The United State can generate soft power. What is required is that our government reflect what is best in our country. Our elected officers and our adminstrative/executive officers should act out what we claim are our values. That does not mean waving flags and singing Yankee Doodle. It means not jumping ship when a more profitable one sails past. It means being honest about your sexual orientation and trusting people to understand. It means risk. I realize that is unlikely to happen, but to call it idealistic would be short-sighted.

Dan,
I am from India and i have been living here for the last 7 years - i may have the perspective of an outsider that this strategy of soft power is supposedly meant for.

As some one who has turned more conservative over the years, my answer would - do not count on the Govt a whole lot - soft power is best demonstrated by people who are not even conscious that they are doing it - no American musician, actor, writer consciously tried to project a good image of America as far as i can see - people come to the conclusion that there must be something good about the country that it can offer freedom for such creativity to its citizens.

But to be fair, organizations like USAID should continue helping and working with people around the world who also believe in a free and opportunity filled society.

Another thing that people outside of this country have no exposure to is every day America - some thing that you are not going to get unless you live here. I think it would be terrific if more people came to know of how this country is still traditional in many ways or the huge middle class here - people with the same dreams and aspirations as millions of others outside this country.

America does have a reputation of being a "rich and spoiled country that is drunk with power" - something which can be countered if more people get know of what a normal, decent place most of America is. I am not sure if the Govt can do this or is upto it. Especially after the disastrous management of the Iraq war.

Heck the Govt cannot even convince most people living here that the surge has gone really well and it is something to cheer for !

It sounds as if what Gates has adopted is the term, "soft power" rather than the academic concept, "soft power." Since from my point of view the concept has little value while the term by itself is inoffensive, I approve. Gates' specific points about rebuilding foreign policy agencies outside the Pentagon , which have been so badly treated during the last two administrations, are sound as well.

Admiral Mike Mullen...once said he’d hand a part of his budget to the State Department “in a heartbeat,” assuming it was spent in the right place.

There's the rub. How do you know you're getting a good return on your investment? Diplomacy and foreign aid don't usually produce short term results, even at their most successful. That's how these programs got cut in the first place, they couldn't be easily defended in post-Cold War budget fights. The populists and isolationists haven't gone away, they'll continue to resist any increase in govt. spending for diplomacy or foreign aid.

In the academic sense, the answer is no. If you look at Nye's book, it seems quite clear to me that soft power occurs from people wanting the same things as you so as to meet their own desires or interests, that is, to suit their own purposes. Unless said people are unable to understand what will meet their needs or desires, there is no role for others in this process; soft power is nothing more than beneficial serendipity.

While I agree with Gates on the need to both reorganization and increase funding for the "soft" power agencies of the national government, the issue is more fundamental. It is both how and with what skills we as Americans engage the world. Too few of us spend time overseas, and even fewer are fluent in a foreign language and culture. For example, we all intellectually know that relations between China and the US is the critical, if not pivotal, nation-state relationship of the 21st century, yet how many K-16 students learn Mandarin or spend any time in China. In my state of Oregon, less than 1% of high school graduates have taken any Mandarin, less than 2% of the undergraduates at our three leading public universities take Mandarin, and for one recent year only 35 out of about 80,000 public university students studied abroad in China. And Oregon's figures may be better than the national averages. How can the US expect to have any "soft" power when we have this as an educational system?!!!

It seems the federal goevernment has at least two tools to exercise soft power. First, as bstr wrote above, actions of the government can reflect the values that make the US universally attractive (such as clearly disavowing torture or effectively contributing humanitarian aid after disasters). Second, the government can do its best to stay out of the way in matters where transnational forces are assisting the spread of US soft power (by re-establishing the very sane system of accessible student visas and skilled worker visas or by instituting free trade measures).

I believe Gates addresses this reasonably well, particularly in reference to USAID and economic reconstruction. Transparent, fair markets and the rule of law are the US's two strongest idealogical exports and the state has a role in promoting them.

Try this article by Robert Kaplan in today's Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-kaplan25nov25,0,6701166.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

"... There has been no magic-bullet solution in Colombia, no newsworthy technique that you could write about. It was just bread-and-butter, never-give-up, attrition-of-the-same. The Green Berets provided small-unit training that raised the combat ability of the Colombian military, making it more aggressive in hunting down the drug armies as well as more aware of human rights as a pivotal tool in counterinsurgency. Meanwhile, State Department aid came with an implicit proviso: The Colombian army should put more emphasis on medical, education and social programs to secure the goodwill of the inhabitants. ..."

The question of soft power relates to a capability the does not seem to exist. The US State Department would have identified this need long ago if it was really important.

Methinks that soft power is not important and should not be developed, unless it is needed by the State Department.

At a lower level soft power costs money and the business case to motivate such extravagant expense is non-existing as yet.

A government can't create wealth; at most, it can foster the conditions that lead to its creation. It can sure as hell destroy wealth, though. I think the situation with soft power is similar.