New York City
Les Gelb minimizes the value of so-called "soft power" in his new book, Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy." Who can disagree that a return to common sense among policymakers is as welcome as it is essential. However, Gelb plainly underestimates the value of economic, diplomatic, technological, media and cultural leverage when he writes that "persuasion, good values and leadership won't - by themselves - cause foreign leaders to do your bidding...To me, soft power is foreplay, not the real thing." That's nice rhetorically, but flawed conceptually.
Ironically, there is a painful echo of false bravado in Gelb's statement. It sounds too much like the previous Administration, which lacked common sense in tragic proportions. Does Gelb really think that the result of policy should always be to require other nations to do our "bidding"? It doesn't sound like a formula for success in today's complex, multipolar world in which rebuilding American respect and admiration abroad is a high priority.
I certainly don't like the term "soft power," largely because it is misleading. There is nothing soft about effective leadership that knows when and how to apply diplomatic, economic and legal resources to achieve objectives while avoiding unfortunate rushes into needless wars. Power may be in the eye of the beholder, but let's never be blinded again by the limits of power that only sees the world in one-dimensional terms.
p.s. We had the pleasure of seeing Arturo Sandoval perform the other night at The Iridium. Sandoval ranks among the great jazz trumpeters of our time, but he is also a marvelous producer, arranger, songwriter and keyboardist and able to let loose with the flugelhorn and tympani, too. No less than Dizzy Gillespie helped the Havana-born Sandoval defect to the United States while touring with his band in 1990, a wonderful story that is captured well in the 2000 movie, For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story.
Les Gelb minimizes the value of so-called "soft power" in his new book, Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy." Who can disagree that a return to common sense among policymakers is as welcome as it is essential. However, Gelb plainly underestimates the value of economic, diplomatic, technological, media and cultural leverage when he writes that "persuasion, good values and leadership won't - by themselves - cause foreign leaders to do your bidding...To me, soft power is foreplay, not the real thing." That's nice rhetorically, but flawed conceptually.
Ironically, there is a painful echo of false bravado in Gelb's statement. It sounds too much like the previous Administration, which lacked common sense in tragic proportions. Does Gelb really think that the result of policy should always be to require other nations to do our "bidding"? It doesn't sound like a formula for success in today's complex, multipolar world in which rebuilding American respect and admiration abroad is a high priority.
I certainly don't like the term "soft power," largely because it is misleading. There is nothing soft about effective leadership that knows when and how to apply diplomatic, economic and legal resources to achieve objectives while avoiding unfortunate rushes into needless wars. Power may be in the eye of the beholder, but let's never be blinded again by the limits of power that only sees the world in one-dimensional terms.
p.s. We had the pleasure of seeing Arturo Sandoval perform the other night at The Iridium. Sandoval ranks among the great jazz trumpeters of our time, but he is also a marvelous producer, arranger, songwriter and keyboardist and able to let loose with the flugelhorn and tympani, too. No less than Dizzy Gillespie helped the Havana-born Sandoval defect to the United States while touring with his band in 1990, a wonderful story that is captured well in the 2000 movie, For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story.