Time was, major shifts in the balance of international power were cataclysmic, violence-wracked events. Not today. (And maybe, paradoxically, we have the existence of nuclear weapons and the broad knowledge of their fearsome potentialities to thank in some part for that.)
Today, what propels a rising power upward is something quite different from raw military power. It is intelligence (especially in the realm of alliance-building); patience; and focus.
Two cases in point: China and Iran. One rising at the global level, the other at the Middle East regional level. Both have “risen” to the point they are– and look set to rise even further over the years ahead– through pursuit of a policy that in my childhood we would have called something like “softly, softly, catchee monkey” (SSCM).
China, as I have noted numerous times here and elsewhere– and building in good part on Kishore Mahbubani’s excellent analysis– has risen in the modern world precisely by acquiring an excellent reputation as a rules-player within the set of international rules established by the US in 1945. It has not sought to do so through military expansion and confrontation with the “old”, US-dominated order, but by challenging (and otherwise interacting with) the US from quite within the US-established order.
By international standards, its military buildup has been measured and restrained. The nuclear arsenal it has built up has been designed to the requirements of a slightly-over-minimal deterrence capability. Beijing wisely chose not to take the route the Soviet Union pursued, of trying to “match” America’s weapons build-up and challenge the US and its allies militarily in various places around the world.
SSCM.
Now, China has regained Hong Kong and is on a good track for building stronger relations with Taiwan. It is certainly (and quietly) emerging as the dominant power around the Pacific Rim. Even if the US still has many bases and alliances there, China has considerable soft power assets in that whole region, as elsewhere.
As for Iran, many people might not think of Ahmadinejad’s Iran as marked by any display of diplomatic intelligence, patience, and focus. But AN with all his rantings is really the epiphenomenon there in Tehran. The big-picture decisions on regional and foreign affairs are made by the Supreme Guide and by others in the clerical and Revolutionary Guard hierarchies. I have to conclude that they’ve been playing a careful and extremely intelligent SSCM game in recent years– and now, it is showing some very tangible results.
One of the hallmarks of Iran’s allies throughout the Middle East has been their ability to deal very effectively with the soft, pliant men who were chosen by the Americans to be their chief henchmen in various theaters. Mainly, I’m talking about Lebanon’s Fouad Siniora (which is where I actually started this whole train of thought this morning), and Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki.
Both men were chosen, by their US paymasters back in 2005 and early 2006, in large part precisely because of their political pliancy (rather than, say, any strongly demonstrated commitment to any particular set of political principles.) You can go back to what I was blogging here about Iraq in early 2006 if you want to be reminded of exactly how it was that Nouri al-Maliki became annointed as PM– as a last-ditch, compromise candidate who was acceptable to the Americans– back in those tumultuous days. Siniora’s emergence to the head of the anti-Syrian bloc was a little different.
Back then, I repeat, both men were chosen in good part because they were acceptable to the Americans.
Now, both men stay in power in good part because they are acceptable to the large bodies of anti-Americans (and pro-Iranians) within their national constituencies. Amazing, really, to see, how effortlessly the pro-Iranian constituencies seem to have “captured” these two men.
Amazing that is, until you realize that (1) Both men were chosen in the first place because of their political pliancy. That hasn’t changed. (Vide the unbelievably pliant Amin Gemayyel’s amazing political turn-on-a-dime in February 1984.) And (2), actually, a lot of systematic, patient, and well-informed political work was pursued by the pro-Iranian forces behind the scenes in order to arrive at their present positions of strengthening power in both countries.
So those are two intriguing examples of the SSCM capabilities of Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Iraq. (Including, the fact that they were smart and well-informed enough to be able to “capture” the previous US henchmen to become figureheads for their own cause without the American viceroys even particularly realizing what was happening.) Iran itself has also pursued a generally very effective SSCM policy in its relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries…
I want to make a broader point here, though– one that links the two cases of Iran and China that I have mentioned. This is a point completely consonant with my own existing analysis of the rapidly decreasing value of raw military strength in today’s global environment. (As I talked about, for example, in my recent USIP appearance.) In our current era, powers seem to be most successful in increasing their regional and global influence when they rely not primarily on military strength and the projection of military power in foreign theaters. They are most successful when they (a) have a keen understanding of the diplomatic and political realities in the region(s) in which they operate, and (b) use that knowledge to pursue very smart and quite frequently deliberately non-confrontational policies that gradually, over time, bring to them increasing amounts of the other kinds of power– especially “soft” power– that matter a lot more in today’s world than military power does.
14 thoughts on “How powers emerge today”
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Helena, fair point about China, but I’ll quibble with you on Iran.
