Soft Power Good- Distinct From Hard Power€¦ · Web viewSoft Power Good/Bad. Soft Power Good/Bad1. Soft Power Good – Great Power Conflicts2. Soft Power Good – Global Threats3

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Soft Power Good/Bad..............................................................................................................................................1Soft Power Good – Great Power Conflicts................................................................................................................2Soft Power Good – Global Threats...........................................................................................................................3Soft Power Good – Terrorism...................................................................................................................................4Soft Power Good – Terrorism...................................................................................................................................5Soft Power Good – Key to Hard Power.....................................................................................................................6Soft Power Good – Key to Hard Power.....................................................................................................................7Soft Power Good – Key to Hegemony......................................................................................................................8Soft Power Good – Key to Hegemony......................................................................................................................9Soft Power Good – Key to Cooperation..................................................................................................................10Soft Power Good – Policy Choices Key...................................................................................................................11Soft Power Good – Hypocrisy Key..........................................................................................................................12Soft Power Good – Foreign Assistance Key............................................................................................................13

Soft Power Bad – Hard Power Better.....................................................................................................................14Soft Power Bad – Hard Power Key to Heg..............................................................................................................15Soft Power Bad – Weakness...................................................................................................................................16Soft Power Bad – Leadership.................................................................................................................................17Soft Power Bad – Terrorism...................................................................................................................................18Soft Power Bad – Alternate Causalities..................................................................................................................19Soft Power Bad – Backlash.....................................................................................................................................20Soft Power Bad – Ineffective..................................................................................................................................21Soft Power Bad – Nuclear Iran...............................................................................................................................22Soft Power Bad – Middle East................................................................................................................................23Soft Power Bad – Anti-Americanism Exaggerated..................................................................................................24Soft Power Bad – Anti-Americanism Inevitable......................................................................................................25Soft Power Bad – A2: Opposition...........................................................................................................................26Soft Power Bad – A2: Cooperation.........................................................................................................................27Soft Power Bad – A2: Balancing.............................................................................................................................28


Soft Power Good – Great Power Conflicts

1. UNILATERALISM MAKES OTHER NATIONS RISE UP TO CHALLENGE THE USG. John Ikenberry, Professor of Geopolitics and Global Justice at Georgetown September/October, 2002. Foreign Affairs, p. 33.

When the most powerful state in the world throws its weight around, unconstrained by rules or norms of legitimacy, it risks a backlash. Other countries will bridle at an international order in which the United States plays only by its own rules. The proponents of the new grand strategy have assumed that the United States can single-handedly deploy military power abroad and not suffer untoward consequences; relations will be coarser with friends and allies, they believe, but such are the costs of leadership. But history shows that powerful states tend to trigger self-encirclement by their own overestimation of their power. Charles V, Louis XIV, Napoleon, and the leaders of post-Bismarck Germany sought to expand their imperial domains and impose a coercive order on others. Their imperial orders were all brought down when other countries decided they were not prepared to live in a world dominated by an overweening coercive state.

2. LACK OF SOFT POWER UNITES SMALL POWERS IN A COALITIONStanley Hoffman, Professor at Harvard, , September 23, 2002. AMERICAN PROSPECT, p. 12.

This "we don't need you" posture is very risky for the United States, insulting to others and mistakenly based on the premise that others can never really proceed without us. A superpower must take special care not to provoke the united resistance of lesser powers. But the Bush administration fails to appreciate the importance of what Harvard professor Joseph Nye calls America's "soft power" -- a power that emanates from the deep sympathies and vast hopes American society has inspired abroad. The shift from beacon to bully is rife with potential disaster. Because a hegemon cannot rule by force alone, it is vital for the United States to take an interest in other societies and cultures. Since 9-11, that interest has grown only with regard to Islam and terrorism. But an American foreign policy guided exclusively by narrow self-interest is not one our allies find terribly reassuring; and it is downright offensive to assert that the United States alone can decide what is good for others.

3. LOSS OF SOFT POWER INSPIRES ENEMIES Antony Blinken, senior fellow at CSIS and former member of the National Security Council, Spring, 2002. WASHINGTON QUARTERLY, p 59.

U.S. success in Afghanistan will count for little if the United States loses the global war of ideas. That was has produced a growing gap between much of the world's perception of the United States and the U.S. perception of itself. If this gap persists, U.S. influence abroad will erode, and the partners the United States needs to advance its interests will stand down. The few real enemies the United States faces will find it easier both to avoid sanction and to recruit others to their cause. The United States remains powerfully attractive. Most people around the world hold a favorable view of the United States, considering it a land of opportunity and democratic ideals while admiring the country's technological and scientific achievements. Millions of the world's citizens desire to move to, become educated in, do business with, or visit the United States. When people vote with their feet, the United States wins in a landslide. Yet, the United States tends to disregard an increasingly potent mix of criticism and resentment that is diluting its attraction: anti-Americanism.

4. UNILATERALISM INSPIRES GREAT POWER CONFLICTHeiko Borchert, political consultant, and Mary Hampton, professor of political science at The University of Utah, Spring, 2002. “The Lessons of Kosovo: Boon or Bust for Transatlantic Security?” ORBIS, v46 issue 2, p. 47.

In a similar vein, the Washington Post editorialized against the new unilateralism during President Bush's first European visit in June 2001, arguing that if the national interest "is defined in a crabbed and narrow way, the policy is likely to fail over time." The editorial further observes that if the United States as the world's most powerful state "exercises its power on behalf of goals and values that others share¯¯liberty, democracy, prosperity¯¯the United States will be supported, not always but much of the time." In short, the less multilateralist the United States becomes, the more self-promoting, and therefore the less willing to


lead responsibly, the less diffuse reciprocity will characterize its relationships with others, and the more others will try to fill the leadership void. Simply put, the challenge for the United States is to "be a hegemon without acting like one."


Soft Power Good – Global Threats

1. GLOBAL PROBLEMS SUCH AS DISEASE AND TERRORISM REQUIRE SOFT POWERJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 137.

But not all the important types of power come out of the barrel of a gun. Hard power is relevant to getting the outcomes we want on all three chessboards, but many of the transnational issues such as climate change, the spread of infectious diseases, international crime, and terrorism cannot be resolved by military force alone. Representing the dark side of globalization, these issues are inherently multilateral and require cooperation for their solution. Soft power is particularly important in dealing with the issues that arise from the bottom chessboard, transnational relations. To describe such a three-dimensional world as an American empire fails to capture the real nature of the foreign policy tasks that we face.

2. SOFT POWER IS NEEDED TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY AND PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTSJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 27.

But soft power is particularly relevant to the realization of "milieu goals." It has a crucial role to play in promoting democracy, human rights, and open markets. It is easier to attract people to democracy than to coerce them to be democratic. The fact that the impact of attraction on achieving preferred outcomes varies by context and type of goals does not make it irrelevant, any more than the fact that bombs and bayonets do not help when we seek to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, slow global warming, or create democracy

3. COUNTRIES DO NOT SIMPLY COOPERATE OUT OF SELF-INTERESTJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 29-30.

Skeptics argue that because countries cooperate out of self-interest, the loss of soft power does not matter much. But the skeptics miss the point that cooperation is a matter of degree, and that degree is affected by attraction or repulsion. They also miss the point that the effects on nonstate actors and recruitment to terrorist organization do not depend on government attitudes. Already in 2002, well before the Iraq War, reactions against heavy-handed American policies on the Korean peninsula had led to a dramatic drop over the past three years in the percentage of the Korean population favoring an American alliance, from 89 to only 56 percent.

4. LEGITIMACY IS PERCEPTION BASED AND DETERMINES COOPERATIONFrancis Fukuyama, Professor of International Political Economy, Johns Hopkins University, Summer 2004. “The Neoconservative Moment”, THE NATIONAL INTEREST, p. 63, Ebscohost, Accessed August 8, 2004.

Legitimacy is important to us not simply because we want to feel good about ourselves, but because it is useful. Other people will follow the American lead if they believe that it is legitimate; if they do not, they will resist, complain, obstruct or actively oppose what we do. In this respect, it matters not what we believe to be legitimate, but rather what other people believe is legitimate. If the Indian government says that it will not participate in a peacekeeping force in Iraq unless it has a UN Security Council mandate to do so, it does not matter in the slightest that we believe the Security Council to be an illegitimate institution: the Indians simply will not help us out.


Soft Power Good – Terrorism

1. AFGHANISTAN PROVES THAT SOFT POWER IS NEEDED TO PREVENT TERRORISMJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 131.

Look again at Afghanistan. Precision bombing and Special Forces defeated the Taliban government, but U.S. forces in Afghanistan wrapped up less than a quarter of Al Qaeda, a transnational network with cells in 60 countries. The United States cannot bomb Al Qaeda cells in Hamburg, Kuala Lumpur, or Detroit. Success against them depends on close civilian cooperation, whether sharing intelligence, coordinating police work across borders, or tracing global financial flows. America's partners work with us partly out of self-interest, but the inherent attractiveness of U.S. policies can and does influence their degree of cooperation.

2. SOFT POWER HAS PLUMMETED, THREATENING COOPERATION AGAINST TERRORISMJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, March 10, 2005. “Politics in an Information Age is not Only About Whose Military Wins But Whose Story Wins,” BOSTON REVIEW, Accessed May 6, 2005.

American soft power has diminished in recent years, particularly in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. Polls showed dramatic declines in the popularity of the United States, even in countries such as Britain, Italy, and Spain, whose governments had supported the United States. America's standing plummeted in Islamic countries around the world. In Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic nation, three quarters of the public said they had a favorable opinion of the United States in 2000, but within three years that fraction had shrunk to 15 percent. Yet the cooperation of these countries is essential if the United States and its allies are to succeed in a long-term struggle against terrorism.

3. SOFT POWER IS THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEAT THE IDEOLOGY OF EXTREME ISLAMISTSPhilip B. Heymann, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, Former Deputy Attorney General, and Former Head, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, 2003. TERRORISM, FREEDOM, AND SECURITY, p. 121.

We have to compete for public support around the world in terms of our vision and our example, as well as in terms of our wealth, technology, and military power. Ideology is the area in which radical fundamentalist Islamists are openly challenging us. Over time, it matters greatly whether American society is regarded as a role model of multi-ethnic tolerance, lawfulness, democracy, and technological initiative, or whether it is thought of as simply a powerful, wealthy, self-interested empire. If we are a role model, political forces throughout the world will identify with us and will support our initiatives. If our strength is thought to be solely in wealth and armaments, we will inspire secret opposition and even terrorism.

4. SOFT POWER APPROACHES ARE THE ONLY WAY TO WIN OVER MODERATE MUSLIMSJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 131.

