Trump and Soft Power
Thoughts in Light of the Death of Joe Nye
One of the joys of studying at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in the 1980’s was its remarkable faculty at the time—Governor Mike Dukakis, Ernest May, and Dick Neustadt among others. Joseph Nye was among them. He died last week. Since his work on soft power is what he is best known for, I thought that the best tribute might be to discuss what Trump has done to America’s soft power.
In the late 1980s, Nye noticed something interesting: America’s power—defined as the ability to have others do what we want them to do—exceeded the power that could be explained by our ability to use coercive force (military and economic power). His insight was that our ability to persuade, and not just our ability to coerce, was additive power that explained American power. He called this ability to persuade as soft power, which comes from three sources: “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 others see them as legitimate and having moral authority)."
As he elaborated in his 2004 Soft Power book:
A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries – admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness – want to follow it. In this sense, it is also important to set the agenda and attract others in world politics, and not only to force them to change by threatening military force or economic sanctions. This soft power – getting others to want the outcomes that you want – co-opts people rather than coerces them.
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Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many values like democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive.
The notion of soft power is consistent with our every day life. A boss that uses only threats to manage employees is not nearly as effective as one that motivates employees to do great work. We are also more willing to do a favor for a friend than for someone who tries to bully us to take action. It also reflects the reality of Democracies—public opinion in a Nation will affect that Nation’s foreign policy and public opinion can be affected by soft power. To be clear, soft power is not a substitute for hard power. Soft power alone is rarely enough—although Costa Rica may suggest otherwise. It is, however, a key ingredient to national power and should not be ignored.
Perhaps the best example of the power of soft power was the sudden collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe. The fall of the Berlin Wall did not come because of NATO tanks and fighter jets. It came because the citizens of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany were attracted to our values and took the initiative to bring change. Of course, military power contributed to the defeat of the USSR, but soft power—the power of our values—played a critical and decisive role. I saw this first hand as a student in Poland in 1980 as the Solidarity movement emerged.
In my time at the Pentagon, I could see this soft power over and over again. When we decided in intervene in Libya, many of our NATO allies—at our request—provided important military assets to the fight. Denmark, for example, conducted many of the fighter jet sorties. And from the very beginning, many of our allies joined us in Afghanistan—soldiers and airmen from our close allies fought and died along with our soldiers and airmen. In both example, these allies were not forced to do our will. They agreed to do so because of a sense of shared values and a trust in the United States. And they did so because of personal affinity to the U.S. A remarkable number of the political and military leaders I met were educated or trained in the United States.
In my practice, I have also seen the importance of soft power. One recent example is the willingness of European and Asian countries to join our export controls on advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment despite the loss of significant sales to China. They did so out of a share sense—based on a degree of trust in our judgments—that it was in our common interest to take joint action.
Soft power also helps us economically. The American brand—resulting from Hollywood, American music, and the attraction to our culture—has been a huge boon to tourism in the U.S. It also attracts the best and brightest to our universities and industries.
In the past 80 years, both Democratic and Republican Administration have made major investments in soft power through efforts such as foreign aid, educational exchanges and cultural exchanges. The biggest investment in soft power, however, was not in funding programs, but in our behavior. We acted as a consistent, trusted partner. With some exceptions, we did not exercise our military and economic power to force out allies to comply with our will. We instead supported a rules-based regime for our relationship with other countries and did our best to abide by these rules even when the rules did not benefit us at the time. (With some exceptions of course. We were not perfect).
Sadly, President Trump is doing serious damage to American soft power. Joe Nye himself made this point before he died:
Donald Trump clearly does not understand soft power and undercuts it by actions such as abolishing USAID, silencing the Voice of America, threatening allies and belittling climate change. China values soft power – and stands ready to fill the vacuum that Trump is creating.
Nye is correct, but I would go further: Trump did not merely abandon the sources of our traditional soft power—such as the elimination of Voice of America and a huge reduction in foreign aid—he more seriously damaged the American brand by abandoning the rule based approach to international relationships. He is now asserting hard power—through military threats and economic actions (most notably tariffs) —to coerce even our allies. The huge tariffs he announced in April were viewed as an act of betrayal by our allies. He has even threatened to use military force against very close friends and allies—most notably Denmark, Panama and Mexico.
The result may be short term gain (although I remain skeptical) through, for example, the trade deals with our allies, but the long term cost will be huge. We will no longer be viewed as a trusted and reliable ally. Trump also seems oblivious to the fact that the citizens of other countries are patriots to their own country, and they are not responding well to the coercive, transactional nature of Trump’s actions. We are already seeing a dramatic drop in foreign visitors to the U.S. And the surprising election results in Canada and Australia show that the citizens of other countries are rallying around their own flag and supporting candidates that will oppose Trump.
Perhaps the most disturbing evidence of Trump’s moves to ignore the importance of soft power is in the radical shift in public opinion against the U.S. in many countries. As the Economist recently reported, there is a very disturbing shift in public opinion in Latin American against the US and in favor of China because Latin /Americans do not think we respect them.
Joseph Nye’s insights have withstood the test of time. Hard power is important and I support a very strong military. Soft power is also important. Sadly, Trump seems determined to wipe out the investments that we have made to develop huge soft power in the last 80 years.