, government used both its hard and soft powers during the 2003 Iraq War. Rumsfield wanted to prove America's military strength, while others in government saw this war as a chance to bring the power of democracy to the Middle East. This implantation of democracy has both positives and negatives-as it will only be affective if the Iraqi people prove to accept this form of government(which remains a challenge today). Further, I do agree with Nye's assertion that Anti-American sentiment has been growing over the past few years, but I do not agree with him on the fact that America is the world's only superpower. America may be a superpower, but I certainly do not think that we are the only superpower-China is on the rise and the growing European Union is slowly becoming more powerful in the world economy. We cannot "take this decline in our attractiveness lightly", as our soft power resources are dwindling as our popularity in the world decreases. Lastly, I also agree with Nye's assertion that "we need to adopt policies that appeal to moderates, and to use public diplomacy more effectively to explain our common interests". Instead of catering to the extremes of policy, we need to look more towards the middle in order to be effective. Most people are in that conservativish-middle, as fewer people remain on the extreme poles. The United States must find an effective way to wield both our hard and soft power to continue to dominate in world affairs.