Equally important, the current struggle against Islamist terrorism is not a clash of civilizations but a contest whose outcome is closely tied to a civil war between moderates and extremists within Islamic civilization. The United States and other advanced democracies will win only if moderate Muslims win, and the ability to attract the moderates is critical to victory. We need to adopt policies that appeal to moderates, and to use public diplomacy more effectively to explain our common interests. We need a better strategy for wielding our soft power. We will have to learn better to combine hard and soft power if we wish to meet the new challenges.


Soft Power Good – Terrorism

1. HARD POWER ALONE IS INSUFFICIENT TO WIN THE WAR ON TERRORJoseph S. Nye Jr., dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, June 13, 2005.LONDON INDEPENDENT, p. lexis nexis

Hard power, which is so successful at one level, does play a role in the war on terrorism, but it is not quite the role you first expect. Hard military power did topple the Taliban, something soft- power was in no position to do. However, if you look at the number of Taliban fighters actually killed in Afghanistan, you're looking at maybe no more than a third. In order to win the war on terror therefore, you also need soft power. You need the stick but you also need the carrot. Bombing and land invasions of countries harbouring and fomenting terrorism are important, but we must employ greater public diplomacy in order to attract people away from militant Islam. If the US would divert even 1 per cent of its defence budget to public diplomacy it would signal a quadrupling of the budget currently given to those looking to implement soft power rather than hard.

2. U.S. SOFT POWER IS KEY TO GAINING ALLIED ASSISTANCE FOR WAR ON TERRORFrancis Fukuyama, professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins, November 2005.COMMENTARY, p. 21.

We need to win militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is extremely important that we resist pressures to reduce numbers of American forces prematurely. But we also need to conceive of the broader war on terrorism as a classic counterinsurgency campaign fought out on a global scale. In that campaign, winning hearts and minds is as important as neutralizing the hard-core terrorists. I strongly believe in the need for an expansive foreign policy that shapes the insides of states and not just their external behavior. But it is American soft power, not hard, that will be the primary instrument for promoting democracy and development around the world, and we need thoroughly to rethink the structure and funding of the instruments we have for doing this. After the first four years of the Bush Doctrine, the United States has created a new terrorist haven in Iraq and a power vacuum that will destabilize regional politics for some time to come. While allies may seek to restore good relations with Washington at an elite level, at a popular level there has been a seismic shift in the way that much of the world perceives the United States. Our image, fairly or not, is no longer the Statue of Liberty but the hooded prisoner at Abu Ghraib. Fixing this problem is a project that will preoccupy us for many years to come.

3. WITHOUT SOFT POWER THE MILITARY ISOLATES MUSLIM MODERATESJoseph S. Nye Jr., dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, April 25, 2004.LOS ANGELES TIMES, p. M2.

Second, like any entity trying to get a message out, we have to decide which key strategic themes to emphasize. One real need is to better articulate American policies and to explain how they relate to the values of moderate Muslims. For example, the charge that U.S. policies are indifferent to the killings of Muslims can be addressed by pointing to American interventions that saved Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as assistance to Islamic countries to foster development and combat AIDS. As Assistant Secretary of State William Burns pointed out last year, public diplomacy must be accompanied by "a wider positive agenda for the region, alongside rebuilding Iraq; achieving the president's two-state vision for Israelis and Palestinians; and modernizing Arab economies."

4. U.S. HARD POWER ENCOURAGES SUICIDE TERRORISMScott Atran, director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, Summer 2004.WASHINGTON QUARTERLY, p. 67.

Traditional top-heavy approaches, such as strategic bombardment, invasion, occupation, and other massive forms of coercion, cannot eliminate tactically innovative and elusive jihadist swarms nor suppress their popular support. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center released in March 2004, nearly half of Pakistanis and substantial majorities of people in supposedly moderate Muslim countries such as Morocco and Jordan now support suicide bombings as a way of countering the application of military might by the United States in Iraq and by Israel in Palestine.



Soft Power Good – Key to Hard Power

1. SOFT POWER IS A REALITY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND A KEY MEASURE OF POWERJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 8-9.

Soft power is an important reality. Even the great British realist E. H. Carr, writing in 1939, described international power in three categories: military, economic, and power over opinion. Those who deny the importance of soft power are like people who do not understand the power of seduction. During a meeting with President John F. Kennedy, the senior statesman John J. McCloy exploded in anger about paying attention to popularity and attraction in world politics: "World opinion? I don't believe in world opinion. The only thing that matters is power." But like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy understood that the ability to attract others and move opinion was an element of power.

2. LEGITIMACY IS AN INTRINSIC ELEMENT OF POWERG. John Ikenberry, Professor of Geopolitics and Global Justice, Georgetown University, Spring 2004. “The End of the NeoConservative Moment,” SURVIVAL, Metapress, Accessed May 6, 2005.

Legitimacy is not something that only academics puzzle over. It is an intrinsic aspect of power. It is also something that the United States has cared about during the eras of its most historic international accomplishments. One of the great differences between the United States and the Soviet Union after the Second World War was that the Soviet Union was, in effect, a coercive unilateralist. It pursued its own narrow interests of gaining territory and direct political control over Eastern Europe. The United States pursued what might be called a milieu strategy, where it combined its power with the other democratic countries, helping to create democracy and build institutions.

3. INTERNATIONAL LEGITIMACY IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS ANY MATERIAL POWERRobert Kagan, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Monthly Columnist, Washington Post, and Worked at the State Department, 84-88, March/April 2004. “America’s Crisis of Legitimacy”, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, p. 67, Ebscohost, Accessed August 8, 2004.

The United States cannot ignore this problem. The struggle to define and obtain international legitimacy in this new era may prove to be among the most critical contests of our time. In some ways, it is as significant in determining the future of the U.S. role in the international system as any purely material measure of power and influence.

4. MILITARY POWER ISN’T KEY TO SOFT POWER AND OVERUSE HURTS SOFT POWERJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 9.

But soft power does not depend on hard power. The Vatican has soft power despite Stalin's mocking question "How many divisions does the Pope have?" The Soviet Union once had a good deal of soft power, but it lost much of it after the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Soviet soft power declined even as its hard economic and military resources continued to grow. Because of its brutal policies, the Soviet Union's hard power actually undercut its soft power. In contrast, the Soviet sphere of influence in Finland was reinforced by a degree of soft power. Similarly, the United States' sphere of influence in Latin America in the 1930s was reinforced when Franklin Roosevelt added the soft power of his "good neighbor policy."


Soft Power Good – Key to Hard Power

1. TRANSNATIONAL THREATS DRAIN U.S. HARD POWER – ONLY SOFT POWER CHECKS Joseph S. Nye Jr., dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, 2003.THE PARADOX OF AMERICA POWER, p. 40

The bad news for Americans in this more complex distribution of power in the twenty-first century is that there are more and more things outside the control of even the most powerful state. September 11, 2001, should have sounded a wake-up call. Although the United States does well on the traditional measures, there is increasingly more going on in the world that those measures fail to capture. Under the influence of the information revolution and globalization, world politics is changing in a way that means Americans cannot achieve all their international goals acting alone. The United States lacks both the international and domestic prerequisites to resolve conflicts that are internal to other societies, and to monitor and control transnational transactions that threaten Americans at home. We must mobilize international coalitions to address shared threats and challenges. We will have to learn better how to share as well as lead. As a British observer has written, "The paradox of American power at the end of this millennium is that it is too great to be challenged by any other state, yet not great enough to solve problems such as global terrorism and nuclear proliferation. America needs the help and respect of other nations." We will be in trouble if we do not get it.

2. SOFT POWER ALLOWS RELIEVES HARD POWER OF CONSTANT NECESSITYParag Khanna, global governance fellow at the Brookings Institution, July 1, 2004.FOREIGN POLICY, p. 66.

Indeed, Europe actually contributes more to U.S. foreign policy goals than the U.S. government--and does so far more fashionably. Robert Cooper, one of Britain's former defense gurus now shaping Europe's common foreign policy, argues that Europe's "magnetic allure" compels countries to rewrite their laws and constitutions to meet European standards. The United States conceives of power primarily in military terms, thus confusing presence with influence. By contrast, Europeans understand power as overall leverage. As a result, the EU is the world's largest bilateral aid donor, providing more than twice as much aid to poor countries as the United States, and it is also the largest importer of agricultural goods from the developing world, enhancing its influence in key regions of instability. Through massive deployments of " soft power " (such as economic clout and cultural appeal) Europe has made hard power less necessary. After expanding to 25 members, the EU accounts for nearly half of the world's outward foreign direct investment and exerts greater leverage than the United States over pivotal countries such as Brazil and Russia. As more oil-producing nations consider trading in euros, Europe will gain greater influence in the international marketplace. Even rogue states swoon over Europe's allure; just recall how Libya's Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a recent meeting in Tripoli. "You are looking good," gushed Libya's strongman. "You are still young."

3. SOFT POWER SUPPLANTS THE NEED TO DEPLOY HARD POWERDavid R. Sands, staff writer, December 27, 2004.WASHINGTON TIMES, p. A1.

But Harvard analyst Joseph S. Nye Jr. argues that America's "soft power" secures the country's dominant place in the world, confounding critics who consistently predicted that U.S. power and influence were bound to fade as rivals emerged. "Soft power arises in large part from our values," Mr. Nye says. "These values are expressed in our culture, in the policies we follow inside our country, and in the way we handle ourselves internationally." German commentator Josef Joffe says the attraction of American culture "looms even larger than its economic and military assets." "U.S. culture - low-brow or high - radiates outward with an intensity last seen in the days of the Roman Empire - but with a novel twist. Rome's and Soviet Russia's cultural sway stopped exactly at their military borders. America's soft power, though, rules over an empire on which the sun never sets."


Soft Power Good – Key to Hegemony

1. INTERNATIONAL CREDIBILITY IS CRUICIAL TO LEADERSHIP John McCain, U.S. Senator, May 4, 2006.US FED NEWS, p. lexis nexis

For America truly is not like past superpowers, countries who sought territorial gain or imperial dominion. We wish to free, not to enslave; to trade, not to steal; to enlighten and learn, not to dominate and convert. But however certain we may be about our own motives, the impressions of people abroad are the ones that count. Should they sense a truly imperial impulse, they will speed their efforts to limit America's reach. But should they detect a truly humanitarian motive behind American action, they are much more likely to welcome a powerful United States, rather than oppose it. Our moral standing is directly tied to our ability to maintain America's preeminent leadership in the world. Don't underestimate the influence of this effect. America's traditional identification with democracy and human rights constitutes a critical element of our soft power. While our military can preempt and prevent threats, and our economic power can be used to promote or punish, our soft power is the power of attraction. It was not only the traditional metrics of national might that helped the West win the Cold War, it was also the deeply attractive nature of our way of life - a way of life that included freedom, democracy, religious liberty and economic prosperity. Only with the credibility that accompanies the union of words and action will the world's people believe what we believe: that America wishes good for all, not for some; that we seek security, peace, and justice, not land and oil.

