Winning Smart Power
Joe Nye reminds us that soft power is the power to get others to want what we want. By that definition, soft power advocates haven’t done so well. Ironically, they have failed to use soft power to get others to want what they want – that is, more soft power.
It’s easy to beat up on the current administration for failing to understand and deploy ‘soft power’ and public diplomacy in their toolkit of foreign policy. Bush, Cheney and the gang prefer coercion, i.e. hard power.
But the previous Democratic campaigns have not done such a good job either.
During the Kerry campaign there was pressure on the candidate to give a diplomacy/soft power speech. It would describe the ‘third leg’ of a triad of effective foreign policy instruments. Guess what? He never gave the speech. Whatever his campaign’s reasoning, it demonstrated how little the Democratic candidate for president thought of the subject. Maybe he didn’t want what we wanted.
Now, four years later, it is patently obvious to all that the administration’s hapless mix of coercion and diplomacy has been a disaster. By using far too much of the former and far too little of the latter it has seriously compromised America’s national interest. Washington lacks an effective combination of hard and soft power to make smart power. Instead of a smart power policy, we have a policy of ‘stupid power’. Bush barely uses traditional or public diplomacy at all, and uses coercive power badly.
The disastrous consequences of ‘stupid power’ have created an attentive public ripe for a serious conversation about the proper mix of convincing and coercing. But the amount of ink (or bits and bytes) devoted to developing a ‘smart power’ agenda is modest relative to talk about force structures, troop strength and intelligence reform. It is ironic that those most interested in seeing a better balance between hard and soft power have not been particularly adept at using soft power. They have failed to make a consistent and tough-minded public argument linking America’s national security and soft power, and tying the ‘why’ with the ‘how’.
Between now and November 2008 believers in smart power will need to make a much more effective case for soft power if they hope to restore America’s standing in the world. (For more discussion of ‘smart power’ check out http://smartpowerblog.org).
I believe that in most political rhetoric, "soft power" runs into the same hawkish misinterpretations that "diplomacy" does, it is considered a tool of the weak. However, the only diplomacy we currently engage in is typified with what we're seeing in Iran, threats of military intervention and a lack of dedication to multilateral action.
America used to be the home of hard-line diplomacy and I think it is time one of our presidential hopefuls rose to the challenge. This is one undecided 2008 voter that will be persuaded more by a commitment to diplomacy as an inspiring personal history.
February 11, 2007 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can anyone imagine Bush being able to articulate the argument in favor of "smart power"? Not me. But, neither can I imagine Hillary doing so, nor Clarke, nor even Edwards. The one who can do this is the one who can attract and hold the audience's attention, make the argument in terms that all can understand and emphathize with, and arouse people to want to agree with him. The only candidate that can do that as of now is Obama. Possibly as the primary campaign winds along other Democrats will be able to do the same, but not now.
Hoppy in Sacramento
February 11, 2007 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Wilson notices regarding John Kerry...
Dunno about that particular maybe. But he didn't get what he wanted in 2004, like the Presidency, perhaps? :-)
aMike
February 12, 2007 7:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dr. Wilson,
Rather than ramming our desires down the world's throat using "hard power" or mesmerizing them to see things "our" way through "soft power" I wonder if anybody in the State Department or the Government Studies Departments ever considers the possibilities of considering the needs and desires of others and maybe, just maybe, trying to want what they want.
Sure we can't want precisely what two-hundred odd scrapping states and organizations want because we're not sufficiently schizophrenic but we don't seem to be even trying to want any country on the verge of major-power status to get over the hump or to want nations surrounded by powerful historical threats and adversaries to build the kind of arsenol necessary to defend themselves or to want countries plagued with insurgencies to solidify a national identity.
Some of this is understandable because the details hit too close to home or because some ideas are just beyond what we believe could ever be desirable but I think that even without giving up what we truly hold dear the adaption of a less self-centered rhetoric by hard-power and soft-power advocates alike would be welcome and maybe even productive.
February 12, 2007 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point Alan.
What if, shockingly, 'we' ended up wanting pretty much what 'they' wanted? Yes, all the usual caveats apply, but even polling data by Pew and others suggest there is a fair amount of agreement about what people the world over want in their lives. Some search for such common ground; others search for contested ground so they can do battle and demonstrate to themselves and their narrow constituency that they are pure and untainted.
