Smart Power
One year ago, newly confirmed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at the State Department and outlined her vision for “smart power”. Yesterday Secretary Clinton held a town-hall for employees at the State Department looking back at the first year of the Obama administration. During the event, Clinton touched on smart power and her work to elevate diplomacy and development to the same importance as defense.
An excerpt:
We began with the idea of “smart power” and the goal of elevating diplomacy and development and making them equal partners with defense. I’m pleased at how far we’ve come in doing that. Our budgets demonstrate both the commitment of the Administration and the Congress to this vision. We’ve strengthened relationships with historic allies. We’ve reached out to emerging powers. We’ve pursued constructive dialogue, even with longtime adversaries. We’ve broadened our definition of diplomacy to extend beyond government-to-government engagement, and to include NGOs, the private sector, and citizens and media in nations across the world.
As we’ve worked together to bring governments, the private sector, and civil society together in cross-cutting partnerships, we’ve seen some exciting examples. One is the use of technology on behalf of diplomacy and development, a subject I discussed last week in my speech at the Newseum.
Our civilian experts from State and USAID are supporting the Afghan and Iraqi people as they work to build democratic institutions, functioning market economies, combat violent extremism, and strengthen civil society. And we are working to promote effective, democratic, transparent governance in both those nations.
We’re also redoubling our efforts to deal with the long-term issues like poverty and hunger, climate change, non-proliferation, and others. And the Department has played a central role in advancing President Obama’s vision of a world someday without nuclear weapons.
We’ve put forward a new development agenda for the 21st century. We’re pursuing a policy based on partnership, not patronage. That means working directly with developing countries to help them identify their own obstacles to growth, crafting solutions to overcome those obstacles, and implementing programs that can be held accountable for results.
In close partnership with USAID, we’re supporting investments to make agriculture more productive. We’re helping farmers produce more in a sustainable way that, in turn, promotes economic growth. And we’re seeing the impact of that approach in many countries around the world.
Here’s video of the town hall:
On Monday night, several ONE staff and I attended a dinner hosted by the US Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) honoring Secretary Clinton for her extraordinary leadership. Clinton delivered a powerful speech about the importance of a balanced, smart power approach to foreign policy based on strengthened development and diplomacy tools. She stated that it has been her goal as the 67th Secretary of State to “make sure that diplomacy and development were elevated alongside a strong defense.”
She praised USGLC and others in the development community for advocating for a robust International Affairs budget and educating Americans about the importance of development and diplomacy. You can find the full transcript of her speech, photos from the event and media coverage here.
Late last week, hundreds of ONE members called to urge Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee to ask questions about global poverty during Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of State confirmation hearing.
Some of those senators didn’t even get a chance, because Secretary-designate Clinton answered their questions before they could be asked. Her opening statement featured a long section on the two billion people worldwide living on less than $2 a day. She emphasized that the plight of the poor is “not marginal to our foreign policy but integral to accomplishing our goals.”
Opening remarks by Senator John Kerry (Massachusetts) also included a strong statement about the ongoing global hunger crisis. “The United States is uniquely situated to help the world feed itself and has the opportunities to recast its image by making the eradication of hunger a centerpiece of United States foreign policy,” he said.
In the subsequent question-and-answer period, ten out of fifteen of the Foreign Relations Committee Senators raised issues related to ONE issues, including these:
- Senator Bob Corker (Tennessee) asked about reforming and modernizing U.S. foreign aid, referring to the “maze of aid efforts that are underway” and the need for the State Department to examine and streamline these efforts.
- Senator Barbara Boxer (California) stated that “HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis — Africa, Asia, Latin America need our attention,” and went on to describe the persecution of women in the developing world.
Clinton responded with this assurance: “I want to pledge to you that as Secretary of State I view these issues as central to our foreign policy, not as adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser than all of the other issues that we have to confront.”
- Senator George Voinovich (Ohio) inquired about how “smart power” — (more…)
(As cross-posted on the front page of the Huffington Post today.)
In her highly-anticipated confirmation hearings to be selected as the next Secretary of State yesterday, Senator Hillary Clinton articulated a bold and comprehensive vision of U.S. foreign policy for the Obama Administration. Perhaps none of her ambitions were more striking than the breadth and depth of her commitments to development as a pillar of foreign policy along with defense and diplomacy. Her testimony marks a heightened focus on development not only as an effective means to advance U.S. foreign policy and to improve America’s image in the world, but also as a critical goal in and of itself.
Echoing George Marshall, Clinton spoke of her vision of foreign policy as a tool that can and should do more than address ongoing conflicts such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. In an ever shrinking world, foreign policy must also confront a new breed of challenges such as global poverty and disease and Clinton’s remarks demonstrate an understanding of what such an engagement would require. First, she highlights the comprehensive and interconnected needs involved in truly addressing development. In echoing Obama’s own agenda, she referenced that development would encompass, amongst other things, “… eliminating the global education deficit; enhancing US leadership in the effort to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB and improving global health infrastructure; providing sustainable debt relief to developing countries; expanding prosperity through training, partnerships and expanded opportunities for small and medium enterprise; supporting developing countries in adapting to the challenges of a changing climate….” In short, she acknowledges that true development requires a multifaceted and balanced approach as articulated in the internationally agreed upon Millennium Development Goals.
Second, she acknowledges that HOW the U.S. achieves these goals is as important as WHAT it focuses on. Her testimony proposes an approach that partners with nations to ensure that the U.S. isn’t just “giving” foreign assistance but rather investing in these countries so that they can sustain their own poverty-alleviation efforts in the long-term. Lastly, she reiterated President-elect Obama’s critical commitment to double foreign assistance. This will allow the U.S. to scale up efforts that are working and invest the time and effort to modernize the whole of U.S. development programs so that all elements of the investment made by the American people are working as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Senator Clinton’s vision and leadership come at a critical time. America’s foreign policy challenges are complicated and cross cutting. The world faces a series of conflicts, challenges to democracy, financial upheaval and humanitarian threats like the food crisis. But America is also at a point where it has tested and proven the potential of development to impact those challenges. Clinton’s goal of making defense, diplomacy, and development the centerpiece of US foreign policy won’t be easy, but if the new Administration follows through on the commitments that Hillary Clinton has made, a focal point for the Obama national security doctrine will be a robust, effective, innovative development program. Of course, ensuring the success of these development priorities will require working vigorously with Congress to enact funding and legislation. The true three pillared approach highlighted yesterday is the right mix to confront these challenging times. Hillary Clinton has shown she shares Obama’s vision to make it a reality. We look forward to taking the first step with her.
-Erin Thornton, ONE Global Policy Director
On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called for a “dramatic increase” in funding for diplomacy and foreign aid in the U.S. budget.
From Tuesday’s Washington Post piece:
“In a speech that emphasized the importance of “soft power” to prevent and end conflicts, Gates suggested beefing up the State Department’s foreign affairs budget of $36 billion, even as he acknowledged that Pentagon observers might consider it “blasphemy” for a sitting defense secretary to make such an appeal for another agency…
“We are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and culture,” Gates said. “It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America.”
Read the full article here.
The idea that development assistance is a key component to smart foreign policy is not a new one. It has, in fact, garnered increasing attention among high profile Washington foreign policy experts. Earlier this month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (a bipartisan, nonprofit focused on global security and prosperity) released “the CSIS Commission on Smart Power,” which argues that investment in the global good is integral to America’s ability to tackle global challenges. You can read the full report here.
-Virginia Simmons
