JSOU Report 13-3 Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy Wong-Diaz

Smart Power and

U.S. National Strategy

Francisco Wong-Diaz 

JSOU Report 13-3

August 2013

Joint Special Operations University

7701 Tampa Point Boulevard

MacDill AFB FL 33621

https://jsou.socom.mil
Joint Special Operations University

and the Strategic Studies Department

The Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) provides its publications 

to contribute toward expanding the body of knowledge about joint special 

operations. JSOU publications advance the insights and recommendations 

of national security professionals and the Special Operations Forces (SOF) 

students and leaders for consideration by the SOF community and defense 

leadership. 

JSOU is the educational component of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. The JSOU 

mission is to educate SOF executive, senior, and intermediate leaders and 

selected other national and international security decision makers, both 

military and civilian, through teaching, outreach, and research in the 

science and art of joint special operations. JSOU provides education to the 

men and women of SOF and to those who enable the SOF mission in a joint 

and interagency environment. 

JSOU conducts research through its Strategic Studies Department where 

effort centers upon the USSOCOM and United States SOF missions: 

USSOCOM mission. Provide fully capable Special Operations Forces to 

defend the United States and its interests. Synchronize planning of global 

operations against terrorist networks.

USSOF mission. USSOF conducts special operations to prepare the operational environment, prevent crisis, and respond with speed, precision, and 

lethality to achieve tactical through strategic effect. 

The Strategic Studies Department also organizes and conducts strategic symposia, interagency curricula, international curricula, regional and 

cultural education senior level courses, and senior level professional military education.

This publication is available on the JSOU public web page located at

https://jsou.socom.mil.

Joint Special Operations University

Brian A. Maher, Ed.D., SES, President

Kenneth H. Poole, Ed.D., Strategic Studies Department Director

Robert Nalepa, Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force, Ret., Director of Research

Juan Alvarez, Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret.; William Knarr, Ed.D., Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.; Richard 

Rubright, Ph.D., Strategic Studies; Jason Quirin, Ph.D., Chemical Engineering; Joanna Gutierrez 

Winters, M.A., International Relations and Diplomacy, M.A. Economics, Resident Senior Fellows

Anna-Marie Wyant, M.A., English, JSOU Press Editor

Editorial Advisory Board

Roby C. Barrett

Ph.D., Middle Eastern & South Asian History 

Public Policy Center Middle East Institute 

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Joseph D. Celeski

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow

Chuck Cunningham

Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force, Ret. 

Professor of Strategy, Joint Advanced 

Warfighting School and 

JSOU Distinguished Senior Fellow

James J.F. Forest 

Ph.D., Higher Education Administration

Associate Professor, School of Criminology and 

Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts 

Lowell and JSOU Senior Fellow

Thomas H. Henriksen

Ph.D., History, Hoover Institution 

Stanford University and JSOU Senior Fellow

Bernd Horn

Colonel, Canadian Dept. of National Defence 

Ph.D., War Studies

Director, CANSOFCOM Professional 

Development Centre

Russell D. Howard

Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow

John D. Jogerst

Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret.

James Kiras

Ph.D., History, School of Advanced Air and 

Space Studies, Air University and 

JSOU Associate Fellow 

William W. Mendel

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret. 

JSOU Senior Fellow

Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro

Major General, Brazilian Army, Ret.

JSOU Associate Fellow

James F. Powers, Jr.

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow 

Thomas Sass

Ph.D., International Relations

Richard H. Shultz, Jr.

Ph.D., Political Science

Director, International Security 

Studies Program, The Fletcher School, 

Tufts University and JSOU Senior Fellow

Robert G. Spulak, Jr.

Ph.D., Physics/Nuclear Engineering

Sandia National Laboratories 

and JSOU Associate Fellow 

Jessica Glicken Turnley

Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology

Galisteo Consulting Group 

and JSOU Senior Fellow 

Francisco R. Wong-Diaz

J.D., Ph.D., Political Science

Professor of international affairs and law and 

JSOU Senior Fellow

Rich Yarger

Ph.D., History 

JSOU Senior Fellow
On the cover. U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Jeffery Russell (left) sits with his 

interpreter, an Afghan soldier, and residents during an event with leaders 

in the village of Sader Kheyl, Afghanistan, on 17 March 2012. Department 

of Defense photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Epperson, U.S. Army.

JSOU Report 13-3

The JSOU Press

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida

2013

Smart Power

and 

U.S. National Strategy
This monograph and other JSOU publications can be found at https://jsou.

socom.mil. Click on Publications. Comments about this publication are 

invited andshould be forwarded to Director, Strategic Studies Department, 

Joint Special Operations University, 7701 Tampa Point Blvd., MacDill AFB 

FL 33621.

*******

The JSOU Strategic Studies Department is currently accepting written works relevant to special operations for potential publication. For more information please 

contact the JSOU Research Director at jsou_research@socom.mil. Thank you for 

your interest in the JSOU Press. 

*******

This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

ISBN 978-1-933749-69-3
The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of 

the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy 

or position of the United States Government, Department of 

Defense, United States Special Operations Command, or the 

Joint Special Operations University. 
Recent Publications of the JSOU Press

Retooling for the Future, May 2013, Francisco Wong-Diaz

21st Century SOF: Toward an American Theory of Special Operations, 

April 2013, Harry R. Yarger

Irregular Warfare: The Maoist Challenge to India’s Internal Security, 

December 2012, Prakash Singh 

Iran: Illusion, Reality, and Interests, September 2012, Roby Barrett 

Knowing Your Partner: The Evolution of Brazilian Special Operations Forces, 

August 2012, Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro

USSOCOM Research Topics 2013

2012 JSOU and NDIA SO/LIC Division Essays, May 2012

Confronting the Terrorism of Boko Haram in Nigeria, May 2012, James J.F. Forest

Strategic Culture and Strategic Studies: An Alternative Framework for Assessing 

al-Qaeda and the Global Jihad Movement, May 2012, Richard Shultz

Understanding the Form, Function, and Logic of Clandestine Insurgent and 

Terrorist Networks: The First Step in Effective Counternetwork Operations, 

April 2012, Derek Jones

“We Will Find a Way”: Understanding the Legacy of Canadian Special 

Operations Forces, February 2012, Bernd Horn

Winning Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan and Elsewhere, 

February 2012, Thomas H. Henriksen
vii

Contents

Foreword ................................................................................ix

About the Author ....................................................................xi

1. American Power in Decline?............................................... 1

2. Statecraft and Power ........................................................... 9

3. American Power Constraints ............................................. 47

4. USSOCOM and Soft Power............................................... 67

5. Conclusion ....................................................................... 87

6. Epilogue, the Destruction of Troy—1183 B.C. ................... 91

Endnotes .............................................................................. 93

ix

Foreword

The publication of Dr. Wong-Diaz’s monograph coincides with a major 

strategic reassessment of U.S. national security interests and future 

military posture taking place at the national level. Driven by the end of 

Operation New Dawn, the last phase of the Iraq War, and the impending 

withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, this reassessment considers both 

the desired international role of the United States and the military posture 

needed to secure U.S. interests. At the same time, politically mobilized populations have brought sweeping change to the Middle East and North Africa, 

creating security challenges that cannot be met solely through conventional 

military means. Indeed, the strategic environment the U.S. finds itself in 

today requires astute statecraft to formulate and execute grand strategy, a 

concept Dr. Wong-Diaz explores in depth.

For the last 10 years the United States has projected its national power 

primarily through large-scale troop deployment in major contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, the United 

States was indisputably the world’s super power, able to exert dominant influence across the globe. There were few challenges to the nation’s economic 

and conventional military strength. 

A decade later, the U.S. position in the world has changed dramatically. 

Though the United States remains the world’s largest economy and retains 

unparalleled military capability, very high levels of debt undermine America’s global stature. In 2010, Admiral Mike Mullen, then Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared the national debt to be the most severe threat 

to national security, undermining U.S. capability to act. Indeed, attempts to 

reign in the national debt will require deep cuts in defense spending. Under 

the current budget request to Congress the U.S. Department of Defense will 

reduce spending by $487 billion over the next 10 years, a 20 percent decrease 

from 2010 levels.

