A Reaction to Joseph Nye's "Soft Power"

Joseph Nye focuses his essay on the nature of power and how it had developed since John Quincy Adams. Critical to his essay is the division between "hard" and "soft" power. While the former is concerned more with military and economic might, the latter is centered around getting other nations to desire the same outcomes and solutions to problems that you want. Nye credits three sources of soft power: A country's culture, its political values, and its foreign policies. When examing culture, Nye brings up an interesting point with German Editor Josef Joffe who states, " U.S culture ,low-brow or high, radiates outward with a novel twist. Rome's and Soviet Russia's cultural sway stopped exactly at their military borders. America'ssoft power,though, rules over an empire on which the sun never sets."