Soft power and the future of US foreign policy

By Hendrik W. Ohnesorge

This volume explores the role of soft power in US foreign policy past, present and future. It addresses vital issue areas – including terrorism threats, foreign economic policy and cultural diplomacy – as well as crucial bilateral relations – including Sino-American, Russian-American and transatlantic. In so doing, it offers an assessment of Joe Biden’s first year in office as well as future perspectives and recommendations regarding the role of soft power in US foreign policy. The book is an essential and unique resource for understanding how soft power informs US foreign policy and diplomatic practice today and how it will continue to do so in the years to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Jun 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781526169112

Book preview

‘An insightful and comprehensive volume offering a timely analysis of current and future challenges of the soft power in shaping US foreign policy at a critical geopolitical juncture. A must-read for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of US foreign policy and its global implications.’

Corneliu Bjola, University of Oxford

‘Soft power is one of the most valuable strategic assets any nation can possess – a particular, but now eroding, feature of the United States. Restoring that power won’t be easy, but it’s essential, especially when global challenges demand collective solutions. This timely and compelling book of essential readings, introduced by Joseph Nye and edited by Hendrik Ohnesorge, lays out a comprehensive roadmap to do just that.’

Ian Bremmer,

President and Founder of Eurasia Group

‘Americans expect their nation and their government to express leadership in the world. The detailed and lucid essays in this volume explain why, in spite of all its travails, the US retains its No. 1 position in any serious ranking of the soft power of nations.’

David W. Ellwood,

Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies,

Europe campus, Bologna, Italy

‘Bringing together leading voices from around the world, this important and timely book provides keen insights into the role of soft power in US foreign policy across a wide range of topics and crucial bilateral relations. It constitutes an essential compendium for all those eager to understand the importance and impact of soft power and different forms of diplomacy in an age of global power shifts.’

Wolfgang Ischinger, Ambassador (ret.),

President of the Foundation Council of the

Munich Security Conference Foundation

‘Ever since Joseph Nye introduced his pioneering concept of soft vs. hard power it has been used worldwide by scholars and practitioners. This volume provides new insights into the erosion and revival of American soft power from the Trump to the Biden presidencies, into useful adaptations of the concept and its application to a number of specific issue areas of America’s external relations. The book is a most valuable contribution to International Relations theory and to the analysis of contemporary American foreign policy.’

Karl Kaiser, Harvard University

‘Can the US recover from the body blow to its soft power dealt by Trump’s America First approach and COVID policy failings? This timely volume offers a conditional yes, with astute analyses of US foreign policy, as well as useful contributions on specific topics including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, city diplomacy and cultural diplomacy.’

Cynthia P. Schneider,

Ambassador (ret.), Georgetown University

‘A timely, vital volume on soft power and US foreign policy at a critical time in a world that is struggling with transformational challenges. The authors provide historical analysis and a future roadmap for utilizing soft power to bring about positive change.’

Tara D. Sonenshine,

former US Under Secretary of State for

Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs

Soft power and the future of US foreign policy

Key Studies in Diplomacy

Series Editors: J. Simon Rofe and Giles Scott-Smith

Emeritus Editor: Lorna Lloyd

The volumes in this series seek to advance the study and understanding of diplomacy in its many forms. Diplomacy remains a vital component of global affairs, and it influences and is influenced by its environment and the context in which it is conducted. It is an activity of great relevance for International Studies, International History, and of course Diplomatic Studies. The series covers historical, conceptual, and practical studies of diplomacy.

Previously published by Bloomsbury:

21st Century Diplomacy: A Practitioner’s Guide by Kishan S. Rana

A Cornerstone of Modern Diplomacy: Britain and the Negotiation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by Kai Bruns

David Bruce and Diplomatic Practice: An American Ambassador in London, 1961–9 by John W. Young

Embassies in Armed Conflict by G. R. Berridge

Published by Manchester University Press:

Reasserting America in the 1970s edited by Hallvard Notaker, Giles Scott-Smith, and David J. Snyder

Human rights and humanitarian diplomacy: negotiating for human rights protection and Humanitarian Access by Kelly-Kate Pease

The diplomacy of decolonisation: America, Britain and the United Nations during the Congo crisis 1960–64 by Alanna O’Malley

