What They Are Saying...
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell
spoke March 4 at a forum of The Center for
U.S. Global Engagement which released a
report entitled:
“Putting Smart Power to Work: An Action
Agenda for the Obama Administration and
the 111th Congress.” Following are excerpts
from that forum.
A column devoted to what our partners and others in the field of foreign assistance are saying about development
Well, first of all, let me congratulate
the Center for pulling
this together, and I appreciate
the “Report of Reports,”
which summarizes the efforts
of 20 different groups. I think
the term smart power is a significant
improvement over the
terms we’ve been using in the
past—soft power and hard
power—that really didn’t
describe what we’re all about.
But I’m not entirely comfortable
with smart power
because the term “power”
suggests that there’s some
kind of conflict going on and
instruments of power being
applied. I think what we
ought to talk about is smart
influence…
Maybe the world isn’t as
completely flat as Tom
Friedman says, but it’s certainly
flattening rapidly. With
the ability to move capital
and information and knowledge
and risk around the
world at the speed of light,
the world is fundamentally
changed. America has to be a
part of that world and I think
what we’re talking about here
is smart power, smart influence,
is to use the real tools
and strengths that we have as
a society—our compassion
for the rest of the world.
You know, the report that
was done by my colleague,
Rich Armitage and Joe Nye,
talked about what’s smart power and the first thing they
said: health. Give the people of
the world a better chance at having
a healthy life for themselves
and for their children; the alleviation
of poverty, the alleviation of
hunger, all of these are things the
United States can do—and by so
doing, we influence the world to
move in a better direction and we
improve our standing in the
world…
And so we need to make sure
that these sorts of instruments of
power and influence are used and
enhanced. But it takes money.
When I became secretary of
state, I had 20 reports waiting
for me. And my staff said,
let’s—I don’t want to be offensive
here—my staff said, let’s
have a summary of the reports.
And I said, no, we’re not going
to do any more reports, we’re
not going to summarize anything;
we’re going to go up to
Congress and fight like dogs to
get money because we could
have a lovely chat here about all
of this stuff, but I’m telling you,
it comes down to trench warfare
with the Congress.
I’m sorry, it’s trench warfare
because these gentlemen who
are up on the Hill trying to
accommodate all of the needs of
all of the departments—and if
you look at the president’s budget,
almost every department got
some kind of increase. Very
few—I’m not quite sure how
we’re going to reduce the deficit—
all of them got increased. |
America has to be a part of that world
and I think what we’re talking about
here is smart power, smart influence, is
to use the real tools and strengths that
we have as a society—our compassion
for the rest of the world. |
State did better than most and
I’m proud of that and I’m glad
for that. But, at the end of the
day, that’s just a budget proposal.
Now it takes people like
Jack Lew and others to go up
there and fight tooth and nail to
get the money. I know how this
is done. I had to do it for the four
years I was secretary and for the
four years that I was chairman
[of the Joint Chiefs of Staff].
And so lots of nice talk—we
all know what’s right. We all
know we ought to be moving in
this direction. We all know we
ought to increase the size of the
Foreign Service and the Civil
Service of the State Department.
We know we ought to be doubling
development assistance. We
ought to be improving our immigration
policy, fixing our information
programs and significantly
increasing the size and
capability of [US]AID and working
more closely with the other
instruments of government, the
other departments of government.
But, at the end of the day, you’ve
got to go get the resources.
And you’ve got to get the
resources in two different ways:
First you’ve got to appeal to the
American people and get them to
buy into the importance of these
efforts. We haven’t done a good
enough job. The American people
still think that foreign assistance,
development assistance, is something
we just give away to the
rest of the world with no return
on investment.
The answer is, there is an
enormous return on investment
when the rest of the world looks
to America for inspiration and
for help dealing with their problems.
So, first and foremost, a
better case to the American people
and, if you make a better case to the American people,
guess what? They tend to influence
the American Congress as
to how to fund it.
But then you get down in the
trenches. You put your helmet
on, your flak jacket and you go
testify before eight committees,
as I used to do every year. It’s
painful. I’m supposed to be out
doing diplomacy. No, I’m up on
Capitol Hill doing hearings.
And the next thing we have to
do is to persuade our friends in
the Congress to sustain and support
our efforts, support the
increases the president has
asked for and knock off all of
the earmarks that constrain the
ability of the secretary of state
to use these resources in a sensible
way.
I’ve had some painful experiences
where an authorizer and
an appropriator had a difference
of opinion as to how I was supposed
to spend one little $10
million account. Both threatened
to have me impeached if I didn’t
do it their way. Well, being a
smart man, I went with the
appropriator because he’s the
one that signs the check.
I rest my case, right … But
it’s painful. And I shouldn’t be
having to do that. I should have
greater flexibility. And I hope it’s
part of the increased resources;
we will find a way to give the Cabinet officers greater flexibility,
some money that is
not earmarked, that is not
even necessarily for a particular
purpose: increased contingency
accounts so when an
emergency comes along, you
have the resources to do
something about that emergency
without stealing from
another account.
Increase the size of the
force that we have within the
department: Foreign Service,
Civil Service, Foreign Service
Nationals, same thing with
[US]AID, do a better job in
information. And there’s one
other aspect to this and it’s
part of another group I belong
to, the Initiative for Global
Development: We have enormous
resources in our private
sector. So this isn’t just the
United States government
reaching out. Real money for
investment exists in the private
sector and we have to do
a better job of mobilizing the
private sector to help us with
the influence that we need
around the world and increasing
that influence.
And we’ve got the Bill
Gates of the world; we’ve got
the Bonos of the world.
We’ve got all kinds of people.
We’ve got companies that are
doing business all over the
world and they have to be
brought into this smart power,
smart influence concept. And
I’ll stop right here.
For the entire transcript of the
forum, go to http://www.usglobalengagement.org/Events/ PuttingSmartPowertoWork/tabid/ 3636/Default.aspx#Transcript.
For more on “Putting
Smart Power to Work,” see
page 5, “20 Foreign Aid
Reports Agree on Need to
Boost Civilian Force.”★
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