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  • When soft power meets hard choices

    As a fyi, P Kennedy is the only reason I visit Timeonline....



    When soft power meets hard choices
    Obama’s first days inspire great hope of social and economic renewal but can America afford the promise he embodies?
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle5581068.ece

    Paul Kennedy

    Living as I do in an extended Rooseveltian-Democrat family, in the heavily Democratic state of Connecticut, in the overwhelmingly Democratic city of New Haven, and teaching at undoubtedly liberal Yale University, I had no surprise in witnessing the steadily expanding family excitement as the Obama campaign unfolded – from an epic primary victory, to a near-landslide election return, to the magic of what happened on the Mall last Tuesday.

    There were also no surprises when, in our local soup kitchen the day after the election, the predominantly African-American clientele was exhilarated, walking around the room and slapping each other’s fists. “You know, prof,” one of them told me, “I made my three young sons watch television all evening long. It was history. I wanted them to talk about this night in 2050.” So they will.

    But I was surprised when I sensed that this excitement had filtered across the aisles to my Republican friends. This was partly relief at seeing George Bush and Dick Cheney go and embarrassment at their policies, but it was clearly more than that. One friend, a lifelong Republican with two sons serving in the military, told me he had never been so excited in his life as he was at Obama entering the White House.

    So there is something large, almost transcendent, going on here; something new in American and world politics – at least for the first time in 40 years. There is a massive manifestation of human hope that one man can somehow pull this country, and the world outside, out of our present, frightened, battered state. The hope is so manifest because the anxiety is so profound. I have not seen such febrile excitement, whether among my Yale undergraduates or the denizens of the soup kitchen, since I arrived here from Britain 25 years ago.
    Background


    This comes, of course, as something of a challenge to scholars of long-term global trends and rising and falling great powers. It hits the theorists of realpolitik straight in the eye. It suggests that charisma, broad public appeal and determined leadership are as significant elements in national strength – even if far less tangible and measurable – as are numbers of battleships or growth in GDP. It suggests that the human factor might sometimes possess massive leverage, enough to alter the harsh and usually unrelenting landscape of military and economic hard power. It suggests that “soft power” in political affairs is a real thing.

    When Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor, coined the term “soft power” in the early 1990s, he meant it as a complement to our measures of ranking nations by their defence spending or industrial production. Soft power was the capacity to influence others through cultural appeal, ideological attractiveness and the incentives of friendship. Nye clearly felt that soft power enhanced America’s relative position in the world: who, after all, could prefer Leonid Brezhnev’s decrepit, wheezing Soviet Union to the land of Hollywood movies, Marlboro Man, blue jeans, youth culture, Disney World, the American business model? Obviously, no one. All roads led to Washington, New York or Los Angeles; few bothered to take the trip to Moscow.

    The problem with “soft power” is that it evaporates faster than does a nation’s relative economic or military heft. For proof, just look at the disastrous decline in America’s reputation during the eight years of the Bush presidency. It will be a long time until we reach some balanced assessment of the consequences of the 2001-9 regime, but there is no doubt that much of the rest of the world, including America’s staunchest allies, felt that the republic had gone astray. What was up with this haste to invade, rather than just isolate Iraq; with this blatant disregard of the Geneva conventions in the treatment of captives; with the reckless defence spending that was never covered by taxes; with the open disdain shown for international treaties and protocols; in sum, with this feckless neoconservative unilateralism? By almost all the opinion polls the number one power had become the most unpopular great power in the world. That was quite a feat.

    To a certain degree this explains the enthusiasm for the new presidency; the dislike of the Bush administration had become so widespread that if Hillary Clinton or John Mc-Cain were now in the White House instead of Obama, we would still see a shift in global opinion. Yet there is clearly more going on here. Obama’s obvious intelligence, commitment, sense of humour, political savvy and capacity to articulate are probably a bit unnerving to other world leaders.

    We have a genuine new element here, which in turn leads to an obvious cheering thought: if damaging policies by one American administration can undermine American soft power, then enlightened and well received policies by a new government might quickly recover much of the ground lost.

    Yet the biggest question of all glares at us: however favourable the winds blowing in support of Obama’s capacity to win friends and influence people, and thus to get things done, what will happen when they encounter the harsh military and economic reality in today’s badly mangled world? Will those winds dissipate; will the reform movement falter? Fine words, my grandmother used to say, butter no pars****; rhetoric and charisma are no substitute for effective, real improvements. What happens when soft power meets hard choices?