Sport and diplomacy: games within games edited by J. Simon Rofe

The TransAtlantic reconsidered edited by Charlotte A. Lerg, Susanne Lachenicht, and Michael Kimmage

Academic ambassadors, Pacific allies: Australia, America and the Fulbright program by Alice Garner and Diane Kirkby

A precarious equilibrium: human rights and détente in Jimmy Carter’s Soviet policy by Umberto Tulli

US public diplomacy in Socialist Yugoslavia, 1950–70: soft culture, cold partners by Carla Konta

Israelpolitik: German–Israeli relations, 1949–69 by Lorena De Vita

Diplomatic tenses: A social evolutionary perspective on diplomacy by Iver B. Neumann

Unofficial peace diplomacy: private peace entrepreneurs in conflict resolution processes by Lior Lehrs

Soft power and the future of US foreign policy

Edited by

Hendrik W. Ohnesorge

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © Manchester University Press 2023

While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher.

Published by Manchester University Press

Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 5261 6912 9 hardback

First published 2023

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.Cover image: Joe Biden arrives at La Nuvola Convention Center in Rome for the G20 summit, 30 October 2021. Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz.

Cover image: Joe Biden arrives at La Nuvola Convention Center in Rome for the G20 summit, 30 October 2021. Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz.

Typeset by Newgen Publishing UK

Contents

List of contributors

Foreword by Joseph S. Nye, Jr

1Soft power and the future of US foreign policy: America’s abiding advantage – Hendrik W. Ohnesorge

Part I: US soft power in theory and practice: a macro perspective

2Hard times ahead for US soft power – Michael F. Oppenheimer

3Soft power, US foreign policy, and George Washington’s warning of ‘Alternate Domination’ – Naren Chitty and Chenjun Wang

4The United States’ identity crisis: emotions, image, and US foreign policy under Trump and Biden – Taryn Shepperd

5Repairing the United States’ reputation? The US strategic narrative and the Biden administration – Alister Miskimmon, Ben O’Loughlin, Laura Roselle, and Faith Leslie

6From soft power to Reputational Security: rethinking the machinery of US public diplomacy for the post-COVID-19 era – Nicholas J. Cull

Part II: US soft power in select issue areas: a close-up view

7Soft power for an age of shifting terrorism threats – Farah Pandith and Jacob Ware

8Soft power and US foreign economic policy: the Trump years and after – Giulio M. Gallarotti

9Soft power and cyber security: the evolution of US cyber diplomacy – Eugenio Lilli and Christopher Painter

10The hard facts about soft power: lessons learned from US cultural diplomacy – Carla Dirlikov Canales

Part III: US soft power in select relationships

11Balancing soft and hard power: China, Russia, and the United States – John M. Owen

12The Sino-US soft power games: beyond aggressive competition to mutual accommodation – Nancy Snow and Liwen Zhang

13A new urban agenda? US cities, soft power, and transatlantic relations – Giles Scott-Smith

Index

Contributors

Carla Dirlikov Canales is an internationally renowned mezzo-soprano opera singer, best known for her portrayals of Bizet’s ‘Carmen’, which she has performed nearly 100 times in more than 12 countries. A social advocate and cultural entrepreneur, Carla is the founder of The Canales Project, an arts advocacy organisation that uses performance and music to address issues and promote conversation about cultural exchange and identity worldwide. She served as co-creator, CEO, and artistic director of programming for the CultureSummit, a forum held in Abu Dhabi to convene arts and policy leaders from around the world on issues of cultural diplomacy, and is also an arts envoy for the US Department of State since 2005. She is currently a double fellow at Harvard University and is the director of the ‘Future of Cultural Diplomacy’ initiative.

Naren Chitty, Professor Emeritus Dr, A.M., is Inaugural Director of the Soft Power Analysis & Resource Centre at Macquarie University, where he is Foundation Chair in International Communication in the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature. He has a PhD in International Relations from the School of International Service, American University, Washington DC. He was a senior diplomat in Washington DC during six years of the Reagan administration starting in 1982. He has held Visiting Professorships at several universities including twice at Sorbonne-Nouvelle – Paris III. He is a co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Soft Power and Series Editor of Anthem Studies in Soft Power & Public Diplomacy. He is Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of International Communication.

