(ThyBlackMan.com) If the Rorschach test was comprised of the American flag rather than inkblots, millions of people around the world likely would conjure mental images of military might and materiel: Apache helicopters, drones, and “jarheads” wielding M4s among said images.
Our fighting forces remain the most respected (and feared) on Earth. Indeed, no nation is more effective at projecting “hard power” than the U.S.
Our gladiatorial prowess notwithstanding, history has demonstrated that American “soft power” is at least as important as its bellicose counterpart. That soft power is projected in myriad ways: cultural (e.g., entertainment), scientific (e.g., medical technology), economic (e.g., financial assistance), and governmental (e.g., diplomacy).
Further, while China is an encroaching economic and technological superpower, no other nation comes close to the scope and scale of soft power that the U.S. currently enjoys. However, neo-isolationism (disguised as “America first”) is causing our nation to retreat from its traditional global leadership role. And geopolitics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
Thus, China and Russia are attempting to fill said vacuum.
Lest one believe that soft power is simply a naïve exercise, one would do well to remember what the U.S. did in the aftermath of World War II. To begin, it is a widely held view among historians that the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was too punitive towards Germany. This, historians believe, indirectly led to World War II.
After the Allies prevailed in that war, they were determined to avoid the mistakes that followed World War I (the so-called “war to end all wars”). President Harry Truman signed the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948, which, in honor of Secretary of State George Marshall, became known as the Marshall Plan.
The Marshall Plan provided indispensable economic aid to rebuild Western Europe, including Germany. The money not only went to rebuilding infrastructure; it also edified democracy as a counter to the Soviet Union’s takeover of most of Eastern Europe.
The U.S. spent $13.3 billion on the plan, which amounts to roughly $150 billion today. That’s a lot of money. However, it was arguably America’s most important international expenditure. Along with NATO, the Marshall Plan ensured a relatively stable Europe for the past 80 years.
Yet, if you think that peace is expensive, try war.
Adjusted for inflation, World War II cost the U.S. $5.7 trillion. That is equivalent to roughly one-sixth of the entire GDP of the U.S.’s $30 trillion economy. Even more importantly, the number of deaths globally during World War II is estimated to be from 70-85 million people, the vast majority of whom were civilians.
Given these facts, it is extremely troubling that the Trump Administration — in the person of Elon Musk — is systematically dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. USAID has a $40 billion budget and assists more than 100 countries, the vast majority of which are poor.
Notably, Musk’s personal net worth is roughly $400 billion. Thus, there is no way around the fact that the world’s richest man is literally taking much needed money from the millions of the world’s poorest people.
Despite disinformation and disastrously inaccurate public opinion, foreign aid accounts for less than one percent of America’s federal budget. And the dividends that such aid pays far outweigh its cost. Whether measured in blood or in treasure, it is substantially less expensive to aid our friends than it is to fight our enemies.
To compound matters, it appears that the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has less influence on foreign affairs than Musk. This is extremely problematic given that the State Department is as important as the Defense Department is in reassuring our allies and admonishing our enemies.
Of course, it is impossible to ascertain a one-to-one correlation between, say, giving food assistance to a poor nation and preventing young people from becoming jihadists. However, we do know from quantitative and qualitative data that foreign aid and diplomacy — the two key components of soft power — matter a great deal when it comes to building goodwill.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political philosopher and diplomat who traveled throughout America in the early 1830s, is famous for writing “Democracy in America” in two volumes. In this seminal work, Tocqueville offers extremely insightful commentary regarding the citizens and denizens of our nascent nation. He titled Chapter 8 of Volume II “The Americans Combat Individualism By The Principle Of Interest Rightly Understood.”
Tocqueville used the word “interest” in the same way that we use the phrase “self-interest” today. Soft power is one of the greatest tools that we have in forging safety and security for Americans, both on our soil and abroad.
It also happens to be in our self-interest — rightly understood.
Written by Larry Smith