To pursue its global interests in an era characterized by austerity, the 

United States will need to draw on all of its tools of statecraft—including diplomatic, economic, psychological, and subversive—as well as military means. 

The term “hard power” often refers to conventional military force, economic 

sanctions, and other coercive means, including diplomacy. ‘Soft power’ is the 
x

ability to influence others to act in ways that achieve one’s goals. To achieve 

its goals the United States must conduct strategies that effectively blend all 

forms of power and uses them smartly to achieve its goals. Though there is 

no agreement on what constitutes smart use of U.S. power, the concept of 

“smart power” is a dominant theme in policy circles. 

Smart power, however defined, is directly relevant to the SOF community. 

With a smaller footprint than conventional forces, SOF are both a costeffective and less visible instrument of national power. Moreover, SOF warriors are ‘3-D’ warriors, skilled in diplomacy, development, and defense, and 

expected to combine both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power approaches instinctively 

to achieve strategic level effects. Using case studies from around the world, 

Dr. Wong-Diaz’s monograph expertly draws the links between the strategic 

level projection of power by states and their consequences on the ground. 

Undoubtedly this monograph will spark significant debate for years to come. 

Kenneth H. Poole, Ed.D.

Director, JSOU Strategic Studies Department 
xi

About the Author

Dr. Francisco Wong-Diaz is a senior fellow with the Joint Special Operations University Strategic Studies Department. A naturalized American citizen, he is emeritus of international affairs and law at the City College 

of San Francisco and expert subject lecturer at the 

U.S. Air Force Special Operations School and JSOU. 

A member of the Global Futures Forum, he was an 

academic fellow on terrorism with the Foundation 

for the Defense of Democracies (2007). Previously 

he was a fellow at the University of California (UC) 

at the Berkeley Center for the Teaching and Study 

of American Cultures (1995); visiting scholar and 

research associate at UC Berkeley Graduate School 

of Business (1983); visiting researcher at the Hoover 

Institution (1971); and Rackham fellow in political science at the University of 

Michigan (1967 to 1970). He has taught at the University of Michigan (1967 to 

1969), University of Detroit (1967), and San Francisco State University (1977) 

and presented at Columbia University School of Law, Stanford University, 

The University of Texas, University of Southern California, University of 

Miami (Florida), and others. His interest areas include U.S. foreign policy, 

strategy, counterterrorism, intelligence, national security law, and Cuban 

and Latin American politics.

Dr. Wong-Diaz is an active member of the State Bar of California (1980), 

the Florida Bar (1987), and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District 

of California (1981). A former research assistant to the Honorable Frank 

Newman, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court (1976 to 1977), 

and law clerk of the presiding judge of Marin County Superior Court (1980), 

he served on the editorial boards of the California Lawyer (1991 to 1994), the 

Industrial Relations Law Journal (1975 to 1976), and the Ecology Law Quarterly (1976). A U.S. Department of State diplomat/scholar (1975), he served 

as dean/director of the Inter-American Center at Miami-Dade College (1985 

to 1986); special assistant to the chancellor (1984 to 1985) and chairman of 

Latin American Studies/Coordinator of Legal Studies at the City College of 

San Francisco (1979 to 1985). 
xii

Recent major publications include Castro’s Cuba: Quo Vadis? (Strategic 

Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2006) and American 

Politics in a Changing World (2004 revision). His articles, commentary, and 

op-editions have also appeared in The New York Times, San Jose Mercury 

News, Washington Times, Marin Independent Journal, Hispanic Magazine 

Online, FrontPage magazine, and elsewhere. For over two decades he has 

provided political analysis and news commentary in Spanish for Univisión 

and guest appeared on nationally broadcast radio PBS, NBC News, CBS, 

and other media outlets. 

Dr. Wong-Diaz is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the 

World, and Who’s Who in American Law. Memberships include the Pacific 

Council on International Policy, American Bar Association (Standing Committee on Law and National Security), International Institute for Strategic 

Studies, Proteus U.S. Army War College, Committee on the Present Danger, 

the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, Commonwealth 

Club, and the World Association of International Studies. He was recognized 

as one of the “100 most influential Hispanics in the nation” by Hispanic 

Business magazine. 

He received his B.A. in Political Science (1965) from Northern Michigan 

University, M.A. in Social Science (1967) from the University of Detroit, 

M.A. in Political Science (1970) and Ph.D. in Political Science (1974) from the 

University of Michigan, and Juris Doctor from UC-Berkeley School of Law 

(Boalt Hall, 1976). He specialized in national security law at the University 

of Virginia School of Law Center for National Security Law (1996) and in 

trial advocacy at UC-Hastings College of the Law (1995).
1

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

1. American Power in Decline?

The dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991 

generated a hopeful mood throughout the Western world as the Cold 

War ended, leaving the United States as the sole superpower. The unipolar 

era that followed did not bring lasting peace, however, but global uncertainty 

and persistent conflict. In a short period of time, the mood in the “lonely 

superpower”1 faded in the face of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, 

the wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the deepest global economic crisis since the 1930s global depression. The U.S. and its allies currently face daunting challenges and threats including violent extremists, cyber 

war, nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, integrated terrorist networks 

and transnational criminal organizations, failed or failing states, a resurgent 

authoritarian Russia, humanitarian crises, China’s rise, and the “rise of the 

rest.”2

In this increasingly complex global security environment, the concept of 

national security itself is said to comprise a myriad of components such as 

energy, information systems, demographic and climatic restiveness, mineral 

resources, food, water, and sociopolitical disorders associated with globalization and issues of governance.3

 As the United States reduced its military footprint in Iraq and U.S.-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations 

continued in Afghanistan, the demographically driven turmoil of the “Arab 

Spring” spread along the “arc of instability” spanning from North Africa 

across the Middle East to the Indian Ocean. In these conflict areas, Special 

Operations Forces (SOF), with their innate capabilities, skill sets, and a force 

structure exceptionally suited to engage the diverse, networked, technologically savvy, asymmetric adversaries, have been at the tip of the spear.4

Meanwhile, the center of gravity for global power has shifted from the West 

to Asia to such an extent that the International Monetary Fund announced 

that the “Age of America” would pass by the year 2016 when the People’s 

Republic of China (PRC), with an annual growth rate of 9.7 percent, would 

become the world’s largest economy and the most rapidly modernizing military power.5

 This accelerated geopolitical transformation is becoming a major 

priority for United States strategic planners long preoccupied by the war 

against violent extremists.
2

JSOU Report 13-3

This confluence of events revived the 1970s Vietnam War era debate about 

America’s decline and ability to maintain its global leadership position.6 

The question being asked is whether the U.S. would any longer be “bound 

to lead” in a multipolar world for lacking not only the will but the capacity 

to lead.7

 In his 1996 declaration of war against the U.S., Osama bin Laden 

concluded that our retreat from Lebanon, Yemen, and Somalia were signs 

of decline—“God has dishonored you when you withdrew, and it clearly 

showed your weaknesses and powerlessness.”8 Likewise, a Communist Chinese study on “American social diseases” identified social problems like 

homelessness, racial gaps, extremism, family breakdown, crime and drug 

use, and spiritual and moral crises as internal weaknesses that would bring 

about America’s decline.9 Former President Bill Clinton told an audience in 

a 2002 speech in Australia: “This is a unique moment in U.S. history, a brief 

moment, history, when the U.S. has preeminent military, economic, and 

political power. It won’t last forever. This is just a period, a few decades this 

will last.”10 More recently, the influential Foreign Policy magazine carried 

the headline “American Decline—This Time It’s Real.”11

Joseph Nye, former assistant secretary of defense and former dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, distinguishes between two dimensions of decline—absolute and relative. Absolute decline refers to a sense of 

decay while relative decline sees the power resources of other states grow 

or be used more effectively. In his view, the U.S. is challenged with absolute decline in areas of debt, secondary education, and political gridlock, 

and relative decline in rate of economic growth.12 In contrast, some deny 

the decline and argue that despite complex challenges and perceptions (or 

misperceptions) of decline, “American leadership is still the global norm,”13

the apparent decline is just a “return to normalcy,”14 or that the appearance 

of decline is a function of the “rise of the rest in a post-American world.”15 

Others advocate that we should strive to preserve our dominant position in 

a unipolar world system.16 To another set of analysts, America’s decline as a 

superpower is creating a multipolar world in which the U.S. will be “primus 

inter pares” (first among equals).17

A recent comparison of the United States with the rest of the world on an 

index of several variables or drivers (e.g. general welfare of the population, 

common defense, blessings of liberty) indicates that the U.S. remains the 

world’s largest economy ($14 trillion per year) with a high per capita income 

($41,000); while China, despite its rapid transformation, has an average 
3

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

income per capita of just $6,000 or just half of that of Mexico and Turkey. 