2. ONLY SOFT POWER CAN SUSTAIN U.S. LEADERSHIPCarlos Gervasoni, Professor of Political Science at DiTella University in Buenos Aires, August 1, 2004.NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, p. lexis nexis

The world is so complicated these days that without cooperation, none of its problems is going to be resolved. Leadership doesn't mean that you impose your will on other countries but that you can lead other countries by seducing them in some way. And I think that the US can more effectively lead the world if it increases its soft power, you know, this idea that a lot of the leadership of the US has to do not only with weapons, its strong economy, not only with technology, but also with prestige, with reputation, with moral authority. And the US has a lot of power in that respect.

3. SOFT POWER GENERATES FOREIGN SUPPORT FOR U.S. LEADERSHIPRichard N. Gardner, staff writer, April 22, 2006.INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, p. 6.

Bush, who on Friday had yet to contact Prodi with his congratulations, will have to deal with a Prodi government that yearns for what its leaders call ''the other America'' the America of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton, an America that knew how to combine military power with ''soft power, '' attracting the support of foreign countries for American leadership by identifying U.S. interests with theirs.


Soft Power Good – Key to Hegemony

1. EROSION OF LEGITIMACY MAKES OTHER COUNTRIES RESIST LEADERSHIPG. John Ikenberry, Professor of Global Justice and Geopolitics, Fall 2004. “Liberal Realism: The Foundations of a Democratic Foreign Policy,” THE NATIONAL INTEREST, Ebscohost

In a world of degraded American legitimacy, other countries are more reluctant to cooperate with the United States. Over the longer term--and in a thousand different ways--countries will take steps to separate themselves from the United States, to resist its leadership and to organize their regions of the world in opposition to Washington. From the perspective of liberal realism, legitimacy is an intrinsic aspect of power. To care about legitimacy is not to cede American power to the UN or any other party. Instead, it is to exercise American power in a manner that continues to attract the support of others.

2. REPUTATION IS CRITICAL TO AMERICAN LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCEPhilip B. Heymann, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, Former Deputy Attorney General, and Former Head, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, 2003. TERRORISM, FREEDOM, AND SECURITY, p. 117.

Our influence in the future is also shaped by our reputation among our allies. That, in turn, is determined in part by a very long history but in part by the more salient activities we engage in currently. For leadership, reputation is critical: reputation for wisdom, for steadfastness, for boldness in using economic and political powers, for willingness to share decision-making in the world, and for caring for those who feel left behind.

3. SOFT POWER IS THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVEJulia Hanna, NQA, Spring, 2002. “Going It Alone,” Kennedy School Bulletin. . Accessed May 4, 2004, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgpress/bulletin/spring2002/features/alone.html

Our government’s democratic values and promotion of peace and human rights influence how other countries perceive us. For better or worse, so does the latest Bruce Willis action flick. America’s use of capital punishment and relatively permissive gun control laws undercut its soft power in European countries. While its intangible quality makes soft power much more difficult to use and control, observes Nye, that fact does not diminish its importance. “American pre-eminence will last well into this century, but our attitudes and policies will need to encompass a very different means of meeting challenges and achieving our goals,” he says. While a strong military presence will continue to be essential to maintaining global stability, it proves less adequate when confronting issues such as global climate change, the spread of infectious diseases, and international financial stability. “We must not let the illusion of empire blind us to the increasing importance of soft power,” Nye cautions. “A unilateralist approach to foreign policy fails to produce the right results, and its accompanying arrogance erodes the soft power that is often part of the solution.”

4. SOFT POWER INCREASES LEADERSHIP Heiko Borchert, political consultant, and Mary Hampton, associate professor of political science at the University of Utah, “The Lessons of Kosovo: Boon or Bust for Transatlantic Security?” Spring, 2002. Orbis, v46 issue 2, p. 47.

As John Ikenberry has put it: "The lesson of order building in this century is that international institutions have played a pervasive and ultimately constructive role in the exercise of American power." Leadership has to do with power but it does not equal power. The crucial variable is purpose. Unlike naked power-wielding, "leadership is inseparable from followers' needs and goals." Since leadership results from an interactive process where one actor is presumed to be the leader and other actors are willing to follow, the leader must be able to convince the followers. Leadership is therefore based on persuasion and normative consensus. Once the leader's commitment wanes, replaced by neglect or resort to attempted coercion, followers will find the first occasion to defect.

5. WILLING ALLIES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MILITARY STRENGTHHeiko Borchert, political consultant, and Mary Hampton, associate professor of political science at the University of Utah, “The Lessons of Kosovo: Boon or Bust for Transatlantic Security?” Spring, 2002. Orbis, v46 issue 2, p. 47.

Our principle aim is to maintain the stability and relative tranquility of the current international system by enforcing, maintaining, and extending the current peace. It is not at all clear why these U.S. objectives are


better provided for through unilateralism. The argument that the United States is more empowered when unshackled from the constraints of its self-inflicted multilateral binds is one made frequently since Allied Force. It is an argument that confuses leadership and power.


Soft Power Good – Key to Cooperation

1. REDUCED SOFT POWER IS DEVASTATING TO COOPERATION WITH EUROPEG. John Ikenberry, Professor of Global Justice and Geopolitics, Georgetown University, and Charles A. Kupchan, Professor of International Relations, Georgetown University, Fall 2004. “Liberal Realism: The Foundations of a Democratic Foreign Policy,” THE NATIONAL INTEREST, Ebscohost, Accessed May 6, 2005.

The Bush Administration's disregard for legitimacy has had devastating consequences for America's standing in the world, particularly among Europeans. The country that for decades was seen to be at the forefront of progressive change is now regarded as a threat to the international system. During the heyday of American legitimacy amid the Cold War, it would have been unthinkable for a German chancellor to rescue his bid for re-election by insisting that Berlin stand up to Washington. Not only did Gerhard Schroder do so in 2002, but candidates in other countries--Spain, Brazil and South Korea--have thrived by distancing themselves from the United States.

2. COERCION PRODUCES HOLLOW SUPPORT, WHILE SOFT POWER CAUSES COOPERATIONPhilip B. Heymann, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, Former Deputy Attorney General, and Former Head, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, 2003. TERRORISM, FREEDOM, AND SECURITY, p. 119.

The United States has immense capacity to use the first two forms of influence, but having only these arrows in our quiver has some major disadvantages. Neither what we offer to Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Turkey nor the force of our threats against Libya or Iraq can generate enthusiastic commitment. In these ways we can at best get what we bargain for and not what we later find that we need. Leadership in a common cause or a partnership promises the richer benefits that come with the other state actually wanting our plants to succeed or the United States as a nation to prosper.

3. IRAQ PROVES THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFT POWER IN UNITED STATES LEADERSHIPJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, March 10, 2005. “Politics in an Information Age is not Only About Whose Military Wins But Whose Story Wins,” BOSTON REVIEW, Accessed May 6, 2005.

There is no reason for realists to neglect soft power. It is simply a form of power, and nations (and non-state actors) struggle to deprive others of their soft power and to balance in that domain even if they cannot balance in the military domain--witness the coalition of France, Germany, China, and Russia depriving the United States of the legitimizing strength of a second Security Council resolution in 2003. When a country can induce others to follow by employing soft power, it saves a lot of carrots and sticks. This is a lesson the United States seems to have forgotten in the past few years.

4. PAKISTAN PROVES LEGITIMACY IS IMPORTANT TO GAINING COOPERATIONJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 129.

But the United States cannot meet the new threat identified in the national security strategy without the cooperation of other countries. They will cooperate up to a point out of mere self-interest, but their degree of cooperation is also affected by the attractiveness of the United States. Take Pakistan for example. President Pervez Musharraf faces a complex game of cooperating with the United States in the war on terrorism while managing a large anti-American constituency at home. He winds up balancing concessions and retractions. If the United States were more attractive to the Pakistani populace, we would see more concessions in the mix.


Soft Power Good – Policy Choices Key

1. ANTI-AMERICANISM IS NOT INEVITABLE AND POLICY CHOICES ARE ESSENTIALJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 39.

But those who dismiss the recent rise of anti-Americanism as simply the inevitable result of size are mistaken in thinking nothing can be done about it. Policies can soften or sharpen hard structural edges, and they can affect the ratio of love to hate in complex love-hate relationships. The United States was even more preeminent than now at the end of World War II, when it represented more than a third of the world economy and was the only country with nuclear weapons, but it pursued policies that were acclaimed by allied countries. Similarly, American leadership was welcome to many even when the end of the Cold War meant there was no longer any country that could balance American power.

2. ANTI-AMERICANISM IS DUE TO POLICY DECISIONSJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 14.

Government policies can reinforce or squander a country's soft power. Domestic or foreign policies that appear to be hypocritical, arrogant, indifferent to the opinion of others, or based on a narrow approach to national interests can undermine soft power. For example, in the steep decline in the attractiveness of the United States as measured by polls taken after the Iraq War in 2003, people with unfavorable views for the most part said they were reacting to the Bush administration and its policies rather than the United States generally. So far, they distinguish American people and culture from American policies.

3. EVEN IF SOFT POWER IS CULTURAL, POLICY SPILLS OVER TO CULTUREJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 128.

There are also hints that unpopular foreign policies might be spilling over and undercutting the attractiveness of some other aspects of American popular culture. A 2003 Roper study showed that "for the first time since 1998, consumers in 30 countries signaled their disenchantment with America by being less likely to buy Nike products or eat at McDonald's.... At the same time, 9 of the top 12 Asian and European firms, including Sony, BMW and Panasonic, saw their scores rise."'

4. THE US CAN’T RECOVER FROM OPPOSITION WITHOUT POLICY CHANGEJoseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor of International Relations and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2004. SOFT POWER: THE MEANS TO SUCCESS IN WORLD POLITICS, p. 129.

But it would be a mistake to dismiss the recent decline in our attractiveness so lightly. It is true that the United States has recovered from unpopular policies in the past, but that was against the backdrop of the Cold War, in which other countries still feared the Soviet Union as the greater evil. Moreover, as we saw in chapter 2, while the United States' size and association with disruptive modernity is real and unavoidable, smart policies can soften the sharp edges of that reality and reduce the resentments they engender. That is what the U.S. did after World War II. We used our soft power resources and co-opted others into a set of alliances and institutions that lasted for 60 years.


