The wind, the sun, and Soft Power

[imomus]

Some call it "the battle for hearts and minds", some call it Soft Power, others just use words like "influence". Whatever it is, "the world's sole superpower" seems to be losing it. A BBC poll this week found that "anti-Americanism is on the rise, and the more the US flexes its hard power -- the more it deploys troops abroad or talks tough diplomatically -- the more it seems to weaken its ability to influence the world."

Some other BBC polls paint a more general picture of the context. Yes, America is currently unpopular top dog. But not for long. By 2026, China will be the world's number one economy, with the US at number 2, Japan at number 3, and India in fourth place. America's current wars are the snaps and snarls of a slipping power. And attempts to pre-empt this fall -- remember the "new American century"? -- have only accelerated it.

"Is it simply the Bush administration's foreign policy or the whole image of America that is unpopular?", the latest BBC article asks. "Comparable surveys suggest that there is still strong support around the world for the values enshrined in US society. But it looks as though America itself is seen to be living up to those values less and less. As a result, America's soft power - its ability to influence people in other countries by the force of example and by the perceived legitimacy of its policies - is weakening."

This week even the US legislature seemed to grasp this. They moved to block Bush's plan to send 20,000 new troops to Iraq. Meanwhile, military figures seemed to want to soften their own image. A new heat (but not death) ray was unveiled, a machine that sits on the back of a humvee and literally projects "soft hard power" by blasting a very hot -- but harmless -- ray at people protesting America's presence in their land. When the ray hits you, it feels like you're on fire. But you don't die. You can still run away, live to fight another day. The ray gun can't work miracles, though. It can't make you love the people who fire it at you.

"Non-lethal weapons are important for the escalation of force, especially in the environments our forces are operating in," says Marine Col Kirk Hymes, director of the development programme, in the BBC article about the ray gun. "The weapon could potentially be used for dispersing hostile crowds in conflict zones such as Iraq or Afghanistan. It would mean that troops could take effective steps to move people along without resorting to measures such as rubber bullets - bridging the gap between shouting and shooting."

"Bridging" is a rather poor choice of word. A bridge takes you from one place to another -- from shouting to shooting. Didn't the colonel mean "blocking" or "delaying" that transition? And shouldn't he have said that non-lethal weapons "de-escalate" rather than "escalate" force? Unless... the non-lethality is just there to allow you to reach for the trigger quicker. When you don't speak the language of the nation you're occupying, shouting is a waste of breath.

When soldiers do try to use Soft Power-type language, they end up saying ridiculous stuff. Last year Major General William Caldwell, the chief US military spokesman in Iraq, told journalists in Baghdad's fortified green zone that Iraq was "a work of art in progress":

"Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition. A lump of clay can become a sculpture. Blobs of paint become paintings which inspire." Is force, too, cultural? Are we sculpting and painting with flesh and blood? Tough love indeed, General Michaelangelo.



"It may be better for a prince to be feared than loved," says the Wikipedia article on Soft Power, quoting Machiavelli, "but the prince is in greatest danger when he is hated. There is no contradiction between realism and soft power. Soft power is not a form of idealism or liberalism. It is simply a form of power, one way of getting desired outcomes. Legitimacy is a power reality."

Personally, I think Aesop was a more astute political observer than Machiavelli. His fable "The Wind and the Sun" goes like this:

"The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: "I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin." So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on."

"Kindness," concludes Aesop, "effects more than severity."

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm starting to think that power is a red herring, soft or hard. Informed consent is the issue, whether that is invading someone's country to behead their dictator, buying someone's news network, opening restaurants in their street or putting them into bondage gear. Without informed consent, all power, even as 'kindness', is a mark of imbalance waiting to happen.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

"What is of all things most yielding
Can overwhelm that which is of all things most hard."

From The Tao Te Ching.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"The world's sole super-informed-consent" sounds even scarier!

[(Anonymous)]

It might be a little too soon to declare China the next superpower-to-be. There are monstrously huge political, ethnic and economic tensions that could still tear the country apart. There are regular outright rebellions in western China that we hardly ever hear about due to reporting restrictions. We might actually be seeing China's zenith of power about right now, with stasis and decline setting within a decade or so.

Likewise, I'm not so sure we can talk about American decline just yet. America's decline has been predicted since the 70s. Back then, the superpower-to-be was Japan, apparently set to overtake the American economy sometime in the 90s. Well, we all know what happened to Japan in the 90s. And what happened to America under Clinton.

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder if China will still overtake the United States with all the Mexicans being let in each day. It's a race to the top--who can be largest peasant country in the world? This is certainly something for a country to be proud of.

Nevertheless, you guys shouldn't be too happy about America's decline. The failure of America means the failure of liberal democracy and multi-culturalism.