The U.S. still has the world’s largest military, and its defense spending as a 

percentage of gross domestic products (GDP) increased slightly. Meanwhile, 

China replaced Russia as the second-largest military based on spending.18 

One concern is the reliability of Chinese defense budget data given the lack of 

transparency of their system. Less encouraging were the economists attending their annual convention who generally foretold U.S. decline and China’s 

ascension as the world’s largest economy. One attendee even confirmed the 

aforementioned prediction in the Chinese “social diseases” study that:

The United States will need to come to terms with the fact that 

its prevalence in the world is fated to come to an end ... This will 

be difficult for many Americans to swallow and the United States 

should brace for social unrest amid blame over who was responsible 

for squandering global primacy.19

The traditional U.S. military capability remains unmatched, but it might 

be degraded and compromised because, as former Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen warned, “Our national debt is our 

biggest national security threat.”20 Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 

echoed the concern by calling the 2010 U.S. deficit a “message of weakness 

internationally” that poses a national security threat in two ways: “it undermines our capacity to act in our own interest, and it does constrain us where 

constraint may be undesirable.”21

On 28 February 2011, the Total Public Debt Outstanding of the United 

States of America of $14.19 trillion was 96.8 percent of calendar year 2010’s 

annual GDP of $14.66 trillion.22 Former Secretary of Defense Robert M. 

Gates, seeking to balance military operations and the challenge of new competitors and adversaries, sought to reduce defense spending while still fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With federal tax cuts extended for two 

years and the widespread opposition to tax increases in the midst of the worst 

recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, Gates’s plan was to effect 

“efficiency savings” that would slow the defense budget’s rate of growth and 

transform not only the way America prepares for and fights wars, but also 

how the military industrial complex does business.23 Consequently, within 

the past few years, dozens of weapons programs were cut, and in May 2011 

Secretary Gates issued a directive to attain $100 billion in savings spread 
4

JSOU Report 13-3

over a five-year period to safeguard a yearly growth of about 1 percent in 

defense spending. By so proposing, however, he soon came under criticism 

for not cutting enough24 or, on the other hand, for cutting too much and 

“re-hollowing the military.”25

Secretary Gates appeared to have lost an administration internal budget 

dispute as the White House directed the Pentagon to reduce its budget by 

$78 billion over the next five years. Thus, on 6 January 2011, he announced 

that the nation’s “extreme fiscal duress” required him to affect cuts in the 

size of the Army and Marine Corps. It would be the first decrease in the 

Department of Defense (DOD) budget since 1998 and the first troop cuts in 

decades. The White House decision seemed to have come as a surprise, for 

American troops continued to engage in Iraq and the Afghanistan/Pakistan 

areas amidst growing concern in military circles about the intentions behind 

China’s accelerated growth and modernization of its military capabilities.26

On 14 February 2011, President Barack Obama sent Congress a $671 billion 2012 defense spending plan, including $117.8 billion for the wars in Iraq 

and Afghanistan and $13 billion in program cancellations. This request 

came as Congress debated the fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget. For FY 2012, the 

DOD’s record base operating budget request of about $553 billion would be 

$22 billion above the level for 2010.27 The Pentagon would thereafter seek 

in the out years estimated spending equivalent to $571 billion in 2013, $586 

billion in 2014, $598 billion in 2015, and $611 billion by 2016. House Armed 

Services Committee Chairman Representative Howard McKeon expressed 

significant concerns about this budget plan because it “leads to zero percent 

real growth in the out years” since in order to meet increasing salary, health 

care, fuel costs, and avoid program cuts, the DOD needs a 2-3 percent annual 

increase.28 While some commentators viewed the budget as an indication 

that the “Pentagon’s buying power is in decline,”29 others considered the 

cuts a step in the right direction that “If anything, doesn’t go far enough.”30

As a point of comparison, the PRC had a 2010 defense budget of 532.115 

billion yuan (approximately U.S. $86.5 billion at current exchange rates) or 

an increase of 7.5 percent more than the previous year but down from the 

14.9 percent increase in 2009. China’s defense budget has increased by a 

whopping 12.9 percent annually since 1989. Yet compared to the $600 billion 

plus budget the U.S. is due to spend, China’s military spending still remains 

substantially lower.31 The task of achieving a “leaner and meaner defense,” 

however, cannot be delayed.32 For example, as part of the far reaching budget 
5

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

cuts in the Pentagon, the U.S. Joint Forces Command closed with a loss of 

thousands of jobs in Virginia and a couple hundred at MacDill Air Force 

Base in Tampa, Florida, saving about $420 million.33 Despite these efforts, 

however, the American intervention in the Libyan conflict and the humanitarian aid mission in Japan’s post-tsunami nuclear crisis will affect defense 

budget estimates. In fact, on 13 April 2011 President Obama proposed to 

reduce the budget deficit by $4 trillion over a 10-year period. To accomplish 

this goal, “we’re going to have to conduct a fundamental review of America’s 

missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world” in order to reduce 

defense spending by $400 billion by 2023, he said.34 Though the exact extent 

of defense budget cuts over the next decade are not yet determined, it is clear 

that there will be a significant reduction in spending and reprioritization 

of effort.

Faced with unabated tensions with North Korea and Iran over their 

nuclear programs, former Defense Secretary Gates had sought a restoration 

of military-to-military exchanges with China. As the national debate shifted 

from ends and means in the fight against threats to the United States to the 

economy and costs, the DOD sought to adjust to the budgetary realities. 

While affirming that global terrorism cannot be defeated by hard military 

might alone, Gates openly lamented the withering of diplomatic capacity 

and the resulting militarization of American foreign policy asking for a 

rebalancing of missions and programs so the U.S. military will become more 

efficient and focused.35 Against this backdrop, the study will explore relevant 

issues and debates associated with statecraft and the calls for rebalancing. 

Pressing issues in an era of economic austerity demand the exercise of the 

highest level of statecraft and strategic vision to guarantee the security and 

survival of the American nation in a multipolar or multinodal world, to use 

the terminology of the most recent National Military Strategy.36 The study is 

concerned with how conceptualizations about the global security environment affect the use of U.S. power in response to the threats and challenges 

the United States faces, or might face, in the future. The tenor of the study 

is thematically more strategy, statecraft, and policy assessment than operational and tactical in nature.

Arguably, since the end of the Cold War the United States has lacked 

a comprehensive and cohesive overarching organizing principle or grand 

strategy that prioritizes goals, identifies means, and applies the proper tools 

of power to guide the United States through the geopolitical challenges of 
6

JSOU Report 13-3

the first half of the 21st century.37 As a result, crucial decisions regarding 

war and peace are made on an ad hoc, muddling-through basis with mixed 

results at a significant cost in lives and treasure. The failings of international 

relations theory, the unmatched role of key individuals in developing and 

implementing a grand strategy of containment for the Cold War, and issues 

of statecraft are relevant contributing factors in maintaining this general 

condition.

As the international order grew in complexity and the U.S. became its 

guarantor, the special operations community operating at the tip of the spear 

assumed the role of global first responders.

