Wed, May 21, 2025 page7

• The future of US soft power

  • By Joseph S. Nye Jr
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  Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. That can be accomplished by coercion (“sticks”), payment (“carrots”) and attraction (“honey”). The first two methods are forms of hard power, whereas attraction is soft power.

  Soft power grows out of a country’s culture, its political values and its foreign policies. In the short term, hard power usually trumps soft power, but over the long term, soft power often prevails.

  Former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin once mockingly asked: “How many divisions does the pope have?” The papacy continues today, while Stalin’s Soviet Union is long gone.

  When you are attractive, you can economize on carrots and sticks. If allies see you as benign and trustworthy, they are more likely to be open to persuasion and follow your lead. If they see you as an unreliable bully, they are more likely to drag their feet and reduce their interdependence when they can.

  Cold War Europe is a good example. A Norwegian historian described Europe as divided into a Soviet and a US empire. There was a crucial difference: The US side was “an empire by invitation.” That became clear when the Soviets deployed troops to Budapest in 1956 and to Prague in 1968. In contrast, NATO has not only survived, but voluntarily increased its membership.

  A proper understanding of power must include its hard and soft aspects. Political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli said it was better for a prince to be feared than to be loved, but it is best to be both. That is because soft power is rarely sufficient by itself, and because its effects take longer to realize, and political leaders are often tempted to resort to the hard power of coercion or payment.

  However, when wielded alone hard power can involve higher costs than when it is combined with the soft power of attraction. The Berlin Wall did not succumb to an artillery barrage; it was felled by hammers and bulldozers wielded by people who had lost faith in communism and were drawn to Western values.

  After World War II, the US was by far the most powerful country, and it attempted to enshrine its values in what became known as “the liberal international order” — a framework comprising the UN, the Bretton Woods economic institutions and other multilateral bodies.

  Of course, the US did not always live up to its liberal values, and Cold War bipolarity limited that order to only half the world’s people. Nevertheless, the postwar system would have looked drastically different if the Axis powers had won WWII and imposed their values.

  While prior US presidents have violated aspects of the liberal order, Donald Trump is the first to reject the idea that soft power has any value in foreign policy. Among his first actions upon returning to office was to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate and the WHO, despite the obvious threats that climate change and pandemics pose.

  The effects of a US administration surrendering soft power are all too predictable. Coercing democratic allies such as Denmark or Canada weakens trust in US alliances. Threatening Panama reawakens fears of imperialism throughout Latin America.

  Crippling the US Agency for International Development (USAID) — created by then-president John F. Kennedy in 1961 — undercuts the US’ reputation for benevolence. Silencing Voice of America is a gift to authoritarian rivals. Slapping tariffs on friends makes the US appear unreliable. Trying to chill free speech at home undermines its credibility. The list could go on.

  Trump has defined China as the US’ great challenge, and China itself has been investing in soft power since 2007, when then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) told the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that the country needs to make itself more attractive to others.

  However, China has long faced two major obstacles in this respect. First, it maintains territorial disputes with multiple neighbors. Second, the CCP insists on maintaining tight control over civil society.

  The costs of such policies have been confirmed by public opinion polls that ask people around the world which countries they find attractive, but what will such surveys show in the future if Trump keeps undercutting US soft power.

  To be sure, US soft power has had its ups and downs over the years. The US was unpopular in many countries during the Vietnam and Iraq wars. However, soft power derives from a country’s society and culture, as well as from government actions. Even during the Vietnam War, when crowds marched through streets around the world to protest US policies, they sang the US civil-rights anthem We Shall Overcome.

  An open society that allows protest can be a soft-power asset, but will the US’ cultural soft power survive a downturn in the government’s soft power over the next four years?

  US democracy is likely to survive four years of Trump. The country has a resilient political culture and a federal constitution that encourages checks and balances. There is a reasonable chance that Democrats would regain control of the House of Representatives in next year’s elections.

  Moreover, civil society remains strong, and the courts independent. Many organizations have launched lawsuits to challenge Trump’s actions, and markets have signaled dissatisfaction with Trump’s economic policies.

  US soft power recovered after low points in the Vietnam and Iraq wars, as well as from a dip in Trump’s first term, but once trust is lost, it is not easily restored. After the invasion of Ukraine, Russia lost most of what soft power it had, but China is striving to fill any gaps that Trump creates.

  The way Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) tells it, the East is rising over the West. If Trump thinks he can compete with China while weakening trust among US allies, asserting imperial aspirations, destroying USAID, silencing Voice of America, challenging laws at home and withdrawing from UN agencies, he is likely to fail. Restoring what he has destroyed will not be impossible, but it will be costly.

  Joseph S. Nye Jr, a former dean of Harvard Kennedy School and a US assistant secretary of defense, is the author of the memoir A Life in the American Century.

  Copyright: Project Syndicate
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