Soft Power Good – Hypocrisy Key

1. HYPOCRISY ON HUMAN RIGHTS IS MODELED BY OTHER COUNTRIESJim Lobe, Washington Bureau Chief, Inter Press Service, January 14, 2003.“War on Terror Undermining U.S. Credibility,” INTER PRESS SERVICE, Accessed May 6, 2005, http://listas.rcp.net.pe/pipermail/noticias/2003-January/002862.html.

Second, the administration's refusal to be bound by the human rights standards that it has preached to others, such as compliance with the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war, has conveyed the impression that rights and security are a zero-sum game, rather than mutually reinforcing. It has given rise to a ''copy-cat phenomenon''.

2. A EXCEPTIONALIST POLICY OF DOUBLE STANDARDS UNDERMINES LEGITIMACYHarold Hongju Koh, Dean of Yale Law School, Professor of International Law, Yale Law School, and Former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, October 1, 2004.“On America’s Double Standard,” THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, Accessed May 4, 2005, http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=8558.

In my view, by far the most dangerous and destructive form of American exceptionalism is the assertion of double standards. For by embracing double standards, the United States invariably ends up not on the higher rung but on the lower rung with horrid bedfellows -- for example, such countries as Iran, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia, the only other nations that have not in practice either abolished or declared a moratorium on the imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders. This appearance of hypocrisy sharply weakens America’s claim to lead globally through moral authority. More important, by opposing global rules in order to loosen them for our purposes, the United States can end up -- as it has done with the Geneva Conventions -- undermining the legitimacy of the rules themselves, just when we need them most.

3. A POLICY OF DOUBLE STANDARDS UNDERMINES AMERICAN SOFT POWERHarold Hongju Koh, Dean of Yale Law School, Professor of International Law, Yale Law School, and Former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, October 1, 2004.“On America’s Double Standard,” THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, Accessed May 4, 2005, http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=8558.

Left unrestrained, it seems clear, a continuing impulse to adopt double standards will continue to weaken American soft power and damage the rule-of-law structures that America has helped put in place. Double standards diminish American sovereignty. Yet at the same time, an array of institutions -- Congress, the courts, the executive bureaucracy, the media, intergovernmental organizations, and the American public, as well as foreign governments, nongovernmental organizations, and citizens -- can work together to mitigate these impulses.

4. IGNORING RIGHTS IN THE WAR ON TERROR IS COUNTER-PRODUCTIVEJim Lobe, Washington Bureau Chief, Inter Press Service, January 14, 2003.“War on Terror Undermining U.S. Credibility,” INTER PRESS SERVICE, Accessed May 6, 2005, http://listas.rcp.net.pe/pipermail/noticias/2003-January/002862.html.

In the 12-page introduction to its annual 'World Report', the New York-based group charged that Washington's tendency to see human rights ''mainly as an obstacle'' to the war on terrorism was both dangerous and counter-productive. ''The United States is far from the world's worst human rights abuser,'' said Kenneth Roth, HRW's executive director. ''But Washington has so much power today that when it flouts human rights standards, it damages the human rights cause worldwide.''


Soft Power Good – Foreign Assistance Key

1. US SOFT POWER IS LINKED TO FOREIGN ASSISTANCE. THE US CANNOT LEVERAGE ITS SOFT POWER WITHOUT FOREIGN ASSISTANCELael Brainard, Vice President and Director Global Economy and Development Brookings Institute, June 22,2006. “Transforming Foreign Aid for the 21st Century: New Recommendations from the Brookings-CSIS Task Force”, A BROOKINGS-CSIS- CENTER FOR U.S. GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT BRIEFING, Date Accessed May 21, 2007, http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20060622.htm

In a world transformed by globalization and challenged by terrorism, foreign aid has assumed renewed importance as a foreign policy tool. Having hard security assets stretched thin has made it more important than ever for the United States to leverage its considerable soft power abroad to more effectively grapple with global poverty, pandemics, and transnational threats, which can only be done with infrastructure reform. Yet, while U.S. spending on foreign assistance has seen its greatest increase in forty years, this expansion in aid has brought with it a growing incoherence in policy and a fragmentation in organization.

2. US SOFT POWER IS BASED IN ITS FOREIGN ASSISTANCELael Brainard, Vice President and Director Global Economy and Development Brookings Institute, June 22,2006.“Transforming Foreign Aid for the 21st Century: New Recommendations from the Brookings-CSIS Task Force”, A BROOKINGS-CSIS- CENTER FOR U.S. GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT BRIEFING, Date Accessed May 21, 2007, http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20060622_breakout3.pdf

So this is, I think, now, truly a giant issue for us to get our arms around. And it isn't just being touchy feely, you know, liberals trying to do good in the world, this is hard core, this is what advances America in the world and makes us all safer, but it's by recovering a sophisticated and agile and responsive framework for our soft power, and I say that collectively, for a whole range of things, foreign assistance, humanitarian assistance, foreign military assistance, public diplomacy, the use of international organizations, I mean all wrapped into one now. If we stay on the path we're in, we're going to become a lonely and frightened super power, and hell, that's where we already are, it's just going to get worse. So what you all are doing, and Lael, again, thank you for being way ahead of everybody else, way ahead of me, I mean I'm starting to think about these things now, is really to recover the sense of what it really is going to take if we want to retain the strength and durability of this American super power base. It is not going to be off of just putting more money into my old constituency, to be candid.

3. FOREIGN AID ALLOWS THE US TO PROJECT SOFT POWERSteven Radelet- Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, June 2005.“Bush and Foreign Aid”, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Date Accessed May 21, 2007, http://www.cgdev.org/doc/commentary/Bush_and_Foreign_Aid.pdf

Second, foreign aid allows the United States to project “soft power” to accompany, and sometimes oªset, its use of military power. For example, the juxtaposition of the hiv/aids initiative and the Iraq strategy in Bush’s State of the Union address was striking. The administration clearly wanted to demonstrate to the American people, its European allies, and countries around the world that it was not simply fixated on military action, but was willing to project its power to address some of the world’s most vexing humanitarian problems.


Soft Power Bad – Hard Power Better

1. SOFT POWER HAS HISTORICALLY NOT BEEN THE KEY TO SUCCESSColin Powell, Former Secretary of State, January 26, 2003. “America and Soft Power,” WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://bsartist.com/Powell.htm.

But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power -- and here I think you're referring to military power -- then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with. I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

2. HARD POWER ACTIONS ARE WHAT PRODUCE REAL SOFT POWERVictor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow and Historian, Hoover Institution, February 27, 2005. “Soft Power, Hard Truths,” WALL STREET JOURNAL, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=.

If this idealism works, liberated Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and others might see the U.S. as principled as Europe proved conniving in the days of Oil for Food and extracting oil concessions from Saddam. America, in other words, is learning far more about soft power than the still disarmed Europeans have about hard power. The USS Abraham Lincoln and its supporting flotilla, not the EU minifleet, did the heavy lifting after the tsunami.

3. SOFT POWER IS DEPENDENT ON HARD POWER AND RESOLVENoah Stahl, Columnist, Iowa State Daily, April 19, 2005. “Soft Power of Diplomacy Only Effective with Force,” IOWA STATE DAILY, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/19/42647fa65b53a?template=pda.

Unfortunately, this solution overlooks two crucial facts -- the true source of "soft power" and the nature of the conflicts it's intended to resolve. Teddy Roosevelt made the best metaphor for soft power with his famous saying, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." A more accurate phrasing -- "carry a big stick and speak softly" -- emphasizes the mistake made by the advocates of "sensitivity" and "tact": Diplomacy is meaningless without the means to enforce it. In other words, true soft power is derived from hard power; you cannot have the first without the second.

4. NORTH KOREA PROVES PRIVILEGING SOFT POWER RESULTS IN FAILURENoah Stahl, Columnist, Iowa State Daily, April 19, 2005. “Soft Power of Diplomacy Only Effective with Force,” IOWA STATE DAILY, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/19/42647fa65b53a?template=pda.

The ineffectiveness of diplomacy without the real threat of military action is showcased by the case of North Korea, which now claims to have nuclear weapons after years of empty warnings by the United States and its allies and subsequent, equally empty assurances by North Korean leaders. We are now witnessing a repeat in Iran, where European negotiators patiently offer political and economic incentives and are met with increasing Iranian confidence.

5. AMERICA’S HARD POWER IS MORE IMPORTANT AND CONTRIBUTES TO SOFT POWERPeter Brookes, Senior Fellow, The Heritage Foundation, March 7, 2005. “Truths of Power,” NEW YORK POST, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/40743.htm.

It's reasonable to conclude that American (and Coalition) "hard power" in Afghanistan and Iraq is — at least partly — responsible for sparking the mind-boggling, positive changes that parts of the Arab and Muslim world are experiencing today. Make no mistake: The ability to back up "soft power" with the credible threat of "hard power" makes a big difference in international affairs, especially when dealing with prickly states like Iran, Syria or North Korea. Europe seems to have forgotten this important canon of international affairs.


Soft Power Bad – Hard Power Key to Heg

1. STRONG WILLINGNESS TO USE FORCE IS KEY TO SUSTAINING HEGEMONYTobias Harris, Editor of Concord Bridge Magazine, May 20, 2003.“Gulliver Unbound”, CONCORD BRIDGE MAGAZINE, Accessed August 8, 2004, http://people.brandeis.edu/~cbmag/Articles/2003%20May/Gulliver%20unbound-%20May%202003.pdf.

Clearly, then, the abnegation of force by the United States merely encourages America’s foes and potential challengers for hegemony. Any foreign policy that seeks to extend the unipolar moment must rest on the use of force to destroy or discourage apparent and rising threats. If the world is unwilling to stomach American power, then security multilateralism must be downgraded. American security must take precedence over the feelings of the international community.

2. THE USE OF FORCE IS KEY TO DETER ENEMIES FROM MISJUDGING AMERICAN RESOLVEWalter Russell Mead, Senior Fellow for United States Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations, 2004.POWER, TERROR, PEACE, AND WAR, p. 128.

Force remains an important element of international relations; America's enemies need to understand that the United States possesses more force than other powers and is, under the right circumstances, more than willing to use it. Frequently in the past other powers have misjudged the United States; we seem so feckless and indolent in peace that in both world wars and the Cold War our enemies seem to have discounted our will and ability to fight and persevere. Osama Bin Laden seems to have made this mistake; thanks to the Bush administration's response, others are less likely to repeat it.

3. MAINTAINING OVERWHELMING HARD POWER DETERS SECURITY COMPETITIONWalter Russell Mead, Senior Fellow for United States Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations, 2004.POWER, TERROR, PEACE, AND WAR, p. 30.

Over time, there has been a distinct shift in American strategic thinking toward the need for overwhelming military superiority as the surest foundation for national security. This is partly for the obvious reasons of greater security, but it is partly also because supremacy can have an important deterrent effect. If we achieve such a degree of military supremacy that challenges seem hopeless, other states might give up trying. Security competition is both expensive and dangerous. Establishing an overwhelming military supremacy might not only go far to deter potential enemies from military attack, but it might also deter other powers from trying to match the American buildup.


