Soft Power and the Exportation of War

Yahoo article on "soft power" speech by Gates

If there is any doubt about the Bush administration's efforts in diplomacy and to reach out for international alliances and support, this is the evidence. What is most interesting in this article is the concept of 'soft power' which really amounts to funding and concentrating on using civilian agencies to affect change in the international arena. This would include diplomacy through the State Department as well as whatever information is being exported to other nations, both in the government propaganda, and as I would also include, in the commercial market. More people in other nations are going to come in regular contact with American messages as consumers in the marketplace then they will just from news sources or agencies of their own government. While this is a slippery slope of truth and lies, the government has already been playing this game in our own country for decades with withholding key information about projects or investigations it deems fit for the public to know.

The statistics of the budget differences and job cuts between the Defense Department and the State Department, as well as those other agencies mentioned, are the most poignant reminder of what real diplomacy means. If the total number of diplomatic representatives equal the number of the crew of a single aircraft carrier, there is something seriously wrong our government's or president's priorities in terms of international relations. This is further highlighted by the US actions in the climate conference in Bali which was set to work on a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. As this article states, the US was the only major economic power to reject the Protocol, with it's calls for reduction in fuel emissions, and it continues to be very vocal in its defensiveness over its responsibility for greenhouse gases and its level of fuel emissions.

Climate conference article

An important part of that article is the Bush administration's response to the target numbers for emissions reduction, saying that it would harm the US economy and that the conference they are sponsoring is aimed at finding an "environmentally effective and economically sustainable" solution to the emissions reduction. Here's the problem with that: they see the economic problems and environmental problems as fundamentally separate with a cause effect relationship rather than an interrelated and inseparable issue with a symbiotic relationship. The environmental impact of economic development and vice versa is too fluid to separate them in an either/or argument. What's probably the most important question is at what levels of environmental change are you willing to live in order for you to have an acceptably sustainable economy? If the climate changes continue, as they have already begun to have dramatic effects on the environment, than their effect on the US economy will begin to have a direct impact on consumers and no matter what the Bush administration thinks will happen, that has a direct impact on the political landscape of this country since consumers top priority is their own financial security.

So what level of environmental change is acceptable? Will we be OK with the Bush administration's views of 'environmentally effective and economically sustainable' policies if it causes enough of a change in seasonal temperatures that will drastically effect crop growth and the use of ground water to prevent crop loss? What about shifting major weather patterns so that areas of the country which are used to plentiful rainfall and warm but temperate seasons suffer harsher summer temperatures, droughts and harsher winter weather? What about an increase in the number of hurricanes and tropical storms from the interactions of shifting weather patterns and the sustained weather patterns over the Atlantic Ocean? What about the impact that weather patterns and rising sea levels will have on transportation? What about land-loss, especially around coastal marsh and swamp areas and beaches from increasingly violent weather, and the impact that would have on their local ecosystems and wildlife, most notable the systems that directly effect the fishing and seafood industries? What about the increase in the use of energy and fuel due to the amount of increasing usage of air-conditioners and heating units due to hotter summer temperatures and colder winters?

The last point is that why is the targeted number in the fuel emissions reduction five percent below that of 1992? If there has been an increase in the amount of fuel emissions since then, especially considering the rate of technological advancement? This is a question easily answerable by looking on the highways at the number of SUV's versus the number of compact/fuel efficient cars. And there is another issue which the Bush administration seems to have missed the boat on. Where Congress developed their own energy plans which would increase the rate of required standards for miles/gallon for new vehicles, and especially over SUV's, in the next few years, the Bush administrations policy, and the energy bill they had drafted, was a joke in comparison. If you want to accept any responsibility for the environmental impact of our consumer economy and lifestyle, don't propose legislation that includes no real changes. As we are in an age of fuel efficient cars, hybrid technology and the eventual usage of more advanced fuel sources such as hydrogen to power automobiles, promoting low increases in fuel standards is an obvious throw back to special interest politics that favor Bush's friendly oil companies and his own business interests and investments over the real possibility of economic freedom offered by advancing technology. By economic freedom I mean freedom from the need for foreign oil, which seems to be something very important to actual US citizens.

Perhaps it is an environmentally responsible solution that the Bush administration's funding of diplomatic resources is so low, but it is also not indicative of their professed diplomatic efforts. If this president had honestly valued diplomacy over direct action and multilateral versus unilateral tactics, than his financial support would have followed his principles and we'd see evidence of real diplomatic change and friendships around the world. Instead we have the largest military budget in history, the most advanced military technologies, which have yet to see the results that were promised almost a decade ago, and an alarming decrease in the integrity and influence of the United States around the world. Perhaps this wasn't the candidate to chose in 2000 after all. What is the candidate who lost doing right now? He is advocating for environmental change and positive international cooperation to improve economies through pollution free industries, a subject he just won a Nobel Prize for. That is a real American president.