The Future of Power Quotes

“The world is neither unipolar, multipolar, nor chaotic—it is all three at the same time.”
― Joseph S. Nye, Jr., The Future of Power

“Terrorism, like theater, is a competition for audience. Shocking events are designed to capture attention, polarize, and provoke overreactions from their targets.”
― Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Future of Power

“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.”
― Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Future of Power

“Hard military power will remain crucial, but if its use is perceived as unjust, such as at Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo, then hard power undercuts the soft power needed to win the minds of mainstream Muslims and creates more new terrorists than are destroyed. For example, a leading terrorism expert concludes that anti-Americanism was exacerbated by the war in Iraq and the U.S. failure to tailor strategies for key countries. International jihadist groups increased their membership and carried out twice as many attacks in the three years after 2001 as before it.38 Similarly, the former head of Britain’s MI5 intelligence service told the commission investigating the origins of the Iraq War that the war had increased, rather than decreased, terrorists’ success at recruitment.”
― Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Future of Power

“A more serious concern would be if the United States turned inward and seriously curtailed immigration. With its current levels of immigration, America is one of the few developed countries that may avoid demographic decline and keep its share of world population, but this might change if reactions to terrorist events or public xenophobia closed the borders. Fears over the effect of immigration on national values and on a coherent sense of American identity have existed since the early years of the nation.”
― Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Future of Power

“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.”
― Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Future of Power

“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.”
― Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Future of Power