Hard power bespeaks intimidation, destruction and subjugation; soft power bespeaks cooperation, assistance and development.
The decision of President Donald Trump’s second administration to dismantle the US government’s foreign aid agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has again brought to the forefront of international discussion the structure and use of wealthy countries’ power in the geopolitical milieu of the modern era.
The world’s wealthiest countries—the so-called First World countries—are the members of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). They are the U.S., Canada, U.K., the members of the European Union (EU), Japan, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Israel.
The stoppage of USAID’s operations has given rise to three questions. What are the kinds of power that can be projected to the world by a wealthy country desirous of maintaining an active foreign policy? What are the comparative causes and benefits that each kind of power involves? And was the Trump administration’s decision to discontinue the U.S. foreign aid-operations a sound decision?
A wealthy country that wishes to project power to the world has a choice between two kinds of power: hard power and soft power. Hard power emanates from the deployment of military hardware, combat troops and other war-making assets on land, on the sea and in the air. Today, the foremost exemplars of hard power projection are the U.S., Russia, Israel, North Korea, China (in the West Philippine Sea) and Iran and its proxies.
The other kind of power that a wealthy country can project to the world – soft power—consists of everything that neither kills nor maims. Hard power bespeaks intimidation, destruction and subjugation; soft power bespeaks cooperation, assistance and development. Patriot missiles, nuclear submarines and aircraft carrier groups are the staff of hard power, while soft-power practitioners dispense food aid, health care assistance and educational improvements.
Is expenditure on soft power a better financial proposition – less cost and greater benefit – than expenditure on hard power? Decidedly yes. It is less costly and more beneficial to charm people than to arm them. And the impact of soft power is of longer duration; people remember good things long after the do-gooders have gone.
Geopolitical decision-making is often very difficult for a wealthy country to make, but it is safe to say that the many billions of U.S. government dollars spent on the inconclusive wars against North Vietnam and Iraq would have had a better and longer-lasting effect had they been spent on soft-power items like schools and health facilities.
This is not to say that a wealthy country needs to deploy both hard power and soft power. Many countries have strong economies but choose to not maintain foreign-aid programs. Other countries that are not particularly strong militarily maintain modest foreign-aid programs, realizing the enormous return in terms of international goodwill.
But the U.S is not just any wealthy country. It is the world’s wealthiest country, accounting for around 22 percent of the world’s gross domestic product. And it is the world’s only super power. A such, it need not and must not make a choice between deploying hard power and deploying soft power to the world. It must function as both the world’s peacekeeper and its chief aid-giver.
The Trump administration’s decision to stop the U.S. government’s foreign-aid program and close down USAID has been one of the worst of its numerous colossally bad policy changes. USAID won millions of hearts and minds in this country during the many decades that it operated here. It represented the best of soft power.
Hopefully, the enlightened minds in the U.S. Congress will be successful in their effort to reverse USAID’s closure. (llagasjessa@yahoo.com)