The Decline of America's Soft Power - Why Washington Should Worry
![handle is hein.journals/fora83 and id is 406 raw text is: The Decline of
America's Soft Power
Why Washington Should Worry
7oseph S. Nye, 7
Anti-Americanism has increased in
recent years, and the United States' soft
power-its ability to attract others by the
legitimacy of U.S. policies and the values
that underlie them-is in decline as a
result. According to Gallup International
polls, pluralities in 29 countries say that
Washington's policies have had a negative
effect on their view of the United States.
A Eurobarometer poll found that a
majority of Europeans believes that
Washington has hindered efforts to fight
global poverty, protect the environment,
and maintain peace. Such attitudes
undercut soft power, reducing the ability
of the United States to achieve its goals
without resorting to coercion or payment.
Skeptics of soft power (Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld professes not
even to understand the term) claim that
popularity is ephemeral and should not
guide foreign policy. The United States,
they assert, is strong enough to do as it
wishes with or without the world's approval
and should simply accept that others will
envy and resent it. The world's only super-
power does not need permanent allies;
the issues should determine the coalitions,
not vice-versa, according to Rumsfeld.
But the recent decline in U.S. attractive-
ness should not be so lightly dismissed. It
is true that the United States has recovered
from unpopular policies in the past (such
as those regarding the Vietnam War), but
that was often during the Cold War, when
other countries still feared the Soviet Union
as the greater evil. It is also true that the
United States' sheer size and association
with disruptive modernity make some re-
sentment unavoidable today. But wise poli-
cies can reduce the antagonisms that these
realities engender. Indeed, that is what
Washington achieved after World War II:
it used soft-power resources to draw others
into a system of alliances and institutions
that has lasted for 6o years. The Cold War
was won with a strategy of containment that
used soft power along with hard power.
JOSEPH S. NYE, JR., is former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Dean of
Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is author of
Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.
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The Decline of America's Soft Power - Why Washington Should Worry
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