    I confess I am much less worried about the military and strategic challenges facing the Obama administration over the next years, although we shall certainly hear a lot of noise from the American armed services, the defence industries and military intellectuals with an obsession about terrorism, Israel and Iran, the rising Chinese threat and all that. Indeed, it would be most unusual if they did not sing those familiar songs, particularly since all fear that the new president may be less convinced about the size of such threats and more focused on trimming both American obligations and certain bloated weapons systems.

    Whatever the relative position of the United States in a generation or two’s time – and I do think the long-term global balances are gradually tilting away from the artificial post1991 “unipolar world” – the republic has probably gained an important breather, as it did after the collapse of the USSR.

    Just consider the opposition (if that is the right word). Vladimir Putin’s Russia, despite its recent spat with Ukraine to remind Europeans of their dependency, is surely significantly weaker nowadays than it was a year ago. And that is not just due to that inherent Muscovite clumsiness in alarming almost all its neighbours. It is also to do with the spectacular collapse of the price of oil, in consequence of which its vaunted sovereign wealth funds are being heavily drained. The tumble in the value of the rouble is not just bruising; it is quite unnerving. Russia has embraced open-market capi-talism and can’t take it. Meanwhile, its population shrinks, its healthcare system needs to go on the operating table and male mortality rates (vodka-induced) are high.

    Then there is China. Of course the US naval war planners will keep an eye on those new ultra-quiet diesel submarines, the sea-skimming missiles, the supersonic fighters, the enormous nuclear-missile submarines that dwarf the size of any Trident-class boat. But one wonders if Beijing will have many or any yuan to pay for the operating costs in the months to come.

    Until a short while ago the data suggested that, while China’s economy was going to take some damage from the global recession, it would weather the storms better than most. In the past week alone the data have altered dramatically. The most remarkable titbits are the 35% fall in Japanese exports to China, and the even more dramatic slide in Chinese domestic electricity consumption, suggesting that entire swathes of manufacturing are closing up. Exports are tumbling so fast that it might be a waste of time for Congress to rush off to investigate Chinese currency manipulation.

    Who else is around? India is growing, but also badly hit by the global slowdown, and will need to focus its gaze inwards; it also has a sensible, clever government. No worries there for the United States. The European allies are convulsed with currency, debt and unemployment matters. Africa is falling down; Latin America is hurt, some countries deeply; Hugo Chavez’s moment in the sun has come and gone, Cuba is tottering towards change. The Arab world is scared, the Gulf sheikhs upset; Iran is a nuisance factor, Israel’s overmuscular policies an embarrassment. Ukraine/Georgia, Syria, the future of Egypt, possible instabilities in the Philippines and Indonesia are all on the foreign policy agenda as problems that might flare up, but they are not first-order challenges.

    The real “hard choices” lie in the social and economic realms. And the blunt fact here is that the Obama administration is threatened with being torn in different directions. In an ideal full Keynesian vision, social and economic policies would march hand in hand. A strong social fabric, with solid healthcare and education systems, would provide a powerful underpinning to a competitive economy; a flourishing economy would in turn support modern infrastruc-ture, profitable banks, a steady rise in living standards and a reduction in the national debt. The government would orchestrate the various parts, producing a harmonious result. All would be well.

    But what if the plan to repair America’s damaged social fabric is contradicted by the urgent need to achieve fiscal stability and international creditworthiness? What if the massive deficit spending plans actually hurt the country’s economic wellbeing; or, conversely, what if the compelling need to become attractive to the world’s investors really crimps any further printing of low-interest government bonds?

    This is a dilemma about which, so far as I can see, no single member of Congress is willing to ask hard questions. Just as the legislative body failed miserably to confront the flawed logic of going to war against Iraq in 2003, now it looks in danger of being a passive bystander to – worse, an active supporter of – some really dangerous surges in the money supply.