Much of Hizbullah’s influence in Lebanon – and therefore Iran’s – comes from good old-fashioned hard power. Hizbullah has built a state within a state with its own parallel infrastructure, and has been able to keep it because its military strength rivals or exceeds that of the national army. The current political settlement in Lebanon was brought on by a show of military force in Beirut and the Chouf mountains, which is neither an exercise of soft power nor “deliberately non-confrontational.”
Iranian influence in Iraq is more interesting from a soft power standpoint, but there too, many of its allies have armies. One can hardly blame Iran for this, given that so many Iraqi political actors have militias these days, but again the velvet glove is backed by a mailed fist.
This is not to say that Iran is a stranger to soft power: its relations with the Gulf states and its northern neighbors show that it is quite skilled in that area. What Iran is doing in Iraq and Lebanon, however, bears much more resemblance to the Cold War-era use of proxy militias by the United States and the Soviet Union.
And what Iran as well as the USA must realize is that Cold War-type political realities are subject to change without notice. For instance, there’s a general election in Lebanon next year, and the Interior Ministry, which will oversee the voting, has just been given to a human rights lawyer who is beholden to neither side. Hizbullah itself is probably secure, but Aoun and Arslan aren’t, and when it comes down to it, their loyalties are at least as mutable as Siniora’s. At that point, will hard power manifest itself again?
Azazel, I grant you some your point about Hizbullah. Their strength is due in non-trivial part to hard military power– but mainly, the power they’ve demonstrated to be able to defend themselves in their own country from foreign aggressors/occupiers. My main point about the disutility of military power concerns its disutility in the waging of foreign wars.
Regarding HA’s inside the Lebanese system, I judge that, though they certainly did use some hard power in recent months, they were remarkably restrained about doing so; and even then relied much more on their soft-power capabilities to get to where they are today. This continued the trend they’ve displayed consistently within Lebanon since at least late 1991, the point at which they decided to enter Lebanese politics as a (somewhat reformnist) political actor within the existing Lebanese rules of the game.
Surely, as an aside, the point about hezbollah is that its survival depends upon its military strength. Consider the degree to which it is embattled, putting domestic sectarian enemies aside, crushing it has been the joint project of the US,Israel, Saudi Arabia and the EU. For the most part it has been remarkably cool and restrained in these circumstances, particularly as, it is useful to bear in mind, its core militia is actually rather small in numbers.
Hezbollah’s strength is in its intelligence, in both senses of the word. I think that it is this which Helena is really talking about: there is a price to be paid for allowing propagandists, special interests and lobbies for foreign powers to share in making policy.
The advantages are obvious: they bring powerful constituencies into the coalition supporting the policy. But the disadvantages are that realists are marginalised in serious discussions by fanatics, bullshitters and corrupt contractors.
The chances of policies being decided after a cool weighing of the options and an open discussion of the alternatives are diminished. Instead the most sensible analyses are disqualified with the result that, seven years later, it is still impossible for a mainstream political voice to posit the theory that the attack on the Twin Towers was a predictable and rational act of revenge in a very nasty war.
The effect of this philistine (apologies to Hamas) climate is best exemplified in the resolution before Congress regarding Iran. It is superfluous to say that the two main sponsors would not be invited to comment on foreign affairs in civilised company;that is of no import because Congress has chosen impotence and irresponsibility over power. It therefore amuses itself and feathers its members nests instead of legislating.
Only very powerful nations can afford such extravagance but not for long.
To a certain extent, I think, hard power is hard power. Hizbullah did indeed cut its military teeth resisting Israeli occupation. The fact that it maintained and even increased its military strength after 2000, however, suggests that it considered hard power to be as much a means of protecting its domestic political position as of defending against external threats. I’d argue that this analysis is borne out by recent events, in which Hizbullah demonstrated its willingness to use military force against fellow Lebanese over issues having nothing to do with Israel.
In terms of restraint, I suppose it could be argued that Hizbullah didn’t take over the country despite having the power to do so. On the other hand, I doubt very much that it wanted to take over. Nasrallah is very far from stupid, and he recognizes that no one entity can effectively rule a country as fragmented as Lebanon. It’s much better from his point of view to have a veto and protect his parallel state while letting someone else be the visible government. What the recent events prove, IMO, is that Hizbullah is prepared to use enough force to get what it wants, which isn’t a very good definition of “restraint” and is also a poor predictor of how it might act if its objectives someday change.
Again, this is not to say that military power is the only source of Hizbullah’s strength. It has unquestionably used soft power in the domestic arena, aided enormously by the Lebanese tradition of consensus politics in which every significant faction has an effective liberum veto. At the same time, it has always conducted negotiations and extended its parallel-state institutions with military force in reserve, using the combination of the two more effectively than either alone. That would extend to the Doha talks that followed the recent near-coup, which occurred with the specter of civil war as a backdrop. Those negotiations were as much an exercise in soft power as any round of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, albeit with somewhat less (all right, much less) of a power imbalance.