The Greek historian Thucydides wrote that nations went to war out of 

“fear, honor, or interest,”38 and Prussia’s military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz in a famous aphorism defined war as a political activity: “War is not 

merely a political act, but 

also a political instrument, a 

continuation of political relations, a carrying out of the 

same by other means.”39 For 

John G. Stoessinger, in war a 

leader’s perception of himself, 

his adversary’s character, his 

adversary’s intentions, his perceptions of the adversary’s power and capabilities, and his capacity for empathy with his adversary are all extremely 

important.40 This study seeks to move through the levels of analysis (global, 

domestic, individual) in a nonlinear fashion while focusing attention on 

the debates and individual actors who determine or influence when, where, 

and how warriors engage in war.41 Leaders are important because, as retired 

Army General Stanley McChrystal said, “That’s how you succeed. That’s how 

you win in war, that’s how you win in politics, that’s how you win in just 

about everything.”42 Not only leaders of the nation matter, but their advisers, generals, and statesmen, too.43 President John F. Kennedy once said to 

Annapolis graduates:

You military professionals must know something about strategy and 

tactics and logistics, but also economics and politics and diplomacy 

and history. You must know everything you can know about military 

power, and you must also understand the limits of military power. 

As the international order grew in 

complexity and the U.S. became 

its guarantor, the special operations 

community operating at the tip of the 

spear assumed the role of global first 

responders. 
7

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

You must understand that few of the important problems of our 

time have ... been finally solved by military power alone.44

SOF are tasked to implement the most difficult missions based on national 

policymakers’ perspectives and policy preferences. As SOF seek to operate 

“ahead of the sound of the guns,” they heed President Kennedy’s call to 

understand what is happening in the world so they can best prepare, adapt, 

and innovate to fulfill those missions.45 Just as policymakers need to be 

aware of the SOF Truths that “humans are more important than hardware” 

and “SOF warriors cannot be mass-produced,”46 so do military leaders and 

operators need to know “the political realities that govern military operations.”47 This study is a step in that journey of discovery to educate SOF as 

we address questions such as: What is statecraft? How do conceptualizations 

about “hard, soft, and smart” power affect the pursuit of national security 

interests? What is the nature of the debate about a balanced strategy and 

warfare?

This paper will focus on the previous set of questions and examine contemporary efforts at statecraft by examining the conceptions of hard, soft, 

and smart power. This paper will also look at the new Solarium movement 

and briefly note the debates over counterinsurgency (COIN). Finally, an 

examination of the issues associated with balancing strategy and warfare 

will be discussed.

9

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

2. Statecraft and Power

Literary insight is essential for statecraft – Charles Hill48

What is “statecraft?” Why is it so important? The term statecraft has 

longevity, but there is no general agreement on its specific meaning. 

One simple but unsatisfactory definition equates it with governing: Statecraft is the “art of conducting state affairs.”49 Statecraft is not the same as 

“governing,” which is the administration and organization of a political 

entity. Daniel Drezner’s course on the “Art and Science of Statecraft” at Tufts 

University seeks “to offer an introduction into the world of policymaking, 

diplomacy, and statecraft,” thus suggesting that statecraft is the crafting and 

implementing of foreign policy.

A “remedial primer” defines statecraft as an instrumentality, or how states 

may use prestige, diplomacy, economics, subversion, and force to serve their 

ends.50 Veteran diplomat Chas W. Freeman has described the meaning and 

practice of statecraft in more vivid terms:

Statecraft translates national interests and concerns into national 

goals and strategies. It is the strategy of power. It guides the ways 

the state deploys and applies its power abroad. These ways embrace 

the arts of war, espionage, and diplomacy. The practitioners of these 

three arts are the paladins of statecraft. The military are the fists of 

statecraft. Espionage is the sixth sense of the state. Spies are statecraft’s hidden eyes, ears, and hands. Diplomats are statecraft’s visible 

eyes, ears, and hands. They are the voice of their state in foreign 

lands. Diplomacy is the form that statecraft takes in times of peace.51

Freeman wisely counsels the need to continue diplomatic dialogue or statecraft even when coercion replaces persuasion as a means of influence. Indeed, 

while Jessica Glicken Turnley sees war and diplomacy at opposite ends of a 

force-persuasion continuum,52 diplomatic activity by valiant souls has continued under extreme circumstances during wartime, as shown by the World 

War II examples of “savior diplomats” like Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and Mexican Gilberto Bosques.53 Economic activities (e.g. assets seizures, currency, export controls, import bans, subsidies boycotts, embargoes) 
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and information must also be given equal billing as tools of statecraft.54

Dennis Ross, State Department Director of Policy Planning under George 

H.W. Bush, sees statecraft in broad terms as “knowing how best to integrate 

and use every asset or military, diplomatic, intelligence, public, economic, or 

psychological tool we possess (or can manipulate) to meet our objectives.”55

Ross believes that “good” statecraft involves “developing aims and strategies that fit both the context and the means available,” thereby identifying 

statecraft with the proper shaping and managing of an overarching or grand 

strategy. “Bad” statecraft, on the other hand, “creates mismatches between 

means and ends.”56 Left unanswered is whether good statecraft can be practiced in the absence of a grand strategy.

The art of statecraft, though at times confused with diplomacy, amounts 

to the holistic use of diplomacy, military capabilities, economic resources, 

intelligence sources, information systems, and cultural tools by a political 

entity for strategic purposes.57 As Kaplan noted, “statecraft includes the construction of strategies for securing the national interest in the international 

arena, as well as the execution of these strategies.”58 Great power statecraft 

seeks to formulate and execute grand strategy.

Tools of Statecraft: Hard, Soft, and Smart Power

In order to best understand current challenges to the U.S. practice of statecraft, it is therefore necessary to delve into the current debates about hard, 

soft, and smart power. The reason being that the “first principle of grand 

strategy is that one must understand what is going on in the world”59 so that 

statecraft may follow from such an assessment. The immediate task ahead is 

therefore to answer the fundamental question—what is happening?

A trinity of “hard, soft, and smart power” catchwords has entered the 

political lexicon in recent years regarding the nature, composition, and use of 

the toolbox of statecraft. Classical realists, as mentioned earlier, emphasized 

the role of military force as the main instrument of power in international 

relations due to the centrality of war. A nation’s power was a function of its 

ability to defend itself and its friends from aggression and conquest through 

military means. In a global arena characterized by a self-help system, developing and maintaining military capabilities or forming alliances with those 

who had them was critical in order to survive the power struggle. Great 

power status in turn was conferred by “strength for war.”60
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

During World War II, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, talking with British 

Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1944, asked, “How many divisions does 

the Pope of Rome have?” Later, hearing about Stalin’s query, Pope Pius XII 

responded, “You can tell my son Joseph that he will meet my divisions in 

heaven.”61 Stalin’s statement reflected the mindset of what Joseph Nye Jr. calls 

hard power leadership while the Pope’s response made reference to his soft 

power. Nye, a liberal advocate of complex interdependence theory, coined 

the term “soft power” in a 1990 book arguing that there are two types of 

power: “hard” and “soft.” The use of hard power is associated with realist and 

neorealist thinking and their strategic reliance on military force, economic 

sanctions, and coercive diplomacy as instruments of statecraft.62 For example, 

Otto von Bismarck, a hard power practitioner, became known as the Iron 

Chancellor after he declared, “This policy cannot succeed through speeches, 

and shooting matches, and songs; it can be only be carried out through 

blood and iron.”63 Hard power is command power based on economic and 

military tools, and it is measured by such tangibles as population, military 

assets, GDP, natural resources, political stability, and so on.

Soft power is defined as indirect or co-optive power behavior, the ability 

to get what you want by attracting and persuading others to adopt your goals. 

Soft power is the power of “attraction” as opposed to the power of coercion 

or payment.64 A country’s soft power could come from three sources: its 

culture, political values, and its foreign policies.65 The official instruments 

of soft power include public diplomacy, broadcasting, military-to-military 

contacts, exchange programs, development assistance, and disaster relief. 66 

Huntington agreed with Nye on the increased diffusion of power throughout 

the world but then asked, “What makes culture and ideology attractive?” 

For him, Nye’s soft power is “power only when it rests on a foundation of 

hard power.”67 In response to criticism, Nye reaffirmed that the distinction 

between soft and hard power is one of degree and that soft power is also a 

key element of leadership albeit hard to use due to its limitations.68

Military prowess and competence can sometimes create soft power. 