    It is easy to see where vast sums of federal money might usefully be spent (always assuming these hundreds of billions of dollars are not doled out to bankers intent upon saving the cash rather than lending it to customers). America’s inner-city and rural schools need a large revamping. A light railway system for 20 of America’s cities might work wonders. The creation of state-wide small business banks, pledged not to indulge in mergers and acquisitions or out-of-state investments, but to act rather like the old Farmers and Mechanics banks, could circumvent the sclerotic (non) lending policies of the frightened Bank of America and Citibank. All of these look likely to put pay cheques into people’s hands, cheques that would then be deposited into one’s personal bank account and allow the account holders some freedom to spend or save.

    What’s the catch? The catch is that all of this, plus the continuation of existing expenditures on the military, federal agencies, national security and the rest, requires the Treasury to print bills (a type of government bond). But the Treasury does not (contrary to the suspicions of some neighbours of mine) simply open the window and toss the bills into the street. No. It auctions those “I promise to pay the bearer” notes each month in the form of three-year, 10-year, 30-year bills. And it needs to find buyers. Hitherto, the Federal Reserve has had great success in persuading individuals, banks and sovereign wealth funds to buy this stuff. But that was before 2009. Right now there are two completely new elements in play, causing even the wisest of analysts to be very confused and worried.

    The first is that it is not just Uncle Sam who is going to the market to raise monies; it is almost every other government in the world. Gordon Brown plans to raise tens of billions of pounds, Germany’s Angela Merkel tens of billions of euros; France’s Nico-las Sarkozy is throwing out (borrowed) cash in all directions; the Japanese government is pouring vast amounts of bonds towards the markets; and all this at a time when those countries with large sovereign wealth funds – the Gulf states, South Korea, China, Russia, Norway, even the Saudis – feel compelled to direct vast amounts of capital inwards, not outwards. By some private estimates, governments may be seeking to float some $3 trillion-worth. President Obama’s America, with a forecast federal deficit of $1.3 trillion (and rising) for 2009, is not alone.

    The second worry has to be that, unlike during the Great Depression or the second world war (“Buy war bonds now!”), Americans no longer have the savings to soak up Roose-veltian deficit spending. For years, foreigners have been willing purchasers of US government bonds, so they can hardly complain if they have recently been badly burnt. Right now, they not only need their savings for themselves, but they are clearly asking about the risk of getting burnt a second time.

    As that acute observer Peter Schiff, head of Euro Pacific Capital, recently pointed out, “Just because the [buying bonds] game has lasted thus far does not mean that they [other governments] will continue playing it indefinitely.”

    It is precisely this point that is getting the smarter analysts truly scared. Who is going to buy American notes at next-to-nothing interest rates, when everyone else is also offering notes? How can one achieve big sales, month after month, without raising interest rates – and then hurting the chances of domestic economic recovery?

    This is what we mean when we talk about soft power bumping into hard choices. Obama’s sheer appeal, eloquence and confidence are inspiring much hope, but his programme – at least in the present harsh circumstances – seems to call for miracles. Perhaps I am wrong here (I often pray that I am), but it looks as if we – America, much of the rest of the world and its peoples – are in for a rough ride as 2009 unfolds. Hold on to your hats.

    Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, is professor of history and director of international security studies at Yale University
    “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

  • #2
    Then there is China. Of course the US naval war planners will keep an eye on those new ultra-quiet diesel submarines, the sea-skimming missiles, the supersonic fighters, the enormous nuclear-missile submarines that dwarf the size of any Trident-class boat.
    Uh...what? China has plans to build Typhoon/Project 941-sized SSBN's?

    I don't freakin' think so.
    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by TopHatter
      Uh...what? China has plans to build Typhoon/Project 941-sized SSBN's?

      I don't freakin' think so.
      Beat me to it, dang you.
      I enjoy being wrong too much to change my mind.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
        Uh...what? China has plans to build Typhoon/Project 941-sized SSBN's?

        I don't freakin' think so.
        I think the author was trying to be sarcastic about how some in the military circiles exaggerate threats to get funding.
        "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

        Comment


        • #5
          It is Paul Kennedy, let me remind you.
          “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

          Comment


          • #6
            Asia.view
            Brave new connections
            http://www.economist.com/world/asia/...ry_id=13010794
            Jan 28th 2009
            From Economist.com
            Will America's “network power” trump the “Asian century”?

            EVERY few years a piece of writing comes along that throws the global intelligensia into a tizzy. The rise and fall of great powers gives way to the end of history, which must make room for a clash of civilisations. Tipping points and black swans abound. These days, the grandest notion making the rounds is Asia’s unstoppable rise coupled to America’s inevitable decline.

