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Shashi Tharoor Why nations should pursue soft power

Doesn't tell you much about military power, doesn't tell you very much about soft power.

The Beijing Olympics were an exercise in Chinese soft power.

In order to have soft power, you have to be connected.

In short, Japan s popular culture was still producing potential soft power resources even after its economy slowed down. Now, with signs of a reviving economy, Japan s soft power may increase even more.

In an information age, smart policy combines hard and soft power. Given what the US is, the Obama administration cannot afford to neglect the soft power narrative of democracy, liberty, and openness.

But power, defined as the ability to influence others, comes in many guises, and soft power is not weakness. On the contrary, it is the failure to use soft power effectively that weakens America in the struggle against terrorism.

But is soft power enough for one of the world s major emerging countries?

Without the soft power that produces attraction and loyalty to the leader s goals, entrepreneurs run off in all directions and dissipate a group s energies. With soft power, however, the energy of empowered followers strengthens leaders.

The bad news is that he still does not understand soft power the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion. As The Economist commented about Rumsfeld s speech, until recently he plainly regarded such a focus on soft power as, well, soft part of Old Europe s appeasement of terrorism.

And that soft power has been much neglected and much misunderstood, and yet it's tremendously important.

Soft power is a concept invented by a Harvard academic, Joseph Nye, a friend of mine.

So soft power is something that really emerges partly because of governments, but partly despite governments.

Only hard power can deal with them. But soft power will play a crucial role in attracting moderates and denying the extremists new recruits.

During President George W. Bush s first term, Secretary of State Colin Powell understood and referred to soft power, whereas Rumsfeld, when asked about soft power in 2003, replied I don t know what it means. A high price was paid for that ignorance.

If America is to win that war, its leaders are going to have to do better at combining soft and hard power into smart power.

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During the Cold War, the West used hard power to deter Soviet aggression, while it used soft power to erode faith in Communism behind the iron curtain. That was smart power.

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What Reset Button?

Indeed, if you can learn to use more soft power, you can save a lot on carrots and sticks.

But unless you learn how to mix hard power with soft power into strategies that I call smart power, you're not going to deal with the new kinds of problems that we're facing.

As its hard power ebbs, its soft power, as illustrated by the Copenhagen summit, seems to be very weak. This in part arises from a failure to provide the EU with political power.

I would like break the walls of ignorance between East and West no, not the soft option that we have discussed before, but rather the soft power that Joseph Nye has spoken about before.

A key lesson of 9 11 is that hard military power is essential in countering terrorism by the likes of Bin Laden, but that the soft power of ideas and legitimacy is essential for winning the hearts and minds of the mainstream Muslim populations from whom Al Qaeda would like to recruit. A smart power strategy does not ignore the tools of soft power.

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Power involves setting agendas and creating others preferences as well as pushing and shoving. That is why Obama s administration speaks of smart power that successfully combines hard and soft power resources in different contexts.

Putin is now making the same mistake as his Soviet forebears. Despite his 2013 declaration that Russia should be focusing on the literate use of soft power, he failed to capitalize on the soft power boost afforded to Russia by hosting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

That's soft power. And that is what India is developing through the E part of TED its own entertainment industry.

In addition to generating good will and promoting the country s image abroad, non governmental sources of soft power can sometimes compensate for the government s unpopular policies like the US invasion of Iraq through their critical and uncensored reaction. China, by contrast, has watched its government policies undermine its soft power successes.

The problem for Russia is that it already has very little soft power with which to work. Indeed, as the political analyst Sergei Karaganov noted in 2009, Russia s lack of soft power is precisely what is driving it to behave aggressively such as in its war with Georgia the previous year.

Today, much of America s soft power is produced not by the government, but by civil society including universities, foundations, and pop culture. Indeed, America s uncensored civil society, and its willingness to criticize its political leaders, enables the country to preserve soft power even when other countries disagree with its government s actions.

A well run military can be a source of attraction, and military cooperation and training programs can establish transnational networks that enhance a country s soft power. The US military s impressive work in providing humanitarian relief after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 helped restore America s attractiveness, and enhanced its soft power.

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But neither country yet ranks high on the various indices of potential soft power resources that are possessed by the US, Europe, and Japan. While culture provides some soft power, domestic policies and values set limits, particularly in China, where the Communist Party fears allowing too much intellectual freedom and resists outside influences.

CA It's a soft crowd, Julian, a soft crowd.

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