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Confirmation Hearing of Secretary State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Testimony on Smart Power Diplomacy
January 13, 2009, in the hearing room of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York testified as to why she should be confirmed as United States Secretary of State. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee opened the session with a brief statement of support for Senator Clinton and the day’s long session of testimony, questions and answers began.
First, I will not regale everyone with sentence-by-sentence testimony; I will in turn focus on the substance of the hearing. “Smart Power Diplomacy.” What is “Smart Power Diplomacy”? This concept of diplomacy is an old and timely method of exercising influence around the world. Smart Power is a bottom-up strategy, a grassroots way of exercising power and influence. It is using aid in more than financial or military ways. It is using people with associations to the region, installing Ambassadors, Envoys and Diplomats who are not paper pushers and career foreign-service officers who have spent far too many years in bureaucratic comfort without truly influencing foreign policy.
Bureaucrats are visitors that have been removed culturally, socially and economically from the people of the host nation. This elitist manner in which our representatives present the image of the United States is totally contrary to what people see on television when they watch a Presidential Press Conference and a Congressional Hearing. They expect a more people friendly approach. Instead, Ambassadors find mixing with regular people beneath them and rebuff them. Harsh and politically incorrect to say, but true nonetheless. We have to change this perception and fast.
When the image of an Ambassador is that of royalty or the attitude of the Ambassador is aloof, the people within the host nation “tune out” the United States. They become resentful of American presence in their country. This is how anti-American rhetoric gets its footing. People feel alienated, not only as a valued friend, but as an ally in the time of military need. Turkey is a prime example of a necessary ally, both politically and strategically. However, Turkey has been mistreated by the EU and the United States has not lobbied for them or diplomatically worked with the EU to admit Turkey, who expected to become a member more than five (5) years ago.
To make matters more tenuous, when the United States needed to use Turkey to strategically defend itself against Iraq and Al Qaeda a resounding “No” was received. There has been a traditionally good relationship with Turkey in the past, however, we have allowed that alliance to dissipate because we took them for granted. Just because the United States is an ally to a country does not mean it consistently acts as a friend.
The old adage, actions speak louder than words, comes to mind when discussing U.S.-Turkish relations. We should not have expected that Turkey would allow military bases within their borders, further jeopardizing stability in the region, when the United States was unwilling or unable to lobby for their admittance into the European Union.
Alliances, as I know, are based of some form of quid pro quo. One hand washes the other – friendship and alliances are based upon mutual need and understanding. One-sided relationships often end badly.
The representatives of U.S. foreign policy must look more like regular, approachable people and less like aloof, elitist, wealthy partisan donors who cast aspersions on people without fully understanding their cultural differences. If a policy is ever going to be effective, it must first be relative to that nation at hand.
Secretary of State Clinton testified that just throwing foreign aid money and weapons into a nation is not the way to secure a strategic and sustained diplomatic relationship. When giving financial aid to countries, we must first familiarize ourselves with the way they do business and exercise human rights within their nation and with their neighbors. We must not try to coerce a nation into being like the United States. We must begin to understand the origin of the differences and promote the commonality. In doing so, we can influence human rights, promote economic stability and help them sustain themselves on their own terms within certain perimeters of U.S. led policy.
In essence, we can influence change around the world by accepting the cultural differences we have with countries that do not readily embrace change at all. We do this by working from the bottom up. Top down diplomacy does not work in any instance and lately it has not worked at all. Look at the debacle April Foley caused by calling Hungarians “racist”. The ethnic relationships that exist with that nation are historically tenuous. One cannot indict an entire nation by looking from the outside and not truly investigating the origins of the conflict from within. That kind of political gaff has lasting effects because the ambassador is the eyes, ears and mouth of the United States and, if she does or says something so incendiary, she alienates the entire nation against the United States.
This is an example of what is not “Smart Power Diplomacy”! If the ambassador from Hungary were a Magyar with grassroots sensitivities then he/she would have known how to handle such a volatile issue.
Statistics have shown that to stabilize volatile regions, woman and the poor must be taught how to sustain themselves using entrepreneurial skills which will promote economic growth. We do not agree, on principle, with a patriarchal society and the subjugation of women and children. Unfortunately, most of the world does not know how to care for women and the poor so they exploit them. Maybe it is deliberate or maybe it is just plain damn ignorance of another approach to sustaining a society. However, one thing is certain, the United States can help change the way the world treats women, children and the poor.
That change has come in the form of the “Smart Power Diplomacy” of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Secretary HRC understands the concept of a glass ceiling and the struggles of women around the world.
With an exercise in building relationships within host countries through relationships already spearheaded by U.S. envoys and ambassadors who know the region is the best start. When an Ambassador to Turkey does not understand the problems of Turkey and its neighbors, then that ambassador cannot effectively implement U.S. Foreign Policy in a way that would produce true results.
