As the tide of American empire recedes, the Golden Arches remain in place.
As the tide of American empire recedes, the Golden Arches remain in place.
Washington has been reluctant to reevaluate “soft power” when it seems so obviously a fig leaf for the assertion of military dominance. But perhaps by looking at the palpable failures of Chinese efforts in Asia, U.S. policymakers could learn some lessons about strategy. Other countries in Asia that aspire to cultivate both hard power and soft power – Japan, South Korea – should also take note: you rarely can have it both ways.
Richard Armitage is at it again. George W. Bush’s deputy secretary of state has made a career of telling Japan what to do. When then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had second thoughts about joining the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq, Armitage told an official, “Don’t try to back off.” Earlier, he had advised Japan (in Gavan McCormack’s paraphrase) to “pull its head out of the sand and make sure the Rising Sun flag was visible in the Afghanistan war.”
In his new book The Future of Power, co-founder of neo-liberalism theory Joseph S. Nye outlines a synthesis of his more than two decades of scholarship on the future of world power politics.