Osama bin Laden allegedly said people are attracted to a strong horse rather 

than a weak horse.69 A well-run military can be a source of admiration in 

some countries while misuse of military resources can also undercut soft 

power.70 Stalin’s cult of personality and ruthless “Great Terror” with an estimated death toll of 20 million people could be an attractive model to emulate 

by aspiring totalitarian leaders.71
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The term soft power is but a new rendition of an old set of political 

concepts. Use of information and means of communication to persuade, 

influence, and attract has been a defining characteristic of diplomacy and 

political propaganda for a long time. In colonial times, American patriots 

led by Samuel Adams organized Committees of Public Correspondence to 

achieve unity by keeping the public informed about political development 

and instigating public outrage against the British Stamp Act and Townshend 

duties in the 1760s. By the time of the American Revolution, the committees had become “a powerful political weapon for revolutionary action.”72

One of the most famous colonial figures is Boston silversmith Paul Revere 

who made approximately 20 rides as a special courier carrying dispatches 

for the Boston Committee of Correspondence between December 1773 and 

November 1775.73

The United States Committee on Public Information (CPI), known as 

the Creel Committee after George Creel its chairman, was created in April 

1917 after the U.S. declared war on Germany. Creel defined the committee’s 

work as an advertising campaign about American ideals and the purpose of 

the war effort.74 To attain that purpose, the CPI produced millions of copies 

of booklets for domestic and foreign distribution and sent thousands of 

speakers to meet the public.75

Soft power became so popular in the last two decades in academia and 

elements of the foreign policy establishment that it has been called “one of 

the most successful neologism of the last two decades.”76 In particular, after 

the release of the 2006 Iraq Study Group Report, it gave pause to those who 

emphasized military solutions to political problems and was propounded 

as an alternative to the use of force as a tool of statecraft.77 The U.S. Army, 

moving toward the new paradigm of nation-building or “stability operations” in failing states, embraced soft power in Field Manual 3-07 Stability 

Operations:

America’s future abroad is unlikely to resemble Afghanistan or 

Iraq, where we grapple with the burden of nation-building under 

fire. Instead, we will work through and with the community of 

nations to defeat insurgency, assist fragile states, and provide vital 

humanitarian aid to the suffering. Achieving victory will assume 

new dimensions as we strengthen to generate soft power to promote participation in government, spur economic development, 
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

and address the root causes of conflict among the disenfranchised 

population of the world.78

Despite soft power’s liberal origins, its proponents are found in both major 

parties. In the second term of the George W. Bush administration, then 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed it in a Landon Lecture:

One of the most important lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that military success is not sufficient to win. I am here to 

make the case for strengthening our capacity to use soft power and 

for better integrating it with hard power. What is clear to me is that 

there is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian 

instruments of national security—diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction 

and development.79

A year later, in an address before students at the National Defense University (NDU) and prior to the 2008 presidential election, Secretary Gates 

reaffirmed the need to integrate hard and soft power tools into a “balanced 

strategy,” stating:

This morning, I want to discuss the span of threats our country faces, 

assess the military capabilities we need ... Lest there be any doubt, 

this is a speech about hard power ... Over the long term, we cannot 

kill or capture our way to victory. Nonmilitary efforts—these tools 

of persuasion and inspiration—were indispensable to the outcome 

of the defining ideological struggle of the 20th century. They are just 

as indispensable in the 21st century—and perhaps even more so.80

An earlier effort to combine military and nonmilitary programs in troubled 

areas occurred during President John F. Kennedy’s administration. Confronted with the challenge of Soviet proxy wars, Marxist insurgencies, and 

guerrilla warfare in Latin America, the Army Special Forces were rebuilt 

and authorized to wear the Green Beret as a mark of distinction.81 Kennedy’s 

“Alliance for Progress” with Latin American countries lasted from 1961 to 

1969 and was the equivalent of a Marshall Plan to work in combination with a 

“peace corps of talented men and women” who would dedicate themselves to 

the progress and peace of developing countries by engaging in economic and 
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JSOU Report 13-3

social development work.82 In recent years, the U.S. Naval Forces Southern 

Command and U.S. 4th Fleet, which includes elements of the 26th Marine 

Expeditionary Unit out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, has executed 

“Operation Continuing Promise.”83 These are programs of humanitarian and 

civic assistance to provide access to quality health, dental, and veterinary 

care at no cost while sharing healthcare knowledge and best practices with 

local healthcare providers in eight Caribbean and Latin American countries. 

At one time, of course, these operations would have been an expression of 

American goodwill and friendship, but today they are treated as an exercise 

of soft power.

International Use of Soft Power

The United States is not the only major country that has turned to soft power 

approaches, for which they are used by other democratic and non-democratic 

systems alike. The European Union (EU), for instance, in preparation for its 

enlargement reformed a number of important policies in 1999 and adopted a 

soft power-based “Agenda 2000.” Existing Western European members were 

reassured by the message that there would be a “more influential European 

voice in world affairs, a broader, and therefore more effective, cooperation 

in dealing with challenges,” while the attraction to new members from Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe would derive from “democratic and 

social stability ... enhanced prosperity ... a return to European political and 

cultural traditions that were denied them for decades.”84 The EU’s commitment to nonmilitary instrumentalities has also led to significant reductions 

in their military budgets and to the charge that “America seems to be hard 

power incarnate and Europe the embodiment of soft power.”85

Qatar

The tiny emirate of Qatar is a contemporary example of a very small country 

achieving disproportionate influence by virtue of a clever, active foreign 

policy that leverages its nonmilitary assets. Thus the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the governing body for world soccer, awarded 

Qatar the right to host the World Cup Finals in 2022. Qatar beat the bids 

from Japan, Australia, South Korea, and the United States. The country has 

an indigenous population of about 300,000—with an additional 1.1 million inhabitants who are mostly contract workers—and the highest GDP 
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

per capita in the world. Qatar markets itself as a cosmopolitan, world-class 

water sports tourist destination, with sandy beaches, sitting out on a peninsula surrounded by the Arabian Gulf.86 Led by Emir Hamad bin Khalifa 

al-Thani, Qatar has gained a seat at the power table by creating the brand 

“Qatar” emphasizing “niche diplomacy” or “the concentration of resources 

in specific areas best able to generate significant returns.”87 Qatar’s niche is 

conflict mediation; however, its trump card is not its oil reserves, but rather 

Al Jazeera, the Doha-based first Arab satellite news channel founded in 

1996. Al Jazeera is mostly funded by the Qatari government, just as the BBC 

is funded by the British government. Though some argue that Al Jazeera 

operates as “one organization, two messages”88 with one message for the 

Arab world and another for the West, its influence among the peoples of the 

region has provided Qatar with enough bona fides to host the conference that 

led to the Doha Agreements among the rival Lebanese factions on 21 May 

2008.89 In pursuit of its ambitious foreign policy, Qatar supported the Arab 

Spring and participated in the United Nations (UN) supported humanitarian intervention in Libya by sending four French-made Mirage fighter jets 

to help maintain a no-fly zone.90

The People’s Republic of China

In the PRC, almost a month before Secretary Gates’s 2007 Landon Lecture, 

President Hu Jintao called for enhancing Chinese culture as part of the soft 

power of the country, in a speech to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.91 Since then, the PRC has proactively revved up its 

“charm campaign,” as exemplified by a great display of modern weaponry 

at the 2009 National Day Ceremony to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, and the use of futuristic settings, 3D and 

4D films at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Strategic communication (e.g. 

public affairs, information operations, and psychological operations), foreign 

assistance, and cultural tools are being integrated into its foreign policy.92 

In addition to the now familiar nationalistic Chinese martial arts films and 

performing arts troupes like Shen Yun, about 400 hundred Confucian Institutes that teach Chinese language and culture have sprouted in 80 countries 

all over the world including in Africa and the United States.93 Eric Teo Chu 

Cheow of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs reports that “in 

Southeast Asia, Chinese culture, cuisine, calligraphy, cinema, curios, art, 
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JSOU Report 13-3

acupuncture, herbal medicine, and fashion fads have all emerged in regional 

culture.”94 In Africa, in addition to the ubiquitous Confucian Institutes, the 

Chinese have focused on development programs, trade, and energy. Chinese 

support of natural resource-rich countries with repressive regimes presents 

a major challenge to Western hopes for prosperous African democracies, 

committed to free trade, human rights, and the rule of law.95

In Latin America, where the United States has exercised hegemonic 

influence for centuries, in addition to seeking access to markets and natural resources, the PRC seeks to gradually erode American influence and 

has made inroads by stressing nonthreatening cultural and educational 

programs.

