The Future of Power

by Nye Jr, Joseph S

• ISBN13: 9781610390699
• ISBN10: 1610390695
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-13
• Publisher: PublicAffairs

Summary

In the era of Kennedy and Khrushchev, power was expressed in terms of nuclear missiles, industrial capacity, numbers of men under arms, and tanks lined up ready to cross the plains of Eastern Europe. By 2010, none of these factors confer power in the same way: industrial capacity seems an almost Victorian virtue, and cyber threats are wielded by non-state actors. Politics changed, and the nature of power--defined as the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes you want--had changed dramatically. Power is not static; its story is of shifts and innovations, technologies and relationships. Joseph Nye is a long-time analyst of power and a hands-on practitioner in government. Many of his ideas have been at the heart of recent debates over the role America should play in the world: his concept of "soft power" has been adopted by leaders from Britain to China; "smart power" has been adopted as the bumper-sticker for the Obama Administration's foreign policy. This book is the summation of his work, as relevant to general readers as to foreign policy specialists. It is a vivid narrative that delves behind the elusive faces of power to discover its enduring nature in the cyber age.

Author Biography

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, was Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration. He is the author of several books, including The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone and Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. PublicAffairs also published his political thriller, The Power Game.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Types of Power
What Is Power in Global Affairs?	p. 3
Military Power	p. 25
Economic Power	p. 51
Soft Power	p. 81
Power Shifts: Diffusion and Transitions
Diffusion and Cyberpower	p. 113
Power Transition: The Question of American Decline	p. 153
Policy
Smart Power	p. 207
Acknowledgments	p. 235
Notes	p. 237
Index	p. 283
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