In a World of Power, He Chose Principle, A Tribute to Joseph Nye

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Joseph Nye passed away on May 6. The world, for a brief moment, seemed quieter—less principled, less clear, somehow less possible.

He didn’t leave with fireworks. He left the way ideals do when not enough people are paying attention: gently, in the middle of the noise. But for those of us who believed in what he stood for—not just what he wrote, but what he believed—his absence is loud.

I was sixteen when I first read his work. Not in a classroom, and not in English. That summer, I was in Taif—a quiet, mountainous town in western Saudi Arabia, far from any place where global politics was regularly discussed. The internet was unreliable at best, and boredom had a way of sharpening curiosity. I would sneak into my grandfather’s library and pull-down whatever books looked forgotten—dusty, mismatched volumes. One of them was a faded Arabic anthology on international relations. Tucked between theories I barely understood was a name I would keep returning to: Joseph Nye.

I didn’t know what “power” meant—not really. It sounded like something other people had. But here was this voice, even across dusty pages and outdated editions, saying something entirely different: that power wasn't just tanks. That power could be belief. That power could be culture, values, dignity. Those ideas, if they were good, and strong enough, could matter. And if enough people believed in them—really believed—they could shape reality.

That idea landed in me like a flare.

I met him in Washington, D.C., in December 2022. It was at the Aspen Security Forum, though nothing about our meeting felt formal or staged. I was a young diplomat —issuing visas some days, arguing with congressional staff on others, and once in a while, when I was lucky, I met people. That day, I was lucky.

I approached him like a fan, because that’s what I was. He smiled warmly, the kind of smile that invites, not separates. I told him I had read his books. That I wanted to be a professor one day. I told him I had big ideas—too big maybe, but sincere. I also told him I didn’t agree with everything he wrote.

He looked at me, amused. “What didn’t you like?” he asked. “Is it because I wrote about your country?”

I laughed. I answered honestly. I picked out specific points in his work, that I felt missed the mark—culturally, politically, contextually. He didn’t defend himself. He asked questions. He was curious. Not performatively, but genuinely. Here was one of the most respected minds in international relations, and he didn’t try to win the conversation. He tried to learn from it.

That was Joseph Nye.

He understood that ideas don’t travel evenly. In one of his essays on Complex Interdependence, he wrote about “cultural distance”—how the same words, broadcast to seven cities, could be received as liberation in one and blasphemy in another. He understood that globalization was not flattening us into sameness; it was layering us in complexity. American pop culture might mean rebellion in Tehran, consumer fluff in Mumbai, and little more than static in Bujumbura.

I remember reading that passage and nodding—then pausing. Because even with all his insight, there were moments when his reading of certain places—my place—felt like it skimmed the surface. During our conversation, I told him I disagreed with some of his interpretations of Saudi society—not out of defensiveness, but because I felt something was missing: context, texture, contradiction. I asked him not to reduce the intimacy and complexity of a people to the mistake of one.

And I told him it wasn’t his fault. For so many years, others had written our story for us. He looked at me—quiet, thoughtful—and said: “Then be that voice that corrects this.”

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t retreat behind credentials or citations. He listened. That was Nye. He didn’t assume authority. He assumed responsibility—for listening, for refining, for learning.

To reduce him to “soft power” is to miss the point entirely. Yes, he coined the term. Yes, it became a central part of 21st-century foreign policy. But that was just one branch of a much older tree.

His real belief—the one that lived beneath all the theories—was that human beings shape history through the ideas they dare to believe in. Justice. Cooperation. Respect. Accountability. He believed these things not because they were fashionable, but because they were necessary. That moral choices aren’t decorative—they’re structural. And that the great task of our time is not just to manage the world, but to make better choices, and when forced to choose between two monsters, choose the one who is less ugly.

He knew that power could be violent or beautiful, brittle or flexible. But it is never neutral. He knew that the best form of power is neither soft nor hard, it is smart.

His 2020 book, Do Morals Matter?, wasn’t the kind of book a retired professor writes for posterity. It was a live document—a reckoning. He examined America’s presidents not to glorify or condemn but to assess whether they tried to lead with conscience, and if not, why not. He believed if people care enough to hold leaders accountable and if leaders care enough to pay attention, the world, can, and will be a better place.

He never gave up on that if.

I still have the selfie we took that day. I treasure it. Not because it proves I met someone important, but because it captures the face of a man who took time. Who gave space. Who showed that humbleness is a powerful impression.

A year later, I was accepted into the PhD program at the RAND School. My time as a diplomat had been short-lived but instructive—enough to see how ideas survive contact with power, and how often they don’t. And now, I was back in the world of theory, immersed in Nye’s work—not as a wide-eyed teenager, but as a doctoral student, writing my dissertation on complex interdependence. His theory. Funny enough, I’m working to challenge parts of it, to test its boundaries in a world it didn’t fully anticipate. And even then, he responded to my emails—graciously, generously. The last came just two months ago.

It wasn’t hero worship. It was recognition. His voice had followed me from adolescence to adulthood, across languages, borders, and political systems. And the deeper I read, the clearer it became: Joseph Nye wasn’t just writing about how the world works. He was writing about how to live in it, and the power of ideas.

Nye’s career wasn’t just about how states influence each other. It was about how human beings hold onto hope in systems too often misunderstood.  

And now it’s our turn.

To believe that our ideas—if we nurture them, challenge them, and fight for them—can shape something better.  The challenges facing us today—misinformation, climate change, inequality and the list goes on—are more interconnected, more urgent, and more defining than ever.

That policy is not a performance, nor a ladder to climb, but a moral obligation. Especially in a time of widening cultural distance, when it is easier to caricature than to understand, our task is not to agree with everyone, but to try to understand them. That is harder. And that is the work that should be done.

Joe’s legacy reminds us: policy is never value-free, because people never are. Every policy carries a worldview. Every recommendation is a choice about what—and who—matters. He taught me that even in systems designed for power, there is space for principle. That understanding across borders, across beliefs, is not weakness—it is the beginning of wisdom.

May his soul rest in peace.