© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, May 27, 2004

By Joseph Nye, Jr. ISBN 1-58648-225-4 Public Affairs 189 pp. Purchase This Book

As governor of New York, former President Teddy Roosevelt (R) once quoted a West African proverb: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." Today, Joseph Nye Jr. argues, U.S. foreign policy relies too heavily on this muscular approach -- ignoring the fact that success, from time to time, requires a softer touch.

"Soft Power: The Means To Success In World Politics," foretells the dangers of the United States pursuing a unilateralist foreign policy. Nye, the outgoing dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, calls this growing reliance on military might "hard power." And in his new book, he advocates combining such force with so-called "soft power," or "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments." While Nye praises the Bush administration for exercising force, he emphasizes the importance of also mobilizing international coalitions and building institutions to address shared threats and challenges.

Nye turns to World War II and the Cold War as positive examples of successfully blending both soft and hard power. "Long before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 it had been pierced by television and movies," He writes. "The hammers and bulldozers would not have worked without the years-long transmissions of images of the poplar culture of the West that breached the Wall before it fell."

Nye also probes the present, particularly the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Describing the Iraq war as a "fascinating case study of the interaction between the two types of power," Nye argues that in order to make progress, the Bush administration must bring its soft power up to par with the military might that brought such quick battlefield victories.

The United States also needs both hard and soft power to effectively combat terrorism, Nye argues, for if Washington doesn't exploit its soft-power resources, others will. "Terrorism depends crucially on soft power for its ultimate victory," Nye writes, adding: "It depends on its ability to attract support from the crowds at least as much as its ability to destroy the enemy's will to fight."

Far from a partisan assault on Bush's foreign policy doctrine, "Soft Power" serves as a guide for lawmakers, scholars and presidential advisers alike. Rather than discounting America's military involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, Nye calls on the Bush administration to integrate new soft power incentives into its present foreign policy. --Jennifer Koons, NationalJournal.com

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