But two big steps. First, you have to be willing to listen to what 'they' want. Sometimes that's called 'diplomacy'. It's also called plain common sense. Second, as we start to listen to what 'they' want, we have to figure out who 'we' are.
At the present moment 'We the People' are not well represented by 'them' the 'leaders'.
February 12, 2007 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats seem to be very conflicted right now on the use of hard power. Steny Hoyer stated emphatically that the House would not defund the troops under any circumstances. Murtha follows up by announcing a bill to do just that. It would be interesting to know what is really going on behind the scenes.
February 15, 2007 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
To the contrary, Clarke speaks often and well to the pragmatic importance of what I would call "persuasive power" with reference to his experiences in Europe during the 80s and 90s.
I believe that to their detriment those whose role it is to persuade lack conviction that Americans have the ears to hear the arguments. There's a fundamental lack of respect there.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is.
February 16, 2007 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Steny Hoyer = AIPAC & Murtha = NOT AIPAC
However, I'm still not clear whether Murtha still wants to fund the PERMANENT bases.
February 19, 2007 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Winning 'smart power' in the current debate so dominated by the hyper-exercise of hard power is hard.
Only way it will be won is through that old practice called politics. Just having foreign policy intellectuals calling for better balance between diplomacy and force is necessary but not sufficient.
At some point someone needs to go out on a limb and flog the idea with the people, on political campaigns, on the hustings, even on blogs.
Hey, maybe it's even a matter of life and death.
February 20, 2007 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, a big part of that is that you don't have much in the way of hard power left.
Sounds quixotic in a country which accounts for something like 60% of the planets defense expenditures, but there you go.
The truth of the matter is that the American Army is entirely occupied in Iraq. The U.S. can barely scrape together 20,000 troops of a 'surge.' Recruitment and enlistment is down, anyone who can get out is getting out, morale is an all time low, and the simple reality is that there is just no capacity in terms of ground troops for anything resembling a new adventure.
True, the United States has pretty much unimpaired air power. But a big 'so what?' Air power inflicted massive civilian casualties and infrastructure damage on the Lebanese civilian population, but had no real military effect.
If you want to go off and commit war crimes against civilians, then sure, go right ahead and use air power.
Same thing with the navy. Lots of untouched ships available to deploy. But what are you going to do with them?
Just keep in mind the potential risk to ground troops in Iraq if you provoke a Shiite uprising.
Sad to say, but 'hard power' has shot its load. It's spent and deflating rapidly.
March 18, 2007 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm surprised at you, Valdron.
America never commits "war crimes." Indeed, America never goes to war; it defends itself. Occasionally, it may employ what a few might deem excessive force but always with the best of intentions.
America's so-called wars are each and every one a simulacrum.
N.B. The U.S. Department of War was put out of business in 1947.
March 18, 2007 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know what I was thinking.
More people have been nobly killed and ennobled in their killing by America than any other noble nation in noble history.
America is so virtuous that its napalm just feels more moral and hurts less because of it.
March 21, 2007 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was there when Senator Kerry decided to give his 'soft power' speech, and I was also present when he opted not to give it. In fact I was the staffer that picked him up and brought him to that mid-town address. We went up to the forty-sixth floor where I guided him into the smoke-filled room, and then escorted him to a soft chair up front. I remember it well: The little screen came down, the lights dimmed and the voice began . . .
"Senator, we understand that there are some people in this world that don't share our objectives, but while we understand it we don't expect that you will be one of them.
"Senator, we know that despite your background as a misguided youth you're an advocate of power and force just as we are, but you must understand that should you give this namby-pamby peacenik speech you're planning that some people might take it the wrong way. Senator, they might question American power. Some might even question the military budget. Senator, we can't have that. We truly regret that incident at Daly Plaza with another Bay Stater that wandered from the fold.
"We'll cut to the chase, Senator. You are theatening our income with this soft power baloney, and we can't accept that.
"As I'm sure you know, Senator, the Pentagon budget is over five hundred billion dollars a year, a lot of which goes into the pockets of the men seated behind you. That's over a billion dollars a day, not even including war profits, which are considerable. I don't need to tell you that they don't like threats to their income. Not one bit, Senator."