Soft Power Bad – Weakness

1. EUROPE PROVES SOFT POWER PRODUCES A WEAK FOREIGN POLICYVictor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow and Historian, Hoover Institution, February 27, 2005. “Soft Power, Hard Truths,” WALL STREET JOURNAL, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=.

The adage goes that the European Union counts on a more sophisticated and nuanced "soft power." In reality, that translates to using transnational organizations and its own economic clout to soothe or buy off potential adversaries, while a formidable cultural engine dresses it all up in high sounding platitudes of internationalism and multilateralism. Everything from idly watching Milosevic and the Hutus butcher unchecked to unilateral intervention in the Ivory Coast or no action in Darfur usually finds either the proper humanitarian exegesis or the culpable American bogeyman.

2. SOFT POWER EMBOLDENS AGGRESSION AND SIGNALS WEAKNESSAmir Taheri, Former Middle East Editor, London Sunday Times, Contributor, German Weekly Focus, and Member, Board of Trustees, Institute for International Political and Economic Studies, December 8, 2003. “The Perils of Soft Power,” NEW YORK POST, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/750.

Needless to say, it is preferable to achieve one's goal with soft power rather than hard, which could include war. The problem, however, is that many individuals and regimes regard the use of soft power by an adversary as a sign of weakness, and are thus emboldened in their deadly enterprises. The use of soft power did not prevent Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia and the end of the League of Nations. Soft power extracted a "peace in our time" from Hitler in Munich, but accelerated the advent of the Second World War.

3. SOFT POWER PROLONGS CONFLICTS AND AGGRESSIONAmir Taheri, Former Middle East Editor, London Sunday Times, Contributor, German Weekly Focus, and Member, Board of Trustees, Institute for International Political and Economic Studies, December 8, 2003. “The Perils of Soft Power,” NEW YORK POST, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/750.

A world without hard power would be a paradise for bullies, tyrants, terrorists and other aggressors. With soft power, Mullah Omar and Saddam Hussein would still be filling mass graves. The Oslo Accords, the most praised fruit of soft power, led to years of intensified conflict in which more Palestinians and Israelis have died than in the whole of the preceding 50 years. (As discussed yesterday, the so-called Geneva Accord can only have similar effect.)

4. FOCUS ON SOFT POWER WILL HANDCUFF HARD POWERBarry M. Blechman, Vice President of the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Studies, Winter 2005. POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, p. 680

Nye suggests that the current administration is squandering U.S. soft power by its unilateralist approach to world affairs, by its attacks on the United Nations and other international institutions, and by its rejection of such popular global initiatives as the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court; and he is correct. But the intractable problem is that necessary exercises of military or economic hard power often undermine a nation's soft power. This is nowhere more apparent than in U.S. relations with the Islamic world. Take Nye's Pakistan example. Describing President Pervez Musharraf's difficulty in helping the United States to pursue antiterrorist objectives in the face of a large anti-American constituency, Nye says, "If the United States were more attractive to the Pakistani populace, we would see more concessions in the mix". Of course, and if pigs had wings, they could fly. So what! Anti-American Pakistanis oppose our intervention in Afghanistan and support the Taliban and al Qaeda. U.S. soft power is meaningless in a context dominated by hard-power considerations.

5. LACK OF HARD POWER BANKRUPTS SOFT POWERNoah Stahl, April 19, 2005 “’Soft power’ of diplomacy only effective with force”, IOWA STATE DAILY,

Teddy Roosevelt made the best metaphor for soft power with his famous saying, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." A more accurate phrasing -- "carry a big stick and speak softly" -- emphasizes the mistake made


by the advocates of "sensitivity" and "tact": Diplomacy is meaningless without the means to enforce it. In other words, true soft power is derived from hard power; you cannot have the first without the second.


Soft Power Bad – Leadership

SOFT POWER IS NOT KEY TO HEGEMONY.Christopher Layne, Professor, and Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security, at TexasA&M University’s George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service, Summer 2009, “The Waning of US Hegemony—Myth or Reality?” International Security, pp.165-166

Preservation of American hegemony with soft power. Like many U.S. international relations scholars and foreign policy analysts, Zakaria believes that by using its soft power the United States can preserve its “pivotal” status in international politics. As the NIC and Mahbubani argue, however, soft power may be significantly less potent a force for bolstering U.S. preponderance than Zakaria (and others believe). This is so for two reasons. First, the global financial and economic crisis has discredited one of the pillars of U.S. soft power: American free-market capitalism and, more generally, liberalism itself (economically and institutionally). As former U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman puts it, the meltdown has “put the American model of free market capitalism under a cloud.” Second, as Mahbubani rightly notes, the United States is not the only country that possesses soft power. China, especially, has become increasingly adept in this regard. If China weathers the economic storm better than the United States, it will be in a position to expand its role in the developing world. Even before the meltdown, China was taking advantage of the United States’ preoccupation with the “war on terror” to project its soft power into East and Southeast Asia. China also is making inroads in Latin America, Africa, and Central Asia, by providing development assistance without strings and increasing its weapons sales. Similarly, China is using its financial clout to buy up huge quantities of raw materials and natural resources worldwide, thereby bringing states into its political orbit.

THE PLAN CAN’T BOOST SOFT POWER – AND IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO SOLVE HEGEMONY.Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, Winter 2004, “Soft Power: the Means to Success in World Politics.(Book Review),” Political Science Quarterly, p.681

Joe Nye is correct. Soft power contributes importantly to the nation's ability to achieve its goals in the world. But I don't think Professor Nye would disagree that soft power also has its limitations. U.S. attractiveness to others will never be shaped fundamentally by the government, nor can it be tapped for use in particular situations. Nor will soft power be a dominant consideration in situations in which there are real differences of interest and perspective. In these cases, harder forms of national strength will continue to dominate policy choices.

SOFT POWER CONSTRAINS HARD POWERSebastian Mallaby, staff writer, May 10, 2004.WASHINGTON POST, p. A25.

The Bush team began with the "realist" view that our security depends on the balance of power between great states. Then a non-state based in a failed state hit us on Sept. 11, and the Bush team switched to the imperialist view that security depends on extending civilized values to the periphery. This imperialism combined the right diagnosis -- that failed states, poverty and chaos threaten us -- with the wrong prescription: unilateral intervention. The triumph of America's democratic and egalitarian ideals makes Bush's nakedly American imperialism unacceptable to the rest of the world; our soft power constrains our hard power.


Soft Power Bad – Terrorism

SOFT POWER ONLY ENCOURAGES TERRORISTS TO RESENT AMERICANiall Ferguson, Herzog Professor of Financial History at the Stern School of Business, New York University, and a senior research fellow of Jesus College at Oxford University, 2003.HOOVER INSTITUTION WEB PAGE, accessed May 31, 2006, http://www.hooverdigest.org/032/ferguson.html

The trouble with soft power is that it’s, well, soft. All over the Islamic world there are kids who enjoy (or would like to enjoy) bottles of Coke, Big Macs, CDs by Britney Spears, and DVDs starring Tom Cruise. Do any of these things make them love America more? Strangely not. Actually, this is not so strange. In the nineteenth century, Great Britain pioneered the use of soft power, though it projected its culture through the sermons of missionaries and the commentaries in Anglophone newspapers. The British also revolutionized world sports, making cricket the most popular sport in the Indian subcontinent, rugby the favorite sport of the Antipodes, and soccer the near-universal opiate of the modern masses. (Only the United States resisted these most virulent strains of British soft power.) Yet it was precisely from the most Anglicized parts of the indigenous populations of the British Empire that the nationalist movements sprang. The archetype was the Bengali babu—better able to quote Shakespeare than the average expatriate Brit—who worked for the British by day but plotted their overthrow by night. Stone-throwing Palestinians in Nike trainers are today’s version of the same Janus-faced phenomenon.

SOFT POWER IS INEFFICTIVE IN STOPING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION AND WINNING THE WAR ON TERRORJoseph S. Nye Jr., dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, March 1st 2006.YALE GLOBAL WEB PAGE, accessed May 31st 2006, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=7059

“Some Goals Can Only Be Achieved by Hard Power” No Doubt. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il’s penchant for Hollywood movies is unlikely to affect his decision on developing nuclear weapons. Hard power just might dissuade him, particularly if China agreed to economic sanctions. Nor will soft power be sufficient to stop the Iranian nuclear program, though the legitimacy of the administration’s current multilateral approach may help to recruit other countries to a coalition that isolates Iran. And soft power got nowhere in luring the Taliban away from al Qaeda in the 1990s. It took American military might to do that.

SOFT POWER DOESN’T INFLUENCE TERRORIST ACTIVITIESPervez Hoodbhoy, member of the Pugwash Council and professor of nuclear and high-energy physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Winter 2005.SOCIAL RESEARCH, p. 873.

Some in Washington, including those who launched a war on false pretexts, also live in fantasyland. They think that the United States has a mere image problem in Muslim countries and that hearts and minds will eventually be won over by exercising "soft power" through aid and technology, as well as slickly produced media broadcasts and magazines by overseas US information services. But they could not be more wrong. "The U.S. could have the prophet Muhammad doing public relations, and it wouldn't help," argued Osama Siblani, publisher of the weekly Arab American News in Dearborn, Michigan. "I don't believe that people hate movie stars and Burger King. They hate what the U.S. is doing to their lives." At least in the near future, the relationship between Muslims and the West is likely to continue its downward descent. Muslim terrorist groups will continue to recruit successfully as long as large numbers of Muslims feel that they are being unfairly targeted. Unless this changes and there is a perception that there is some measure of justice in world affairs, this trend must be considered irreversible. Moreover, static and declining economies will allow for an abundant supply of terrorist recruits. Unless mitigating economic strategies, skill development, and job-creation mechanisms are seriously addressed, the situation will deteriorate as Muslim populations expand.


Soft Power Bad – Alternate Causalities

1. SOFT POWER IS CAUSED BY HOLLYWOOD AND AMERICAN CULTUREJoseph S. Nye Jr., Professor of International Relations, Harvard University, and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, January 10, 2003. “Propaganda Isn’t the Way: Soft Power,” KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/opeds/2003/nye_soft_power_iht_011003.htm.

What can the government do? Soft power grows out of both U.S. culture and U.S. policies. From Hollywood to higher education, civil society does far more to present the United States to other peoples than the government does. Hollywood often portrays consumerism, sex and violence, but it also promotes values of individualism, upward mobility and freedom (including for women). These values make America attractive to many people overseas, but some fundamentalists see them as a threat.

