Rating: 
Summary: Dumbed Down, Inexplicit, Good for the General Reader
Review:
If you don't read a lot, and especially if you did not read the author's two extraordinary works on "Understanding International Relations" and "The Paradox of American Power,", this is the book for you. This is a dumbed down inexplicit version of his more carefully documented ideas from the earlier books, and especially the second one.
I do want to emphasize that this book is worth reading if you only have time for one book (or you could read all my reviews instead--they are free), because I am going to be severely critical of the book in a professional sense. First, this book does not focus at all on the most important soft power of all, that of a strategic culture. Others have documented how North Vietnam whipped the United States, not with firepower, but with political will deeply rooted in a strategic culture that was superior to that of the United States of America. Second, despite the author's earlier service as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, the book gives cursory attention to intelligence reform, and does not mention, at all, open source intelligence (disclosure: my pet rock). It is especially weak in failing to point out that the Department of State's one chance to be effective within US politics and the US policy arena lies with its potential dominance of legally and ethically available information in 29+ languages. The Department of State has chosen to be ineffective and ignorant in this area of collecting, translating, and interpreting to the American public all that we need to know about the real world, and if and when Colin Powell goes to the World Bank, which has transformed itself into a knowledge organization (see Stephen Denning, World Bank KM manager before he became world-famous story-teller, "The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations", he is going to rue the day he failed to kick off a $125M budget for OSINT under State control. Third, the book lacks substance in the sense of effective examples. A simple illustration: $100M can buy a Navy ship of war or an Army brigade with tanks and artillery (two forms of hard power) or it can buy 1,000 diplomats or 10,000 Peace Corps volunteers or a water desalination plant capable of distilling 100M cubic meters of fresh water a year (three forms of soft power), or it can buy one day of war over water (the typical failure cost of hard power). The book has exactly one paragraph on corporate misbehavior, which as William Greider has documented in "The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy", is the most evil and destructive form of "soft power." This is a severe oversight. The book neglects foreign aid in a strategic context, and shows no appreciation for open spectrum, open source software, and open source intelligence, the triad of the new global open society. There is no hint of how a Digital Marshall Plan might be the most powerful "soft power" device every conceived. The book neglects non-governmental organizations, with no mention of the organizations that are giving soft power a whole new dimension today (the European Centre for Conflict Prevention or ECCP, for example) and the book makes no mention of the "good" side of religious activism, the soft power so ably articulated by Dr. Doug Johnson in his two seminal works on faith-based diplomacy and religion as the missing dimension in statecraft. Finally, while the book makes useful reference to some Pew polls on global attitudes, they struck me more as space fillers than core reference material--four pages where one would do--and do not reflect the more valued-based and multi-dimensional near-real-time direct citizen surveying such as characterizes the next generation of surveying instruments (e.g. Zarca Interactive, whose DC area chief describes it as a tool for real time democracy). This leads to my last comment: this book, perhaps deliberately so, but I suspect not, is out of touch with mainstream scholarship such as the last 50 books I have reviewed for Amazon. It is one massive "Op-Ed", and its sources are virtually all "Op-Eds" (a number of them not written by the purported authors), with the result that this book gets an A for a good idea and a C-, at best, for scholarship. One simple example: the sum total of the author's references on "virtual communities", one of the most important ideas of this century, is one Op-Ed from the Baltimore Sun. There is no mention of the book by the same title written by Howard Rheingold, arguably the most talented chronicler in America if not the world of how this non-state communitas is changing the world. Joe Nye has my vote as the new voice of reason within the Democratic circles, but he needs to be balanced by the Jonathan Schell, William Greider, Herman Daly, Paul Ray, and other European and Asian scholars. The world has gotten too complicated to be addressed by Op-Eds out of Harvard. It is time we got serious about harnessing the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth, and we can start right here at Amazon, where most of the books not cited by this book have been reviewed by many people whose views, in the aggregate, are vastly more informed than the views of either the White House or its intelligence purveyors.
Rating:
Summary: Dumbed Down, Inexplicit, Good for the General Reader
Review:
If you don't read a lot, and especially if you did not read the author's two extraordinary works on "Understanding International Relations" and "The Paradox of American Power,", this is the book for you. This is a dumbed down inexplicit version of his more carefully documented ideas from the earlier books, and especially the second one.
