Cold War lessons for George -- Pakistan Times

[TexasLawyer]

An interesting editorial on the "soft power" of culture. The US had a lot more soft power abroad-- pre-Bush.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

VIEW: Cold War lessons for George W Bush —Joseph S Nye

In 1980, after John Lennon was murdered, a monument to him spontaneously appeared in Prague, and the anniversary of his death was marked by an annual procession for peace and democracy. In 1988, the organisers founded a Lennon Peace Club that demanded the removal of Soviet troops. Lennon trumped Lenin

President Bush recently drew an analogy between the current struggle against jihadi terrorism and the Cold War. He is right in one respect: waves of terrorism tend to be generational. Unfortunately, like the Cold War, the current “war on terror” is likely to be a matter of decades, not years.

But Bush missed another lesson implicit in his analogy: the importance of using the soft power of culture. The Cold War was won by a combination of military power, which deterred Soviet aggression, and the attractive power of Western culture and ideas. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, hammers and bulldozers, not artillery, brought it down. Unfortunately, Bush has not learnt this lesson.

Academic and scientific exchanges during the Cold War played a significant role in enhancing American soft power. While some American sceptics feared that Soviet scientists and KGB agents would steal American technology, they failed to notice that the visitors vacuumed up political ideas alongside scientific secrets. Many of these scientists became leading proponents of human rights and liberalisation inside the USSR.


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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\10\23\story_23-10-2005_pg3_7

Joseph S Nye, a former US assistant secretary of defence, is a professor at Harvard and author of Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics

[tularetom]

1. I think things like history are lost on bush

He just views war as an opportunity to prove to somebody (probably himself or his mommy) that he actually possesses male genitalia.

[philarq]

2. But isn't Karen Hughes

Suposed to show how wonderful The US is to all these people? :sarcasm:

[Metta]

3. It's not that he didn't learn the lesson, he just wanted the oil.

Everything else is just cost or collateral damage. He doesn't care because he doesn't have to.