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Soft Power
By Charlie
WASHINGTON (AFP) - After six hard years of war, the United States is awakening to the idea that "soft power" is a better way to regain influence and clout in a world bubbling with instability.And nowhere is the change in thinking more advanced than in the US military, which is pushing for greater diplomacy, economic aid, civic action and civilian capabilities to prevent new wars and win the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I think having stubbed our toe badly on Iraq, people are realizing that we weren't doing that well, and it's time for a change," said Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor and former senior Pentagon official.
Nye popularized the term "soft power" in books and essays which argue that a key source of US clout is its ability to attract friends and allies by investing in the international good.
I've read Nye's books, and can comment on this:
First, I think it is a misperception to say that we haven’t attempted to use what Nye calls “soft power” in the past. US soft power, defined as economic, diplomatic, and information used as a tool of national policy to support national interests, is supposed to be the opposite of military “hard power:” tanks, aircraft carriers, and other tools of war that break things and kill people.
The soft power folks, like Nye, argue that the US won the Cold War by its pervasive culture –blue jeans, Hollywood movies, rock and roll, and successfully selling the idea of democracy. You can argue the fine points of it (i.e., that Reagan won the Cold War by building up a defense that was so insurmountable the Soviets realized that their economy could not compete) but Nye’s soft power was definitely a factor.
Fast forward to today. Soft power folks decry the war in Iraq as an example of a pure “hard power” approach to an international conflict. That may be correct if you begin the time frame in 2000-2003, but the Iraq issue dates back to the cessation of hostilities in 1991. However, Nye’s soft power argument had most of its blocks checked before we attacked Iraq –economic sanctions had been in place for years, our information attempts against Saddam were exhausted and ineffective, and diplomatic engagement had accomplished nothing. Since the soft power approach did not work in this instance, the hard power approach was taken. So to argue that soft power is always favorable, I buy it, always try to talk, coerce, or influence before you strike. The problem is that soft power doesn’t always work. That being said, here’s SECDEF Gates:
Gates pointed to the huge disparity between the Pentagon's half trillion dollar budget and the State Department's 37 billion dollars.Its 6,600 diplomats amount to the crew of a single US aircraft carrier, he said.
The US Agency for International Development has been slashed from 15,000 to 3,000 people, and the US Information Agency was dismantled, he said.
Quoth FM 3-24, on how a Country Team should look
I don’t think that you will find many folks in the armed forces that will have a problem with deploying a more robust combination of the departments of State, Agriculture, and USAID to forward areas. You certainly won’t find me arguing against the re-establishment of the US information agency, which was killed in 1999. Because of our problems in enacting “unified action,” the military has had to step up and fill the gap:
Underfunded and undermanned, US civilian agencies have not kept up with the demand for experts in war zones, leading to bitter complaints from US military officers that they have been left holding the bag.General James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, recalled recently that after the march on Baghdad in 2003, his marines were sent to stabilize southern Iraq.
"We were told to expect local governance teams and governance support teams which would help us with those functions and many, many more," he said. "Those teams did not arrive."
Marines have to be prepared to perform those tasks in future conflicts, he said.
What is happening in the Marines and the Army, is that infantry officers are being assigned to conduct civil affairs missions, with their only training being infantry officer basic. Field artillery officers are being assigned to run information operations campaigns, and understand the finer points of media relations when their only training consists of targeting and gunnery. No one in the [combat arms] military really wants these jobs, but men step up to do them because they are on the ground and realize that “hey, someone has got to publicize what we’re doing here.” Or “hey, the civil military component of our operations is probably as important as our kinetic ops.” So officers step up and fill the gaps.
These “soft power” billets are jobs that need to be done. The Army and Marines are trying to be generalists in addressing the problem, but getting actual experts from other government agencies in the field to do these jobs.
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Comments
It all depends on how we define "International Good".
From my perspective it is not about Soft or Hard power but about objectives and more correctly stated, agendas.
I submit that the primary problem we have in Iraq right now is not about power, but about too many conflicting agendas.
My point is that we have the power, Hard and Soft, to finish this war. We simply choose not to because the necessary actions it would take to kill or capture the enemy leadership would be deemed offensive to politicaly correctness.
Its 6,600 diplomats amount to the crew of a single US aircraft carrier, he said.
Yes, and I'd much rather have another MEB or Stryker Brigade than all those effete cookie pushers.
Underfunded and undermanned, US civilian agencies have not kept up with the demand for experts in war zones,
Yes, and even when they have the experts, they whine and complain about being deployed to a war zone. Waaah, waaah, waaah, I signed up to attend cocktail parties in Paris, not to get my perfectly coiffed hair all mussed in Baghdad!
The State Department has long since forgotten that it works for the government. It is not the government.
State thinks diplomacy is an objective, not one of many means toward objectives.
And the actual Civil Affairs guys get spread too thin, fill positions that should be State Department slots, and often operate in a vacuum.
I look at soft and hard power as more parallel than either, or. Without credible hard power, without the demonstrated ability to inflict pain, diplomacy wields no influence. No one will respond to your soft power if you don't have hard power backing it up.
The U.S. has given generously to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Indonesia, etc... But this giving comes to naught when today's enemies rear their heads.
After the U.S.'s herculean assistance during the Tsunami, they liked us for about a month. The memory of that asistance was gone when protesters in Indonesia decried the Danish cartoons, and burned the U.S. flag for good measure. They can't be bought with soft power. But when they know there is a sword behind the carrot, your "soft power" can work wonders.
The two go hand in glove. In that sense, it's appropriate that the military conduct both. That way, there's a coherent strategy and agreement between your soft and hard power planning. In other words, as Mattis reportedly said to the Sunni sheiks:
"I come in peace. I did not bring artillery. But I beg you with tears in my eyes, if you f*ck with me I'll kill you all."
Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, but it makes the point -- we'll be your best friend or your worst enemy. When the same force that extends the carrot can inflict the pain, results are better.
Look how uneven cooperation between the military and State has been, so often working at cross purposes with each other. The hard and soft have to be married in one strategy, or both are weakened.
Of course, our system is set up that way, and can work well sometimes, as it seems to be increasingly these days.
But generally, like the man said, it's better to be feared than loved.
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I think the soft power problems are that you have to rely on other people (countries) to do the right thing. Soft didn't work on post 1991 Iraq because you had wonderful things like the "oil for food" program that the U.N. was looking the other...I mean running.... We'll have to see how this soft power thing ultimately works out in NK (the recent stories of them supplying weapons to the Tamil Tigers and Hezbollah aren't real assuring) or in China.