Intro to IR For Trumpers: Power, Soft Power, and Coercive Diplomacy

Back in Trump 1.0, I wrote posts explaining basic stuff like how the NATO 2% thing is not a tax that NATO members pay the US, but an expectation of what they are supposed to spend on their own defense--the equivalent of 2% and now 3.5% of their gross domestic product.

In the past week, I have seen so much dumb and wildly ignorant stuff that I think this might become an ongoing series.  I did already write about how Stephen Miller is a shitty realist, but let's go back to basics. Power is mentioned 13 times in the NYT summary of the interview.  I doubt we would find any President of the past 50 years being so focused on power.  "On topic after topic, he made clear that in his mind, U.S. power is the determining factor — and that previous presidents have been too cautious to make use of it for political supremacy or national profit."

To be clear, all Presidents understand that power is important, but what is it and how does one amass it or lose it?  The basic poli sci definition of power: the ability to get others to do what they would otherwise not do.  We tend to focus on stuff we can measure: the size of one's military, how advanced in tech it is, the size of the economy, how dependent others are on it, and so on.  A bully making threats is not by itself powerful.  One of the ingredients of power is one's reputation for using power, so, yes, bullying can increase one's power.  But it can also weaken it.

How so? Bullying can reduce a country's power in several ways:

1. Wasting resources on lesser priorities so that fewer resources are available elsewhere.  A US aircraft carrier near Venezuela is not someplace else--they move but slowly.  Spending ammunition on tiny boats may reduce the available stocks for elsewhere.  Exhausting personnel on tertiary missions may mean less effectiveness in more important places.  
2. Bullying exacerbates the security dilemma--that others will respond by building up their own defenses against American power (speculation this morning about nuclear proliferation is not that wild), may look to other countries to ally with, and so on.  Countries, for instance, are going to find alternatives to US financial instruments so that future US sanctions don't bite as hard.  Trump's sanctions against ICC personnel may ultimate cause Europe to develop email/online alternatives.  If Trump breaks NATO through his aggression against Greenland, the US will have less power.  Greenland would not give the US more power than that which NATO does.  That can be an entire post or three.
3. If bullying fails, if a bullied actor resists, like maybe Denmark, others will see the bully as weak and resist as well.  
4. Then there is soft power, which I have to break out since it is so misunderstood. 

Soft power does not refer to economic sanctions and other less kinetic forms of coercive efforts.  No, it refers to the attactiveness of a model, the persuasiveness of one's ideology and brands, and the like.  The US had much soft power because it was so successful, so attractive in so many ways.  People around the world wanted to buy coca-cola and wear Levis, to imitate Americans.  This mattered not just for those American brands but also because it made it easier for the US to .... get others to do what the US wanted.  It didn't quite make diplomacy to be like pushing on an open door, but it did grease the wheels of many American efforts around the world for decades.  But bullying erodes soft power.  People hate bullies so they then hate anything associated with them.  Trump is destroying American soft power at a rapid rate, as the rest of the world is now finding the US to be gross, grotesque, and absolutely not attractive or a model.  

Final topic for today: coercive diplomacy.  Being coercive and negotiating is not coercive diplomacy.  Coercive diplomacy involves using threats and force in credible ways to get others to change their stances (compellence) or refraining from doing stuff the coercer does not want (deterrence).  The most important but underrated aspect of coercive diplomacy is restraint: that if the target does what you want, you will not do the thing that you have threatened.  If the target is deterred, then they are not attacked.  If the target complies and does the thing they are not attacked.  The problem with Trump and coercive diplomacy (other than everything else) is that his word is not good.  He does not worry about whether his threats or promises are credible.  As an uncertainty engine, Trump simply cannot assure anyone that his next move will be what he says it will be.  Trump is, alas, not a TACO, as he often chickens out but not always.  But when he is successful, he will often demand that an actor, such as a university, to give up more than what he had previously demanded, reminding us of Darth Vader and Lando Calrissian. 

Finally, to go back to the Trump quote about power being the determining factor, a couple more reactions:

a)  impunity is not power
b)  what determines Trump's foreign policy behavior is not either his thirst for power or the American thirst for power, but Trump's ego, resentments (which includes racism and sexism and xenophobia), and greed.  He wants Greenland because it would make him feel good.  That's it.  That's the entirety of it.  It is not about critical minerals or Russian/Chinese interests or ships.  

"When asked why he needed to possess the territory, he said: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.'” 

Sometimes he does not lie.  This is one of those times.