Well, there were some more facts presented after that but I can tell you that Senator Kerry's mind was made up. The very next thing the Senator did, after canceling his 'soft power' speech, was travel to the Grand Canyon. God, I was afraid he would jump. But on August 9, 2004, at the Grand Canyon, Senator Kerry said that he still would have voted to authorize the war in Iraq even if he had known then that U.S. and allied forces would not find weapons of mass destruction. And later on, in his Nov. 3, 2004 concession speech, the Massachusetts senator told his supporters in Boston, “Now more than ever with our soldiers in harm’s way, we must stand together and succeed in Iraq.”
This is a fable (up to the Grand Canyon) but who can doubt that it could have happened?
July 27, 2007 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
The most important component of hard power is the congress. Even at a time when the United States faces no military threat congress-critters can be depended upon to vote funds for the military that exceed the rest of the world combined, and then to vote to use this military in various power moves around the world.
Congress not only gives the Pentagon most of what it wants, it piles on more corporate welfare payments to companies in home districts and elsewhere. These 'earmarks', AKA pork, are not wanted or needed by the Pentagon but do provide profits to local companies as well as jobs for constituents, and let's don't forget campaign contributions and golf outings. They don't.
The House version of the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill passed out of subcommittee recently contains almost two thousand earmarks. (In fact the number is 1776--that's the spirit!) Rep. C. W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), who chaired the subcommittee last year and previously chaired the full committee, tops the list with 59 projects. Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who chairs the subcommittee that oversees defense spending, came in second with 46.
Here's a partial listing of what Young wants:
UH-60 MEDEVAC and Search and Rescue Thermal Imaging Upgrades, RC-26B Modernization Program, AN/AAR-47, Warrior Wellness Program, Multi-Jurisdictional Counter-Drug Task Force Training, NMEC Intelligence Community R&D Lab and Better Service to Combatant Commands, A Second Civil Support Team for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Florida, Second Civil Support Team for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Florida, A Second Civil Support Team for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Florida, Tactical Operation Centers (ELAMS/ESAMS/MECCS), Second Civil Support Team for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Florida, Enterprise-wide Data and Knowledge Management System to Enhance USSOCOM Mission, HMMWV Restraint System, Life Support for Trauma and Transport (LSTAT/LSTAT - Lite), Inertia Reel Restraint System Retrofit, AN/SPS -67 Back Fit Engineering Support, AN/SPY-1 Radar System Readiness Improvement, Cooperative Engagement Capability, Expansion of Mobile Forensic Labs and Technical Assistance and Training Support in Largo Florida, Advanced Battery Technology, Advanced Detection of Explosives Program . . .
Surely we have greater needs in the US, and in Florida, than a 'Second Civil Support Team for Weapons of Mass Destruction'.
A complete listing can be found here.
July 28, 2007 8:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Soft power, hard power, whatever, money IS power, and people that have a lot of both like to
have one thing: MORE. It's kind of like Gollum
and the ring, he JUST can't LEAVE IT ALONE.
But, power and money tend to change people,
and more importantly how they see the world,
kind of taking on a Trump-ian 'need it, got it, got it, got it, need it, got it, got it' type
attitude instead of something more along the
lines of equal rights, civil rights, human rights
etc. Truth be known, though, there is no
'equality', the guy with 4 bucks just isn't
ever going to get heard on Capitol Hill like the
guy with 4 billion, and such is the way of the world, there. I just think it's too bad that
they don't aim all that power at the moon, instead of some country with oil resources that
we honestly don't even really need...what really
mystifies is why they didn't just buy Iraq outright to begin with...would have saved a lot
of grief...
Now, we've kind of seen this movie before,
goes back to J.D. Rockefeller, Randolf Hearst,
Ford, and so forth, people with the Deep Pockets
are all about keeping them full, and the wealth
they command makes them Most Powerful. And, there
is no power on earth like cold, hard cash, and lots of it...if you've got money to burn, the
world is your oyster, so to speak, and that's
the kind of power that's neither hard nor soft
but blatant. You can buy all KINDS of things...
things that shouldn't necessarily be for sale,
but are, in effect, at a certain price.
September 27, 2007 11:23 PM | Reply | Permalink