Hand it to Hillary Clinton. She's managed to sum up the bold new direction of US foreign policy into a bumper-friendly catchphrase: smart power. Sufficiently vague, the phrase is remarkable for its meaninglessness. Ostensibly it combines "hard" with "soft" power, a win-win policy that will wow the pants off the world's tyrants and restore American leadership in the world. But let's face it: the phrase is nothing more than an empty policy that launched a thousand think-tank brown bags.
The phrase avoids having to be specific about anything. How to handle Iran? Just use smart power. The Gaza conflict? Smart power. Russia meddling in Ukraine and Georgia? More smart power. Are we back to the days of poll-testing every word that passes Clinton's lips? Apparently so. As FOX News reports:
Carola McGiffert, co-director of the Smart Power Commission, launched in 2006 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies to examine how to restore America's image around the world, said the clarity of the phrase polled well. "We've only heard positive things about it," she said.
I'm suspicious. First of all, isn't smart power just a fancy way of saying traditional statecraft? Aren't diplomats always expected to use their full arsenal of tools? And if smart power was crafted to restore liberal internationalism to its rightful place and counter the Bush doctrine, well who isn't by this point against the Bush doctrine, outside of a few Palins and fossilized experts at AEI?
To me, the phrase's usage smacks of someone who really hasn't thought over what her policies are, perhaps because Hillary and her boss sparred on the direction of US foreign policy, perhaps because she has a habit of pandering to the lowest common denominator to curry favor (i.e. her ridiculous attempts to ban flag-burning as a first-term senator), and perhaps because her foreign policy CV is thinner than most interns at the Council on Foreign Relations and her experience abroad is not the stuff of serious statesmen (an aside: I spent a few weeks last summer in Bosnia where she is loathed by locals because of her fallacious remark about her daredevil descent into Tuzla).
Also, I'm suspicious of the word "smart." It's hard to refute -- after all, nobody I know is in favor of dumb power. And it's the foreign policy equivalent of saying you're pro-kittens. Yet the word "smart" tends to sugarcoat nasty stuff. After all, smart bombs still kill innocents. Smart sanctions still mostly target civilians and not the government.
Hillary is a fast-learner and an erudite scholar. She might do well to read a few books besides those of Joseph Nye. If "smart power" is to the coming decade what the word "containment" was to the 1950s -- a phrase manufactured by a Foreign Affairs copyeditor -- we could be heading for troubled times ahead.
Quite different from George Bush's approach who dealt with the situation as he wanted it to be.
Will "soft power" be less successful than "New World Order"?
The label is not the action or the algorythm.
I'm sure the author was behind some of America's most adroit actions in Foreign Affairs during his tenure in government or in think tanks that influenced our goverment's gold plated diplomacy.
is hilary as smart as condi? who had some real influence with bush in getting him to fund aids relief in africa and making him a tad more realistic during his second term? probably prevented the attack on iran which cheney was advocating??? and is taking the fall for a lot of bush/cheney policies.
i don't see anything smart in hilary calling a'stan a narco state or thinking that be changing surrogate colonialist administrator kahrzai for someone more reliable.... that is imperialist colonialist thinking and it will be met by the same vicious anti-colonialism
let's remember she talks to bill and bill's yugoslavia -type policies will show through... she has already used the clinton holbrooke to take care of p'stan a'stan; not a bad choice since holbrooke, as compared to that whole disgusting moralistic clique, realized the milosevics was better than tjudman and isabegetosivic of bosnia, but he did not carry the day when it came to the destruction of the infra structure in serbia.... madelaine albright, anyone remember her? this gov is clinton III, and bill has the great fortune of being the eminence grise!
Here is what smart power means - it's using America's military strength in a way that is not overwhelming and absolute (Bush's policy) or in a way that is reticent and tentative (what Republicans will have you believe that Democrats are on national defense). The point of smart power is to use America's force selectively, carefully, and yes, smartly, to further American interests.
Is it a catch-phrase? Yes. Not all catch-phrases are bad. This one is a serious attempt to shift the debate and prevent Republicans from calling you weak on national security. As an overall vision and approach, smart power works. It's saying that we are not hesitant to use military force, but we are also not going to use to wantonly. That's exactly the vision the new administration needs to have.
As for more specifics: why don't you try giving Hillary (and the President) a little more than THREE DAYS in office before you start jumping down her throat for PERCEIVED missteps?? Jeez.
Let's face it: not everyone likes everyone, in or out of politics. President Obama just happens to be a very likeable soul, and clearly has been all his life. Other people aren't that easy to like, and they have to work harder, especially if they choose jobs they need to be elected to get. Some win, some lose. Or as my dad used to say, 'That's what makes horse racing.'
Isn't it brilliant that we live in a country where freedom of speech is built into our very constitution? I thought it was an interesting and intelligent and very good article.
And isn't it nice that after having such a difficult primary, our President has the grace to give his opponent such a cool job. I understand that there are a lot of sore losers out there - both democrats, and republicans. But hopefully the enthusiasm, the positive changes, and the 'smart power', in the form of hope, will distract those people. There's room for everyone, and as long as one is willing to unclench one's fist, we'll be there to give you a hand.
If the greeting Hillary got at the State Department is any indication, there is nowhere for her to go but up after the diastrous Bush years.
SO LIGHTEN UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and go on doing business as usual? Will this new
administration take a colder look at how business is done in the
halls of Congress and on Wall Street? With putting some of the
people in positions of power that didn"t prevent some of the financial
issues we face now, how will that turn things around? Has President
Obama lived up to his promise of "Change" and "Openness" so
far? Will he walk softly but carry a big stick and not be afraid to use
it, I honestly don't know, but I am hoping for the best.
for too long the left has thought that good policy and good politics are one and the same, and that's simply not always the case. bush has given good names to bad policy, which is part of what helped it to be achieved. what is so wrong with giving good names to good policy?