The Paradox of American Power

7 Pages 1715 Words

In the book, The Paradox of American Power, Joseph Nye, discusses American power and influence from a global level of analysis. Moreover, Nye explains America’s challenges as a major player in an ever-changing world. There are many factors Nye refers to regarding America’s role in the game of world dominance. Many are obvious, but some are not so obvious.
Nye refers to power as the ability to effect the outcomes you want, and if necessary, to change the behavior of others to make this happen (4). According to Nye there are three types of power. The first two are military power and economic power. These are examples of hard command power, which the government has a good amount of control over. The third is a phenomenon in which government has very little control over called soft power. Soft power can be summarized as influence gained by the “attractiveness” of a country. All of these qualities can be characterized on a micro-social evel. When you were growing up you can remember the kid that had influence because he had a great deal of money, he had a big house to play in and many toys to play with. While your parent’s idea of a fun day was a trip to the park, which was free, his was a trip to Disneyland or Six Flags. Then there was the school bully, his influence stemmed from fear of getting beat up. The third was the kid who was just plain cool. He was the funny guy who carried himself well. His influence came from the fact that people wanted to be like him. All of the three characters in this analogy have power and influence, but all in different forms.
Soft power, although not entirely apparent, plays a great deal in the international food chain of power. Nye refers to this aspect of power as “getting others to want what you want” (9). He goes on to say “soft power rests on the ability to set the political agenda in a way that shapes the preferences of others.” The idea of soft power i...