Joseph S. Nye
Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: (617) 495-1123
Fax: (617)-496-3337
Email: Joseph_Nye@harvard.edu
AP Photo
May 15, 2012
"Judge the U.S. Candidates by Their Self-mastery and Openness"
Op-Ed, Daily Star
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"But the most important variable for voters to examine is the candidate's biography. I do not mean the slick books and television advertisements that are produced for their campaigns. While image consultants and acting ability can mask a candidate's character, an integrated life over time is the best basis to judge the authenticity of the next president's temperament and how he will govern."
March 2012
"The Twenty-First Century Will Not Be a 'Post-American' World"
Journal Article, International Studies Quarterly, issue 1, volume 56
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"After the collapse of Cold War bipolarity, power in the global information age became distributed in a pattern that resembles a complex three-dimensional chess game. On the top chessboard, military power is largely unipolar, and the United States is likely to retain primacy for quite some time. But on the middle chessboard, economic power has been multi-polar for more than a decade...with the United States, Europe, Japan, and China as the major players, and others gaining in importance. The bottom chessboard is the realm of transnational relations that cross borders outside of government control. It includes nonstate actors as diverse as bankers electronically transferring funds, terrorists transferring weapons, hackers threatening cyber-security, and threats such as pandemics and climate change. On this bottom board, power is widely diffused, and it makes no sense to speak of unipolarity, multipolarity, or hegemony."
AP Photo
April 10, 2012
"Cyber War and Peace"
Op-Ed, Today's Zaman
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Cyber war, though only incipient at this stage, is the most dramatic of the potential threats. Major states with elaborate technical and human resources could, in principle, create massive disruption and physical destruction through cyber attacks on military and civilian targets. Responses to cyber war include a form of interstate deterrence through denial and entanglement, offensive capabilities, and designs for rapid network and infrastructure recovery if deterrence fails. At some point, it may be possible to reinforce these steps with certain rudimentary norms and arms control, but the world is at an early stage in this process."
AP Photo
March 11, 2012
"What's Wrong with Transformational Leadership?"
Op-Ed, Daily News Egypt
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"A big problem in foreign policy is the complexity of the context. We live in a world of diverse cultures, and we know very little about social engineering and how to 'build nations.' When we cannot be sure how to improve the world, prudence becomes an important virtue, and grandiose visions can pose grave dangers."
AP Photo
January 9, 2012
"Charisma We Can Believe in"
Op-Ed, CNN.com
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Charisma tells us something about a candidate, but it tells us even more about ourselves, the mood of our country, and the types of change we desire. Hard economic times make it difficult to maintain charisma. Obama faces the continuing challenges of unemployment and a recalcitrant Republican opposition, and Sarkozy must contend with similar problems. When they are campaigning, however, their rhetoric will be freed from the need to compromise. This year's elections will be the true test of their charisma."
AP Photo
December 8, 2011
"Obama's Pacific Pivot"
Op-Ed, The Korea Herald
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"...[T]he November Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, held in Obama's home state of Hawaii, promoted a new set of trade talks called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Both events reinforce Obama's message to the Asia-Pacific region that the U.S. intends to remain an engaged power."
AP Photo
November 21, 2011
"A Pivot That Is Long Overdue"
Op-Ed, New York Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
The planned Marine rotation reinforces Obama's message to the region that the United States intends to remain a Pacific power. One of the great power shifts of the 21st century is the recovery of Asia, but instead of keeping our eye on that ball, the U.S. wasted the first decade of this century mired in two land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Obama has announced that American foreign policy will "pivot" toward East Asia.
AP Photo
October 7, 2011
"The Decline and Fall of America's Decline and Fall"
Op-Ed, CNN.com
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"...even if China suffers no major domestic political setback, many current projections are based simply on GDP growth. They ignore U.S. military and soft-power advantages, as well as China's geopolitical disadvantages. As Japan, India, and others try to balance Chinese power, they welcome an American presence. It is as if Mexico and Canada sought a Chinese alliance to balance the U.S. in North America."
September 9, 2011
"The Biggest Danger is Over Reacting"
Op-Ed, WGBH Online
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Why don't we do what we do best at the Kennedy School, hold a community forum?" So we basically pulled together a few faculty members who knew something about the field, though obviously nobody knew about what was really happening. And we held a public forum, which was jammed; members of the audience asking questions and participating. And I think that had something of a therapeutic effect. It allowed the community to pull together and to try to make collective sense of something which otherwise was horrific and senseless.
AP Photo
Spring 2011
"The Future of Power"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, issue 3, volume LXIV
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Jack L. Goldsmith
"The conventional wisdom among those who looked at the Middle East used to be that you had a choice either of supporting the autocrat or being stuck with the religious extremists. The extraordinary diffusion of information created in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries reveals a strong middle that we weren't fully aware of. What is more, new technologies allow this new middle to coordinate in ways unseen before Twitter, Facebook, and so forth, and this could lead to a very different politics of the Middle East. This introduces a new complexity to our government's dealings with the region."
