America, Japan, Poland, and Turkey as Great Powers in 21st Century

STRATFOR head George Friedman recently gave a fascinating talk on the next 100 years of geopolitics to the Public Affairs program at the Carnegie Council. You can watch it here. Some interesting points here:

The great powers in 50 to 100 years will include Japan, Poland, and Turkey. His analysis starts from his assumption that the United States will continue to be the dominant power in the international system for many reasons, including access to two large oceans, a powerful navy, enormous wealth, experience dealing with immigration, and a lack of rivals. Poland will benefit from the fact that it faces Russia. Like the U.S. relationship with South Korea, the United States will make sure that Poland succeeds, through technology transfer for example, so that it can balance Russia.

As for Japan, well, it has the second largest economy, a powerful navy, and an army larger than Britain's--all of this with a constitution that doesn't allow these things. Imagine what may happen when Japan modifies its constitution, Friedman says. (Friedman's analysis goes against recent bleak economic news in Japan.) As for China, Friedman "is not impressed." It is basically a poor country that is divided and lacks a social safety net. When people become unemployed in rich countries, they worry about welfare, when they lose their jobs in China, they worry about real poverty.

Meanwhile, Turkey will become ever more important in managing conflict in the Middle East. The key to Friedman's analyses is that it is important to throw away conventional wisdom, for example that Russia, India, and China will dominate the future.

On Joe Nye's concept of "soft power," Friedman has an interesting take: He says soft power is when you can exert power but choose not to. In his view, it is not "attraction" as Nye puts it. Friedman's version came to him from growing up in the Bronx where "you can get more with a smile and a gun than with a smile alone."

Market Capitalism Questioned

Despite Barack Obama's presidential victory in the United States, the financial crisis will erode the ability of the United States to promote market capitalism, it seems. Richard Haass wrote an excellent op-ed over the weekend called "What the Recession Means for Foreign Policy." Not only did he predict the reduction of U.S. foreign policy tools such as defense spending and foreign aid, but he also said U.S. capitalism will come into question:

One other adverse consequence merits mention. The appeal of free markets is much diminished. The ability of U.S. officials to preach persuasively on the virtues of market reform is all but gone. The backlash against markets will almost certainly go too far, with adverse results for economic recovery and democracy around the world.

We are already seeing increased anti-Americanism, the result of perceptions that the global economic slowdown had its roots in the U.S. mortgage market. Globalization itself is further tarnished. What we can expect is heightened state intervention, protectionism and mercantilism as governments look to enter into arrangements that guarantee preferential outcomes.

Susan Aaronson wrote a similar argument in Policy Innovations last week in her popular article "Financial Crisis Hurts U.S. Soft Power." Like Haass, she predicts traditional policy tools will be weakened and, like Hasss again, U.S. market ideology will take a hit:

First, America's global standing is, to a great extent, reflective of how it projects its power, relates to other countries, and keeps its commitments to them. If the global financial meltdown makes life worse for the world's poor, many people may link the U.S. model of democratic capitalism with global misery. They may be less receptive to economic and political strategies presented by U.S. diplomats and NGOs. Meanwhile, the financial crisis will make American taxpayers less able to provide generous levels of foreign aid to help the world's poor.

Second, although many countries will be desperate for investment, U.S. investors could come under considerable pressure to create jobs at home. U.S. tax policy is likely to favor domestic job creation and investment in the U.S. market. Meanwhile, U.S. investors may be less welcome abroad than, for example, Chinese or Indian investors—Americans and Europeans are more likely to demand transparency, accountability, and human rights.

Will people associate U.S. power with "global misery" or with the opportunity and pluralism that Obama's victory represents? Perhaps both. I am speaking at a conference with the European Parliament in Brussels this week called "Ethics in Business - Corporate Culture and Spirituality." In February, I am speaking about a very similar topic in Tokyo. There is clearly a demand for reflection on the future of market capitalism.

Nye's Soft Power Skills for Leaders

Joseph Nye recently came to the Carnegie Council's Public Affairs Program and took his idea of soft power and applied it to leadership.

Hard Power, Soft Power, and Bollywood Power

We published a thoughtful piece in Policy Innovations this week by Shashi Tharoor, who has spoken at the Carnegie Council recently about his book on India.

In his essay, “India’s Bollywood Power,” Shashi describes what I would call the “soft power assets” of India—its culture, film, food, etc. I agree that these assets are sometimes underappreciated and that soft power complements hard power to form what Joe Nye calls “smart power.” We also need to be mindful that India’s open society and freedoms give it a flexibility and universality that may be more appealing than what some call “authoritarian capitalism” promulgated elsewhere. As Shashi notes, a country must be able to “tell a story” but I would add that the story should be universal.

