The idea of soft war seems to be a counterargument for Joseph Nye’s theory of Soft Power. This article tries to look at the two ideas and find how they are applied in US policies towards the Middle East. The idea of soft power and its implications in foreign policy are discussed first using Nye’s and other researchers works; and further, the idea of soft war is reviewed by going through excerpts from Ayatollah Khamenei’s speeches and remarks.

When US President Barack Obama recently spoke at the United Nations about countering the Islamic State, many of his critics complained that he put too much emphasis on diplomacy and not enough on the use of force. It is more accurate to see the current mood as a swing of the US foreign policy pendulum between what Columbia University’s Stephen Sestanovich has called “maximalist” policies and “retrenchment” policies.

America’s political, national security, and foreign policy elites continue to ignore the basics of geopolitics that have shaped the fate of world empires for the past 500 years. Consequently, they have missed the significance of the rapid global changes in Eurasia that are in the process of undermining the grand strategy for world dominion that Washington has pursued these past seven decades.

The tripartite nature of the Islamic State creates a policy dilemma. On the one hand, it is important to use hard military power to deprive the caliphate of the territory that provides it both sanctuary and legitimacy. But if the American military footprint is too heavy, the Islamic State’s soft power will be strengthened, thus aiding its global recruiting efforts.

As the 2016 presidential campaign heats up, candidates inevitably jockey for position on the contentious issue of immigration. The problem is that most focus on short-term issues and fail to take a longer historical view of the effect immigration has on America as a world power. Because if they did, they would see that at a time when declinists are again proclaiming the end of the American century, immigration is one of the bright spots about our position.

Joseph Nye is a University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University. He is also the former Dean of the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Clinton administration from 1994-1995, and a current member of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He is the author of many books, most recently Is the American Century Over?

Following a speech at the University of Oxford in early June, he spoke with Samuel Ramani. That interview follows.

Many in the country and across the globe believe that the US is slipping away from being the world's most powerful nation. [...] He (Joseph Nye) corroborates his arguments with facts and figures on the indices of America's favourable geography, demographics, military power and soft power, purchasing power parity and science and innovation.