Nicholas J. Cull is Professor of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. Originally from the UK, Nick is a prolific historian and analyst of the role of media and culture in international relations. His best-known works include two volumes on the history of the United States Information Agency and the overview text Public Diplomacy: Foundations for Global Engagement in the Digital Age (2019), which has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, and Korean. He has provided training and advice to many foreign ministries and diplomatic academies around the world including those of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, and Ukraine. His current projects include a volume of essays exploring his concept of Reputational Security and a historical study of the role of public diplomacy in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa.

Giulio M. Gallarotti is Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. He is also Chairman of the International Political Science Association Research Committee 36 on Political Power. He has published widely in the study of political power. His most recent books are Essays on Evolutions in Political Power (2022) and Alternative Paths to Influence: Soft Power and International Politics (2023).

Faith Leslie is a current graduate student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies pursuing a graduate degree in International Affairs. Leslie worked with Professor Laura Roselle to author The International System in the Time of Trump: An Analysis of White House Daily Newsletters, research that was presented at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research and the North Carolina Political Science Association Conference and published in the journal Media, War & Conflict. She has previously served as the Senior Content Editor of the Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics and interned for The Eureka Network, Project Over Zero, and Albright Stonebridge Group among others.

Eugenio Lilli is currently Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of the Masters in American Politics and Foreign Policy at Clinton Institute, University College Dublin. He received his PhD from King’s College London, War Studies Department. His current research focuses on how advancements in Information and Communications Technology have affected US national security in the areas of defence, homeland security, and foreign policy. His most recent publications include ‘President Obama and US Cyber Security Policy’ in the Journal of Cyber Policy (2020) and ‘Redefining Deterrence in Cyberspace: Private Sector Contribution to National Strategies of Cyber Deterrence’ in the Journal of Contemporary Security Policy (2021).

Alister Miskimmon is Professor of International Relations at Queen’s University Belfast. He has published two books with Ben O’Loughlin and Laura Roselle: Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order (2013), which will appear in Chinese translation in 2023, and Forging the World: Strategic Narratives in International Relations (2017). His latest book with Ben O’Loughlin and Jinghan Zeng is entitled One Belt, One Road, One Story? Towards an EU-China Strategic Narrative (2021). He was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Adelaide in 2023.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr is University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus and former Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Princeton University, won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, and earned a PhD in Political Science from Harvard. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and a Deputy Under Secretary of State, and won distinguished service awards from all three agencies. His books include The Future of Power, The Power Game: A Washington Novel, and Do Morals Matter? He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Academy of Diplomacy. In a recent survey of international relations scholars, he was ranked as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and in 2011, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2014, Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun.

Hendrik W. Ohnesorge is Managing Director of the Center for Global Studies and Research Fellow at the Chair in International Relations at the University of Bonn. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Münster and a Master’s degree as well as a PhD from the University of Bonn. He was Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. His research centres on global power shifts and the role of soft power in international affairs, with a particular focus on charismatic leadership. His latest books include Macht und Machtverschiebung: Schlüsselphänomene internationaler Politik (2022) and Soft Power: The Forces of Attraction in International Relations (2020), winner of the 2021 ifa Research Award on Foreign Cultural Policy.

Ben O’Loughlin is Professor of International Relations and Director of the New Political Communication Unit at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was Specialist Advisor to the UK Parliament Select Committee on Soft Power and was Thinker in Residence at the Royal Academy, Brussels exploring Disinformation and Democracy. He is co-editor of the journal Media, War & Conflict. His latest book is One Belt, One Road, One Story? Towards an EU-China Strategic Narrative (2021).

Michael F. Oppenheimer leads the International Relations Futures concentration at the Center for Global Affairs, a Master’s programme at NYU. He teaches courses on International Relations, Strategic Foresight, and US Foreign Policy. He also oversees an ongoing research and consulting project for the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate, which involves students directly in advising the UN system on counterterrorism policies and practices. He has consulted for the US intelligence community, the Department of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the UN, and many others. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book, published by Oxford University Press, is Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures (2015).