Ambassadors posted in neighboring countries must have briefings and form a union of sort. All foreign policy within the region should move in a cadence together so that effective diplomatic relations can be sustained and a comprehensive policy will prevail. We can no longer afford to have ambassadors, envoys and diplomats working autonomously. Diplomats must work together as a Congress like our bi-cameral system does. They must meet, form committees and negotiate together to achieve a sustained effective foreign policy worldwide. We are a multilateral world intertwined, interwoven into a sum of various parts; nations joined and disjoined by ethnic, social and economic agreements.
“Smart Power Diplomacy” will use every aspect of this nation’s assets. It will involve calling upon the Helicopter Engineer who designs and manufactures U.S. handmade embedded computers, promotes higher education here and abroad without fanfare and exports to Israel, Hungary, Russia, and China among many other nations. This new kind of diplomat will help negotiate an effective, strategic, economic and social foreign policy. Why is it smart to appoint a businessperson to a diplomatic post? It is smart because we are using an asset that is familiar with the nation and has strong social, economic and ethnic ties to the region. This built-in basis of communication can occur without directly interfering with the internal politics of the nation, thereby eliminating anti-American sentiment. In addition, this ordinary businessperson has over the past 38 years been considered a trusted friend of many of these countries.
By using this foresighted Smart Power, we can appoint other diplomats within these regions who will be able to tie together all foreign policy and eliminate the fragmented policies of the past. Our past polices have failed to properly deal with the integral problems among neighboring nations which caused hot spots around the world to turn into broken cease fires, unnecessary wars where no one wins and the world suffers as a result.
Smart Power addresses something we seem to ignore when developing foreign policy and appointing ambassadors and other diplomats. The concept of alternative economic stimulus, other than throwing money at nations, is an imperative when primary financial stability depends upon drug trade. These nations are harbingers of terrorist cells and are detrimental to the stability of the world economy as a whole. We must offer an alternative to the growing of marijuana in Mexico, the opium poppies in Afghanistan and eliminate the power of the drug cartels which support terrorists with financing and weapons to solidify their hold upon the poor and down trodden.
Without the development of a strong diplomatically and economically led foreign policy, nothing can be done in Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, Central Asia or the Middle East. All foreign policy must be cohesive, joined by a strategic initiative that, at its center, has economic alternatives which provide worldwide solutions. If we cannot effectively defeat the drug cartels, the terrorists will continue to ignite fear in the world and destabilize foreign policy. This erosion will continue and global economic security will be impossible to obtain because terrorists will have the financial means to accelerate their efforts.
“Smart Power Diplomacy” involves stabilization using NATO in a way that we have never done before. Strategies must evolve which do not threaten our former cold war enemies. This will strengthen the region surrounding Russia and give the Eastern Bloc a sense of security without threatening border security. It will eviscerate the petrol-politics which is destabilizing the region today. In order for this Smart Power to work we must utilize assets we did not know we have. Or, the alternative, acknowledge that the career diplomats we have in place do not know who the players are anymore and, even if they do know the names, they have no influence on them.
We do not need diplomats who come with family ties and biased social leanings. If, we continue to appoint ambassadors who are someone’s niece, daughter, nephew or son and they do not have strong unbiased support within their host nation we will continue to have diplomatic failures and eventually lose the support of that host nation as a true ally.
Smart Power dictates “out of the box” thinking, striving for a better end by using non-traditional methods of diplomacy with non-traditional people spearheading it. Who says that career diplomats and educators have an ability to affect change on the ground more so than ordinary people who work from the ground up? Such talent should stick strictly to advising and writing books. Allies and friends need sustained relationships. They do not want to be taken for granted or subjected to the retrospective perspectives of academics.
Alliances need to be nurtured friendships. They need attention and assurances that they matter now, not just in the time of war, but in the time of peace as well.
Educators and career diplomats work within limited guidelines which prevent them from proactive participation within the host nation where, after all, they are not just a visitor or guest for tea and sympathy. Most of the time they do not venture out into the public and get to know the people they are living among. Career diplomats do not know the name of the local grocer, the hotel concierge or the developer trying to improve the infrastructure. The reason that career diplomats often fail is that they do not get to know all of the people. They seek to know only the “right kind” of people. This fact is an impediment to thinking outside of the box.
This wrongheaded attitude has caused limited and stagnant policies to prevail. As a result, foreign policy has dissipated into empty rhetoric, an unresponsive global economy and allies are turning away from the U.S. in favor of other powers who seem to be paying attention to the immediate and true needs of many nations.
To arrive at these conclusions, I have to acknowledge that the “Smart Power Diplomacy” that is so much a key to the success of the work of the Secretary of State, State Department and the World as a whole, is based upon the input and knowledge and undying support of Robert J. S. Haris, the Helicopter Engineer, of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, a Magyar with a deeply rooted heritage. The “wise, measured, deliberate, decisive optimism of Robert J.S. Haris will propel our nation forward and it has inspired me and many in Congress.
Julie Harris McCrey
Chairman
25,000 Knights
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