The Allen Almanac

A post at Dispatches from the Culture Wars introduced me to the term for some ideas I’ve had rolling around in my head: soft power. Basically the idea that America’s greatest strength doesn’t come from our military might. It comes just as much, if not more, from our “ability to attract others by the legitimacy of U.S. policies and the values that underlie them” which relies heavily on our reputation around the world. This is why what President George has done is so disasterous. This comes from the article sited on DFTCW:

International opprobrium. The Iraq adventure fueled a precipitous decline in America’s image abroad, and Bush’s pugnacious style during his first term and his tin ear for foreign opinion made a bad situation worse. This is more than just a public-relations problem. National prestige is diplomatic capital; the more unpopular America becomes, the higher the price of foreign support. Mark Malloch Brown, the UN’s deputy secretary-general, recently said that suspicion of the United States has grown to the point where “many otherwise quite moderate countries” are inclined to oppose anything we favor.

In The Guardian yesterday:

The appeal of the West is founded not just on a dream of a high level of material comfort but also on the satisfaction of basic and universal human values such as dignity, protection of life and justice. This gives the West considerable moral capital, but moral capital is a fragile commodity. This precious resource has been profligately spent in recent years. The fact that Abu Ghraib prison, where Saddam’s henchmen tortured and maimed at will, is now known for American abuse of prisoners is both a disgrace and a tragedy. The information gathered at Guantanamo Bay can in no way be equal in strategic value to the damage done to the image of America around the world.

This is going to be a huge problem as we try to fight against a global problem. We have to have allies.