Great Brains (III)

With Zelizer, we see again how Vietnam laid down a fault line between those who see war as an extension of politics and those who believe civilization has moved beyond war. Zelizer writes:

Sometimes Obama's team has articulated a new national security agenda—talking about multilateralism and diplomacy and "Smart Power" . . . But at other times, his team has attempted to show that Democrats can be equally aggressive on defense—appointing Bob Gates to secretary of defense and talking tough about a significant escalation of force in Afghanistan.

To Zelizer and others, “tough” is bad. Zelizer wants Obama’s “best and brightest” to commit to “smart power,” Joseph Nye’s attempt to save his appallingly-misnamed “soft power” from oblivion. In the Los Angeles Times, Nye himself discusses the importance to the Obama team of “smart power”, and shows how “smart” is the son of “soft”:

President Obama reminded us Tuesday that "our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint." A week ago. . . Hillary Rodham Clinton said: " We must use what has been called 'smart power,' the full range of tools at our disposal."

Smart power is the combination of hard and soft power. Soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. . . soft power [includes] culture . . . values . . . and policies . . . Of course, soft power is not the solution to all problems.

No kidding.

Nye then describes how he saved his “soft power” by teaming with former Bush administration official Richard Armitage of the generally hard-line Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to form a “CSIS Commission on Smart Power.” Armitage, Mr. Hard (until he left Bush over Iraq policy), and Nye, Mr. Soft, therefore produced Ms. Smart for new Secretary of State Clinton [picture at State Department].

So here we are. The last time “the best and brightest” were in charge during war, Kennedy was president, his team believed in being tough (“hard power”), American policy was to contain Communism by force if necessary, and we went to war in Vietnam. This blog is full of entries (here’s one) paralleling Kennedy to Bush. To Zelizer, Nye, and other academics, the Vietnam Tragedy is the great lesson of their lives. They want to make very sure Obama doesn’t follow Bush into some wrong war. So it’s time to take on directly Kennedy’s “best and brightest.” Say no to “hard power.” Say yes to “soft,” er “smart power.”