It refers to the diplomatic, cultural, and social means of influencing international issues, as opposed to the purely military or economic. It's widely held, for example, that the cultural exchanges that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s (foreign students coming to study in the US) did as much to bring down Communist regimes in the various Eastern European countries as anything we did with placing missiles. After World War II, the US government used the dissemination of American Abstract Expressionist art to promote democratic policies in postwar Europe.
When I look up "soft power" at Wikipedia, these ideas are expressed in a quote by (of all people) Robert Gates, who by the time he made it, must certainly have realized that the invasion of Iraq had LOST more hearts and minds than it gained, and thus harmed our national security:
Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion. Nye coined the term in a 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. The term is now widely used in international affairs by analysts and statesmen. For example, in 2007, CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao told the 17th Communist Party Congress that China needed to increase its soft power, and the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke of the need to enhance American soft power by "a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security – diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action and economic reconstruction and development."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_powerThe Peace Corps certainly can be viewed as a "civilian security force": it consists of regular civilians who volunteer to go to various countries to assist in a variety of economic development, environmental, and health projects. By working in remote communities in difficult countries, we gain friends and respect--and that means security, because we have fewer young people, say, being recruited into extremist or terrorist organizations. Giving people new schools, new jobs, clean water, or health clinics improves our security by making them less desperate.
At least this is what I think Obama meant by "civilian security force" in that speech.
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