He's the US professor who moves between academia and politics with ease, and whose term 'soft power' defines diplomacy in the Obama era. Mary Dejevsky wonders why Britain doesn't have its own Joe Nye

Few people have influenced the contemporary debate over the contested notion of power in recent years as much as Joseph S. Nye. A long time Harvard Professor, Nye served in the US government, and combines the insights of a practitioner and scholar to examine the nature and uses of power in a changing world.

Joseph Nye is as gifted at branding as he is at thinking, teaching, and serving the public. He turned "soft power" (essential to "smart power") into a golden brand. In Washington, you know something has reached gold when the secretary of state wraps a "strategy" around it...

Yet while last week's cuts failed to do much about the deficit, they could do serious damage to U.S. foreign policy. On Tuesday, the axe fell: The State Department and foreign operations budget was slashed by $8.5 billion -- a pittance when compared to military spending, but one that could put a serious dent in the United States' ability to positively influence events abroad.

How ironic that in a time of rapidly increasing connectivity around the globe, we are still so far from understanding other cultures, especially those that observe religions and traditions different from our own.

These Chinese are not alone. A recent poll shows there are more Americans who believe China will be the dominant power in 20 years than believe the United States will retain that position.

Over the past decade, China’s economic and military might have grown impressively. But that has frightened its neighbors into looking for allies to balance rising Chinese hard power.

What will it mean to wield power in the global information age of the 21st century? What resources will produce power? In the 16th century, control of colonies and gold bullion gave Spain the edge; 17th-century Netherlands profited from trade and finance; 18th-century France used its larger population and armies to gain advantage; while 19th-century British power rested on its primacy in the industrial revolution and its navy.