Joshjo
@joshjo
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[Foreign Affairs] American Gun Violence Goes Global
"an American young person knows, 'on average, at least one person who has been injured or killed by a gun.'"
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It was an American—the influential political scientist Joseph Nye—who popularized the concept of soft power. He explained the critical role that a culture’s attractiveness plays in drawing other nations into its sphere of influence. The United States was a great practitioner of soft-power politics long before Nye popularized the term: it arguably gained its edge after World War II, and its enormous sway over geopolitics and the global economy, thanks less to its military investments and more to the allure of its commercial, cultural, and ideological exports.
Policymakers eager to protect the United States’ reputation and influence need to seriously consider the impact of its new major export, gun violence. The most effective way for American leaders to address the problem would be to move more seriously to get gun violence under control at home. So far, the persistent murder of American schoolchildren has not prompted such reforms.
But perhaps geopolitical concerns will—and they should. America’s gun violence is driving agony and contempt among its allies and handing easy talking points to its rivals, both of which erode the United States’ advantages. With his cuts to cultural diplomacy, U.S. President Donald Trump shows little overt interest in retaining the United States’ soft-power edge. But his administration remains intensely interested in making U.S. exports successful, both for the sake of American companies’ bottom lines and for the United States’ reputation as a maker and purveyor of cutting-edge goods. Gun violence has become a cutting-edge U.S. export—but one that will harm, not help, its positive balance of power. If U.S. policymakers do not take gun violence more seriously, they will only ensure that this balance goes further off kilter.
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