But to what end? I think the key point Shashi omitted from his otherwise excellent article is that power, of whatever type, is used to get something. Theoretically open societies possess more soft power assets, like freedom and pluralism, but they are also more receptive to outside influence (or to the soft power of others). If a country is democratic, the mood of its people will influence policy.

It seems that the State Department agrees that soft power or public diplomacy is indeed important. Still grasping for the right modality, the agency recently launched America’s website—http://www.america.gov/—tasked with, yes, telling America’s story. Its feature in focus? Innovation:

Fashion design might one day be adapted to protect the U.S. Army thanks to innovative work by a Cornell University student that has caught the eye of military scientists. The garments use silver nanoparticles in 2007 to eliminate health threats from microbes and palladium nanoparticles to reduce the effects of air pollutants.

(Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai as seen in Dil Ka Rishta. Photo by Horst-Mirjam von Linotype (CC).)

Language, the Great Communicator

I debated soft power with Joshua Kurlantzick last night at the Core Club in New York City.

One of the things I argued was that the United States is becoming less exceptional relative to other countries in the world. While Americans have seen themselves a part of an exceptional power--a city on a hill, a beacon of freedom--globalization and the international system have in fact empowered rival countries to become relatively more powerful. Fareed Zakaria makes a similar point in his new article "The End of Exceptionalism" in Newsweek.

Here is an excerpt:

"[A new Pew survey on global attitudes] highlights the fact that that the United States is becoming the odd country out. The most striking statistic in the survey has to do with trade. Thumping majorities everywhere said that growing trade ties between countries are "very good" or "somewhat good"—91 percent in China, 85 percent in Germany, 88 percent in Bulgaria, 87 percent in South Africa, 93 percent in Kenya and so on. Of the 47 countries surveyed, the one that came in dead last was … America, at 59 percent. The only country within 10 points of us was Egypt."

Brent Scowcroft makes the point in the National Interest in an article that asks whether the United States is becoming the dispensable nation:

"...we are not indispensable in the sense that those of us in Washington are the only ones who know what needs to be done for the good of the entire human race, and that the rest of the world can either join us or be against us. And we have discovered over the last decade that it is increasingly difficult for us to build together any meaningful sort of coalition acting on that belief. It doesn’t provide leadership and only engenders resistance."

Much of this shift is due to the changing nature of power (toward nonstate actors and to nontraditional combatants), the increasingly globalized nature of problems (climate change, pandemics), and the upside of globalization (states have tapped the global economic growth engine to narrow the gap).

Another question that came up last night was: What role will language play in the emergence of China as a rival power? Clearly, language does matter (this article says English speakers and Chinese speakers look at math problems differently).

But how does language relate to power? In terms of soft power, should we say that when more business is done in Chinese than in English, we have reached some kind of tipping point? Or when Chinese stop learning English and mentioning Western concepts like democracy (Hu mentions democracy 60 times in his speech this week), will we witness a new global order? I am betting it won't happen soon. More likely, we will see a convergence that embraces universal values.

The discussion reminds me of the recent concern about the death of many languages. Every 14 days, a language dies. (Here is a discussion on this trend in Global Voices in which many French speakers weigh in.) I have been following this topic and it seems that the argument for lamenting the disappearance of languages is that thousands of years of knowledge embedded in each language will be lost.

OK. But isn't language's primary function to communicate? When more people speak the same language, more communication is possible. Greater communication, in theory, reduces conflict. It also exposes human rights abuses and other problems word wide--as Nick Gvosdev argued in his excellent piece "Reversing Babel."

Finally, it is curious to note that two of the five hotspots for language disappearance are in North America and four of the five hotspots are in the G8.

Bloggingheads on Soft Power: China vs. Japan vs. US

I discussed Josh Kurlantzick's book on China's soft power on bloggingheads.tv. We spend some time considering what soft power means in the context of China. I sympathize with Josh in his decision to broaden the definition of soft power for his book.

Joseph Nye, the inventor of the term and the head of the CSIS Smart Power Commission with Richard Armitage, defined soft power as the ability to attract rather than coerce (soft) to get what you want (power). As I put it, when someone attractive or cool walks into a restaurant, people want to order what that person is eating. One could apply this principle to a policy menu.

Josh instead includes what Nye categorizes as coercive power, which is the more traditional understanding of power in international relations. If you don't do something, I will use force against you or stop giving you economic goodies. Josh includes aid, trade, FDI, and other more coercive tools when he applies it to China.