2. REBUILDING SOFT POWER REQUIRES FOREIGN POLICY CONSULTATION WITH ALLIESJoseph S. Nye Jr., Professor of International Relations, Harvard University, and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, January 10, 2003. “Propaganda Isn’t the Way: Soft Power,” KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/opeds/2003/nye_soft_power_iht_011003.htm.

To the extent that America defines its national interests in ways congruent with others, and consults with them in formulating policies, it will improve the ratio of admiration to resentment. President George W. Bush articulated this well in the 2000 campaign when he said that if America is a humble nation others will respect it, but if it is arrogant they will not. Unfortunately, his administration has not always followed that advice. The Pentagon and the State Department have engaged in a tug of war over how to work with other countries. Many of America's friends overseas regarded the first eight months of the administration as excessively unilateralist, tempered by more multilateralism after Sept. 11.

4. FOREIGN POLICY UNILATERALISM IS THE REAL THREAT TO SOFT POWERJoseph S. Nye Jr., Professor of International Relations, Harvard University, and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, February 28, 2005. “Bush Goes Soft During Second Term,” KOREA HERALD, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/opeds/2005/022805_nye.htm.

The first term of George W. Bush's presidency was marked by unilateralism and military power. The United States was the world's only superpower, so others had to follow. The result was a dramatic decline in America's "soft" or attractive power. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he did not know what soft power was.

5. U.S. REJECTION OF TREATIES HAS CAUSED DECLINES IN SOFT POWERCharles Grant, Director, Centre for European Reform, April/May 2003. “The Decline of American Power,” CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN REFORM BULLETIN, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.cer.org.uk/articles/29_grant.html.

Many countries have withheld diplomatic support, less because of the issue of Iraq itself than because of pent-up frustrations with American behaviour over the past two years. As Joseph Nye has pointed out, a whole series of decisions from abandoning the Kyoto protocol, to rejecting the International Criminal Court, to opposing a range of arms control treaties, to the fighting of the Afghan war on a unilateral basis have damaged America's standing with its allies. This explains some of Germany's hostility to Bush's policy on Iraq.


Soft Power Bad – Backlash

1. SOFT POWER CAN BE JUST AS CORRUPT AS HARD POWER, ENSURING BACKLASHJoseph S. Nye Jr., dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, March 1, 2006.YALE GLOBAL WEB PAGE, accessed May 31st 2006, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=7059

“Soft Power Is More Humane Than Hard Power” Not necessarily. Because soft power has been hyped as an alternative to raw power politics, it is often embraced by ethically minded scholars and policymakers. But soft power is a description, not an ethical prescription. Like any form of power, it can be wielded for good or ill. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, after all, possessed a great deal of soft power in the eyes of their acolytes. It is not necessarily better to twist minds than to twist arms. If I want to steal your money, I can threaten you with a gun, or I can swindle you with a get-rich-quick scheme in which you invest, or I can persuade you to hand over your estate as part of a spiritual journey. The third way is through soft power, but the result is still theft.

2. SOFT POWER ONLY EMBOLDENS TERRORIST REGIMESAmir Taheri, member of Benador Associates and Iranian journalist, December 8th 2003.BENADOR ASSOCIATES WEB PAGE, accessed May 31st 2006, http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/750

The world had a similar experience with the Taliban. By the end of 2001, it was clear that if they did not hand over Osama bin Laden for trial on charges related to the 9/11 attacks, Washington would have no choice but to use force. They were offered a range of inducements, including diplomatic recognition by the European Union and a massive package of aid. One of the only two Arab states that had recognized the Taliban even offered Mullah Omar and his cohorts a special sweetener in the form of $300 million in cash. Those efforts only confirmed the Taliban in their belief that the West would not have the stomach for a real war. "The fact that they are all begging at our door shows what cowards they are," said Taliban Information Minister Mullah Muttaqi in December 2001.

3. SOFT POWER ALLOWS AGGRESSION WITHOUT RECOURSE Amir Taheri, member of Benador Associates and Iranian journalist, December 8th 2003.BENADOR ASSOCIATES WEB PAGE, accessed May 31st 2006, http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/750

There are individuals and regimes that would not stop unless they hit something hard on their path. A world without hard power would be a paradise for bullies, tyrants, terrorists and other aggressors. With soft power, Mullah Omar and Saddam Hussein would still be filling mass graves. The Oslo Accords, the most praised fruit of soft power, led to years of intensified conflict in which more Palestinians and Israelis have died than in the whole of the preceding 50 years. (As discussed yesterday, the so-called Geneva Accord can only have similar effect.) Bill Clinton's soft-power approach to North Korea gave Kim Jong-il four years in which to develop his nuclear arsenal and continue to thumb his nose at the world. And will not the compromise negotiated by the European Union with Tehran persuade the mullahs to speed up their plans to develop nuclear weapons?

4. SOFT POWER BREEDS RESITMENT AND HATE TOWARD THE UNITED STATESJosef Joffe, publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit, May 14th 2006.NEW YORK TIMES WEB PAGE, accessed 05/31/2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/magazine/14 wwln_lede.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=62a75cf5195754a4&ex=1149220800

There is a moral in this tale of two critics: the curse of soft power. In the affairs of nations, too much hard power ends up breeding not submission but resistance. Likewise, great soft power does not bend hearts; it twists minds in resentment and rage. And the target of Europe's cultural guardians is not just America, the Great Seductress. It is also all those "little people," a million in all, many of whom showed up in the wee hours to snag an admissions ticket to MoMA's Berlin exhibit. By yielding to America-the-beguiling, they committed cultural treason — and worse: they ignored the stern verdict of their own priesthood. So America's soft power is not only seductive but also subversive.


Soft Power Bad – Ineffective

Soft power theory is wrong—history and trends proveIlhan Niaz, Faculty member of the Department of History at the Quaid-i-Azam University, 1-10-2010, “The mirage of soft power in a globalised world,” http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/in-paper-magazine/encounter/the-mirage-of-soft-power-in-a-globalised-world-010

SOFT power theorists argue that in a globalised world the powers of persuasion are as important as, if not more important than, the persuasiveness of power. The former includes a country’s cultural appeal, international marketability, mass media projection and civilisational prestige. Combined, these different aspects of soft power can win hearts and minds and thus facilitate the attainment of national interests. The latter includes the more traditional combination of military assets, intelligence resources, raw economic muscle, administrative capacity and political will. These old-fashioned manifestations of hard power are, it is proclaimed, no longer as relevant as soft power. Satellite television channels can trump ballistic missiles. The global appeal of curry in a hurry beats hard power projection through aircraft carriers and Harriers. One thing that soft power is a testament to is the ability of the human race to delude itself. It is remarkable that a hypothesis as intellectually bogus and empirically fragile should be projected as a legitimate new way of looking at old problems. The soft power world view is substantially invalidated by historical experience, events and trends of the contemporary era (1990-present) and future possibilities arising from historical experience and the dynamics of contemporary issues.

Soft power can’t solve any emerging conflicts – only hard power will workIlhan Niaz, Faculty member of the Department of History at the Quaid-i-Azam University, 1-10-2010, “The mirage of soft power in a globalised world,” http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/in-paper-magazine/encounter/the-mirage-of-soft-power-in-a-globalised-world-010

The beginning of a new decade furnishes an opportunity to reflect on what has been and on what may be. Looking towards the future, soft power rhetoric is set to confront some very hard realities. There are simply too many people on this planet for the majority of them to be sustained at a standard of living comparable to the industrial democracies. Depletion of natural resources is likely to impose harsh limits on economic and population growth. The failure to hammer out a real compromise at the 2009 Copenhagen summit has left everybody more vulnerable to climate change. Large parts of the world, including South Asia, are experiencing administrative breakdown and gross socioeconomic inequities. Other parts of the world are likely to spend the next generation coping with the fallout of US imperial misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. On an overpopulated, resource-starved, economically imbalanced, and environmentally degraded planet, soft power will be utterly meaningless. Those powers that possess the requisite ruthlessness, military capability, material superiority, effective administration and political will, are likely to prevail. Those powers that are deficient on these and other indices of hard power are likely to perish or be marginalised. The hard power outlook for South Asia is bleak and being lulled into smug complacency by soft-power mantras will only serve to completely compromise the region’s future.

HEGEMONY CAN BE SUSTAINED WITH HARD POWER – SOFT POWER IS USELESSBrantly Womack, Professor of Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia, November 16th 2005.JAPAN FOCUS WEB PAGE, accessed May 31st 2006, http://japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=450

The second problem, related to but distinct from the first, concerns the effects of soft power. As Nye describes it, soft power encourages voluntary compliance, that is, the willingness of others to go along without specific rewards or sanctions. But is the absence of soft power more than merely an inconvenience? After all, if the resources to command compliance exist, what difference does it make whether the others are nodding approval or bowing to the inevitable? Old Europe can rustle its newspapers and bang its beer mugs over the invasion of Iraq, but only because they are peripheral to the action. Clearly Turkey’s refusal of transit to American troops on their way to Iraq turned out to be no more than an inconvenience, and had it been a serious bottleneck, the rewards and sanctions could have been raised until compliance was achieved. What can the United States do with soft power that it cannot do without soft power?


Soft Power Bad – Nuclear Iran

SOFT POWER ALLOWS IRAN TO PRODUCE NUCLEAR WEAPONSElan Journo, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, February 6, 2006. CAPITALISM MAGAZINE WEB PAGE, accessed 5/31/06, http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4559

In 1938 the Europeans pretended that Hitler's intentions were not really hostile, and insisted that "peace in our time" could be brokered diplomatically (by letting him take Czechoslovakia). The negotiations afforded him time to build his military machine and emboldened him to launch World War II. Ignoring the lessons of history, the Europeans embarked on negotiations with Iran that likewise sought the reckless pretence of peace today, at the cost of unleashing catastrophic dangers tomorrow. To protect American (and European) lives, we must learn the life-or-death importance of passing objective moral judgment. By any rational standard, Iran should be condemned and its nuclear ambition thwarted, now. The brazenly amoral European gambit has only aided its quest--and will entail a future confrontation with a bolder, stronger Iran.

A NUCLEAR IRAN WILL SPONSOR TERRORISM THREATENING THE GLOBEYonah Alexander, director of the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies, March 5, 2006. WASHINGTON TIMES, p. B3

Why are the United States and Israel, as well as scores of other countries affected by the universal nightmare of modern terrorism surprised by new terrorist "surprises"? There are many reasons, including misunderstanding of the manifold specific factors that contribute to terrorism's expansion, such as lack of a universal definition of terrorism, the religionization of politics, double standards of morality, weak punishment of terrorists, and the exploitation of the media by terrorist propaganda and psychological warfare. Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have introduced a new scale of violence in terms of conventional and unconventional threats and impact. The internationalization and brutalization of current and future terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super Terrorism [e.g. biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber] with its serious implications concerning national, regional and global security concerns.

