Smart Power Blog

Last week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates remembered the Cold Was as a "less complex time" and said that he was "almost nostalgic" for it. Gates was responding to comments made by President Vladimir Putin, who blamed U.S. foreign policy for causing countries to seek out nuclear arms in order to defend themselves from the U.S. and an "almost uncontained use of military force."

Why is Gates nostalgic for the "good old days" of the Cold War? It was a simpler time in terms of U.S. foreign policy and the definition of threats. Problems were more manageable than they are today. During that time, the world was divided in to "us" and "them"- the US and the USSR. Of course this is an over simplification, and there were some surrogate wars. But overall, the problem was defined in terms of this dichotomy. Given the structure of world power during this time, diplomats, policy makers and defense were trained with certain cognitive, linguistic and cultural skills and followed certain career paths. Indeed, Defense Secretary Gates served in the CIA for 27 years. Perhaps he is "almost nostalgic" for the Cold War days because he was trained to handle problems as defined in the framework of us vs. them.

Today, everything has changed - the threat, the power structure and the set of skills needed to deal with the new global challenges. It is no longer just us vs. them. There is not just a single threat that we can fight. There are various problems, which take different shapes and that change over time. If the world has changed and the threat has changed, it follows that our foreign policy should adapt as well. Because we no longer know what will be politically salient at any given time, there is a need to be flexible. In a network society, new competencies and organizational designs are needed. Unfortunately, U.S. foreign policy has not adapted. Herein lies the problem. The current administration is operating in the frame of mind that existed during the Cold War and during times when the threat was defined as us vs. them. The current administration has failed due to the militaristic frame of mind. It's the law of the hammer. If all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

There is an over-reliance on one instrument of state power; the military, and as Putin put it, "an almost uncontained use of military force." Of course it is not only Putin who disagrees with the reliance on hard power; the U.S. public also thinks that the Bush administration has gone too far in terms of hard power. Opinion polls shows that the U.S. public would prefer a multinational approach to foreign policy. Use of solely hard power is a failing strategy to pursue U.S. national interests, and a balance must be restored to state power. It is clear that hard power alone will not work. Nor will only soft power. Instead, an integrated approach is needed - smart power.

The challenge is that many current military, defense and intelligence people were trained with the Cold War frame of reference and probably share Secretary of Defense Gates' belief that the Cold Was as a less complex time. This is because they are trained to deal with the problems of that time, not today's environment. Therefore, the struggle for those who believe a balance to state power must be restored will be to make a sophisticated argument of the need for an integrated approach. The hard power side must be understood and an argument must be made, taking the major issues as seen from that perspective in to mind. Gates' nostalgia for the Cold Was days must be understood in terms of the Cold War frame of mind and the skill sets that were necessary and developed during that time. The world has changed structurally in a way that makes soft power more important. But the military and hard power and their strengths and weaknesses must be understood in order to make a convincing argument that whether or not you believe twenty or thirty years ago our problems were more manageable and more stable, times have changed. And so too must U.S. foreign policy and state power.