According to NDU professor Evan Ellis, the sources of U.S. influence are 

“the affinity of the world’s youth for American music, media, and lifestyle, 

the widespread use of the English language in business and technology, 

or the number of elites who have learned their professions in U.S. institutions.”96 The core of Chinese soft power in the Latin American region is 

“the widespread perception that 

the PRC ... will present tremendous business opportunities in the 

future and will be a power to be 

reckoned with globally.” He then 

identifies seven component parts 

of this perception ranging from 

hopes for future access to Chinese 

markets to China as the “wave of 

the future.”97 A number of limitations exist to Chinese soft power in Latin America, however, such as cultural 

gaps in consumer preferences and attitudes toward authority in business 

dealings.

Language is another powerful barrier to closer ties as well as Chinese 

lack of knowledge regarding Latin America, stigmatization of military officers who participate in military exchanges with China, and the competition 

created by increased interaction with India, Russia, and Iran. In particular, 

Ellis highlights that Chinese failure to fully integrate into local communities 

creates a “not one of us” attitude that translates into mistrust.98

In order to assuage growing concerns about China’s military intentions 

and economic policies, the PRC has more recently launched a new public 

... the sources of U.S. influence are 

“the affinity of the world’s youth 

for American music, media, and 

lifestyle, the widespread use of the 

English language in business and 

technology, or the number of elites 

who have learned their professions 

in U.S. institutions.”
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

relations campaign seeking to improve its image abroad. The overall plan 

is to eliminate the perception that China presents a threat to the United 

States. It includes a 17-minute promotion film shown in Chinese consulates 

and embassies around the world, as well as a one-minute promotional video 

shown on six giant screens from 17 January to 14 February 2011 in New York’s 

Times Square for 22 hours a day. The video emphasized life in Beijing and 

Shanghai featuring attractive urban Chinese people on the screen as well as 

known celebrities such as basketball player Yao Ming, piano virtuoso Lang 

Lang, and astronaut Yang Liwei. To measure the video’s audience impact, 

Chinese television staffers interviewed passersby and asked four China 

experts, including Stanford University’s Thomas Fingar, former chairman 

of the National Intelligence Council, to provide on-camera commentary 

and feedback.99

Chinese government-led efforts at foreign communications, in order to 

promote a better image to the outside world, have met with limited results, 

however, largely because the West enjoys more discursive power and due to 

the lack of free expression in Chinese civil society.100 Another reason behind 

the growing distrust of Chinese intentions is the lack of transparency about 

its growing military capabilities and increasingly aggressive behavior. For 

example, in early March 2011, soon after its U.S. media campaign, China 

announced an increase of 13 percent in its FY 2011 defense budget, a projected 

rise faster than the previous year’s 7.5 percent increase. Since the announced 

budget excluded special programs such as a new stealth fighter and at least 

one aircraft carrier, experts estimated that the actual defense spending is 

much higher. Additionally, in the same month, China engaged in confrontations with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines in disputed territories in 

the East and South China Seas.101

Cuba

The effective use of command and co-optation strategies in a small nationstate is best illustrated by the 50-plus years of dictatorship by the aging 

brothers Fidel and Raul Castro. Cuba, a small country of 11 million people 

located 90 miles from Key West, Florida, has been a challenge to the U.S. 

for five decades. The survival of the Castro brothers’ regime is owed not 

only to the repressive system set up with the help of the East German secret 

police (Stasi), but also to their effective statecraft.102 In the early years of 
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JSOU Report 13-3

the Cuban Revolution, the Castros and Che Guevara tried to export their 

guerrilla warfare model, or “foco” theory, to the Third World to create more 

insurgencies. The Castro brothers’ regime remains in the Department of 

State’s (DOS) state supporters of terrorism since over the decades they have 

advised, helped, trained, supported, and financed guerrilla groups and terrorists ranging from the Irish Revolutionary Army, Carlos the Jackal, Uruguayan Tupamaros, Tupac Amarus Revolutionary Movement in Peru, to the 

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia.103 In the past, the Cuban 

leaders worked with anti-U.S. regimes (e.g. Chile under Salvador Allende, 

Sandinistas’ Nicaragua, Gaddafi’s Libya, Saddam’s Iraq, Khomeini’s Iran) 

and continues to work closely with anti-American leaders like Venezuela’s 

Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, U.S. rivals Russia and China (to be 

consistent with Russia), and U.S. enemies North Korea and Iran.104

During the Cold War, Cuba was a Soviet ally sending troops in the 1970s 

and 1980s to fight proxy wars in Third World locales such as Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bisseau. About 1,500 Cuban troops including tank and 

helicopter crews also engaged in combat operations against the Israel Defense 

Forces in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.105 During the 1980s, Cuban military 

contingents were operating in 16 countries.106 The long-term survival can also 

be traced to a combination of strategic alliances with the Soviet Union, leftist 

elements in Europe and Latin America, as well as successful disinformation, 

espionage, and media manipulation campaigns.107

Over the decades, in addition to deploying military forces on three continents, the Castro brothers have presided over a series of propaganda (soft 

power) campaigns for foreign consumption. They have ranged from Fidel’s 

16 October 1953 “History Will Absolve Me” speech to the legendary 1956 

landing of the ship “Granma” carrying the group that initiated the Cuban 

Revolution and the co-opting of an independent, third-party messenger, 

New York Times reporter Herbert Matthews, who brought international 

fame to Castro’s guerrillas. Cuba also produced and disseminated internationally acclaimed films such as Memorias del Subdesarrollo (Memories of 

Underdevelopment, 1968), Lucia (1969) and Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry 

and Chocolate, 1993); and promoted the personality cult of Che Guevara and 

the “heroic guerrilla” mythology.108

Perhaps the most successful Cuban initiative has been its so-called medical diplomacy campaign. The regime has derived “symbolic capital” (i.e. 

goodwill, influence, and prestige) well beyond what would have been possible 
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

for any small country, and this has helped to maintain Cuba as a player on 

the world stage. In recent years, medical diplomacy has been instrumental in 

providing “material capital” as Cuba has negotiated oil deals with Venezuela 

or obtained aid, credit, and trade agreements in exchange for doctors. This 

has helped keep the revolution afloat during economic trying times. Under 

this outreach and penetration program, approximately 37,000 Cuban doctors 

and medical personnel have been sent to 87 countries.

The program also includes giving free medical treatment to low-income 

Latin Americans and providing free medical training to disadvantaged students from around the globe. What began as the implementation of a core 

value of the revolution, namely health as a basic human right for all peoples, 

has continued as both an “idealistic and a pragmatic pursuit.”109

Attracting tourists to world-class beachfront hotels unaffordable to the 

average Cuban and cooperating with international filmmakers in works like 

the 2004 Guevara biopic The Motorcycle Diaries serve to project the country’s image as a travel destination.110 Cuban music like the cha-cha, mambo, 

and salsa, the vaunted Buena Vista Social Club, and other popular cultural 

exports like the renowned Cuban ballet and dance troupes travel the world 

to make friends and influence people.111 Despite the travel ban, American 

students led by sympathizing academics are invited under academic and 

cultural exchange programs used by the regime to show the benefits and 

progressiveness of the Cuban Communist system. Perhaps the best example 

of Castro’s successful command of nonmilitary soft power instrumentalities 

to deal with its opponents was its masterful media manipulation of the Elian 

Gonzalez case in 2000, an event that significantly diminished the power and 

influence of the anti-Castro Cuban-American lobby, covered up the failings 

of the Cuban dictatorship, exploited U.S. immigration policies, and enhanced 

Castro’s image as a defiant anti-American icon.112

Application of Soft Power Approaches

Since Nye coined the soft power terminology, it has generated vast literature 

and led to U.S. policies and strategies that have been utilized, for instance, in 