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

Yes, let us be nice to terrorists and welcome them to come to our country and not assimilate. Then, we can have entire parts of our cities that are unsafe for non-Muslims like France...or a surfeit of homegrown terrorist cells that bomb subways like Britain.


You Euros have always been more progressive in thought and action and there's no denying that when it comes to capitulation and surrender to threats, you guys are masters of your domain.




Us stupid Americans will keep fighting because we have the insane idea that violent Islam is incompatible with our lifestyle and we'd rather fight it there than here. Meanwhile, you might want to lern how to tie a turban and teach Hisae how to wear a hijab so she doesn't get stoned to death.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But is America failing because of its embrace of liberal democracy and multiculturalism, or because of its abandonment of those ideals?

It's odd that you're saying that I'm waving goodbye to such things, when right below Cerulicante thinks my stance is the result of too much of them!

[(Anonymous)]

I defy you to name any "entire part" of a French city that is unsafe for non-Muslims. What absolute poppycock. As for homegrown terrorism, you do know about the U.S.'s second most deadly terrorist attack ever, don't you? As far as I know, Timothy McVeigh wasn't a Muslim.

Assimilationism is the backdoor fascism of our times.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Hear hear (http://imomus.livejournal.com/164207.html)!

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

I'm an American, and I think you're parroting an intellectually and morally bankrupt line that is becoming increasingly hard for even America's rightists to repeat with a straight face in light of its unqualified failure.

[fishwithissues.livejournal.com]

Naw, see look, the thing about the heat ray is that, frankly, the terrorists' hearts are made of ice, and their minds are made of cheese. The heat ray melts their hearts! And their minds? Fondue!

[realrealgone.livejournal.com]

the cheese-melting function is designed to frustrate the ambitions of those French surrender monkeys, surely?!

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe! I've got a private ideal to aim for, though. Without that, we've probably got no right to create political and cultural products for the world.

[(Anonymous)]

It's kind of funny, we despise America because it's just this crass money-minded entity, and yet we derive satisfaction in hoping to see other countries (China and India) become even larger money-minded entities. It seems like our principles are getting lost in the excitement of cheering America's apparent decline.

I think this decline should be a referendum on liberal democracy. When you have a country as large as the US democratically electing its leaders for 200 years, is it any surprise that the process eventually deteriorates into a situation where they elect the biggest spender or the person (G.W.B.) who most resembles their own obtuseness?

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

The idea of a "heat ray" sounds quite absurd... Like some weird Science Fiction thingie. yet, it is very non-fiction, which makes it all the more absurd.

(Not to talk about the unnecessary resources it takes to build such things among all other military equipments, bah!)

[dr--ben.livejournal.com]

when you need a jeep mounted microwave pain system to spread your values, then it's definitely time to look at the values.

[(Anonymous)]

Quote of the day.

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

"Kindness," concludes Aesop, "effects more than severity."

It seems that everyone knows that except for the idiots in power.

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, Timothy McVeigh wasn't a Muslim.

And I don't think there are many muslim members in the KKK, a vicious and highly organized american terrorist organization that has been mostly de-fanged in recent years by - surprise -
police work. No missles required.

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

<< when you need a jeep mounted microwave pain system to spread your values, then it's definitely time to look at the values. >>

I am so stealing this.

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

we'd rather fight it there than here.

You haven't really fallen for that line of bullshit have you?

And why did we bother invading Afghanistan only to allow bin Laden get away?

[lupoleboucher.livejournal.com]

"when you need a jeep mounted microwave pain system to spread your values, then it's definitely time to look at the values."

Yeah, that liberal, multicultural democracy, "not exploding yourself to kill your neighbor the garbage man" crap; what a waste of time.

[(Anonymous)]

NOT the quote of the day.

[dr--ben.livejournal.com]

i'm not so sure you can get away with that "we're nobly fighting irrational evil" stuff any more. weird that it took so long in many ways.

look at what you're saying

[(Anonymous)]

That's disingenuous. The "liberal multicultural democracy" things is the myth of american values. You can measure values by what your ideals are, but most of the world measures them by judging the motivation of your actions. And when you are roasting protesters in order to maintain your hedgemony, most people would judge your motivations as less-than-liberal. Now, a lot of the american liberal values are still evident if we look at internal affairs, but the international picture is quite different. If we are interpreting values to mean ideals we can say that most middle eastern nations are peaceful to the point of self-sacrifice (and if you haven't read the Koran and the life of Muhammad, you should) and Japanese revere the natural environment and take pleasure in the character their appliances gain as they age (wabi-sabi). Finally, an american pointing out that other nations and peoples are violent is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.