Soft power: Jackson and a new anthem for American politics

• Peter Hartcher - June 30, 2009

A photo provided by AEG, shows Michael Jackson rehearsing for his planned shows in London at the Staples
Center on June 23 in Los Angeles. Photo: Getty Images
Together with the worldwide outpouring of grief ranging from mass dance tributes in a
Philippines prison to an Eiffel Tower moonwalk, the death of Michael Jackson has brought an
extraordinary collection of tributes from world political figures.
Two of the great heroes of the post-war world's struggle for democracy, Nelson Mandela of
South Africa and Kim Dae-jung of South Korea, issued statements of condolences. "We lost a
hero to the world," Kim said.
Joe Jackson 'proud' of Michael
The Japanese Prime Minister, Taro Aso, recalled admiring his tap dancing skills, and Britain's
Culture Secretary, Ben Bradshaw, said he had played Jackson's Billie Jean as the first dance
at his civil union.
Most surprising was that the implacable enemy of all things American, Venezuela's President,
Hugo Chavez, although criticising an excess of media coverage, nonetheless called the death
"lamentable news".
This remarkable moment of worldwide political and popular unity is a reminder of the
immensity of American soft power, a dimension of US influence severely damaged by eight
years of George Bush. (JEG’s: let’s stop the blame and repair UNITY)
What is soft power?
The man who developed the concept, Joe Nye of Harvard University, explains: "Hard power
is the ability to coerce others by using carrots or sticks as either bribes or threats. But soft
power is the ability to get what we want by attracting others, by getting them to want the
things we want.
"If I can get what I want because you want it too, it saves me a lot of carrots and sticks," is
how Nye put it to the BBC. It includes the power of culture, of values, of example, of
desirability. The marketers of designer brands understand the value of the concept because it
is the basis of their incomes.
It may be soft power, but it is not limp. Nye, who worked as a defence official in the Clinton
administration, again: "During the Cold War, military containment prevented Soviet
expansion, but the real victory was the transformation of the cultures behind the Iron Curtain
by their attraction to Western values. So soft power was essentially the transformative force."
Since Nye first wrote about the concept in 1990 it has been embraced by the Chinese regime,
which has long pursued ideas of marshalling China's "comprehensive power" to amplify its
influence in world affairs. But while the Chinese launched a campaign offering trade deals
and goodwill to its neighbours to build their soft power, the US inflicted terrible damage to its
soft power.
Nathan Gardels, editor of an international affairs journal, New Perspectives Quarterly, wrote
in 2005: "Since the Iraq invasion and Abu Ghraib, America is nowadays considered guilty
until proven innocent. This is new … America has lost the protection of its soft power …
Since World War II this has been the legitimating complement to military might."
Kevin Rudd pointedly noted the contrast between China's shrewd pursuit of global credibility
and America's reckless squandering of it. When he met Bush in September 2007, Rudd rather
cheekily gave him a copy of The Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming
The World, by an American journalist, Joshua Kurlantzick.
Bush's defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said he did not understand the concept of soft
power. The result was obvious. The gratuitous bellicosity and offensive high-handedness of
the Bush team sent world regard for the US to its lowest level since at least the Vietnam War.
Rumsfeld's successor, Robert Gates, appointed by Bush and now serving under Obama, is a
wiser man. "One of the most important lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that
military success is not sufficient to win," he said in a 2007 speech to student officers.
"My message today is not about the defence budget or military power. My message is that if
we are to meet the myriad challenges around the world in the coming decades, this country
must strengthen other important elements of national power. In short, based on my experience
serving seven presidents, as a former director of the CIA and now as Secretary of Defence, I
am here to make the case for strengthening our capacity to use soft power and for better
integrating it with hard power."
The advent of Barack Obama restored tremendous amounts of US soft power because of the
global goodwill that greeted his elevation. Reaction to Jackson's death illustrates anew the
reservoir of soft power the US commands.
But, as Gates and Nye note, soft power needs to be paired with hard power. There is good
news here, and bad. Obama's foreign policy is, so far, remarkably astute. The bad news is the
US economy. Even though recovery is under way, the country is burdened with such
immense debt that it is seriously enfeebled. Stringent remedial action is required over the
next few years.
Wisely led, the US can lead the world not through fear of its guns or craving for its money
but the power of its values and the force of its example. More than any other country, it has
the capacity to embody the hopes of the world.
Bush's theme song could have been We Warn The World. A Jackson hit was We Are The
World. Even though it was written as a charity number, its title could be the anthem for the
new America.
Peter Hartcher is the Herald's international editor.
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/soft-power-jackson-and-a-new-anthem-for-
american-politics-20090629-d2ek.html?page=-1