“soft power” needs a facelift
Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and Dan Drezner all have recent posts on retiring the term “soft power”. They have a point - after all, it’s politically vapid if not dangerous. Should progressives keep blathering on about the need to increase our “soft power” capacities of national security, it reinforces the notion that progressives are “soft” on security. Never mind that it’s the right thing to do - progressives just need a bit of re-branding on security.
Everyone seems more-or-less stumped on a suitable replacement. What’s wrong with calling it “civilian” power? If our national security capacities should be divided between military and civlian agencies and departments, it seems appropriate that the term “civilian” is applied here.
Here’s the best part - Bob Gates used the term in a November 2007 speech at Kansas State University:
What is clear to me is that there is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security – diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development.
Posted in PPI, US foreign policy, integrated security
December 5th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
[...] Arkedis suggests “civilian power” as an alternative term to the much-derided “soft power.” I think this suggestion [...]
December 10th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
[...] as a means to achieve policy ends. So Yglesias, and others, propose alternatives – such as “civilian power” (which acknowledges the role of aid and other resources in achieving U.S. foreign policy [...]