SOFT POWER APPROACH ON IRAN WILL FAILAmitai Etzioni, professor of international relations at George Washington University, February 7, 2006. UPI

The limits of soft power have further been highlighted by the fact that the Europeans, which took the lead in dealing with Iran, are at loss as to what next to do. Economic sanctions -- unlike economic incentives such as credits and favorable trade terms -- are punitive and do not qualify as soft power. Moreover, they are difficult to impose, make stick, and render effective. To initiate economic sanctions the IAEA must refer the matter to the U.N.; however, its 35-member board is reluctant to proceed. If it does, China may still veto the needed Security Council resolutions or water them down. Were sanctions to be imposed, experience in the Middle East shows that they often enrich the smugglers rather then cramp the styles of the governments involved, and that the population suffers rather than the elites. Iran, which is flooded with petro dollars, is in a strong position to resist sanctions as well as impose some of its own by withholding oil. Ergo, down the road, either military force will have to be employed or -- if this is impractical -- Iran will become a full-fledged nuclear power. In either case, soft power will be shown up for what it is: by itself a very insufficient instrument of international relations.

SOFT POWER COMMUNICATES APPEASEMENT ON NUCLEAR PROLIFERATIONAmir Taheri, member of Benador Associates and Iranian journalist, January 18, 2006. GULF NEWS, p. lexis nexis

European-style appeasement, partly motivated by a desire to pull faces at Washington, has encouraged the most radical faction in Tehran and helped bring Ahmadinejad to power. All the diplomatic gesticulations that are likely to follow will only compound that effect. The Islamic republic has had three years in which to prepare for whatever sanctions the Security Council might impose. It has also signed oil and gas contracts worth more than $70 billion (Dh257 billion) with China and arms and industrial contracts with Russia exceeding $30 billion (Dh110 billion) to make sure that at least one if not both would veto any harsh resolution against Iran. The Khomeinist regime is one of those regimes that will not stop until they hit


something hard. Why should they when they can pursue their objectives cost-free? Soft-power may work only if it is backed by hard power. And Europe has, once again, made it clear that, it would oppose even the threat of hard power being used against Iran.


Soft Power Bad – Middle East

1. SOFT POWER FAILED MISERABLY DURING THE IRAN-IRAQ WARAmir Taheri, Former Middle East Editor, London Sunday Times, Contributor, German Weekly Focus, and Member, Board of Trustees, Institute for International Political and Economic Studies, December 8, 2003. “The Perils of Soft Power,” NEW YORK POST, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/750.

There are more recent examples of soft power producing disastrous results. Between 1980 and 1988, Germany and France used soft power to persuade the mullahs of Tehran to agree to a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war. The mullahs saw those efforts as a sign that a weak and divided West would do nothing to stop the hoped-for march of Khomeinist "volunteers for martyrdom" to Baghdad and thence to Jerusalem.

2. SOFT POWER SIGNALED WEAKNESS TO SADDAMAmir Taheri, Former Middle East Editor, London Sunday Times, Contributor, German Weekly Focus, and Member, Board of Trustees, Institute for International Political and Economic Studies, December 8, 2003. “The Perils of Soft Power,” NEW YORK POST, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/750.

He saw all this as a sign of weakness and was persuaded that, if he was being offered so much as a reward for aggression, there was no reason why he should not keep everything. Until his overthrow last April, Saddam continued to laugh t soft-power attempts at curbing his murderous excesses. The 18 United Nations resolutions that he ignored represented so many attempts at "soft powering" a situation that required hard power.

3. SOFT POWER FAILED TO DETER SADDAMAmir Taheri, Former Middle East Editor, London Sunday Times, Contributor, German Weekly Focus, and Member, Board of Trustees, Institute for International Political and Economic Studies, December 8, 2003. “The Perils of Soft Power,” NEW YORK POST, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/750.

The anti-war crowd forget that soft power was used on both Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan's Taliban. In 1990 when Saddam invaded and annexed Kuwait, he was offered a range of soft power goodies in exchange for withdrawal. One formula worked out by French President Francois Mitterrand and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev was to extend the Iraqi coastline on the Persian Gulf by 25 kilometers at the expense of Kuwait. Saddam was also to receive the Kuwaiti islands of Warbah and Bubiyan plus the entire Kuwaiti part of the Rumailah oilfields. Saddam refused.

4. SOFT POWER CONVINCED THE TALIBAN TO BELIEVE AMERICA WOULDN’T GO TO WARAmir Taheri, Former Middle East Editor, London Sunday Times, Contributor, German Weekly Focus, and Member, Board of Trustees, Institute for International Political and Economic Studies, December 8, 2003. “The Perils of Soft Power,” NEW YORK POST, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/750.

They were offered a range of inducements, including diplomatic recognition by the European Union and a massive package of aid. One of the only two Arab states that had recognized the Taliban even offered Mullah Omar and his cohorts a special sweetener in the form of $300 million in cash. Those efforts only confirmed the Taliban in their belief that the West would not have the stomach for a real war. "The fact that they are all begging at our door shows what cowards they are," said Taliban Information Minister Mullah Muttaqi in December 2001.


Soft Power Bad – Anti-Americanism Exaggerated

1. ANTI-AMERICANISM IS OFTEN EXAGGERATED AND DOESN’T MATCH WITH REALITYHelle C. Dalle, Interim Director, Institute for International Studies, and Director, Center for Foreign Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation, April 7, 2005. “Anti-Americanism and Responses to American Power,” HERITAGE FOUNDATION REPORTS, Accessed May 6, 2005, http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/hl870.cfm.

Thanks to the power and influence of the BBC and other influential European media, this intense dislike is often based on nothing that resembles reality. Those who read European papers regularly often find it hard to recognize the United States they know. French author Jean-Francois Revel has called this kind of anti-Americanism an "obsession." It is characterized by sweeping generalizations, stereotyping, prejudice, and general hostility.

2. ANTI-AMERICANISM IS VASTLY EXAGGERATEDDominic Hilton, Editor, OpenDemocracy.net, February 20, 2005. “It’s the Ideals, Stupid,” THE TORONTO STAR, p. D01.

I listened to his sad tale, then told him to quit worrying. While undeniably profuse these days, I said, anti-Americanism is not as alarming as many Americans are making out. Much of it is not serious. In fact, I qualified, most America -thumping is pathetically hypocritical, embarrassingly imbecilic, perilously ruinous and, worst of all, as derisorily fashionable as those ludicrous woolly boots everyone's sporting.

3. ANTI-AMERICANISM IS RHETORICAL AND NOT TARGETED AT REAL POLICYDominic Hilton, Editor, OpenDemocracy.net, February 20, 2005. “It’s the Ideals, Stupid,” THE TORONTO STAR, p. D01.

Quite right. It would be futile for America to respond in a soul-searching manner to the trash talk of its detractors. Why? Because most of the time, it's not America's fault the world so condemns it. It's not that America does everything right. If America makes a bonehead move - something it does as well as any of us - we should jeer and blow raspberries. But this is not what we do. The industry of anti-American sentiment is just that - an industry. It should not be mistaken for legitimate and considered concern. "I hate America " is the world's default position. Knocking America is a form of displacement.

4. ANTI-AMERICANISM IS A CULTURAL TREND NOT A POLITICAL RESPONSEDominic Hilton, Editor, OpenDemocracy.net, February 20, 2005. “It’s the Ideals, Stupid,” THE TORONTO STAR, p. D01.

In essence, what we are witnessing is a pseudo-rejection of the U.S.A. All this "I hate America as much as you hate America! " baloney is a cultural phenomenon, little to do with any meaningful or cultivated sense of politics. Across Europe, gigantic music stores stuffed to the gunwales with American pop, rock and urban do a sideline in hipster books. Virtually without exception these dazzling paperback digests are rabidly anti-American (Why do we hate America? ), anti-Bush/anti-American (The Bush-Hater's Handbook), anti-globalization/anti-American (American Dream, Global Nightmare), anti-American culture/anti-American (Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World).

5. AMERICA HAS STRONG SUPPORT IN EUROPE AND RESENTMENT IS EXAGGERATEDThe Economist, January 2, 2003. “Living With a Superpower,” THE ECONOMIST, Accessed May 6, 2005, http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1511812.

It is true that America's image has slipped a bit. The pro-American share of the population has fallen since 2000 by between four and 17 points in every west European country bar one (France, where opinion was least favourable to begin with). All the same, the reservoir of goodwill remains fairly deep and reports of sharply rising anti-Americanism in Europe seem to be exaggerated.


Soft Power Bad – Anti-Americanism Inevitable

1. CLINTON PROVES THAT THE UNITED STATES CANNOT REDUCE ANTI-AMERICANISMCharles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize Winning Columnist for the Washington Post and Recipient of the 2004 Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute, January 29, 2003. “A New Type of Realism”, IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST, Accessed August 8, 2004, http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol2Issue4/Vol2Issue4Krauthammer.html.

The United States made an extraordinary effort in the Gulf War to get UN support, share decision-making, assemble a coalition and, as we have seen, deny itself the fruits of victory in order to honor coalition goals. Did that diminish the anti-American feeling in the region? Did it garner support for subsequent Iraq policy dictated by the original acquiesce to the coalition? The attacks of September 11 were planned during the Clinton Administration, an administration that made a fetish of consultation and did its utmost to subordinate American hegemony and smother unipolarity. The resentments were hardly assuaged.

2. ANTI-AMERICANISM HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH US POLICY CHOICESFouad Ajami, Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Contributing Editor, U.S. News & World Report, September/October 2003. “The Falseness of Anti-Americanism,” FOREIGN POLICY, Accessed May 6, 2005, http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/fp/fp_sepoct03b.html.

The United States, in its hubris, summoned up this anti-Americanism. Those are the political usages of this new survey. But these sentiments have long prevailed in Jordan, Egypt, and France. During the 1990s, no one said good things about the United States in Egypt. It was then that the Islamist children of Egypt took to the road, to Hamburg and Kandahar, to hatch a horrific conspiracy against the United States. And it was in the 1990s, during the fabled stock market run, when the prophets of globalization preached the triumph of the U.S. economic model over the protected versions of the market in places such as France, when anti-Americanism became the uncontested ideology of French public life.

3. THREATS TO SOFT POWER ARE IRREVERSIBLEFouad Ajami, Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Contributing Editor, U.S. News & World Report, September/October 2003. “The Falseness of Anti-Americanism,” FOREIGN POLICY, Accessed May 6, 2005, http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/fp/fp_sepoct03b.html.

