Soft power comes from the basic acknowledgement that we can’t enforce our will through military might everywhere. Massive empires have largely expired. Self-sovereignty is now an expectation, even if imperfectly applied in practice. People want a say in how they are governed. Even if we rejected self-sovereignty, Americans don’t have the interest or will power to place boots on the ground around the globe.
If you can’t force people to do what you want, can you pay them to do it? Sometimes that works, and sometimes we do. But it is limited in practice and very, very expensive. On occasion, Americans also find it distasteful when we buy people off. So what’s left?
In the 1980s, political scientist Joseph Nye made famous the term “soft power.” Nye defined soft power as the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes you want. Hard power is through coercion and/or military force. Soft power can be understood in lots of ways, but it’s basically everything else. Convincing people to do what you want, whether it be by the power of example, the appeal of an argument or culture, or building goodwill.
Perhaps the most famous example of soft power is the Marshall Plan. In 1947, most European nations were left in ruins after the war, their economies were shattered, and their people were teetering on the brink of famine. The Soviet Union was on the march from the east, and the threat of communist expansion was real.
Secretary of State George Marshall proposed a large-scale economic redevelopment plan to rebuild European economies, which would stabilize their governments and foster long-term trade partnerships. in 1948, Congress passed a bill closely following Marshall’s suggestions. Over the next four years, Congress appropriated $13.3 billion for European recovery.
European economies recovered, experienced unprecedented rates of growth and agricultural production, and developed integrated trade relationships. Scholars debate whether the Marshall Plan initiated this recovery or simply accelerated it, but I think there is little doubt that it was a smashing success.