Soft power is the ability to influence others through attraction and persuasion rather than coercion or force. It involves shaping the preferences of others through appeal and attraction, using culture, political values, and foreign policies to enact change. Soft power resources include a countrys culture, political ideals, and policies. Soft power is non-coercive and is used to achieve foreign policy objectives. Joseph Nye, who popularized the concept of soft power in the late 1980s, initially set out three primary sources of soft power: political values, culture, and foreign policy. Soft power can be deployed effectively through education diplomacy, science diplomacy, public diplomacy, and digital diplomacy. Soft power is different from hard power, which refers to the use of coercion, military or economic force to influence the behavior of another state. The USA has been using soft power to achieve foreign policy objectives in support of military and economic powers. Soft power is essential in dealing with critical global issues that require multilateral cooperation among states.