U.S. democratic alliances key to restoration of lost 'soft' power

Joseph S. Nye, Project Syndicate

America's foreign alliances have become an issue in this year's presidential election campaign. Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, has accused President George W. Bush of neglecting and offending America's allies, particularly in Europe. A Kerry administration, he claims, will restore respect for America in the world.

Anti-Americanism is not new in Europe, but views of America have generally been more positive in the past. During the Cold War, the United States not only pursued far-sighted policies like the Marshall Plan, but also represented freedom and democracy.

Admiration for American values does not mean, of course, that others want to imitate all the ways Americans implement them. While many Europeans admire America's devotion to freedom, they prefer policies at home that temper the liberal economic principles of individualism with a robust welfare state. Despite all the rhetoric about "old" and "new" Europe, at the end of the Cold War opinion surveys showed that two-thirds of Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, and Bulgarians perceived the U.S. as a good influence on their respective countries, but fewer than a quarter wanted to import American economic models.

Popular culture can often be an important source of "soft" power. Simple items like blue jeans, cola, or Hollywood movies helped produce favorable outcomes in at least two of the most important American objectives after 1945. One was the democratic reconstruction of Europe after World War II, and the other was victory in the Cold War. The Marshall Plan and NATO were crucial instruments of economic and military power, but popular culture reinforced their effect. The dollars invested by the Marshall Plan helped achieve U.S. objectives in reconstructing Europe, but so did the ideas transmitted by American popular culture.

Today, about two-thirds of the people polled in ten European countries say they admire America for its popular culture and progress in science and technology, but only a third think the spread of American customs in their country is a good idea. The U.S. doesn't have to make others look like little Americans, but it does have to live up to its core values in order to use its soft power effectively.

This is why the examples of the prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have been so costly. It is also why a free press that reports these problems, congressional hearings that investigate them, and a recent set of Supreme Court decisions that give detainees legal recourse are also so important. America is not perfect, but as long as it abides by its core values, it can overcome its mistakes and regain its soft power in democratic countries.

For example, America was extraordinarily unpopular at the time of the Vietnam War, yet it recovered its soft power within a decade, and it is interesting to consider why. Part of the answer may be that when students were marching in the streets protesting, they did not sing the "Internationale"; they sang "We Shall Overcome." America's democratic values will be the key to success in restoring its soft power.

Some skeptics argue that this emphasis on values is the wrong explanation of how changes occur in world politics, and that the real problem between Europe and the U.S. is structural. With the demise of the Soviet Union, according to this argument, the bi- polar balance of power vanished and America became the world's only superpower, engendering resentment and envy -- and hence a difficult time for U.S.-European relations.

If European resentment is inevitable, some U.S. leaders say, then the proper response is to shrug it off. Popularity is ephemeral and should never guide national policy. The U.S., in these leaders' view, can act without the world's applause. America doesn't need permanent allies and institutions, they say, because a coalition of the willing will suffice. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has put it, "The issues should determine the coalition, rather than the coalition determining the issues."

But it is a mistake to dismiss America's declining attractiveness so lightly. America's recovery from unpopular policies in the past, such as the Vietnam War, took place against the backdrop of the Cold War, in which allied countries feared the Soviet Union as a greater evil. Moreover, while America's status as the world's sole superpower is a structural fact, wise policies can soften the sharp edges of this reality.

After World War II, America was able to use soft power resources and co-opt others into a set of alliances and institutions that lasted sixty years. When we recall the Cold War, it is important to remember that America's strategy of containment combined the deterrent of its hard military power with the attractiveness of its soft cultural power, which eroded confidence and belief in Communism behind the Iron Curtain.

The Bush administration's emphasis on promoting democracy in the Middle East suggests it understands the importance of values in foreign policy. Nevertheless, the administration refuses to be held back by institutional restraints. It advocates soft power, but focuses only on the substance and not enough on the process.

The only way to achieve the type of transformation in the Middle East that the Bush administration seeks is by working with others and avoiding the backlash that arises when America acts as a unilateral, imperial power. Democracy cannot be imposed in any reasonable time by force alone. It takes time to set down roots, as the successful cases of Southeast Asia demonstrate.

The Bush administration's impatience with institutions and allies thus undercuts its own objectives. The irony is that it was the U.S. that built some of the longest lasting alliances and institutions the modern world has seen, and that were central to American power for over half a century.

The writer, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, teaches at Harvard University and is author of Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.