But I understand why Josh would want to expand the definition of soft power. First, China itself is trying to expand the definition of power--what it calls comprehensive power includes the economy, its culture, its external economic relations, etc. Second, Asian relations are increasingly economically sticky. There is a greater amount of intra-regional trade in Asia, making economics more important.

Third, China's image is vulnerable and its brand is still pretty weak. As I ask Josh, when was the last time you sought out a Chinese-branded product or tried to emulate a Chinese factory? So the economic tools act as a potential delivery system for its culture--or for its traditional soft power in the future, when people say, we want to be like China.

Although Nye says Japan has the strongest soft power in Asia, Josh was skeptical about Japan's soft power because it has made little progress in getting a permanent UN Security Council seat and in other areas. But Nye and others rank Japan as strong in soft power--having a great number of patents, giving a lot of foreign aid, and generally being seen as a good actor.

I would also add that some of the lack of progress for Japan in influencing countries has ironically been from its reluctance to use coercive power--which is probably a good thing.

China's Charm Offensive Debated

TPM Cafe is debating Josh Kurlantzick's new book Charm Offensive. I am reposting my comment with links here:

Josh's book is an excellent resource on a topic that is increasingly important—the role of nontraditional foreign policy tools in this era of globalization. The combination of the growing strength of nonstate actors and the increasingly intolerable cost of state-to-state total warfare gives these tools more weight. I had the privilege of seeing Josh present his book to a packed audience at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila. I agree that China has been exploring soft power for years as armed conflict has become less of an option given that the CCP's domestic legitimacy derives from providing economic growth to its people—something that is mostly inconsistent with all out warfare. But I would like to point out a few areas of possible debate.

First, it might help to define soft power. Looking at his book here on my desk, Joseph Nye writes, "Soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others." It is not the same as influence. Most relevant here, Nye names three sources of soft power: "its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority)." It is this last source—moral authority—that seems to be lacking in Josh's analysis. In particular Nye writes, "When a country's culture includes universal values and its policies promote values and interests that others share, it increases the probability of obtaining its desired outcomes because of the relationships of attraction and duty that it creates." The United States benefits from a "universalistic culture," Nye writes.


Josh notes that China's image in Washington is not great. Why? Something I cheekily call China Revisionism. Last week's IHT editorial captures this mood: "...The latest reminders are reports of slave labor in Chinese factories and the discovery that some of the popular Thomas the Tank Engine toys manufactured in China have lead in their paint. Before that, it was the contaminated dog food, the stubborn support of Sudan for its oil, the regular reports of human rights abuses, the huge economic disparities between city and country, the controls on the media." But these issues are not just obsessions among the privileged in the United States. They also matter to prosperous Asians, in Japan and Singapore for example, and to Chinese that have the wherewithal and access to information.

The idea that China is a model for other countries is questionable. To paraphrase a China-watcher friend of mine, a Chinese model of economic growth has appeal mainly with states that are failures—and Josh is right to say that these states are also those that have been alienated by Washington. Russia may be an exception of one that can mix limited freedoms at home and exert power and prestige abroad. But Russia would never sign off on a China-led region much less international community. Indeed over the past ten years, the Chinese have seen as expansion in their personal freedoms in the areas of speech, mobility, and religion. If anything, while the majority of Chinese remain very poor, China's experience reminds us that prosperity and democratic society are linked.

Will China use its soft power to prod countries to choose China over the United States? We cannot be sure, but I doubt it. As senior Pentagon officials have said to me, the United States will seek to avoid a situation in which a country is forced to choose between China and the United States. It is likely that China has a similar position especially given that China's most important international relationship is that one it has with the United States. China is doing much—including sending FDI to politically strategic U.S. states—to nurture that relationship.


Looking at culture, China does have a great asset on which to draw—its successful Diaspora in many large cities around the world. And as Josh mentions, China is using a soft touch in establishing Confucius Centers that stick to teaching Chinese rather than trying to propagandize. But Chinese cultural influence still has a long way to go to match up to the superlative that often describe American cultural power in movies, books, media, and scholarship. A wonderful book on this subject is America's Inadvertent Empire by William Odom and Robert Dujarric. To give a taste, they write on the advantage America enjoys in the university gap, "…American academic publications in the social sciences and humanities enjoy an international following that is second to none." Who is one of the most renowned scholars to critique the "Washington Consensus"? None other than American economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University.

How does China's soft power play out on the world stage? For all practical purposes, China's soft power base is vulnerable. Darfur is becoming a case study for how vulnerable China's "brand" is. China would like to be seen as supporting universal values and human rights rather than as a pariah. Finally, as the New York Times magazine pointed out over the weekend in its article "Hard Realities of Soft Power," perceived meddling can produce blowback—as it has for the United States in Iran.