The United States need not worry about hearts and minds in foreign lands. If Germans wish to use anti-Americanism to absolve themselves and their parents of the great crimes of World War II, they will do it regardless of what the United States says and does. If Muslims truly believe that their long winter of decline is the fault of the United States, no campaign of public diplomacy shall deliver them from that incoherence. In the age of Pax Americana, it is written, fated, or maktoob (as the Arabs would say) that the plotters and preachers shall rail against the United States— in whole sentences of good American slang.

4. ANTI-AMERICANISM WON’T DISAPPEAR EVEN UNDER A DIFFERENT PRESIDENTCarrie Dieringer, Writer, The Daily Free Press, October 2, 2003. “Panel Says Anti-Americanism Probably Lasting Worldwide Problem,” THE DAILY FREE PRESS, Accessed May 6, 2005, http://www.dailyfreepress.com/global_user_elements/printpage.cfm?storyid=510964.

The panel agreed the current Bush administration could probably not end anti-Americanism, and, as a global issue, anti-Americanism will probably not disappear soon — if ever. “I argue that this is the way it is going to be — differing in intensity,” Kohut said. “Even with another administration, this is the way it’s going to be.”


Soft Power Bad – A2: Opposition

1. AMERICA’S SOFT POWER IS HIGH AND IRRELEVANT TO REAL OPPOSITION TO THE USStephen M. Walt, Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University, March 10, 2005. “Every American President Since Roosevelt Has Sought to Keep the United States in Power,” BOSTON REVIEW, p. np.

Nye defines " soft power " as "the power to attract," and the United States remains a very attractive society for others. As Khalil Shikaki notes in his own response, people around the world admire the American economy, its scientific and technological achievements, its popular culture, and even its core values. What they don't like is U.S. policy, and especially the ways that America's hard power is being used in certain regions. Soft power is neither the problem nor the answer; the real solution is to get the policy right.

2. MORAL LEGITIMACY DOES NOT AFFECT ROGUE STATES LIKE IRAN AND LIBYACharles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize Winning Columnist for the Washington Post and Recipient of the 2004 Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute, Spring 2004. “Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World”, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, Accessed May 5, 2004, http://www.aei.org/docLib/20040227_book755text.pdf.

Moral suasion? Was it moral suasion that made Qaddafi see the wisdom of giving up his weapons of mass destruction? Or Iran agree for the first time to spot nuclear inspections? It was the suasion of the bayonet. It was the ignominious fall of Saddam--and the desire of interested spectators not to be next on the list. The whole point of this treaty was to keep rogue states from developing chemical weapons. Rogue states are, by definition, impervious to moral suasion.

3. SOFT POWER DOES NOT REDUCE OPPOSITION TO THE UNITED STATESNiall Ferguson, Professor of History, New York University, January/February 2003. “Power,” FOREIGN POLICY, p. 21.

But the trouble with soft power is that it’s, well, soft. All over the Islamic world kids enjoy (or would like to enjoy) bottles of Coke, Big Macs, CDs by Britney Spears and DVDs starring Tom Cruise. Do any of these things make them love the United States more? Strangely not.

4. THE UNITED STATES WILL INEVITABLY BE FORCED TO GO-IT-ALONEThomas Donnelly, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, July 1, 2004. “Unrealistic Realism”, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, Accessed August 8, 2004, http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.20875,filter.foreign/pub_detail.asp.

But in the end, there is no escaping the fact that America--as the "indispensable nation," in Madeleine Albright's memorable phrase--will carry the ultimate burden of victory or defeat in these struggles (a fact that Senator Kerry tacitly acknowledges when he chides the Bush administration for not doing more in Afghanistan). The "realism" that preaches otherwise has less to do with any pragmatic attempt to understand what our allies can and cannot offer, and more to do with an outdated, but firmly entrenched, ideology that puts the great powers of Europe at the strategic center of global affairs.

5. EVEN WHEN AMERICA ADHERES TO SOFT POWER NORMS, OTHERS DON’T COOPERATEKarl Zinsmeister, Editor-in-chief, American Enterprise Institute, October 28, 2003. “It’s Time for New Allies”, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, Accessed August 8, 2004, http://www.aei.org/news/filter.foreign,newsID.19359/news_detail.asp.

These latest U.S. efforts to lift Iraq back into the family of decent nations with badly needed rebuilding funds were conducted in the most gentle "multilateral" fashion. All the things the French and Germans are always lecturing America to do--rely more on diplomacy, share more aid, take less independent action--were carried out. So how was this received by our professed allies in the other rich countries? In far too many cases, with a curt "good luck" and turned backs.


Soft Power Bad – A2: Cooperation

1. EUROPE AND TERRORISM PROVE AMERICA WILL SECURE COOPERATIONJonathan Stevenson, Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism, International Institute for Strategic Studies, March/April 2003. “How Europe and America Defend Themselves,” FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Ebscohost, Accessed May 6, 2005.

True, Europeans and Americans have recently clashed over particular strategic matters, such as the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, regime change in Iraq, perceived American unilateralism, and various social policies. No doubt they will continue to do so in the months to come. But these broader discrepancies between European and American approaches, profound as they may be, are unlikely to damage day-to-day, nonmilitary counterterrorism cooperation. Indeed, transatlantic coordination in the pursuit and apprehension of those who threaten the United States does not seem to have diminished, and differences in threat perceptions actually appear to be narrowing.

2. OTHER STATES ACCEPT AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISMDavid M. Malone, President, International Peace Academy, and Yuen Foong Khong, University Lecturer in American Foreign Policy, Nuffield College, Oxford, 2003. UNILATERALISM AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, p. 13-14.

Thus, when the United States partakes actively in multilateral activities—in the negotiations over the ICC and climate change, for example—but then rejects outcomes that may cramp its sovereign style or are inimical to its economic interests, it can get away with this kind of unilateral behavior. Although the power equation explains this in part, U.S. interlocutors have also become used to the pleadings of successive U.S. administrations that their constitutions situation (specifically, the strength of Congress in policy formulation) makes it a special case. They may be irritated by U.S. exceptionalism, but they tolerate it on many issues.

3. EUROPE IS INCREASINGLY ACCEPTING OF AMERICA’S LACK OF SOFT POWERPeter Brookes, Senior Fellow, The Heritage Foundation, March 7, 2005. “Truths of Power,” NEW YORK POST, Accessed May 7, 2005, http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/40743.htm.

And, fortunately, the intellectual chasm between U.S. and European views may actually be closing. The narrowing of the divide isn't due to the recent diplomatic charm offensives by both sides, though they certainly didn't hurt. But what's really making a big difference in mending U.S.-European ties are a number of far more dramatic events: Lebanon's Cedar Revolution; Elections in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Saudi Arabia; talk of political openings in Egypt; Syrian promises to withdraw from Lebanon, and Iranian nuclear negotiations. It's starting to dawn on European "soft power" advocates that military "hard power" isn't passé after all. Even France's newspaper, Le Figaro, has now asked the once-unthinkable question about Iraq: "What if Bush was right?"

4. THE SOFT POWER DISTINCTION IGNORES THE MODERN AMERICAN MILITARYJames Traub, Contributing Writer, The New York Times Magazine, January 30, 2005. “The New Hard-Soft Power,” THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, p. 28.

The problem with the hard-soft dichotomy itself is that it fails to take account of the soft-power potential of military helicopters and aircraft carriers. We live in an era not only of globalized information but also of the nearly $450 billion defense budget. The United States military is now an instrument of absolutely everything -- warfare, diplomacy, social policy, humanitarianism. It just depends how we deploy it. The critical attributes that make the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln an instrument of persuasion rather than of coercion are, first, that it is being put to nonlethal use and, second and no less important, that it is advancing humanitarian ends -- that it is not directly serving American self-interest.


Soft Power Bad – A2: Balancing

1. OPPOSITION TO AMERICA IS SIMPLE DIPLOMATIC FRICTIONGerard Alexander, Associate Professor of Politics, University of Virginia, November 3, 2003. “An Unbalanced Critique of Bush: What the International Relations Experts Get Wrong”, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, p. np.

The problem with the recent criticisms is that the combination of unfavorable polls and diplomatic maneuvering falls well short of these standards. A number of critics appear to recognize this, since they describe what they now see as "soft" balancing, or "surreptitious" balancing, or "neo-" or "proto-" or "pre-" balancing behavior, instead of balancing plain and simple, or what you might call balancing without adjectives. But it is not clear that "soft balancing" is distinguishable from garden variety diplomatic friction.

2. SOFT BALANCING IS NOT A REAL THREAT TO AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICYMax Boot, Contributing Editor to the Weekly Standard and Olin Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, May 5, 2003. “What Next? The Foreign Policy Agenda beyond Iraq?”, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, p. np.

Having seen that the world is not ganging up on America, some political scientists posit that "soft" balancing is going on instead. By this they mean that other nations seek to use their diplomatic, cultural, and economic influence to contain U.S. power. There is some evidence of this phenomenon--witness the recent debate over Iraq at the United Nations, where France, Germany, Russia, and China combined against us. The limits of this strategy were also revealed at the U.N. All those states blocked an eighteenth resolution on Iraq--and Britain and America acted anyway. "Soft power" is an interesting concept for academic discussion; it is not a serious threat to American security.

3. RECENT EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST PROVE SOFT POWER IS IRRELEVANTVictor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow and Historian, Hoover Institution, March 25, 2005. “As Democracy Spreads, The Noose Tightens,” CHICAGO TRIBUNE, p. C21.

We have weathered everything from Michael Moore to Abu Ghraib, and come out on the other end to hear former Arab terrorists and left-wing British and German newspapers now suddenly asking, "Was George Bush right?" The wily Europeans tended to ignore or profit from Arab tyranny. But not now. Even they are scrambling to make sure that their vaunted " soft power " is not made irrelevant by this new type of American idealism backed by force.

4. SOFT BALANCING IS A MINOR CONCERN IN THE LARGER PICTUREMax Boot, Contributing Editor to the Weekly Standard and Olin Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, April 6, 2003. “Is the World Pushing Back?”, THE BOSTON GLOBE, Accessed May 6, 2005, http://www.boston.com/news/packages/iraq/globe_stories/040603_world_responses.htm.

Robert Pape is probably right that US predominance leads to some "soft balancing" against us, but so what? The consequences that he cites-European obstructionism at the UN, or buying oil with euros-are not very frightening. Certainly less frightening that the prospect of a world full of terrorists and rogue regimes armed with weapons of mass destruction. It is this fear that has led to military action in Iraq. And if Operation Iraqi Freedom can end Saddam Hussein's threat and deter imitators, it will have been worth it, even at the expense of increased friction with a few fair-weather friends.

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Soft Power Good- Distinct From Hard Power€¦ · Web viewSoft Power Good/Bad. Soft Power Good/Bad1. Soft Power Good – Great Power Conflicts2. Soft Power Good – Global Threats3