John M. Owen is Taylor Professor of Politics, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center of Public Affairs, at the University of Virginia. His books include Confronting Political Islam (2015), The Clash of Ideas in World Politics (2010), and Liberal Peace, Liberal War (1997). His newest book, Protecting Democracy from the Outside: Constitutional Self-Government and International Order, is forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2023. Owen has published in the European Journal of International Relations, International Organization, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, and other journals, as well as in Foreign Affairs, Hedgehog Review, The Hill, Washington Post, National Interest, New York Times, and USA Today. A former Editor-in-Chief of Security Studies, Owen has held fellowships at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Oxford, the Free University of Berlin, and the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB). He is a recipient of a Humboldt Research Prize (2015).

Christopher Painter is the President of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise Foundation, an international cyber capacity building organisation. He also serves as an Associate Fellow at Chatham House and serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Internet Security. Painter has been on the vanguard of cyber policy issues for over thirty years, first prosecuting high-profile cybercrime cases as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles in the 1990s and then serving in senior roles at the US Department of Justice, the FBI, and as Senior Director for Cyber Policy in the White House. He created the first high-level office in a foreign ministry dedicated to cyber issues in the US State Department in 2011 and served as the top US cyber diplomat for over six years. Painter is a graduate of Cornell University and Stanford Law School.

Farah Pandith is a world-leading expert and pioneer in countering violent extremism. She is a senior fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a senior advisor at the Anti-Defamation League, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Laura Roselle, PhD (Stanford) is Professor of Political Science and Policy Studies at Elon. She has served as President of the International Communication Section of the International Studies Association and of the Internet Technology and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. She is the author of Media and the Politics of Failure: Great Powers, Communication Strategies, and Military Defeats (2006 and 2011), and with co-authors Alister Miskimmon and Ben O’Loughlin Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order (2013). Roselle is co-editor of the journal Media, War & Conflict and co-editor of the book series Routledge Studies in Global Information, Politics and Society. She won the 2017 Distinguished Scholar Award from the International Communication Section of the International Studies Association. She is Associate Member of the Centre for Security Research, University of Edinburgh.

Giles Scott-Smith is Professor of Transnational Relations and New Diplomatic History at Leiden University, and is Dean of Leiden University College. He is one of the organisers of the New Diplomatic History network and an editor of the network’s publication Diplomatica: A Journal of Diplomacy and Society (Brill). He has published widely on transatlantic relations and public diplomacy through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His most recent title, together with Bram Boxhoorn, is The Transatlantic Era (1989–2020) in Documents and Speeches (2021).

Taryn Shepperd is an Associate Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. She holds a BA (hons) from the University of Ulster, an MA in International Politics from Queen’s University Belfast, and a PhD from the University of St Andrews. Having previously been employed as an Associate Lecturer with the Open University she has worked at the University of St Andrews since 2013, teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Having published her monograph, Sino-US Relations and The Role of Emotions in State Action as part of Palgrave Macmillan’s Studies in Diplomacy series, her current research focuses on the broader themes of diplomacy and emotions in IR.

Nancy Snow is the author/editor/co-editor of fourteen books, including the Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (with Nicholas J. Cull) and The SAGE Handbook of Propaganda (with Paul Baines and Nicholas O’Shaughnessy). Snow is a former USIA and Department of State Presidential Management Fellow during the Clinton administration and is a recognised global authority in public diplomacy and propaganda studies. She has written extensively about Brand USA in the post-9/11 environment and Brand Japan in the post-3/11 era. In 2020 Snow was the Walt Disney Chair in Global Media in the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University, China’s answer to the Rhodes Scholars. A two-time Fulbright scholar, she has held many visiting faculty appointments, including Syracuse University’s Newhouse School and the University of Southern California Annenberg School, where she helped advance graduate studies in public diplomacy. More recently she was Pax Mundi (‘Distinguished Professor’) in public diplomacy at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies in Japan. She is Professor Emeritus in Communications from California State University, Fullerton and divides her time between the United States and East Asia.

Chenjun Wang is a Researcher at the Soft Power Analysis & Resource Centre at Macquarie University, where she is a PhD candidate in the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature. She holds Double Master’s degrees in International Relations and International Communication, and a Master of Research (MRes) degree in International Relations from Macquarie University. Her MRes research was on nuclear policy and identity with reference to the DPRK. Her doctoral research is on soft power and migration. She is co-author with Emeritus Professor Hamid Mowlana of ‘An Intergenerational Conversation on International Communication’ in The Journal of International Communication. Her blogs on nuclear policy have been published by the Lowy Interpreter and the Monsoon Project. An article on Australian foreign policy and resilience appears in The Evatt Foundation Journal. She has worked at the Lowy Institute, a leading Australian think tank, and as a policy analysist for China Policy.