I do want to emphasize that this book is worth reading if you only have time for one book (or you could read all my reviews instead--they are free), because I am going to be severely critical of the book in a professional sense. First, this book does not focus at all on the most important soft power of all, that of a strategic culture. Others have documented how North Vietnam whipped the United States, not with firepower, but with political will deeply rooted in a strategic culture that was superior to that of the United States of America. Second, despite the author's earlier service as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, the book gives cursory attention to intelligence reform, and does not mention, at all, open source intelligence (disclosure: my pet rock). It is especially weak in failing to point out that the Department of State's one chance to be effective within US politics and the US policy arena lies with its potential dominance of legally and ethically available information in 29+ languages. The Department of State has chosen to be ineffective and ignorant in this area of collecting, translating, and interpreting to the American public all that we need to know about the real world, and if and when Colin Powell goes to the World Bank, which has transformed itself into a knowledge organization (see Stephen Denning, World Bank KM manager before he became world-famous story-teller, "The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations", he is going to rue the day he failed to kick off a $125M budget for OSINT under State control. Third, the book lacks substance in the sense of effective examples. A simple illustration: $100M can buy a Navy ship of war or an Army brigade with tanks and artillery (two forms of hard power) or it can buy 1,000 diplomats or 10,000 Peace Corps volunteers or a water desalination plant capable of distilling 100M cubic meters of fresh water a year (three forms of soft power), or it can buy one day of war over water (the typical failure cost of hard power). The book has exactly one paragraph on corporate misbehavior, which as William Greider has documented in "The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy", is the most evil and destructive form of "soft power." This is a severe oversight. The book neglects foreign aid in a strategic context, and shows no appreciation for open spectrum, open source software, and open source intelligence, the triad of the new global open society. There is no hint of how a Digital Marshall Plan might be the most powerful "soft power" device every conceived. The book neglects non-governmental organizations, with no mention of the organizations that are giving soft power a whole new dimension today (the European Centre for Conflict Prevention or ECCP, for example) and the book makes no mention of the "good" side of religious activism, the soft power so ably articulated by Dr. Doug Johnson in his two seminal works on faith-based diplomacy and religion as the missing dimension in statecraft. Finally, while the book makes useful reference to some Pew polls on global attitudes, they struck me more as space fillers than core reference material--four pages where one would do--and do not reflect the more valued-based and multi-dimensional near-real-time direct citizen surveying such as characterizes the next generation of surveying instruments (e.g. Zarca Interactive, whose DC area chief describes it as a tool for real time democracy). This leads to my last comment: this book, perhaps deliberately so, but I suspect not, is out of touch with mainstream scholarship such as the last 50 books I have reviewed for Amazon. It is one massive "Op-Ed", and its sources are virtually all "Op-Eds" (a number of them not written by the purported authors), with the result that this book gets an A for a good idea and a C-, at best, for scholarship. One simple example: the sum total of the author's references on "virtual communities", one of the most important ideas of this century, is one Op-Ed from the Baltimore Sun. There is no mention of the book by the same title written by Howard Rheingold, arguably the most talented chronicler in America if not the world of how this non-state communitas is changing the world. Joe Nye has my vote as the new voice of reason within the Democratic circles, but he needs to be balanced by the Jonathan Schell, William Greider, Herman Daly, Paul Ray, and other European and Asian scholars. The world has gotten too complicated to be addressed by Op-Eds out of Harvard. It is time we got serious about harnessing the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth, and we can start right here at Amazon, where most of the books not cited by this book have been reviewed by many people whose views, in the aggregate, are vastly more informed than the views of either the White House or its intelligence purveyors.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Introduction
