Smart Power and Selective Engagement

Hard Power or Soft Power? Neither!

          No More Direct Engagement, Please!

Because of the Iraq War, many people—especially IR scholars—have accused the United States of solely using hard power to get what it wants. And that is not good. Due to its use of hard power and unilateralism when it comes to making some decisions, the US has been losing legitimacy in the eyes of fellow liberal states. The United States has mostly disappointed Europe in some events such as the 1956 Suez Canal crisis, the fifties’ and sixties’ “Ban-the-Bomb” movement, the late sixties’ and early seventies’ Vietnam era, during the eighties’ positioning of intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Germany, and of course the current Iraq War.

 

Robert Kagan argues that the US’ need for hard power and sometimes unilateral decision-making in the afore-mentioned cases is justified by threats and “twin dangers of weapons proliferation and terrorism” (Of Paradise and Power: American and Europe in the New World Order).

 

Joseph S. Nye, on the other hand would counter: “Multilateralism helps to legitimate American power, but paying attention to allies also shapes our policies … [because] the United States cannot meet the new threat identified in the national security strategy without the cooperation of other countries” (Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics).

 

I would have to say that both scholars are right in some ways. Sometimes it is only aggressive and coercive hard power that can get things done the right and quick way. But we cannot ignore Nye’s assertion either. It is true that there is a national and international security threat today and the US, being the hegemonic superpower that it is, will need to appease its allies in order to have them there when the time comes to protect the international system.

 

I believe that there are aspects of hard power, as well as aspects of soft power, that are essential to the US’ success in world politics and international relations. I do not think, however, that the US has to solely pick one side; I think that it should extract the most beneficial aspects of both and use what Nye has dubbed “smart power.” The US will be able to better achieve this through “selective engagement,” a term Robert J. Art coined in his book A Grand Strategy for America. Selective Engagement, as Art defines it, would be “choosing to prevent or to become involved only in those conflicts that pose a threat to the country’s long-term interests.” Sounds like it would fit Nye’s sphere of smart power to me. And it is exactly what I believe the US should do. Mostly everyone thinks this would be obvious. But then why does it seem so hard for the US to follow this approach? Perhaps if the nation were to answer this question many foreign policy issues would be resolved. We should seriously listen to Art: “Selective engagement is not a strategy for all times, but it is the best grand strategy for these times.”