As tributes pour in for Joseph Nye, a longtime Harvard professor and adviser to U.S. presidents and other global leaders, who died Wednesday, one phrase surfaces repeatedly: “soft power.”

Dr. Nye, a towering thinker on international relations and security, coined the term in 1990 in his book “Bound To Lead.” “After looking at American military and economic power resources,” he wrote, “I felt that something was still missing – the ability to affect others by attraction and persuasion rather than just coercion and payment.”

His focus was on deploying an underrecognized tool. “Soft power was only one component of power, and rarely sufficient by itself,” Dr. Nye wrote in 2017. “The ability to combine hard and soft power into successful strategies where they reinforce each other could be considered ‘smart power.’”

Dr. Nye was known for his love of discussing such ideas with others. The Monitor’s Howard LaFranchi recalls meeting him at a small gathering just after arriving in Washington in 2001. “I chatted with him, and he gave me his direct number and told me to contact him at any time. I did on any number of occasions,” Howard recalls. Dr. Nye’s thinking on American soft power “laid the foundation of work I would do in the future, be it the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, or earthquake responses around the world. The bridges and the goodwill and long-term investment it built were major, and enhanced U.S. standing and interests.”

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The Vatican announced a new pope on Thursday, American Cardinal Robert Prevost. You can find the Monitor’s story here.