Not too long ago, America wanted Europe to:
*adopt more American approaches to addressing the global financial crisis;
*shoulder more of the military and economic load in Afghanistan; and
*accept more responsibility for holding the detainees currently at Guantanamo Bay.
And Europe wanted the opposite — for America to:
*adopt more European approaches to addressing the global financial crisis;
*shoulder more of the military and economic load in Afghanistan; and
*accept more responsibility for holding the detainees currently at Guantanamo Bay.
These conflicts of interest have been worked out not with hard power tools of threats and intimidation but with soft power tools of shaming and suasion. And the results so far are:
*America is going to adopt more European approaches to addressing the global financial crisis;
*America is going to shoulder more of the military and economic load in Afghanistan; and
*America is going to accept more responsibility for holding the detainees currently at Guantanamo Bay.
On these bases Peter Feaver argues that there are limit to US soft power, even with Obama at the helm.
Claiming European soft power potency over the US (and Obama) on these three particular subjects is really just stating the obvious. The US lost their soft power over these issues; when the US were the epicenter of the global financial crisis; when the US sidetrack into Iraq; and when the US insist on their Guantanamo Bay prison. Soft power only works when your position is attractive to begin with, it cant be use to enhanced morally bankrupted policies, no one serious ever claim that it can.