The term smart power is the phrase of 2009 US foreign affairs. Mrs. Clinton, the new Secretary of State, used the concept more than ten times in the Senate confirmation hearing recently. Smart power will transform itself rapidly in a geo-buzzword facing the W. Bush legacy: a cycle of depleting US power. Another variant was proposed recently by Hubert Védrine: smart Realpolitik. The former French Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1997 to 2002 published History Strikes Back: How States, Nations, and Conflicts Are Shaping the 21st Century (Brookings Institution Press, 2008), a translation of his book Continuer L´Histoire (Fayard, 2007).
Roger Altman, former US Treasury Secretary in 1993-94, recently considered the crisis going on as a geopolitical setback for the US and the West. This global crisis is accelerating trends that are shifting the world’s center of gravity away from the United States, he wrote. Some analysts confess the declining of the lonely superpower; others talk of a «non-polar» world already in the making.
The challenge for the incoming US President is huge. Mr. Obama inherited a catastrophic situation. The geopolitical image of the US is profoundly damaged, the worst in decades. The economic malaise of the United States is rampant; it’s no example for any MBA student. The Wall Street way of business is in jeopardy – even the Russians laughed with the “financial socialism” of Mr. Paulson & Mr. Bernanke.
In the geopolitical arena, one of the «medicines» for the incoming Administration is a diplomacy renaissance in foreign policy and a new approach for great-power politics – smart power. A concept developed by Harvard Professor Joseph Nye Jr. since his book Soft Power (Public Affairs, 2004) and explained in detail in his last book The Powers to Lead (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a strategy coined by Suzanne Nossel in a Foreign Affairs article published in the March/April 2004 edition precisely titled “Smart Power”. Nossel is today Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch.
We interviewed Suzanne Nossel and ask Professor Nye a few comments on the new agenda. You can read another interview with Professor Nye reviewing his book.
INTERVIEW with Suzanne Nossel
«Smart Power is about exercising power in a prudent way. The goal is not to reposition the U.S. as a hegemon.»
Q: It seems smart power will be a motto for the new Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton. You coined the buzzword at Foreign Affairs some years ago and Prof. Nye published last year The Power to Led in the same sense. In your opinion what will be the main difference regarding the Bush Administration?
SN: You’ll see many differences, and they are evident already as with the announcement regarding the closure of Guantanamo. Among the key differences I anticipate are more effective, collaborative relationships with allies; more extensive use of international institutions and forums, and better integration of the various elements of power and influence, with a heavy emphasis on diplomacy.
Q: We can say, ironically, that the W. Bush Administration´s output with its regime change doctrine and preemptive projections and other apparently offensive great power strategies (like the eventual use of nuclear tactic weapons) pushed the US for a downtrend and the risk of loosing superpower status. Can we say the W. Bush Administration was the trigger for the US decline?
SN: The Bush Administration’s missteps fundamentally eroded American influence and standing. Their tenure also coincided with a range of other developments, including the rise of new powers and of new transnational threats that would have had an impact on the U.S.’s place in the world quite apart from the Bush Administration’s policies.
Q: Other analysts refer that the US superpower status is in decline long before Bush. The lonely superpower window of opportunity was very short in time. What is you comment?
SN: It depends what is meant by superpower. During the late 1990s French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine coined the term hyperpower [FACE A L'HYPER-PUISSANCE, 2003, Éditions Fayard] because superpower did not, in his view, go far enough in connoting U.S. dominance. At the same time, U.S. military and economic preeminence in the 1990s did not translate into universal support for U.S. positions and policies; Washington’s being able to impose its will absent support from others. I don’t think Americans felt themselves to be a nation in decline in the 1990s.
Q: In the present global conditions, regarding the evolution of the balance between great powers, smart power is a defensive strategy from the US, menaced to loose its superpower status, or an offensive one?
SN: I see smart power as aimed at the stabilization and renewal of American power, so neither offensive nor defensive. To me one key is using power in ways that are self-reinforcing – that strengthen the U.S. by winning external support, that build institutions and instruments that can help advance policy goals, that promote norms consistent with American values. In this way, American power and influence can sustain itself, rather than eroding as it did during the Bush years.