As to your main point about the disutility of foreign wars, I agree that this is true of direct invasions, with the possible exception of limited conflicts between immediate neighbors. The example of Hizbullah proves, however, that if one has a domestic ally who has (or can be given) hard power, it remains entirely possible to fight foreign wars by proxy as the Americans and Soviets did. I’m afraid, although I hope I’m wrong, that Iran’s projection of influence in the greater Middle East is more back to the future than forward.
Bevin,
“Surely, as an aside, the point about hezbollah is that its survival depends upon its military strength… crushing it has been the joint project of the US,Israel, Saudi Arabia and the EU.”
There’s a bit of circular reasoning in the above, given that Hizbullah is targeted precisely because of its military strength and the way it has used same. The aforementioned powers aren’t trying to crush unarmed parties with similar ideologies, such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir or the Islah party in Yemen. Hizbullah is a target in the international game because, and to the extent that, it has taken it upon itself to become a player.
“there is a price to be paid for allowing propagandists, special interests and lobbies for foreign powers to share in making policy”
Such as Hizbullah and the SSNP? The fact that they are lobbies for “anti-imperialist” (or, more accurately, alternatively-imperialist) powers, and that Hizbullah has a domestic constituency, doesn’t make them any less foreign agents. And it’s certainly true that they, among others, have prevented Lebanese policies from being decided upon after “a cool weighing of the options and an open discussion of the alternatives.” Where, for instance, is the reasoned debate about whether to negotiate a peace with Israel that includes Sheba’a Farms and other outstanding issues? Such talks may be in Lebanon’s interest and they may not, but in the current climate, it’s impossible even to weigh the pros and cons.
One more proposition, for Helena and others who may be interested:
Hizbullah:Iran::Israel:United States. Discuss.
Hizbullah’s military strength is certainly in good part a fruit of its political/organizing intelligence, its military smarts at the level of both strategy and tactics, and its patience and focus. Much more so than of the acquisition of any ultra-hi-tech or ultra-lethal weaponry!
I have long maintained that the roots of Hizbullah’s strategic victories have been the intelligent and focused way it has combined mass political organizing with military work– with the former, actuallly, being the key determinant. If folks here haven’t read my 2005 Bos Rev article on Hizbullah, which looks at that issue in some depth, maybe you should.
I wrote there, about PM Ehud Barak’s 2000 decision to withdraw from Lebanon:
what actually brought Barak to his very sensible decision to withdraw was his realization that winning the military battle in Lebanon (which Israel did many times between 1982 and 2000) could never be translated into winning lasting political gains there; Hizbullah always survived to fight another day. And the roots of Hizbullah’s remarkable resilience lay in the success of its mass organizing.
That resilience was demonstrated once again in 2006.
Two points: First, all the actors in question (China, Iran, Hizbollah) have a core military deterrence capability, each very different. No one would argue with their perceived need to defend themselves against outside aggression.
Second, what’s at issue here is how countries work with others to achieve broader strategic objectives, hard vs. soft power. The United States used to rely on its economic power as the primary basis for its power. The sheer size of its economy carried the West in its wake (when Washington sneezed, the rest of the world caught cold).
But more important than the size of the economy was access to the enormous American market, which Washington could grant, deny, or make difficult. I believe that countries’ desire to maintain this access made them curry favor with Washington and was the primary driver of compliance to Washington. And, of course, it helped having a dollarized banking system, a collateral benefit of the dominant economy, its private institutions anchored in New York and its public ones in Washington.
As Washington’s economic might started to diminish in importance relative to the rest of the world, the geniuses in Washington resorted to military strength, where the US was overwhelmingly dominant. The choice is somewhat curious, first because the US still has an absolute advantage over other countries economically, and, second, because hard power hasn’t proven all that effective–the US hasn’t won a major war since WWII. Iraq only served to reiterate the limits of military power. Nonetheless, Washington somehow seemed to think that its military could prevail today, whereas it was its economic might that was the key driver after WWII.
Other countries, unable to compete militarily, naturally focused on other areas. They began to excel in areas where Washington largely ceded them the field–diplomacy, intelligence and economic and financial clout. And their strategy is paying off: not only are they getting results, but it’s a much less costly course, letting precious resources be allocated to economic development, not bombs.
The writer appears to claim that “analysis” has established that “other kinds of power– especially ‘soft’ power– matter a lot more in today’s world than military power does.” Mere discrepancies with reality I leave it to others to point out, confining myself to the discrepancy with Mr. Nye of Harvard, the inventor, or, as the case may be, the discoverer of SofPow®.
