Soft power and American hegemony

In a recent Foreign Affairs article, “The Future of American Power: Dominance and Decline in Perspective,” Joseph Nye writes, “ [power] measured in resources rarely equals power measured in preferred outcome, and cycles of belief in decline reveal more about psychology than they do about real shifts in power resources.”

In this article, Nye addresses the domestic concern that U.S. hard power is declining and that it will soon be just another fallen empire. Nye suggests that America’s hard power will remain stable, and the U.S. will be one of the key players (if not the top one) in the international arena for decades to come. Raising international nations, especially China, seem to pose a threat to U.S. dominance. However, Nye suggests that China will not necessarily overcome the U.S. to be the one and only super power. For instance, China’s economic power may become the same as the U.S. as far as its GDP by 2030, but the U.S. will likely have a higher per capita income. China will still have an underdeveloped rural population and will have to deal with the impacts of its one-child policy, according to Nye. Also, Nye wrote, “China’s authoritarian political system has shown an impressive capability to harness the country’s power, but whether the government can maintain that capability over the longer term is a mystery both to outsiders and Chinese leaders.”

Nye says that the U.S. is not in an absolute decline, but rather a relative decline where other states use their powers, including soft power, more effectively.

In his article “Public Diplomacy and Soft Power,” Nye writes that soft power relies on three primary resources: “its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority).”

Effective soft power in the U.S. is partly due to immigration, Nye writes in the Foreign Affairs article. “When Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew concludes that China will not surpass the United States as the leading power of the twenty-first century, he cites the ability of the United States to attract the best and brightest from the rest of the world and meld them into a diverse culture of creativity.”

U.S. universities remain among the top-ranked in the world. Also, Nye writes, “Americans win more Nobel Prizes and publish more scientific powers in peer-reviewed journals – three times as many as the Chinese – that do the citizens of any other country. These accomplishments enhance both the country’s economic power and soft power.”

By these measures, U.S. soft power will enable it to maintain its position as a dominant super power in international affairs, and that worries as to U.S. decline should not cause the U.S. government to, “overreact out of fear.” As Nye argues, “the U.S. will need a smart strategy that combines hard- and soft-power resources – and that emphasizes alliances and networks that are responsive to the new context of a global information age.


Foreign Affairs article:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66796/joseph-s-nye-jr/the-future-of-american-power