With an effort to doing things better than the Bush Administration, the Obama administration seems focused on using “smart power.” During her confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified, “I believe that American leadership has been wanting, but is still wanted. We must use what has been called smart power: the full range of tools at our disposal — diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural — picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation. With smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy.” After all, smart power is better than the alternative.
First coined by Center for Strategic and International Studies, smart power is “the integration of hard and soft power.” It implies a whole-of-government solution to foreign policy problems, instead of relying on the military alone. To do this, former Center for National Security President Michelle Flournoy argued for establishing “a robust interagency process for strategy, planning, and budgeting that would enable the United States to assess long-term threats and opportunities, set clear priorities, allocate and manage risk, develop long-term ‘whole of government’ approaches, identify critical capability areas in which to invest, and make course corrections along the way.”
Up until 2005, the institutional military saw non-warfighting operations as distractions to its core function of fighting and winning the nation’s wars. However, with the inadequacies of international institutions, long-time partners, and other US government agencies, the military embraced the mission to bridge the gap between national ends, ways, and means. Presidents of both parties find a ready tool in the military to bolster allies, consolidate new friendships, and respond to natural disasters. At least through the mid-term, the Defense Department has accepted its role in these non-combat missions — but it, too, prefers a “smart” solution in the long-term.
Our first preview of smart power might be a new pilot program reported by Inside Defense. Taking a 3-D approach (Defense, Development, and Diplomacy), The U.S. Agency for International Development and the Joint Staff identified five countries (Paraguay, Morocco, Albania, Liberia, and Cambodia) where U.S. officials will work to improve civilian-military cooperation to prevent crises. DOD, for instance, may build a school while USAID makes sure the school has supplies and there are trained teachers. It is certainly good news to see the preventive nature of foreign assistance. Coordinating activities among defense, development, and diplomacy is essential. However, if the United States is too truly wield smart power, it needs to increase the capacity of government departments outside of Defense. While using the military for construction in combat zones makes sense, it doesn’t strike me as smart to do this where no one is shooting in the five countries selected for this pilot program.
It is certainly good news to see the preventive nature of foreign assistance. Coordinating activities among defense, development, and diplomacy is essential. However, if the United States is too truly wield smart power, it needs to increase the capacity of government departments outside of Defense. While using the military for construction in combat zones makes sense, it doesn’t strike me as smart to do this where no one is shooting in the five countries selected for this pilot program.
Derek Reveron is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. These views are his own.