To suppose that China — or, Heaven help us, the Islamic Republic of Iran! — is up and coming, Powerwise, due to “the subtle effects of culture, values, and ideas on others’ behavior” is fantastic. The Chinese are, loosely speaking, buying their way towards the top of the greasy pole — and economics ain’t SofPow®.
Happy days.
To come back to the comparison between China and Iran, you have to look at the history.
Both, in the past, have been Super-Powers in the world, and it is unlikely that they have forgotten that. The history of Iran is more complicated, in that the national state, created under the Sasanians (226-657 AD), was then overtaken by Islam, which has a more universal character.
Islam has been the enemy of Christian Europe for a millennium, China has been known for much less time, and, far away, never an enemy.
So Iran is treated as an enemy (Bush-Cheyney & Co have encouraged that, simply to find an enemy), but China is given a free pass.
It is like Britain and France, 600 years of hostility, and even today British politicians find every opportunity they can to condemn French policy. Hostility of proximity.
I don’t happen to believe that either China or Iran represent a real military threat to the US (economic threats are different, but they cannot be resolved by military action). What China has done is a much more serious threat to world peace than Iran.
So why examine so closely what Iran is up to? Iran has not attacked another country in 300 years.
The US has allowed itself to be distracted by the problems of the Middle East from its real problem, that is of its relationship to the world (something which cannot be resolved by military action).
Interesting question, Gloomy (or is it Gus?). We’ve all been tossing around the term “soft power” without, I think, any consensus on what it means. Helena’s definition doesn’t appear to be the same as the one in the Wikipedia article, and I’ll admit to using the term according to my own idiosyncratic understanding.
So when is power hard and when is it soft? Take your example of economic power. It’s generally placed on the “soft” side of the spectrum, but it can be very coercive – as when the IMF used debt to force African countries to adopt policies profoundly against their citizens’ interests – and it can kill. Indeed, if the Iraq sanctions and the aforementioned debt-driven “reforms” are any guide, economic coercion can cause as much death as a fairly large war.
So, Helena and others, what exactly is “soft power?” Can some forms of power, such as economic, be either hard or soft depending on how they are used? And can military power ever be soft?
Helena, “ultra-hi-tech weaponry” isn’t really necessary for the kind of wars Hizbullah fights, and I don’t think the Israeli decision to vacate Lebanon in 2000 was due to anything unique about Hizbullah. Rather, the Israeli political debacle in Lebanon had a more generic cause – the fact that, as you have often pointed out, people are less and less tolerant of even temporary foreign military domination. The United States is rapidly approaching a similar decision point in Iraq despite facing military opponents who are, on the whole, considerably more fragmented, less disciplined and less collectively intelligent than Hizbullah.
Hizbullah won in 2000 through a combination of political intelligence, disciplined hard power and the invisible hand of popular resistance to occupation. It certainly showed resilience, but I’m not sure it was a soft-power sort of resilience (bearing in mind, again, Gloomy Gus’ query about exactly what soft power is).
I’m also not sure what, if anything, the 2006 war proved. Hizbullah held its own against Israel, but it was demonstrably not able to defend the country as a whole, and the Israelis were only there in the first place due to a rather aberrantly non-intelligent use of Hizbullah’s hard power which Nasrallah later characterized as a miscalculation. Resilience? Probably. On the other hand, resilience is a morally neutral quality, and I don’t see the ability to defend oneself (but not one’s country) against an invasion that would not have occurred but for one’s own miscalculated aggression as being very useful to the body politic that Hizbullah claims to serve.
John,
“First, all the actors in question (China, Iran, Hizbollah) have a core military deterrence capability, each very different. No one would argue with their perceived need to defend themselves against outside aggression.”
I certainly wouldn’t argue that all three have a perceived need for self-defense, noting the word “perceived.” In China and Iran’s case, I also wouldn’t quarrel with their entitlement to possess arms for defensive purposes. Hizbullah, however, is not a state and is no longer exercising a right of resistance on behalf of an occupied population, but is instead trying to assume the trappings of an international actor without any of the legal responsibilities. Essentially, it wants military and political power without the accountability that states have. If Hizbullah doesn’t want to rely on the Lebanese national army, police and courts to protect its rights, then it should either become a state, take over a state, or (my favorite) help us create a world in which states are no longer needed.
I don’t have any quarrel with the rest of your argument.
“The US has allowed itself to be distracted by the problems of the Middle East from its real problem, that is of its relationship to the world…”
Which, it seems to this observer, is a problem of the US’s own making.
“(something which cannot be resolved by military action).”
And not only that, but also something which is to a significant extent caused and inevitably exacerbated by military action.