the Iraq War, the War on Terror, and in Eastern Europe during the transition 

from Communism.113 In his first major foreign policy address in Cairo 4 June 

2009, President Obama reached out to the Muslim world with a commitment 

to use soft, persuasive approaches:
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I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the 

need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve 

our problems whenever possible. Indeed, we can recall the words 

of Thomas Jefferson, who said: ‘I hope that our wisdom will grow 

with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the 

greater it will be.114

Nye’s soft-power concept has become a standard, despite the fact that there is 

no empirical data or theory to support its claims. Kroenig et.al. (“Kroenig” 

study)115 hypothesizes that to apply soft power effectively a state must do three 

things: communicate to an intended target in a functioning marketplace 

of ideas, persuade the target to change its attitude on a relevant political 

issue, and ensure that the target’s newly held attitude influences international 

political outcomes. The three preconditions for effective soft power use are 

necessary but not sufficient for a state to effectively employ soft power. Their 

argument also underscored the critical fact that states do not control some 

key resources, like national culture, needed to employ soft power. Their study 

examined the existence of these conditions when soft power was utilized 

by the U.S. in the Iraq War, the War on Terror, and democracy promotion 

experiences. They found that soft power strategies failed in Iraq and the War 

on Terror because the conditions were absent but led to success in democracy 

promotion in the post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe.116

In Iraq, for instance, the initial counterterrorism (CT) approach, albeit 

consistent with the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) 

on low-intensity conflict, focused mostly on kinetic (violent) engagements 

with terrorists and insurgents.117 The CT approach gave way in 2006 to a 

COIN strategy consistent with the updated Army Field Manual No. 3-24 

that follows a population-centric approach to win “hearts and minds.”118 

The goal was to peel away or insulate the people in order to drain support 

for the insurgency and “the goal ... went well beyond mere rhetoric” as 

concrete steps were taken such as: monetary payments in compensation for 

property damage during raids, post-conflict reconstruction, information 

campaigns to include paying to plant favorable articles in Iraqi papers, predeployment training in mock Iraqi villages in the California desert, and a 

military “surge” to provide more civilian protection and security. Kroenig 

argues that all of these efforts failed because some of the preconditions for 

success were absent.119
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

A set of damaging events interfered with the long-term efforts by the 

United States to win hearts and minds in Iraq. One of them was the failure 

to properly handle the anarchy and looting that occurred, particularly in 

Baghdad, in the early days of the occupation. At best, it reflected an American lack of adequate post-war contingency planning and, at worst, lack of 

understanding about the sectarian and cultural differences. Secondly, the 

torture scandal at Abu Ghraib prison revealed in 2004 betrayed the content 

of the message we were trying to send with the change in regime (i.e. respect 

for and protection of individual liberties and human rights) and significantly 

weakened American moral authority. Who can forget the iconic image of the 

hooded prisoner with outstretched arms attached to wires while standing on 

a box?120 Despite former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s claim that 

the abuses were the acts of rogue soldiers and not approved policy, the torture 

scandal did irreparable damage to the U.S. global image. To his credit, after 

the revelations became public, Secretary Rumsfeld submitted his resignation 

to President Bush, who declined to accept it.121 Third, the idea of forcefully 

exporting democracy to the Middle East runs counter to the accumulating 

evidence that it breeds ethnic hatred and instability.122 Finally, and perhaps 

most important, there was the “deep contradiction between the democracy 

the United States said it was trying to build and the methods it employed to 

battle the insurgency.”123

The Kroenig study provides a 

useful set of criteria to determine 

which types of problems are most 

amenable to soft power strategies 

since they only succeed under fairly 

restrictive conditions. First, the society must be considered. It should have a functioning marketplace of ideas 

and be receptive to communication and persuasion. Strategic communication has been defined as the “orchestration and/or synchronization of 

actions, images, and words to achieve a desired effect.”124

Next, the target audience in the society should be capable of influencing 

international outcomes in a manner favorable to U.S. interests. Third, to succeed, the U.S. should “shape the battlefield” by, for instance, advocating for 

an open media and a reduction of censorship. Finally, the campaign should 

be waged indirectly through intermediaries trusted by the target audience.

...the idea of forcefully exporting 

democracy to the Middle East 

runs counter to the accumulating 

evidence that it breeds ethnic 

hatred and instability.
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That is, independent, third party sources with no U.S. ties or interests 

need to be identified to act as messengers.125 Regarding the endorsement of 

soft power by U.S. policymakers (e.g. Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates), 

the Kroenig study warns that when it comes to soft power, “the U.S. foreign 

policy elite is at risk of exaggerating the effectiveness of soft power (rather 

than under-utilizing it) as a tool of foreign policy.”126 In addition, “Analysts 

who suggest that soft power can easily be substituted for hard power or who 

maintain that soft power should provide an overarching guide to the formulation of U.S. foreign policy are badly mistaken. It is not helpful to effective 

policy making to use the phrase ‘soft power’ as a way of arguing against the 

use of military force.”127

Smart Power

In 2004, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Suzanne Nossel introduced the phrase “smart use of power” to promote U.S. interests through a 

stable grid of allies, institutions, and norms.128 According to Nossel, in the 

2002 National Security Strategy the Bush administration pledged not only 

to fight terrorism and “pre-empt” threats, but also to “actively work to bring 

the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every 

corner of the world.” But all of these were traditional liberal internationalist 

themes.129 Progressives were therefore encouraged to “take back the fight” 

by reframing U.S. foreign policy according to their “abiding belief than an 

ambitious agenda to advance freedom, trade, and human rights is the best 

long-term guarantee of the United States’ security.”130

For Nossel, a “renewed liberal internationalist strategy recognizes that 

military power and humanitarian endeavors can be mutually reinforcing” if 

one turns Bush’s preemption policy around by recasting traditional liberal 

priorities like counter-proliferation and economic development as preemptors of threats that would preclude the need for military action.131 Several 

recommendations were: a new military branch composed of a standing force 

dedicated exclusively to postwar stabilization and reconstruction; burden 

sharing with allies; and reformation of the UN’s bureaucracy, field capabilities, anti-Western membership blocs, redundant committees, and U.S. 

diplomatic approach.132 In sum, the “smart use of power” originally referred 

to a reframing of foreign policies away from the neoconservative reliance on 

the use of force to fight terrorism and democratize regimes.
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Joseph P. Nye Jr. has claimed that smart power “is a term I developed in 

2003 to counter the misperception that soft power alone can produce effective foreign policy ... Thus the need for smart strategies that combine the 

tools of both hard and soft power.”133 The original conceptualization, however, emphasized soft power as a standalone policy approach, while Nossel’s 

referred to a synthesis of soft and hard power tools that reinforces both.134 

Despite the paternity dispute, members of academia, the think tanks, and 

government officials soon began to bandwagon behind the concept of smart 

power. In particular, those who feared appearing weak on national security 

and felt uncomfortable with the “soft” aspect of Nye’s power terminology 

welcomed the new approach—“Most progressives approve of the concept, 

but hate the name—‘soft power’ just sounds so ... weak.”135

Thus, in 2006 the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) 

declared that “America’s image and influence are in decline around the 

world. To maintain a leading role in global affairs, the United States must 

move from eliciting fear and anger to inspiring optimism and hope.”136 To 

attain that goal the CSIS launched a bipartisan Commission on Smart Power 

led by Nye and Richard L. Armitage as co-chairs to “develop a vision to 

guide America’s global engagement.”137 The commission’s final report sought 

to integrate hard and soft power into a hybrid “smart power” and recommended a smart power strategy that included: rebuilding and reinvigorating 

the foundation of alliances, partnerships, and institutions that serve our 

interests; elevating the role of development in U.S. foreign policy and developing a more unified approach to global development beginning with public 

health; public diplomacy directed at building people-to-people relationships, 

particularly with youth; economic integration and expansion of free trade; 