Review: In essence, this book presents an introduction to, if not a popularization of, a system of principles of international relations that Nye and others have been espousing since the early 1990's. As such, it is a good introduction to those principles. However, like all popularizations, it can be misinterpreted, which is the case with a previous review. Nye's approach is not merely diplomacy, although diplomacy may play a part in it (just as diplomacy may play a part in 'hard power'). So to say, as a previous reviewer did, that diplomacy might not "work" misses the point of Nye's thesis. In all cases "power" is the projection of a particular viewpoint. It is the means of that projection that Nye wants us to consider. Nye argues here for a balance between 'soft' methods, such as using multilateralism, cultural connections, economic persuasion through prosperity, etc., and the 'hard' methods of direct military and economic action. Nye presents a case that this sort of balance is more effective in producing long-term willing partners than are unilateralist 'hard' methods alone - which he asserts tend to coerce a begrudging short-term obedience rather than alter the will of the target. Whether you agree or disagree that this is a formula for success, there is no doubt that as an approach it is different from the current adminstration, which has been notably unsuccessful in its projection of American power. In addition to presenting a simplified version of these principles, this book also contains specific criticisms of the approach of the current administration, as well as an implicit criticism of the whole 'neo-conservative' agenda. This is probably the reason for the appearance of the book at this time. As I mentioned, "Soft Power" presents in some respects a simplification of a more nuanced system of international relations. Nye's system is presented by him in more detail in his previous book, "The Paradox of American Power", which I strongly recommend to anyone who wants to go into greater depth on this subject.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Introduction
Review: In essence, this book presents an introduction to, if not a popularization of, a system of principles of international relations that Nye and others have been espousing since the early 1990's. As such, it is a good introduction to those principles. However, like all popularizations, it can be misinterpreted, which is the case with a previous review. Nye's approach is not merely diplomacy, although diplomacy may play a part in it (just as diplomacy may play a part in 'hard power'). So to say, as a previous reviewer did, that diplomacy might not "work" misses the point of Nye's thesis. In all cases "power" is the projection of a particular viewpoint. It is the means of that projection that Nye wants us to consider. Nye argues here for a balance between 'soft' methods, such as using multilateralism, cultural connections, economic persuasion through prosperity, etc., and the 'hard' methods of direct military and economic action. Nye presents a case that this sort of balance is more effective in producing long-term willing partners than are unilateralist 'hard' methods alone - which he asserts tend to coerce a begrudging short-term obedience rather than alter the will of the target. Whether you agree or disagree that this is a formula for success, there is no doubt that as an approach it is different from the current adminstration, which has been notably unsuccessful in its projection of American power. In addition to presenting a simplified version of these principles, this book also contains specific criticisms of the approach of the current administration, as well as an implicit criticism of the whole 'neo-conservative' agenda. This is probably the reason for the appearance of the book at this time. As I mentioned, "Soft Power" presents in some respects a simplification of a more nuanced system of international relations. Nye's system is presented by him in more detail in his previous book, "The Paradox of American Power", which I strongly recommend to anyone who wants to go into greater depth on this subject.
Rating:
Summary: A thougtful, much-needed perspective on power
Review: It was Mao Zedong who said, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." I doubt that President Bush and the neoconservatives around him would admit that that's where their view of America's role in the world comes from, but that's certainly the direction in which they have taken us.
Joseph Nye, Dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, believes that hard power, the kind of coercion that comes from wielding guns and economic leverage, is only half the story. He argues that soft power, the ability to attract others and persuade them of the validity and desirability of our values and way of life is equally important, in fact vital to the interests of the United States at this point in time. That's the point he systematically develops and demonstrates in this short book.
I found the book balanced, clear and convincing. If anything, I felt it was overly diplomatic and balanced--just the kind of nuanced thinking that hawks love to bash. I can just hear the neocons chortling about the very idea of soft power.
At the very end of the book, Nye writes, "In short, America's success will depend upon our developing a better balance of hard and soft power in our foreign policy. That will be smart power. We have done it before; we can do it again."
Now smart power, mayble that's an idea the neocons can get behind.
Robert Adler, author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation; and Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates to the Human Genome
Rating: 
Summary: Unrealistic premise...
Review: Joseph Nye keeps repeating himself: multilateralism by global American charm attack. That is simply a stupid assumption. And it is untrue of American history in foreign relations. Nye still owes some answers to European scholars of International Relations who criticized his idea. In fact that is no personal multilateral approach...
