Joseph S. Nye Jr., (click here) University Distinguished Service Professor, and former Dean of the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Princeton University,won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, and earned a PhD in political science from Harvard. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Deputy Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. His most recent books include The Power to Lead; The Future of Power; Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era; and Is the American Century Over. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Academy of Diplomacy. In a recent survey of internatinal relations scholars, he was ranked as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and in 2011, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 Global  Thinkers.

..."Smart power" is a term I developed in 2003 (click here) to counter the misperception that soft power alone can produce effective foreign policy. Power is one's ability to affect the behavior of others to get what one wants. There are three basic ways to do this: coercion, payment, and attraction. Hard power is the use of coercion and payment. Soft power is the ability to obtain preferred outcomes through attraction. If a state can set the agenda for others or shape their preferences, it can save a lot on carrots and sticks. But rarely can it totally replace either. Thus the need for smart strategies that combine the tools of both hard and soft power.

In an otherwise estimable new book, Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy, Leslie Gelb argues that "soft power now seems to mean almost everything" because both economic and military resources can influence other states. (Gelb's recent article in these pages, "Necessity, Choice, and Common Sense" [May/June 2009], is drawn from the book.)...