US Foreign Policy Hard and Soft Power

Hard power definition

Military force and sanctions rather than diplomacy to achieve international foreign aims

Project for a New American Century (PNAC)

Neocon think tank set up by Kristol and Kagan in June 1997, advocating the US consolidate its sole superpower status by building up the military; called Clinton's policy 'incoherent' and 'adrift'; wanted to increase defense spending, strengthen democratic allies and challenge hostile regimes

US intervention style in the 1990s

Preferred intervention as part of a coalition (UN/NATO), e.g. Kuwait 1991 under Resolution 678

Rise of hard power after 9/11

War in Afghanistan October 2001; Bush's "War on Terror" in Iraq March 2003, with devastating impacts leading to sectarian violence and the rise of the Taliban in power vacuums

Operating outside international law

Torture and abuse as interrogation at Abu Ghraib (63 detainee deaths) and Guantanamo Bay (780 people held)

2001 Patriot Act

Allowed US authorities to detain suspects for an indefinite amount of time if held under suspicion of planning or carrying out a terrorist attack

Economic sanctions as hard power

Resolutions 661 and 687 on Iraq; sanctions also imposed on Cuba, Syria, North Korea and Russia; medical items from the US and UK to Iran declined by 30% by 2012

NATO in Kosovo

NATO succeeded in intervening in Kosovo to secure peace; NATO by then included former satellite states Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic

Soft power definition

Using culture and diplomacy to attract states - coined by Joseph Nye Jr in 1990

Nye's three categories of soft power

Attractiveness of culture, virtue of political values, and fair foreign policy - more effective in the long term

Clinton Doctrine

"Democratic enlargement" - sought to install American political and economic values across the globe

H.W. Bush's vision

A "new world order" of freedom and peace under US leadership

US education as soft power

Attracted the most international students with 609,000, and had 62 top-ranked universities in 2010

US technology as soft power

Led the technological revolution in the dotcom era with TNCs like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Apple - allowing freedom of expression that facilitated the 2011 Arab Spring, denied by China and Saudi Arabia

US global media

Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and Alhurra in the Middle East as beacons of US values

US financial aid and diplomacy

$24 billion for the USSR after it dissolved; $1-15 billion in Afghanistan (2002-11); brokered the Oslo Accords (unsuccessful); the 1995 Dayton Accords ended the Bosnian War

Hard vs soft power comparison

US foreign policy shifted away from soft power in the 1990s to hard power in the 2000s; soft power is less direct but more successful in resolving conflicts, maintaining peace and promoting US culture