TREAD SOFTLY JOSEPH NYE asks whether the US has lost track of what really matters
POWER IS THE ability to influence others to get what you want. Nations need power because without it they have a difficult time advancing their goals. But there are ultimately three main ways for a nation to wield power: by using or threatening force; by inducing compliance with rewards; or by using ‘soft power’ – attracting followers through the strength of a country's values and culture, and the inclusiveness of its policies.When a country can induce others to follow by employing soft power, it saves a lot of carrots and sticks.
Soft power is based on culture, political ideals, and policies. Historically, Americans have been good at wielding soft power. Think of young people behind the Iron Curtain listening to American music and news on Radio Free Europe or of Chinese students symbolising their protests in Tiananmen Square with a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Many American values, such as democracy, human rights and individual opportunity, have proved deeply attractive when they were backed by sound foreign policies.
American soft power has diminished in recent years, particularly in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. Polls showed dramatic declines in the popularity of the United States, even in countries such as Britain, Italy and Spain, whose governments had supported the US. America’s standing plummeted in Islamic countries around the world.Yet the cooperation of these countries is essential if the US and its allies are to succeed in a long-term struggle against terrorism.
The United States went to war in Iraq for three major reasons. The first was to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction. Post-war inspectors concluded that although Saddam had the knowledge and intentions to acquire such weapons, the threat was not imminent. The second reason was the belief that Saddam was supporting al-Qaeda, but intelligence agencies concluded that while there may have been some contacts, it is unlikely the Iraqi regime supported the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001.More importantly, the intelligence agencies now say that the net effect of the war in Iraq has been to strengthen whatever relationship existed before the war. Indeed, the war has proven to be a major source of recruitment for al- Qaeda, not only in Iraq, but throughout the Islamic world.
The third reason for the war was to transform the Middle East. The Wall Street Journal expressed the common view that “The Road To Jerusalem Goes Through Baghdad”. Spearheaded by the United States, regime change and democracy in Iraq would solve the Middle East’s larger problems. The roots of terrorism were seen as growing out of the undemocratic nature of the regimes in the region.As the first two arguments were diminished, the Bush Administration put more emphasis on the third.
It is still too early to judge the merits of this argument.A full assessment of the Iraq War and its effects on the war against terrorism will take a decade or more. The January 2005 Iraq election was a positive both for Iraq and for the region.As Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze leader, said, “it’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq”.As the columnist David Brooks observed, “if there is one soft power gift that America does possess, it is the tendency to imagine new worlds”. The invasion of Iraq and subsequent increase in the rhetoric of democracy to justify it may have changed frames of reference about the status quo and the context in which events are perceived. Democracy is more than just majoritarian elections. It will also require the development of attitudes of tolerance for minorities and individual rights, as well as the development of effective institutions for the resolution of political conflicts in divided societies in the region. If this occurs, however, it may provide some post hoc substantive legitimisation for a war that many people regarded as lacking in legitimacy on procedural grounds.
At the same time, in the short run, the invasion of Iraq created an insurgency that has become worse. The presence of foreign troops creates a stimulus for nationalist and jihadist responses. Official estimates put the number of insurgents in Iraq at 5000 in 2003: today the official estimates are that 15,000 have been killed but the remaining number has grown to 20,000. In the words of a Lebanese Sunni Jihadist interviewed by The New York Times on November 2nd 2004, “I decided on jihad because I wanted to stop the occupation”. His anger was fuelled by “almost daily scenes on television of Iraqi women and children dying, not to mention Palestinians suffering the same fate”.
Traditional world politics was typically about whose military wins. But politics in an information age is equally about whose story wins. This is particularly true in the struggle against transnational terrorism.A Pentagon advisory committee has just reported that the United States is being outflanked in that “war of information”.
SOFT POWER SKEPTICS say not to worry – popularity is ephemeral and should not guide foreign policy in any case. Foreigners may grumble, yet they have little choice but to follow. The US does not need to cultivate permanent allies and institutions. It can always pick up a coalition of the willing when it needs to.As Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld is wont to say, the issues should determine the coalitions, not vice versa.
Some analysts go further and say that anti- Americanism is an inevitable reaction to America’s position as the world’s only superpower. The United States is the big kid on the block, and its disproportionate military power is bound to engender a mixture of admiration, envy and resentment. But those who dismiss the recent rise of anti- Americanism as simply the inevitable result of America’s size are mistaken in thinking nothing can be done about it. The United States was even more pre-eminent at the end of the Second World War than it is today, but it proceeded to pursue policies that were acclaimed by allied countries. Similarly, American leadership was welcomed by many at the end of the Cold War, even though no country was able to balance American power. But it also paid more attention to multilateralism, alliances, and international institutions. It matters if the big kid on the block is seen by the others as a friend or as a bully.
IT IS A mistake to dismiss the recent decline in US soft power so lightly. It is true that the United States has recovered from unpopular policies in the past, as in the years following the Vietnam War. But that was during the Cold War, in which other countries still feared the Soviet Union as the greater evil. Failure to attend to soft power can undercut hard military power. The widespread international perception that the US was determined to go to war in Iraq regardless of the views of other countries has forced the US to shoulder more of the burden of policing and reconstructing Iraq. Contrast that with the Persian GulfWar of 1991, when allies paid for most of the reconstruction of Kuwait.
It is in this context that the United States finds itself engaged in a war of ideas for the hearts and minds of moderate Arabs. To overcome its current disadvantages and win that war, the US will have to become far more adept at wielding soft power throughout the Muslim world.
American efforts since September 11th have fallen short, though the Bush Administration seems to be taking soft power more seriously in its second term. The United States spent a paltry $150 million on public diplomacy in Muslim countries in 2002. The combined cost of the State Department’s public diplomacy programs that year, including international broadcasting, was just over a billion dollars – about the same amount spent by Britain or France (countries one-fifth the size). It is also equal to onequarter of one per cent of the military budget. The United States currently spends 450 times as much on hard power as on soft power. If it transferred just one per cent of the military budget, it would mean quadrupling the spending on soft power.
If the United States is going to win its struggle against transnational terrorism, its leaders are going to have to do a better job of aligning its values with foreign policies. It will need to seek a political solution in Iraq, promote the Middle East peace process, and pay more attention to allies and international institutions. Then it will be in a position to combine soft power with hard power.
Joseph S. Nye Jr is Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard and a visiting fellow at Balliol. In 2004 he published Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, and The Power Game: A Washington Novel [Illustration Guy Shrubsole]
