(re)Theories of Power: Decline of US Soft Power in recent years

GPHC

Mr. Roddy

10/23/19

A Decline in the US's Soft Power
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0227-8 

   The decline of soft power by the US began just after 9/11 with the Bush Doctrine which used unilateral decision making to overpower anyones thoughts of soft power. However just recently with the Trump presidency the US faced a significant drop in soft power due to his "America First" policy. However the idea of soft power is non-existant without hard power, in fact in the past couple decades the US has been using smart power which is the happy medium we seem to use a military force mixed with economics to get what we want. In another recent issue that pertains to this in a way, Russia has been trying out more soft power to subvert politics in the west (the US). Due to the decline of soft power in the US the "global American influence" has been dropping rather significantly; According to an article I read the global ranking of nations' soft-power had the US at number one in 2016 (before the Trump presidency ), however since then the US's ranking has dropped four places in the last four years. 11,000 people where surveyed across 25 countries, and due to Trump's "America first policy" the US ranked 15th, last year it ranked 16th, and now it currently ranks 21st which now puts it at the bottom third of the listing. The decline in US soft power has been very recent and very significant, we're quickly losing the ability to appeal to other countries.

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