Saturday, April 19, 2014

The future of power - hard or soft?



Finished reading The Future of Power by Joseph Nye who has been one of the leading proponents of "soft power". He has been one of the most influential thinkers on diplomacy over the last two decades. The direction of US diplomacy has been driven by his views on the type sof power that can be employed to influence international decisions. The thumbnail sketch of his book is that power can be divided into two types, hard which is associated with the use of military force to control or direction events, or soft which is the use persuasion to change views and agendas. 

A country in today's world cannot use hard power alone to control events. Power is too defuse and the use of hard power is expensive. The use of soft power can actually be more powerful because it can control communication and views. Soft power, if used correctly, can be much cheaper than the use of hard power since it could be just the use of ideas and pure diplomacy. The power comes from adjusting the adgenda and not having to use hard power. The idea of leading from behind would be a soft power concept. However, soft power may not be useful if there is not a clear identificaiton of goals and interests. 

Is America losing the soft power game? It has not been a good decade for the US. The soft power of economic heegmony has been hurt by the Great Recession. The US has not been able to push its agenda in a number of global areas even while we have cut our military adventures. This will all have ramifications in our ablility ot project economic power and control the financial agenda around the world. The US will lose its status as a safe economic haven if it does not project positive soft power.

Nye makes all of these issues accessable to the average reader. if you wnat to know what is driving US diplomacy, this book will provide the answers. 

No comments: