Joseph Nye Was the Champion of a World That No Longer Exists

Suzanne Nossel

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It is poignant yet perhaps fitting to mourn Joseph Nye, the distinguished international relations scholar, just as his life’s work championing U.S. leadership and liberal internationalism has run aground in U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term.

Nye, who coined the term “soft power,” died at the age of 88 on Tuesday. His intellectual leadership, teaching, policy guidance, and diplomatic efforts shaped five decades of U.S. foreign policy. His thinking also molded the U.S. foreign-policy establishment—the collective of scholars, think tankers, officials, and civil society leaders that Ben Rhodes, a former advisor to President Barack Obama, once derisively labeled “the Blob.”