Rating:
Summary: Needs Commentary on Status Quo Preservation and Rejection
Review: Soft Power, by Joseph Nye, Jr., is an interesting publication that blends together contemporary events and brief American history lessons to support his theme that America's success in its war on terrorism must rely on properly balancing two types of power. The first is hard power, which Mr. Nye identifies as a state's ability to use economic or military might to force other nations to comply with particular sanctions or directives. Mr. Nye declares that many in our government have mistaken this power as the only wielding influence that can be used to attain victory during times of war and that the other type of power is often ignored or never acknowledged. This second type of power, whose identification has been introduced and coined by Mr. Nye, is soft power. Soft power, which "arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies" is the ability of that country to persuade other nations to share its objectives or desired outcomes. At the introduction, Mr. Nye acknowledges that hard power, through force, can be used to conquer one state or, at most, a few states in the name of fighting terrorism. However, he asserts that it, alone, cannot create an international cooperation of governments to hunt down every person who serves as a threat to world peace. This latter objective, Mr. Nye proclaims, can be met by merging the coercive presence of hard power with the persuasive influences of soft power and that this combination is an effective approach to forming a coalition of nations. To draw a bold line of distinction between hard power, by itself, and the union of hard and soft power, Joseph Nye quotes Newt Gingrich, who comments that the measuring rod of success is not how many enemies are killed but, instead, how many allies are gathered. Throughout the book, Nye reinforces that the overarching goal for America to effectively enact and establish its policies is to make the ideals of the United States as attractive as possible to the rest of the world. Though this extraordinary aim might be hailed as unrealistic, at worst, or as idealistic and Jeffersonian, at best, Nye contends, notwithstanding, that this intention is being panned because opponents misread it as appearing too soft. He subsequently reaffirms that the spread of any ideal is not often dependent upon hard or soft power, exclusively, but the proper melding of the two. To support why soft power is so important, Nye states that it can be used in capacities that hard power cannot and identifies tools in which it can be put into effect. For example, broadcast capabilities and the internet can enhance communication strategies to spread democratic sentiments to other parts of the world. Also, soft power can be an aid in establishing peaceful relations among countries; for instance, programs established to send civilians such as doctors, teachers, and entertainers abroad to provide the types of services that other nations are seeking are powerful, positive overtures for democracy. Intermittently, Nye states that the effective use of hard and soft power will come to fruition if the goals are properly stated. He cites instances of key shortcomings, the most recent of which pertains to the War in Iraq. Though the United States is criticized from an international perspective for going into war without U.N. consent, Nye states that on the domestic front, there was no solidarity on why the U.S. troops had to engage in combat. He blames this lack of cohesion on the Bush team, who used a wide variety of themes that appealed to so many different groups to the degree that no unifying consensus was ever reached. Not only does Nye criticize the Bush White House for not properly enforcing hard and soft power, he also places a notable burden of responsibility on the Clinton administration. Nye highlights that a critical mistake that weakened U.S. soft power was the decision of Clinton and Congress to cut budgets and staff for cultural diplomacy and exchanges by almost thirty percent after 1993. How might this be regarded as weakening? Nye points out that knowledge is power and by failing to maintain closer lines of communication with the states concerned, we reduce our ability to select relevant themes and modify our short-term and long-term goals so as to establish and maintain stable relations. Soft Power, overall, is a very interesting read that cites themes that argue how our U.S. government needs to invest more of its budget in the State Department in order to exercise not just hard or soft power, but smart power. For those interested in other types of power mentioned in war and politics that are synonymous with, if not identical to, hard power and soft power, another interesting book about power is Steven Brams' Theory of Moves. Brams does not use the words hard power and soft power; instead, he applies the terms threat power and moving power, both of which run on a respective, game theory parallel to the aforementioned.
