Joseph Nye’s article, “The Rise and Fall of American Hegemony from Wilson to Trump,” calls attention to the decline of Pax America and the unipolar world order led by the U.S. since the end of the Cold War.
While the U.S. and allied partners grapple with shifts in the global power balance, the world economy and strategic interests among nation-states have become increasingly interdependent, perhaps more than any point in our collective history. This warrants thinking on the various types of power used by regimes to influence geopolitical outcomes. In conventional terms, hard-power is the use of military force: mobilized boots on the ground and airborne B-52s. Conversely, the use of non-military means to win geopolitical objectives is defined by Nye as soft-power, which is not a euphemism for weakness or ineptitude. In fact, the profound success of Wilsonian Interventionism, the rules-based world order that immerged as a result, and strategies of game-theory, which aided the U.S. victory in the Cold War, are prime examples of effective soft-power.
Soft-power does not have a moral prerequisite; it’s neither good nor bad. The application of soft-power is what counts. Still, soft-power, as a tool of statecraft, is a mechanism in support of international democratic institutions.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the term sharp-power, first defined by Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig, describes authoritarian regimes, such as China and Russia. It’s my understanding that sharp-power is inherently bad, as it strives towards illiberal ends and undermines democratic institutions. The Russian sponsored interference of the U.S. presidential election in 2016, or Chinese censorship demands of the NBA and Hollywood film production studios are examples of sharp-power.
Increasingly, it seems, free and open societies are exploited by illiberal, authoritarian regimes, who aim to reconstitute the rules-based world order to serve their ambition. In a Foreign Affairs article, Nye further describes the features of sharp-power and the difficulty in responding to it.
The bygone era of Wilsonian Interventionism offers a rich historical context to think through the complexities of the modern world. In addressing current challenges with China, President Trump’s zero-sum approach to leadership, which Nye describes as Hobbesian realism, is easy to dismiss as unproductive. Indeed, he has strained relations with prominent international institutions and allies. However, Trump’s response to Chinese sharp-power might demonstrate the most substantive results compared to past administrations and other world powers, considering how far China has gamed the international system since joining the WTO in 2001.
Thanks for this interesting blog post, Riley. It seems clear at this point that the Trump administration has largely squandered much of the “soft power” advantage that the US has enjoyed, at least if international polls are to be believed. Countries and peoples are rejecting the US unilateral approach and the cultural norms that are associated with the United States.
At the same time, the notion of “sharp power” appears at least as odious, especially if you factor in the attempt to misuse social media and insert falsified news and stir up trouble in the US and other western countries. This is an interesting challenge that will have to be dealth with in the coming years.
–Professor Wallerstein