Quotes from Joseph S. Nye Jr.

What is soft power? It is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies.

When you can get others to admire your ideals and to want what you want, you do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in your direction. Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many values like democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive.

A moral vision must be balanced by the realist dimension of prudence to have a reasonable prospect of success.

Smart power is neither hard nor soft. It is both. Joseph

Power is also like love, easier to experience than to define or measure, but no less real for that.

power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes one wants.

In 2009, polls showed an impressive "revival of America's global image in many parts of the world reflecting confidence in the new president."53 One poll-based assessment of brand values even suggested the Obama effect was worth $2 trillion in brand equity.

Terrorism, like theater, is a competition for audience. Shocking events are designed to capture attention, polarize, and provoke overreactions from their targets.

Information is power, and modern information technology is spreading information more widely than ever before in history.

Globalization has made national boundaries more porous but not irrelevant. Nor does globalization mean the creation of a universal community.

When Russia had disputes with neighbors such as Ukraine over gas prices, it did not hesitate to cut off gas supplies as a form of economic power. Later, when a more sympathetic government came to power in Ukraine, Russia used the lure of heavily discounted gas prices to obtain the extension of its lease of a naval base in Ukraine, thus complicating the prospect that Ukraine might one day join NATO.

I want you to carry this question home with you: gain such a victory, and what do you do with it?

In 1900, Europe accounted for a quarter of the world's population. By 2060, it may account for just 6%—and almost a third of these will be more than 65 years old." Europe does face severe demographic problems, but the size of a population is not highly correlated with power, and "predictions of Europe's downfall have a long history of failing to materialize.

During the twentieth century, America recorded its highest percentage of foreign-born residents in 1910: 14.7 percent of the population. A century later, about 40 million people or nearly 13 percent of Americans today are foreign-born citizens.