Jacob Ware is a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he studies domestic and international terrorism and counterterrorism, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He holds degrees in security studies and international relations from Georgetown and the University of St Andrews.

Liwen Zhang is a PhD candidate in the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. She has profound interests in political communication, mediatised populism, and public diplomacy and would love to engage her future career in fostering interdisciplinary dialogues with people from different academic backgrounds. Zhang has publications with the International Communication Association (ICA) annual conferences and News and Writing, a Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) journal.

Foreword

Soft power and the future of American foreign policy

Soft power is the ability to affect others through attraction rather than coercion or payment. Its effects are often slow and indirect. It is not the only or even the most important source of power for foreign policy. But to ignore or neglect it is a serious strategic and analytic mistake. The Roman Empire rested on its legions but also on the attraction of Roman culture. As a Norwegian analyst, Geir Lundestad, described it, the American presence in Western Europe after World War II was ‘an empire by invitation’. At the end of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall collapsed not under a barrage of artillery but from an onslaught of hammers and bulldozers wielded by people whose minds had been affected by Western soft power.

Smart political leaders have long understood that values can create power. If I can get you to want to do what I want, then I do not have to force you to do what you do not want. If the United States (or any country) represents values that others find attractive, it can economise on sticks and carrots.

A country’s soft power comes primarily from three sources: its culture (when it is attractive to others), its political values such as democracy and human rights (when it lives up to them), and its policies (when they are seen as legitimate because they are framed with some humility and awareness of others’ interests). How a government behaves at home (for example, protecting a free press and the right to protest), in international institutions (consulting others and multilateralism), and in foreign policy (promoting development and human rights) can affect others by the influence of example.

International polls show a decline in American soft power during the years of the presidency of Donald Trump. Fortunately, the United States is more than the government. Unlike hard-power assets (such as armed forces), many soft-power resources are separate from the government and are only partly responsive to its purposes. Hollywood movies that showcase independent women or protesting minorities can attract others. So too, does the charitable work of US foundations and the freedom of inquiry at American universities. Firms, universities, foundations, churches, and protest movements develop soft power of their own, which may reinforce or be at odds with official foreign policy goals.

These private sources of soft power are increasingly important in the age of social media. Our peaceful protests can actually generate soft power. That is why governments at all levels must make sure that their actions and policies do not squander it. Domestic or foreign policies that appear hypocritical, arrogant, indifferent to others’ views – or based on a narrow conception of national interests – can undermine soft power. When President Trump said, ‘America First’, the question is not whether a democratic president should defend the national interest: it is how they define that interest that makes the moral difference.

In coping with the pandemic crisis, President Trump went from denial to delay to shifting blame to withdrawal from international cooperation. Imagine, instead, if he had taken the lead in organising a COVID-19 defence fund open to all poor countries. Like the Marshall Plan in 1948, it would have been in the self-interest of the United States but also good for others. And it would have increased American soft power.

The Trump years were not kind to American soft power. This was compounded by Trump’s incompetence in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then he tried to disrupt the orderly transition of political power after he lost the 2020 election. On 6 January 2021 the shock of a mob invading the Capitol building occurred. Republican Senator Ben Sasse described the situation in a press release as ‘the United States Capitol – the world’s greatest symbol of self-government – was ransacked while the leader of the free world cowered behind his keyboard – tweeting against his Vice President for fulfilling the duties of his oath to the Constitution’. The United States’ allies and other countries were shocked. Can US soft power recover from these blows?

We have done so before. The United States has serious problems, but it also has a capacity for resilience and reform that has rescued us in the past. In the 1960s, our cities were burning over racial protests, and we were mired in Vietnam War protests. Bombs exploded in universities and government buildings. The National Guard killed student protesters at Kent State University. We witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the flames were fanned by demagogues like George Wallace. Yet within a decade, a series of reforms passed Congress, and the honesty of Gerald Ford, the human rights policies of Jimmy Carter, and the optimism of Ronald Reagan helped restore our attractiveness.

