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
November 6, 2007
CSIS Commission on Smart Power: A Smarter, More Secure America
Report
By Richard Armitage and Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
In 2006, CSIS launched a bipartisan Commission on Smart Power to develop a vision to guide America's global engagement. This report lays out the commission's findings and a discrete set of recommendations for how the next president of the United States, regardless of political party, can implement a smart power strategy.
September 17, 2007
"America and Global Public Goods"
Op-Ed, Daily Times, (Pakistan)
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"By using its good offices to mediate conflicts in places like Northern Ireland, Morocco, and the Aegean Sea, the US has helped in shaping international order in ways that are beneficial to other nations."
June 14, 2007
"Japan's Valued Role in Promoting Public Goods"
Op-Ed, Asahi Shimbun
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
This commentary comprises excerpts from a keynote speech Joseph S. Nye delivered May 26 in Tokyo at an Asahi Shimbun symposium on its 21 "Proposals for Japan's New Strategies" that ran in May 3 editions of The Asahi Shimbun and on May 23 in IHT/Asahi.
March 11, 2003
"Europe is too Powerful to be Ignored"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"From the coal and steel community created after the second world war to today's European Union, Franco-German co-operation has created something unique in world history. The union is not a new nation state with a mighty army. The Europeans are not all in the same sovereign boat but the national boats are lashed together into an island of stability that is sui generis and powerfully attractive to its neighbours. Witness the desire of central Europeans and Turkey to join it."
November 2012
"Declinist Pundits"
Op-Ed, Foreign Policy
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Decline is a misleading metaphor that assumes there is an organic life cycle for countries as there is for individuals. We know little about the life cycle of states. It took three centuries for the Western Roman Empire to decline from its apogee to collapse. After Britain lost its American colonies in the 18th century, writer Horace Walpole lamented that Britain was reduced to the insignificance of Sardinia. He missed the fact that the Industrial Revolution was about to produce Britain's greatest century. Put simply, we do not know where the United States is in its supposed life cycle."
AP Photo
August 8, 2011
"Can China Afford to Downgrade the U.S.?"
Op-Ed, Reuters
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"The real test will be whether China moves away from the dollar in any significant manner. While it makes modest adjustments to its reserve holdings, there are few good alternatives to the dollar. And while it calls for an international basket of currencies to replace the dollar, there are few takers. Of course, China might move toward opening its currency and credit markets in an effort to make the yuan a reserve currency, but the authoritarian political system is unwilling and unprepared to move to that degree of economic freedom."
AP Photo
October 2010
"American and Chinese Power after the Financial Crisis"
Journal Article, Washington Quarterly, issue 4, volume 33
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"...Asia has its own internal balance of powers, and in that context, many states continue to welcome an American presence in the region. Chinese leaders have to contend with the reactions of other countries, as well as the constraints created by their own objectives of economic growth and the need for external markets and resources. Too aggressive a Chinese military posture could produce a countervailing coalition among its neighbors that would weaken both its hard and soft power. A poll of 16 countries around the world found a positive attitude toward China’s economic rise, but not its military rise."
AP Photo
October 14, 2010
"The Future of Power"
Op-Ed, The Korea Herald
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Much of the work of global governance will rely on formal and informal networks. Network organizations (such as the G20) are used for setting agendas, building consensus, coordinating policy, exchanging knowledge and establishing norms....To cope with transnational challenges, the international community will have to continue to develop a series of complementary networks and institutions to supplement the U.N. But if major countries are divided, it is unlikely that even networks like the G20 can set the agenda."
AP Photo
June 14, 2010
"The Future of Europe"
Op-Ed, The Korea Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"The EU's approach to sharing power, hammering out agreements, and resolving conflict by multiple committees can be frustrating and lacks drama, but it is increasingly relevant for many issues in a networked and interdependent world....In terms of economic power, Europe has the world's largest market, and represents 17 percent of world trade, compared to 12 percent for the U.S. Europe also dispenses half of the world's foreign assistance, compared to 20 percent for the U.S. But all this potential strength may be to no avail if Europeans do not solve the immediate problems stemming from financial markets' loss of confidence in the euro."
AP Photo
July 12, 2010
"The Dollar and the Dragon"
Op-Ed, The Journal of Turkish Weekly
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Judging whether economic interdependence produces power requires looking at the balance of asymmetries, not just at one side of the equation. In this case, interdependence has created a "balance of financial terror" analogous to the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet Union never used their potential to destroy each other in a nuclear exchange."
