This article was received from Project Syndicate, an international not-for-profit association of newspapers dedicated to hosting a global debate on the key issues shaping our world.
The United States needs to rediscover how to be a “smart power.” That was the conclusion of a bipartisan commission that I recently co-chaired with Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state in the Bush administration. The Smart Power Commission, convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, comprised Republican and Democratic members of Congress, former ambassadors, retired military officers, and heads of non-profit organizations. We concluded that America’s image and influence had declined in recent years, and that the US must move from exporting fear to inspiring optimism and hope.
We are not alone. Recently, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for the US government to commit more money and effort to “soft power,” including diplomacy, economic assistance, and communications, because the military alone cannot defend America’s interests around the world. Gates pointed out that military spending totals nearly a half-trillion dollars annually, compared to the State Department’s budget of $36 billion. He acknowledged that for the head of the Pentagon to plead for more resources for the State Department was odd, but these are not normal times.
Smart power is the ability to combine the hard power of coercion or payment with the soft power of attraction into a successful strategy. By and large, the US managed such a combination during the Cold War; more recently, however, US foreign policy has tended to over-rely on hard power, because it is the most direct and visible source of American strength.
But, while the Pentagon is the best-trained and best-resourced arm of the government, there are limits to what hard power can achieve on its own. Democracy, human rights, and the development of civil society do not come from the barrel of a gun. True, the American military has impressive operational capacity, but turning to the Pentagon because it can get things done creates an image of an over-militarized foreign policy.
Diplomacy and foreign assistance are often under-funded and neglected, in part because it is difficult to demonstrate their short-term impact on critical challenges. In addition, wielding soft power is difficult because many of America’s soft power resources lie outside of government in the private sector and civil society, in its bilateral alliances, multilateral institutions, and transnational contacts. Moreover, American foreign policy institutions and personnel are fractured and compartmentalized, and there is no adequate inter-agency process for developing and funding a smart power strategy.
The effects of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have also thrown us off course. Since the shock of those attacks, the US has been exporting fear and anger rather than the country’s more traditional values of hope and optimism. Guant
