Joseph Nye died earlier this month at the age of 88, and with him passes one of the most influential voices of post-Cold War American internationalism.

The tributes have been swift and respectful, as they should be. The renowned Harvard professor was not only a gifted scholar but a consummate Washington insider, serving as assistant secretary of Defense for international security affairs in the Clinton administration. He bridged the worlds of academia and power like few others of his generation.

Nye’s concept of “soft power” became gospel in the foreign policy establishment. His calls for an ethical foreign policy won plaudits from policymakers who wanted to believe that American primacy could be both virtuous and enduring.

But now that the official remembrances have piled up, it is time to say something different. Nye was a man of ideas. His passing should invite not just mourning, but reevaluation. And the hard truth is that the world Nye helped interpret, shape and justify no longer exists.

Nye’s signature ideas — soft power, the liberal order, ethical realism — are artifacts of an age that is over. What remains is a harsher and more tragic world, one that calls not for the ethics of Harvard seminars but clarity, hard-nosed realism and morally unsettling truths.

Let’s begin with the concept Nye made famous: soft power. In his telling, the ability to attract and co-opt,........

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