What I'm Reading: Soft Power

I've been plowing through books lately.  Every one of them deserves a quality review, which I never have time to write, so I consequently haven't written anything.  I guess something is better than nothing, so here goes.

I hear a lot about "soft power" these days.  Joseph Nye brought the term into both popular and academic discourse, and now it appears everywhere from IR articles to political speeches to university lectures.  My professors at UJ are particularly fond of Joseph Nye and like to speculate about what soft power means -- usually in the context of American foreign policy.  I've had a nagging sense that many people who use the term "soft power" don't understand what it means, so I finally decided to read the book.

Nye defines soft power as "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments.  It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies."  When Nye unpacks this definition, the result is about what I expected: a lot of emphasis on multi-lateralism, coalition building, public diplomacy, cultural exchanges, and foreign policies that win friends rather than alienating them.  Nothing struck me as particularly novel, but Nye has composed an organized, systematic presentation for what soft power is and how it can be employed.

As I read the book, I compared it to what many of my UJ classmates think "soft power" means.  To Nye, soft power is still a means of power -- it is ultimately about attracting others to willingly support your national interests.  Also, soft power is necessary but it is not sufficient; hard power will always have its place.  Nye doesn't go into broader issues of statecraft, but I'm sure he would agree that policymakers do what they must to protect national interests.  His point is that they can make their job easier if they can attract willing partners rather than resorting to coercion or payments.

Some of my classmates, on the other hand, seem to think "soft power" means something like "being nice and being pacifist."  They see the eight years under President George W. Bush as a nightmare of American bellicosity; they desperately want a change.  They want the U.S. to send its army home, stop intervening around the world, stop supporting Israel, stop selling weapons abroad, stop provoking Iran, etc.  Their assumption is that if America pursues these "soft" policies instead of "hard" militarized policies, the problems in their region will be solved.  I feel a lot of compassion for these students because they must cope with so many local and regional problems, and they live in constant fear of war.  But at the same time, there is no question that their view of American power is naive.  They believe that hard power leads to war and soft power leads to peace.  That is absolutely not the case.  Maintaining stability and building real peace requires the delicate balancing of all forms of hard and soft power.

With that said, these students demonstrate to me why American soft power is so important.  They are afraid.  They are sandwiched between squabbling neighbors who are never more than a hair's breadth from another war.  Their economy is stagnant and they can't land jobs.  Their government is a mess and seems to be deteriorating.  They want something to believe in, something to give them hope for their future.  A lot of them still see greatness in the United States, once they look past what they see as its disastrous foreign policy.

When one of my curious professors asked to see my Kindle, I showed it to him and told him I was reading Nye's "Soft Power"--one of his favorite books.  Two female students, Muslim girls who wear the hijab and are dedicated to human rights and conflict resolution, looked at each other.  "Huwa saHabna," one of them said earnestly to the professor.  He is our friend.  She was talking about me, and she meant something much bigger than our friendship in the classroom.  I get this a lot at the University.  These students are pleading with me to go back to the United States, enter the halls of power, and somehow make a difference on their behalf.  They want American leaders who listen to their problems and needs, understand them, and work to help them.  That is a tremendous opportunity for Americans.  Unfortunately U.S. soft power is sorely lacking here.  I see the deficit every day.