Military Exchanges: Between Hard and Soft Power

The U.S. military, long associated with hard power, is now engaged in a different type of public diplomacy. Hosting military educational exchange programs at the United States’ elite military schools, the armed forces are able to extend their influence worldwide through soft power initiatives, facilitating the diffusion of ideas abroad. The presence of international officers at U.S. military schools is substantial, yet very little is known about the long-term impacts of these exchanges.

In Military Soft Power: Public Diplomacy through Educational Exchanges, Carol Atkinson examined how these programs build personal and professional networks that then served as important conduits between the United States and other countries, improving interoperability between the U.S. military and its partner nations, broadening U.S. influence through military soft power, rather than through hard power.

Carol Atkinson is a Professor of International Relations at the USC School of International Relations and in the Master of Public Diplomacy program. She is a retired military officer and 1984 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy (the fifth class that included women). While in the military she served in a wide range of operational assignments in the fields of intelligence, targeting, and combat assessment. Her research focuses on the impact of military-to-military exchange programs on international politics. She has taught courses on a wide range of subjects in international relations, national security, military strategy, and warfare. A veteran of Operation Desert Storm, Atkinson was previously a Fulbright Fellow at the Rakovski National Defense Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2003, she received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Duke University.