Moreover, even when crowds marched through the world’s streets protesting American policies in Vietnam, the protesters sang Martin Luther King’s ‘We Shall overcome’ more than the communist ‘Internationale’. An anthem from the civil rights protest movement illustrated that the United States’ power to attract rested not on our government’s policy but in large part on our civil society and our capacity to be self-critical and reform. One might consider that a ‘meta soft power’. In this sense, our peaceful protests can actually generate soft power.

On the other hand, the mob in the Capitol was far from peaceful and provided a disturbing illustration of the way that Trump exacerbated political polarisation and continues to do so by making his myth of a stolen election a litmus test in the Republican Party. The United States has seen an increase in political polarisation over the past two decades well before the 2016 election. What Trump cleverly did was exploit and exacerbate nativist populism as a political weapon to take control of the Republican Party. Too many senators and Congress members were cowed by threats of a primary challenge by members of Trump’s base. Many still are. Fortunately, in a federal system, our democratic political culture produced many local heroes such as secretaries and state legislators who stood up to Trump’s efforts to intimidate them into changing votes. Some pessimists worry whether this can continue.

For those who mourn American democracy prematurely, it is important to remember that the 2020 election saw an unprecedented turnout of voters who were able to unseat a demagogue. And it was sustained in more than sixty court cases overseen by an independent judiciary including some of Trump’s appointees. And the outcome was finally reaffirmed by the Congress.

This does not mean that all is well with American democracy. The Trump presidency eroded a number of democratic norms that must be restored. Polarisation persists and a significant portion of Trump’s base believes his lies about the election rather than the evidence of the courts. Social media business models exacerbate the existing polarisation by being based on algorithms that profit from extremism, and the companies are only slowly beginning to respond to their manipulation by conspiracy theorists. At a recent meeting of transatlantic foreign policy experts, one European told me that he used to worry about American foreign policy in terms of a decline in hard power but now felt reassured. On the other hand, he now worried about what was happening internally and how that would affect the soft power that underlies American foreign policy.

At the same time, American culture has great sources of resilience that pessimists in the past have underestimated. The open values of our democratic society and the right to peaceful protest are among the greatest sources of the United States’ soft power. Even when mistaken government policies reduce our attractiveness, the ability of American society to criticise itself and correct our own mistakes makes us attractive to others at a deeper level. Values change with generations. That is a source of hope.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr

February 2023

1

Soft power and the future of US foreign policy: America’s abiding advantage

Hendrik W. Ohnesorge

The presidential inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr on 20 January 2021, in many ways, was history-making. With Biden’s predecessor openly raising doubts about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, jeopardising the peaceful transition of power at the very heart of American democracy, the 6 January attack on the United States Capitol only two weeks prior, and the COVID-19 pandemic raging for one year, the historical significance did not go unnoticed even before Biden would take the oath.¹ As Inauguration Day came around, this sense of a truly history-making event all but grew. Joining the ranks of fellow one-termers John Adams (in 1801), John Quincy Adams (in 1829), and Andrew Johnson (in 1869),² the outgoing President chose not to attend, and public attendance was kept at an historic minimum, due to the ongoing pandemic. With nearly 34 million television viewers across America, however, the inauguration ranked third in viewership only behind those of Ronald Reagan in 1981 (41.8 million) and Barack Obama in 2009 (37.8 million),³ two further landmark transitions of presidential power in recent history.

After Joe Biden had been administered the oath of office by Chief Justice John Roberts just before noon, the 46th President of the United States took the rostrum and delivered his Inaugural Address. After four years during which the departure from traditions and the breaking of taboos seemed to be the order of the day, the twenty-one-minute address seemed pleasantly conventional. Biden, striking distinctly Kennedyesque tones, first addressed attendants and the American public, noting that ‘we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate, but of a cause, the cause of democracy’.⁴ He then went on to squarely broach the multiple challenges facing the United States of America: the virus, unemployment, racial injustice, climate change, growing extremism, and political polarisation. Finally, and rather briefly, Biden turned towards the wider world, acknowledging, ‘The world is watching today.’ He continued:

So here is my message to those beyond our borders: America has been tested and we have come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday’s challenges, but today’s and tomorrow’s. We will lead not merely by the example of our