In the case of September 11th, the Taliban's strike on America occurred because of soft power. To see this, one must look at the reasoning behind the attacks. In the Middle East, religion is the glue that holds citizens together and the knife, which cuts them apart. Western culture imposes upon religious beliefs and the influence that the United States has through soft power creates animosity among these nations. .
In the case of the September 11th attacks, our soft power came back to haunt us. On the flip side, soft power has gained us much popularity among other countries, which leads to many different benefits. Foreign citizens want to attend our universities, watch our movies, buy our products and live the American dream. Our soft power, in a way, helps our economic power. This shows that soft power is an idea that is multi-dimensional. One could write a book solely on the phenomenon of soft power.
Once the sources of power are discussed we can look at the major players in world politics and see how they fare with the United States in the role of dominance. Nye refers to the following countries as the main contenders to the heavy weight belt of world dominance: China, Japan, Russia, India and Europe as the European Union. He then goes on to express each countries strengths, weaknesses and relationships with one another and how they affect their quest for dominance.
China is seen as the number one challenger to the United States. Although China's population is nearly 4 1/2 times that of the U.S., the old adage of quality, not quantity, comes into play. As can be seen on page thirty-seven, table 1.2 their literacy rate is 15% less, their GDP is half that of the United States, while they host twice as many citizens on a comparable land mass. These are just crumbs at the bottom of the cookie jar. The main downfall of China is the communist ideology of their government.