Rating:
Summary: Needs Commentary on Status Quo Preservation and Rejection
Review: Soft Power, by Joseph Nye, Jr., is an interesting publication that blends together contemporary events and brief American history lessons to support his theme that America?s success in its war on terrorism must rely on properly balancing two types of power. The first is hard power, which Mr. Nye identifies as a state?s ability to use economic or military might to force other nations to comply with particular sanctions or directives. Mr. Nye declares that many in our government have mistaken this power as the only wielding influence that can be used to attain victory during times of war and that the other type of power is often ignored or never acknowledged. This second type of power, whose identification has been introduced and coined by Mr. Nye, is soft power. Soft power, which ?arises from the attractiveness of a country?s culture, political ideals, and policies? is the ability of that country to persuade other nations to share its objectives or desired outcomes. At the introduction, Mr. Nye acknowledges that hard power, through force, can be used to conquer one state or, at most, a few states in the name of fighting terrorism. However, he asserts that it, alone, cannot create an international cooperation of governments to hunt down every person who serves as a threat to world peace. This latter objective, Mr. Nye proclaims, can be met by merging the coercive presence of hard power with the persuasive influences of soft power and that this combination is an effective approach to forming a coalition of nations. To draw a bold line of distinction between hard power, by itself, and the union of hard and soft power, Joseph Nye quotes Newt Gingrich, who comments that the measuring rod of success is not how many enemies are killed but, instead, how many allies are gathered. Throughout the book, Nye reinforces that the overarching goal for America to effectively enact and establish its policies is to make the ideals of the United States as attractive as possible to the rest of the world. Though this extraordinary aim might be hailed as unrealistic, at worst, or as idealistic and Jeffersonian, at best, Nye contends, notwithstanding, that this intention is being panned because opponents misread it as appearing too soft. He subsequently reaffirms that the spread of any ideal is not often dependent upon hard or soft power, exclusively, but the proper melding of the two. To support why soft power is so important, Nye states that it can be used in capacities that hard power cannot and identifies tools in which it can be put into effect. For example, broadcast capabilities and the internet can enhance communication strategies to spread democratic sentiments to other parts of the world. Also, soft power can be an aid in establishing peaceful relations among countries; for instance, programs established to send civilians such as doctors, teachers, and entertainers abroad to provide the types of services that other nations are seeking are powerful, positive overtures for democracy. Intermittently, Nye states that the effective use of hard and soft power will come to fruition if the goals are properly stated. He cites instances of key shortcomings, the most recent of which pertains to the War in Iraq. Though the United States is criticized from an international perspective for going into war without U.N. consent, Nye states that on the domestic front, there was no solidarity on why the U.S. troops had to engage in combat. He blames this lack of cohesion on the Bush team, who used a wide variety of themes that appealed to so many different groups to the degree that no unifying consensus was ever reached. Not only does Nye criticize the Bush White House for not properly enforcing hard and soft power, he also places a notable burden of responsibility on the Clinton administration. Nye highlights that a critical mistake that weakened U.S. soft power was the decision of Clinton and Congress to cut budgets and staff for cultural diplomacy and exchanges by almost thirty percent after 1993. How might this be regarded as weakening? Nye points out that knowledge is power and by failing to maintain closer lines of communication with the states concerned, we reduce our ability to select relevant themes and modify our short-term and long-term goals so as to establish and maintain stable relations. Soft Power, overall, is a very interesting read that cites themes that argue how our U.S. government needs to invest more of its budget in the State Department in order to exercise not just hard or soft power, but smart power. For those interested in other types of power mentioned in war and politics that are synonymous with, if not identical to, hard power and soft power, another interesting book about power is Steven Brams? Theory of Moves. Brams does not use the words hard power and soft power; instead, he applies the terms threat power and moving power, both of which run on a respective, game theory parallel to the aforementioned.
Rating: 
Summary: Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics
Review: This is an indispensable book for anyone wondering what sort of changes to expect in U.S. foreign policy should the Democrats retake the White House later this year. Nye (The Paradox of American Power, etc.), now dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, was an assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration and is certain to be a key player in a new Democratic administration. In fact, this book could all but guarantee it. Nye's careful analysis of the shortcomings of unilateralism and reliance solely on military power in confronting the threat posed by Islamic extremists is strong, all the more so because it is virtually devoid of partisanship. He gives credit to President Bush and his neoconservative advisers in their projection of "hard" military and economic power. But he shows how what he casts as their blindness to the significance of "soft" power seriously undermines hard power. Soft power-"the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion"-is cultivated through relations with allies, economic assistance and cultural exchanges with other countries, projecting a sense that U.S. behavior corresponds with rhetorical support for democracy and human rights and, more generally, maintaining favorable public opinion and credibility abroad. The go-it-alone approach, Nye argues, has led to an unprecedented drop in support for the U.S. abroad, which leaves us scrambling to rebuild Iraq almost singlehandedly, overstretching ourselves militarily and economically. It also hampers efforts to secure the voluntary cooperation of foreign governments essential to dismantling terrorist cells spread throughout the globe. The answer, Nye says, lies in a return to the mix of soft and hard power that cemented the Western alliance and won the Cold War.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: This is an interesting book. Its premise is that "soft power" aka diplomacy is a better alternative to "hard power" aka military force. It presents the case for diplomacy over military intervention very well. One wonders though if Nye's prescription for diplomacy over militarism really fits all situations.
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