            Into the mix comes a short, deceptively simple essay by Anne-Marie Slaughter (pictured), who recently stepped down as dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs to head the State Department's Office of Policy Planning. Ms Slaughter writes that power in the 21st century depends not so much on arms or wealth but on network connections. By this she means not just internet links, but physical ones such as immigrants have with their original countries, businesses with their trading partners, aid groups with the communities they serve and the like. Here, she believes, America has an extraordinary advantage.
            AFP

            “In this world, the state with the most connections will be the central player, able to set the global agenda and unlock innovation and sustainable growth,” she declares. “Networked power flows from the ability to make the maximum number of valuable connections.” And into the debate over the ascent of Asia and decline of the West, she asserts: “The twenty-first century looks increasingly like another American century—although it will likely be a century of the Americas rather than of just America.”

            The essay answers both Asia boosters and America bashers. Ms Slaughter’s ideas are not earth-shatteringly original; indeed, she doffs her cap to no less than a dozen scholars. The essay occasionally devolves into cyberpunk manifesto and Panglossian apologia. But it is mostly very smart. Like recombinant DNA, Ms Slaughter mixes the known base-pairs into something unique and compelling. Coming from a foreign policy stalwart of the old school, it deserves attention. But is she right?

            The argument, simplified, goes like this: by dint of population, geography and culture, America is best placed to lead. Its immigrants make it a hub for the world’s best ideas. Its geography helps it reach out to other regions while insulating it from global problems such as refugees, cross-border conflicts and even some of China's air pollution. Its culture of openness, as well as constructive intellectual and commercial conflict, makes it a hive for innovation. Other countries suffer a disadvantage in these areas. In a world where hierarchical power is less important and relationships paramount, Ms Slaughter writes, America’s ability to orchestrate, not dictate, will bring it success.

            The thesis beams an unflattering spotlight on Asia’s shortcomings. For example, many countries have sought to promote technology business by building physical infrastructure like R&D labs. But they lack the intangible qualities that allow entrepreneurship to flourish, such as an openness to new relationships and a culture of questioning authority. “The Chinese government is determined to develop innovation as if it were developing a fancy variety of soybeans,” she writes.

            By contrast, America both produced and personifies the precise qualities required in the new environment. “The internet world, the wiki world, and the networked world all began in the United States and radiated outward,” she writes. Here Ms Slaughter’s firm footing falters.

            Asia’s variant of capitalism and social interactions is certainly different than the West’s, and from the outside looks problematic. Japan’s keiretsu, or “web of companies”, and consensus-based decisions make many firms insular and slow. China’s guanxi—social connections—winnows the number of potential relationships, which means some beneficial interactions may be missed. India’s messy bureaucracy seems an insufferable hindrance to everything.

            Still, something must be working. Toyota, not General Motors, is now the world’s biggest carmaker, and there is not a single tech gadget that isn't stuffed with Japanese electronics components. Chinese businesses sensibly depend on a few tight relationships because that lowers transaction costs and minimises risk, especially given the lack of a reliable legal system to settle disputes. And India’s IT-service firms run the back-offices of the world’s biggest companies. Clearly there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in Ms Slaughter’s philosophy.

            Connections are all-important in an environment that privileges connections. But outside that context, it is only one factor, albeit vital, among others that account for power. Ms Slaughter, meanwhile, calls on America to make five reforms: improve immigration, education, and social and economic equality. Also, focus on Latin America (though she never explains exactly why) and adopt a spirit of humility and co-operation.

            The one area her essay does not consider, but possibly the most critical of all, is the empire of the mind. The central idea that the West puts forward is freedom in all its manifestations. What does the East proffer? Can such a fragmented region even supply a common ideal?

            Of course, increasing one’s “connectivity” via openness to new people and ideas seems sensible, and “orchestrating” rather than insisting is unarguably sound. But if these virtues largely explain the new nature of power in the world, then we would have already seen America’s power increasing, not dissipating. Rather, it is more likely that power in the 21st century will be highly distributed, not concentrated.

            Indeed, this conclusion follows from Ms Slaughter’s own reasoning. If her views on network power are correct, then surely it means that the 21st century belongs to everyone and no one.
            “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

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