2014 National Convening Skills Presenations National Convening 2014

Different Voice Smart Power IDEA IN BRIEF In this edited interview with HBR senior editor Diane Coutu, Nye describes soft power and distinguishes it from hard power. Great leaders, he says, know how to combine the two to exercise “smart power,” through which they generate trust and mobilize people around forward-looking agendas. If the U.S. leadership can pull that off, this century will be one in which America still has a major role to play. ■ ■ Can a democracy really defeat terrorism with soft power? Let me be clear: There are deﬁnitely times when you have to use hard power. Think back to the 1990s, when the Tali- 56 Harvard Business Review 1592 Nye.indd 56 | The United States makes it particularly difﬁcult for women to combine soft and hard power in public life. ■ Business is ahead of politics in terms of understanding the need for soft power. ■ What are soft power and hard power, and how can you combine them? In essence, power is nothing more than the ability to affect others to get what you want, and that requires a set of tools. Some of these are tools of coercion or payment, or hard power, and some are tools of attraction, or soft power. For individuals, charisma (emotional appeal), vision, and communication are key softpower skills; for nations, soft power is embodied in their culture, values, and legitimate policies. With the exception of the Dalai Lama and perhaps a few others, it’s hard to think of anybody who has been able to lead using soft power alone. On the other hand, we often talk about hard power while forgetting that attraction is a very powerful tool. Ignoring it is a mistake. I think that there’s an awakening to the need for soft power as people look at the crisis in the Middle East and begin to realize that hard power is not sufﬁcient to resolve it. Of course, working out how to combine hard and soft power depends on understanding the context. A large part of what I call contextual intelligence comes from experience, but there’s more to it. As Mark Twain put it, a cat that sits once on a hot stove will never sit on a hot stove again, but the cat won’t sit on a cold stove, either. Using the tools of power wisely requires both experience and analysis. As people realize that hard power alone can’t solve complex problems, they are starting to understand the importance of soft power. The United States has a great deal of soft power embodied in its culture and its values. ban government was providing refuge to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and President Bill Clinton tried to solve that problem diplomatically. He was trying to persuade the Taliban, and the approach failed. The net result was that the United States didn’t do enough to destroy the terrorist havens the Taliban had created for Al Qaeda. That’s a case when soft power did not work and actually delayed the United States from acting as it probably should have – with more hard power. So soft power can be counterproductive if it prevents you from doing what needs to be done. But if the way you use your hard power antagonizes the mainstream, you will ﬁnd that the Osama bin Ladens of this world are able to recruit more people with their soft power than you are able to deter with your hard power. Today the United States is involved in a battle for the hearts and minds of mainstream Muslims. Americans have to use soft power to prevent them from being recruited by terrorists. That’s why Iraq was a serious mistake. President Bush tried to produce democracy in Iraq through hard power alone, and the negative effect has set America back. Yes, coercion – hard power – is absolutely necessary for a democracy to defeat terrorism. But at times, attraction – soft power – is the more critical component. Soft power can draw young people toward something other than the terrorist November 2008 | alternative. You can’t do that through coercion. You say soft power and hard power are both necessary. Yet you dedicate your latest book to your w ife, Molly, “who leads with soft power.” I do prefer soft power to hard power. But you have to realize that soft power is not good per se; it has to be put to good purpose. The ability to attract others has been possessed by some evil people: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, bin Laden. Jim Jones, who started Peoples Temple, used manipulative soft power to get over 900 people to commit suicide by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid. His followers believed that he was a guru who had the ultimate word on their salvation. As I said, soft or hard, power is simply an instrument. You can argue that soft power is slightly preferable to hard because it gives more freedom to the person who is its object. If I want to steal your money and I take out a gun and shoot you, that’s hard power – you have no choice in the matter. If I try to convince you that I’m a guru and that you should give me your bank account number, presumably you could choose to resist me. Teddy Roosevelt famously said that we must speak softly and carry a big stick. Was he talking about soft or hard power? Roosevelt was the epitome of smart power: the combination of soft and hard power in the right mix in the appropriate context. The problems facing America and the world today are going to need lots of smart power, and leaders who want to understand it could do worse than to study Teddy Roosevelt. He was acutely alert to the use of hard power – look at his fondness for the military. But he was also aware of the importance of soft power. Roosevelt’s chief motivation in negotiating crucial treaties such as the Portsmouth Treaty of 1905, which ended the war between Russia and Japan, was to make the United States more appealing. When he sent hbr.org 10/6/08 12:57:18 PM

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