It is almost 25 years since the American academic Joseph Nye first introduced his distinction between hard power – force delivered through guns and money – and soft power – influence delivered through attraction and relationship.
Soft power was defined by Harvard University's Joseph Nye in 1990 as "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than through coercion", and culture is a key plank.
(By "soft power," a term he coined in the 1980s, Nye means the ability to affect others through attraction and persuasion). China has the world's largest army but spends far less on defense than the United States, its population is aging, and it lacks soft power.
Walking around the mazelike building in Foggy Bottom, you get the sense that if you duck into any office you will find earnest young women and men discussing globalization, the possibility that Facebook can topple tyrannies, and what is called "soft power," the ability to bend the world toward your view through attraction, not coercion.
But it is only relatively recently that the party has seized upon the notion of building up soft power, a term coined 20 years ago by an American, Joseph Nye of Harvard University, a former chairman of America's National Intelligence Council and senior Pentagon official, to describe "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments".
Rather, despite the damage George Bush did to America's prestige, in East Asia it remains high.According to a recent survey of Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, China and Vietnam by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, America's "soft" power ie, its ability to influence others through attraction rather than coercion has actually grown.
The park's Haunted Graveyard, a walk-through attraction of six haunted houses, has, in its second year, already established a reputation for its ability to frighten without blood and gore.
Due to open on 4 July, the walk-through attraction has been created with the help of Los Angeles-based special effects studio KNB EFX, which is responsible for creating the gory, decaying zombies featured in the show.
The next day, I was at the Shrine Tree, another drive-through attraction about 40 miles north of Leggett.
A pounding soundtrack of electronica, industrial and dub-step music did little to improve the year-round walk-through attraction.
The maze will utilize the catacombs, crypts and burial chambers of the park's year-round House of Horrors walk-through attraction.
