Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. That can be accomplished by coercion (“sticks”), payment (“carrots”), and attraction (“honey”). The first two methods are forms of hard power, whereas attraction is soft power. Soft power grows out of a country’s culture, its political values, and its foreign policies. In the short term, hard power usually trumps soft power. But over the long term, soft power often prevails. ...When you are attractive, you can economize on carrots and sticks. If allies see you as benign and trustworthy, they are more likely to be open to persuasion and follow your lead. ...But once trust is lost, it is not easily restored. By Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
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Results for Joseph S. Nye
Thursday 7 December 2017
Beijing, China
The US has talked itself into Kim Jong-un’s trap of exaggerating how much power his rocketry gives him. If the US could deter a much stronger Soviet Union from taking an isolated West Berlin for three decades, it can deter North Korea. - Joseph S. Nye.
Thursday 13 April 2017
Cambridge-MA, USA
I frequently travel overseas, and invariably my foreign friends ask, with varying degrees of bewilderment: What in the world is going on in your country? Here is what I say. By Joseph S. Nye.
