The Layperson’s Globalist: Obama’s ‘Smart Power’ Approach

Anna Bennett explains the ins and outs of hard power, soft power, and everything in between.

With Barack Obama in the White House, ‘smart power’ has come to the fore in U.S. foreign policy. Where ‘hard power’ is considered to be overbearing, and ‘soft power’ a liberalist fancy, smart power strikes the politically correct, and internationally successful, balance.

When you have an annual $711 billion military budget, hard power might seem the obvious choice. Hard power involves getting others to do what you want, through force or coercion; here, threats and direct action are prevalent and generate supremacy. Think Jack Bauer in the television series 24. Soft power, on the other hand, is about attracting people to your cause, gathering them around you, and thereby influencing them to do as you please. With his liberal-internationalist background and winning smile, Obama has a natural affinity with soft power. Since his inauguration, he has bounded enthusiastically onto the world stage to win over allies, adversaries and the apathetic.

Smart power is very international-relations-fashionable in 2009. A combination of soft and hard power, smart power essentially involves combining your sweet-talking diplomatic skills and open wallet with your overwhelming military might. This ought to bring others around to seeing your point of view. This year, Obama has shown the world just how ‘in’ smart power is. By using sweeping oratory, a hard-line North Korea policy, and a surge in Afghanistan, Obama has married soft and hard power to great effect.

With his charisma and ambassadorial aplomb, Obama has had great success with conciliatory words in speeches from Ankara to Paris to London to Ghana. In Cairo, Obama took aim at racism and prejudicial stereotypes, and spoke of the hope, peace and prosperity that would arise from greater understanding between the West and the Muslim community. Later in the year, with a dash of Gen Y know-how, he addressed a YouTube video to the Iranian people, complimenting their history and culture, wishing them happiness in springtime celebrations, and advocating a role for Iranians in the international community. With a wink and a smile, Obama has used soft power to charm the Muslim world.

Smart power essentially involves combining your sweet-talking diplomatic skills and open wallet with your overwhelming military might.

But not everything can be sunshine and photo-ops. Obama has continued Bush’s hard power approach to North Korea through the Proliferation Security Initiative and regional weaponisation strategy. Alongside his idealism, Obama supports the central tenet of Morgenthau-style realism. In 2007, in Foreign Affairs, he wrote: “A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace.” Indeed, Obama’s Afghanistan policy is predicated upon overwhelming military supremacy, using troop surges and the latest weapons.

Smart power is precisely what it sounds like: the strategic analysis of power maximisation. In some situations, soldiers and tanks are required; in others, sensitivity, an open mind, and foreign aid are indispensable. Leaders who understand this concept benefit from the use of both sticks and carrots. One way or another, the horse will move.

Anna Bennett is in her third year of a combined degree in Law and Arts, majoring in American Studies and Government and International Relations.