Q: You say smart power is neither offensive nor defensive. But you refer the new Administration has to sustain the eroding trend during the Bush Administration. It seems there are only two options – a defensive strategy to sustain the erosion in face of the new higher relative power of some emergent powers, or a contra-offensive to regain political leadership rapidly. What you mean exactly?
SN: It’s about exercising power in a prudent way. That should contribute to stanching America’s decline and to enhanced U.S. capacity to lead, though the goal is not to reposition the U.S. as a hegemon. The aim is to more effectively advance U.S. interests.
Q: Some analysts refer that China uses also a smart power strategy since the 1990s (for instance beginning with the integration of Hong Kong and Macao). There’s a lot of research on the soft power side of that strategy, for instance in the geo-economics field (regarding strategic resources around the world). Can we have ironically a “competitive smart power “contest between those two great powers in the forthcoming years?
SN: The Chinese have made some smart long-term investments that are shoring up their global influence and preserving their freedom of action. I think you’ll see the U.S. doing more of the same. But it would be mistaken to describe it as necessarily a competition. Given the two countries’ mutual economic dependency and common security interests, there are a range of policies that will make sense for each unilaterally, but also indirectly benefit the other. There is also scope for collaboration across a wide range of security, economic and environmental issues.
Q: Regarding US smart power in the field of geo-economics (WTO, financial crisis, dollar collapse, debt, dependence on Chinese and Japanese foreign reserves, etc.), what would be your main suggestions for the new Administration agenda?
SN: President Obama has talked about the need for hard choices that will put the U.S. economy on a prosperous and sustainable path. Some steps will involve creating a greater role for large developing economies in setting global financial policy, over the long term encouraging and incentivizing greater savings and less indebtedness and trade policies that are both free and fair.
Q: Do you think President Obama must take an initiative to substitute rapidly the G7/G8 including the emergent powers (even China is today the fourth economy in nominal GDP, after US, UE and Japan; if you consider GDP in power purchase parity, China will be third)? Also a new approach in the UN including Brazil and India in the Security Council?
SN: I think it’s important to give rising powers a seat at the table and the sense of having say over global decision-making. At the same time, there may still be room for developed economies to come together to talk about common interests, recognizing that they can no longer call the shots single handedly. The UN Security Council is anachronistic and should be updated with the inclusion of new powers. But the US is not the key obstacle to reconfiguring and updating it; there are a series of disagreements among others that have hamstrung Security Council reform efforts for years.
Q: The collaboration with China – despite all the huge political differences – seems paradoxically, nowadays, a strategic one due to the financial crisis of the US, its huge debt and other vulnerabilities. Is it more important than the traditional strategic transatlantic alliance with Europe?
SN: I am not sure the interests of our alliance with Europe directly conflict with those of our relationship to China. The two are important in different respects and have very different potential. The alliance with Europe is based in significant part on common history and shared values. With China, it’s predicated on economic interconnectedness and an increasingly intertwined future. We can work with Europe in building mutually constructive relations with China.
Short INTERVIEW with Professor Joseph Nye
«Smart power is the ability to combine hard and soft power resources for a successful strategy.»
Q: With President Obama that’s the triumph of smart power in the US foreign policy?
JN: Smart power is the ability to combine hard and soft power resources for a successful strategy. You see signs of it in President Obama’s inaugural address as well as his early actions in deciding to close Guantanamo within a year, and to prohibit use of torture. He has also signaled by his appointments that he will place a high emphasis on diplomacy.
Q: In the present global conditions, regarding the evolution of the great-power balance, smart power is a defensive strategy from the US, menaced to loose its superpower status, or an offensive one?
JN: I do not see smart power as offensive or defensive. It means using all the tools of foreign policy for any purposes.
Q: Regarding US smart power in the economic field what would be your main suggestions for the incoming Administration?
JN: The international economic and financial crisis is global, and cannot be solved by any one country acting alone. A wise strategy will coordinate and enlist cooperation with other major economies.
Q: Do you think the US must take an initiative to engineer a substitute for the G7/G8 including the main emergent economies?
JN: Yes, I think it would be wise to have a group of 12 or so that would add such states as China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
(c) Janelanaweb.com, 2009
