The concept of soft power, that is the influence attained through the co-option of foreigners by the attractiveness of our values, ideas, and practices, understandably has great appeal. Soft power is much cheaper than the hard power of military force, and it is more compatible with the culture of a principally liberal American society. All too often, military force seems to fail as an instrument of policy and, as a consequence, it invites the view that it is becoming obsolescent and even anachronistic. Dr. Colin Gray subjects hard and soft power to close critical scrutiny and finds that the latter is significantly misunderstood and, as a consequence, misassessed as a substitute for the threat or use of military force. Each kind of power has its limitations, but the obvious and familiar challenges characteristic of military force do not mean that therefore soft power should be our policy instrument of choice. The author warns against expecting too much of soft power.
About the Author: COLIN S. GRAY is Professor of International Politics and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, England. He worked at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), and at Hudson Institute (Croton-on-Hudson, NY) before founding the National Institute for Public Policy, a defense-oriented think tank in the Washington, DC, area. Dr. Gray served for 5 years in the Reagan administration on the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament. He has served as an adviser to both the U.S. and British governments (he has dual citizenship). His government work has included studies of nuclear strategy, arms control, maritime strategy, space strategy and the use of special forces. Dr. Gray has written 24 books, including: The Sheriff: America's Defense of the New World Order (University Press of Kentucky, 2004); Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005); Strategy and History: Essays on Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2007; Potomac Books, 2009); National Security Dilemmas: Challenges and Opportunities (Potomac Books, 2009); and The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford University Press, 2010). His next book will be Airpower for Strategic Effect. Dr. Gray is a graduate of the Universities of Manchester and Oxford.