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Different Voice
A CONVERSATION WITH LEADERSHIP
EXPERT JOSEPH S. NYE, JR.

Smart
Power
Great leaders know when
hard power is not enough.
ago, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote that “a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not
gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred.” As
the next administration in the United States
prepares to face an increasingly multipolar
political world – where challenges to world
peace, the global economy, and the environ-

Furnald Gray Photography

FIVE HUNDRED YEARS

ment are enormous – that advice seems particularly relevant. Exercising the military and economic strengths of
the United States will not by itself bring peace and prosperity. The president will have to make the ideas of democracy
and free enterprise attractive, and present the country as
an exemplar of them.
According to Joseph S. Nye, Jr., a professor at Harvard
University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, that
will require a sophisticated understanding of how to combine American muscle with the tools of “soft power,” a term
he coined in his 1990 book Bound to Lead. Formerly the
assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs, the chair of the National Intelligence Council, and the
deputy undersecretary of state for Security Assistance, Science, and Technology, Nye is the author of a dozen books,
including the recently published The Powers to Lead. He
believes that the biggest challenge facing the next administration is to present an agenda that looks beyond the
military and political problems of today.

hbr.org

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November 2008

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Harvard Business Review 55

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