How can we restore our 'soft power'?

Question

The following comes from a transcript of a speech by Joseph Nye, the Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

(summarized due to space)
"..power is the ability to influence others to get what you want. And you do that three ways.
1. You can do it with threats or sticks.
2. You can do it with payments or bribes.
3. You can do it with attraction or co-option. This is soft power. And your soft power, or attractiveness, grows out of three things.

1. The way you frame your policies, appealing to the interests of others
2. grows out of your popular culture
3. grows out of your values and ideals"

This is a long article but worth reading if you want to learn about how our government uses 'soft power' to get what it wants and also how the Bush admin has pretty much dissolved all our soft power(our appeal and how ppl hate us now) in the world today... even in allied countries.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/6939/soft_power.html

To elaborate, soft power is gaining power of persuasion by means of making yourself attractive or appealing to others.

In terms of foreign affairs, it is persuading ppl to simply 'like Americans'.. to think we are the 'good guys'.... in order to 'be on our side'.

Now here is some deep thought... the reason this article and concept appealed to me was because as I read it, I realized, as a woman, we survive by the use of 'soft power'. Btw, not so much attractiveness in the physical sense, but overall.

We have to because hard power is not an option for the vast majority of us. Hard power is using sticks (physically forcing your view) or using money, of which we tend not to have as much as men.

Soft power is literally behind the idealogy of all women whether we are conscious of it or not.

Answer 1

I think as Americans all we truly want is to be treated fairly, and for the entire world to experience the peace and freedom we take for granted every day. We need a new strong leader that has the ability to convey this message to the world. We as a populace need to realize how the rest of the world views us. We can shrug it off and say we don't care what the rest of the world thinks.... but we really do. We need a new direction. To restore our "soft power", we need to be very careful about who we elect in '08.

Answer 2

I am just going to answer the question without comment on the details, the way for Americans to restore the soft power to the government is simply by being careful for who we vote for. Red flags should have went up all around the country when George Bush got into the presidential race so early and in the primaries when he and those that advise him assassinated the char actor of John McCain. He used the same tactic's against Al Gore, at that time we should have been Americans before we were repuglicans or democrats and voted wisely. If the repuglican could not bring themselves to vote for Gore they should have picked another party, perhaps the libertarian party to let their voices be heard.

Edit: by the way I think a combination of all three philosophy's should be incorporated in the running of the country, there are times when a hard approach is needed, it is when that becomes excessive that there is a problem.

Answer 3

You can't restore something that never existed. "Soft Power" is only a temporary thing, and I believe, is an idealistic idea that can never be achieved.

"Soft Power" is for more of an intellectual talk, soft power can not fight against force, in reality, any way, unless, it is able to shut down the force economically. In the situation with Bush, there is no soft power that can shut this force down economically, we are trying that with a huge reward for bin laden, for instance. But that is not all that effective, now is it? Soft power can be restored, if marx's communism could work, and such, can not exist through the human race.

terrorism can be battled two different ways. One, is to just kill them all, which is extremely hard. The other is to cut off their money supply. The NSA just recently announced that they know who is supplying the terrorists, well, not everyone that is supplying them, but most of them. But as you may have guessed, these people that are supplying them, are certain countries that the NSA did not release to the public, along with certain people that the NSA did not release also.

EDIT: Ok, so soft power is deception to prevent worse consequences, correct? But then you say that is behind women in general. I guess so, women do use deception like their right hand. But when deception does not work, what do they resort too? One of two things: sob story, or violence. So if only women ruled, wouldn't each know that each were going to be decieving, but each woman would not know when one was decieving the other, on what topic? So, wouldn't this cause paronia? Not sure about only women leaders, but I would prefer people who could rule effectively.

Answer 4

I think the best way that the United States could restore its 'soft power' would be to tone down its rhetoric of confrontation and return to the table on flash-point issues around the world, issues like the Iran nuclear issue, North Korea, Iraq etc. By doing this and actually accepting that just going out and bombing people (or trying to bomb people into submission) or ignoring and refusing to talk to them on principal is not conducive to a constructive international situation where issues can be resolved and situations improved. By going back and restoring the worlds faith in America's ability to talk and to find amicable solutions to issues and compromise to gain crucial agreements, the world may then start to open up and expand its willingness to talk to the United States.

Soft power will not work without the ability to back it up with hard power when the situation requires, but not allowing soft power to have a go before beginning wars or confrontations with other nations is not a good or smart way to go about international relations.

Answer 5

Now you're asking THE Question.

America has given the greatest exhibition of soft power through out the 20TH century;
.
But soft power only exists as long as everyone either agrees with you or is afraid to challenge you.

Now liberals blame Bush for loss of soft power by getting America bogged down in Iraq.

Here are two examples of the loss of power that probably have much to do with America's loss of power in the last two decades and it have little to do with Bush.

The US always said it would block Nuclear proliferation.
India, Pakistan moved inexcoribly closer and exploded bombs in defiance of our warnings.

N.Korea also produced enough material to make bombs. The whole Pacific rim depends on our Nuclear umbrella. What is the consequence of such impotence in front of one of the main tenants of our foreign policy.

On 1st January Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine. It only lasted 24-48hrs but the whole of Europe was affected. The new political realities brought about after the collapse of the Soviet Union were shown to be at the mercy of the Russia who was prepared to show willingness to use enery supply for political ends. Suddenly Georgia, Ukraine, Poland are at the mercy of Russia over their energy supply.

So while the Europeans countries scramble to negociate individual supply deals with Russia, they are unable to form a united front which would give them some strength.

But power slips away even more when in Schröder's final weeks in office, as Chancellor of Germany he signed an agreement with Russia to build the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea to supply Russian gas directly to Germany, bypassing Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries. Thus giving Russia the power to block deliveries to those countries while supplying the rest of Europe.

Even more when soon after stepping down as chancellor, Schröder accepted a post as the head of the shareholders' committee in the Russian-led consortium, controlled by Gazprom, which is building the pipeline, raising questions about the conflict of interest.

Even more when 22 November 2004, only days before Putin prematurely congratulated Viktor Yanukovich during the Orange Revolution, 22 November 2004, Schröder called Putin a "flawless democrat".

All this said and done over the objections of the US.

All this was done

I would argue that the inability to stop proliferation is the biggest and most fundamental challenge facing the world. US politicians still make the same statements unacceptble that such and such country has the bomb. They still have no plan to avert it,

The emperor has no clothes.

The consequences are grim.

Instead or party political point scoring an effective bi-partisan strategy is necessary.

Yeah that's going to happen.

Still the last weeks of 2006 will be analysed for years to come.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schroeder

Answer 6

What do you think of Nancy Pelosi's power? She picked out two men with a dark past for two very important positions. They are probably the type to carry sticks. Fortunately we must have enough Democrat conservatives to steer her in the right direction, because she backed off of Murtha and Hastings. Hillary Clinton is another one that has no soft power. She is mean as the dickens.

Answer 7

this is the quintessential pie in the sky look at things. Some people cant be coerced to do anything. These people believe this life isnt as important as the next. What good does talking, bribery or threats do to people who dont care about this life?

Answer 8

Bush is an example of hard power not working. The opposite is soft power, which couldn't be any worse.

Answer 9

The U.S.is probably hated more today then any other time in history,we are losing more and more allies all the time,it's going to be hard to build that trust up again,but we must.

Answer 10

Remove the Hard Heads.
votetoimpeach.org