Thirty years ago, I was in Moscow and swam laps each morning at the Hotel Mezhdunarodnaya. In keeping with Soviet culture, suspicion and paranoia blocked any locker room chatter, until one young guy asked about American music and I gave him my cassette of James Brown Live at the Apollo. His suspicions about Americans gave way to a shared appreciation of the Godfather of Soul.
It’s a scene that played out over and over again as the Soviet Union withered — whether through American books and films smuggled behind the Iron Curtain or David Bowie playing Heroes at the Berlin Wall. And it is a living example of American culture’s power to convince and persuade our rivals instead of trying to coerce them — what political scientist Joseph Nye called soft power — one that’s more important than ever as the global competition between the United States and China takes center stage in US politics.
Read Full Article »