The Foreign Service Journal, October 2008

O C T O B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 27 here is widespread bipartisan agreement that a high priority for the next administration will be strengthening America’s “soft power”: the ability to influence, persuade and inspire, as opposed to coerce, in international affairs (a concept originally articulated by Harvard Professor Joseph Nye). One instrument of soft power that needs urgent attention is the Peace Corps, an important but somewhat faded icon of American global outreach. Created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, it quickly captured the country’s imagi- F O C U S O N T H E P E A C E C O R P S R ESTORING AN A MERICAN I CON FOR THE 21 ST C ENTURY T HE P EACE C ORPS SHOULD NEVER BE CONSIDERED AN INSTRUMENT OF DAY - TO - DAY U.S. FOREIGN POLICY . B UT IT IS A SIGNIFICANT ELEMENT OF SOFT POWER . B Y J AMES R. B ULLINGTON T Philippe Béha