and addressing climate change and energy insecurity through technology 

and innovation.138 To implement the strategy, it called for a strategic reassessment of how the U.S. Government (USG) is organized, coordinated, and 

budgeted in order to organize for success.139

That set of goals reprised Nossel’s argument and is consistent with those 

advocated by proponents of a “new global agenda” that seeks to tackle poverty, bridge divides, and build institutions for the 21st century. The causal 

chain being promulgated is that “Poverty, disease, and malnutrition cause 

civil strife, degradation, and conflict, which spills over borders, imperiling national and international security.” The research, issues, and policy 

initiatives at the top of this global agenda include a list of items ranging 
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JSOU Report 13-3

from reducing nuclear armaments and stemming proliferation to fostering 

inclusion of new economic powers.140

As noted earlier, Secretary Gates in his Langdon Lecture (2007) and NDU 

speech (2008) had introduced hard and soft power language not only to 

distinguish between defense and civilian missions, but also to call for their 

better integration.141 However, it was not until the 2009 Senate confirmation 

hearing of Senator Hillary Clinton as nominee for Secretary of State that the 

new concept of “smart power” catapulted into the headlines. At the hearing, 

Senator Clinton touted it four times in her opening statement and nine times 

during her testimony by saying, “I believe that American leadership has been 

wanting, but is still wanted. We must use what has been called ‘smart power,’ 

the full range of tools at our disposal, which include diplomatic, economic, 

military, political and cultural tools ... With smart power, diplomacy will 

be the vanguard of foreign policy.”142

The State Department’s First Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development 

Review (QDDR) in turn seeks to blend soft power tools of diplomacy and 

development with the new global agenda by “embracing 21st century statecraft to connect the private and civic sectors with our foreign policy work 

... by better using connection technologies and expanding, facilitating, and 

streamlining our public-private partnership process.”143 The DOS is fully 

committed to smart power and has made “digital democracy,” the application of new social media to shape global political action, a cornerstone of 

U.S. diplomacy.

Military force may sometimes be necessary to protect our people and 

our interests. But diplomacy and development will be equally important in 

creating conditions for a peaceful, stable, and prosperous world. That is the 

essence of smart power—using all the tools at our disposal.144 Predictably, 

advocacy groups and defense contractors soon jumped into the smart power 

bandwagon. The Mitre Corporation, for instance, soon followed up with their 

own “Corporate Initiative in Smart Power” seeking to employ an effective 

blend of coercive, hard power (defensive/offensive boots on the ground) as 

well as persuasive soft power (diplomacy, development).145 A certain amount 

of confusion has resulted, however, from the failure to distinguish between 

the tools of power and the use of power. For if “using all the tools at our 

disposal” is the essence of smart power, then the unanswered question is 

what criteria is utilized to prioritize goals and means? Using all the tools at 

our disposal requires a process of identification, evaluation, and selection 
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

between coercive and persuasive tools. Secretary Gates, as described above, 

was concerned with the integration and balancing of hard and soft power 

tools. The critical issue is how is 

that integration and balancing to 

be done, by whom, and on what 

terms? The obvious answer is that 

the proper balancing depends on 

the strategic goals that are being 

sought, and the final choice between the use of military or nonmilitary tools 

rests with the president as chief executive and commander in chief.

The Arab Spring and Smart/Soft Power

Smart power should mean just the opposite of the non-smart use of power. 

The non-smart use of power is the ineffective or inappropriate use of the 

instruments of power in a particular context. It is choosing carrots when 

sticks would do the job and vice versa. The smart use of power is neither a 

new type of power nor a power attribute, but rather a better way of using 

power capabilities—both military and nonmilitary. That is to say, it is the 

exercise of good statecraft; statecraft seeks the optimal use of power in the 

most effective way to carry out strategic plans in order to achieve strategic 

goals. It is a how—an intellectual activity involving knowledge, experience, 

and judgment—by a who. The who ultimately are those with the status, 

authority, qualities, and attributes of leadership. When statesmen exercise 

their best judgment by setting and prioritizing strategic goals, creatively and 

effectively choosing the proper means of implementation, and selecting the 

best tools available in the toolbox, then power is being used in a smart way. 

Does that mean that the desired or predicted outcomes will follow? Not 

necessarily, since there is always an element of risk.

The chaotic Arab Spring was driven both by demographics and politics. Approximately 60 percent of the Arab population is under age 30 with 

a median age of 26.146 This youth bulge has “both the fastest-rising levels 

of schooling and the highest level of youth unemployment in the world” 

and lacks the quality of life and opportunities that television and the new 

media portray elsewhere.147 The combination of a life of privation and rising 

expectations is an explosive mix when combined with inability to express 

the accumulated frustration. The Mukhabarat state, called a “police state” 

A certain amount of confusion has 

resulted, however, from the failure 

to distinguish between the tools of 

power and the use of power. 
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JSOU Report 13-3

in the West, under which most young Arabs have lived, denied them the 

political space to negotiate their demands. Egypt, as the cultural, geographic, 

and demographic center of the Arab world, presented to them an example 

of what is possible. The popular overthrow of Mubarak occurred with less 

than 1,000 casualties. A successful Egyptian transition to a representative 

system where repressed secular parties can organize and operate would be 

a blow to al-Qaeda’s terrorist narrative. As a counterpoint, the upheaval in 

Libya shows how to attain reform through violent action.

Egypt

The “Arab Spring” unrest, first in Tunisia and later in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, 

Bahrain, Syria, and other countries in the region presents a serious threat to 

regional stability and longstanding American economic and security interests. In addition to the ever-present issue of oil resources, there are also 

military basing and cooperative arrangements that are at stake. The protest movements were largely organized by groups and individuals through 

American produced instrumentalities like the Internet and social media 

sites like Facebook and Twitter. On 27 January 2011, the Mubarak regime, in 

order to prevent the spread of anti-Mubarak messages and to cripple mass 

organizing efforts, shut down the Internet and cell phone service. By ordering the big four Egyptian service providers—Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, 

Telecom Egypt, and Etisalat Misr—to shut down all international connections to the Internet, the government in effect threw a switch that caused a 

90 percent drop in data traffic.148 Government cutoffs of information flows 

have previously taken place in Nepal (2005) and Myanmar (2007); in 40 other 

countries, particularly in China and Cuba, filtering of Internet services and 

sites is an established practice. What was surprising to many, however, was 

the scope and scale of the 2011 Egyptian shutdown.149

Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton both had understood Mubarak’s 

actions as an attempt to maintain control, and the message they clearly sent 

to the Mubarak regime was that no American weapons and ammunition 

should be used against the peaceful protesters. At the same time, President 

Obama, after talking to Mubarak in private, publicly asked him “to reverse 

the actions that they’ve taken to interfere with access to the Internet, to cell 

phone service, and to social networks that do so much to connect people in 

the 21st century.” By doing so, he was in effect tying the hands of staunch 
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

ally Mubarak. President Obama was criticized for ignoring the law of unintended consequences and assuming that the subsequent series of geopolitical outcomes—i.e. the eventual ousting of Mubarak and spreading unrest 

to other friendly countries in the Middle East and North Africa—would 

advance U.S. national interests.150

Concerns emerged within both the DOD and DOS as the unrest spilled 

over into another critical ally, the Kingdom of Bahrain, headquarters of the 

U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. The strategic value of Bahrain to the United States and 

the West is very significant as the 5th Fleet supports our efforts in Iraq and 

Afghanistan and is a deterrent against a nuclear Iran. As a kingdom ruled by 

Sunni Muslims where the majority of the population is Shiite, the possible 

collapse of the pro-American monarchy raised the specter of a pro-Iranian, 

anti-American Shiite takeover under the guise of democratization. In the 

short term, the important question was how would the Obama administration react if the Bahrain government resorted to force? In Bahrain, the 

United States has less comparative leverage than its adjacent neighbor Saudi 

Arabia that favored strong action against the Shiites in Bahrain. Would the 

U.S. choose the democratic values against the national interest road by siding 

with the Shiite opposition against its Sunni allies? What was the regional 

strategy being followed by the USG? As government and opposition groups 

clashed in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, the UN High Commissioner for 

Human Rights, the EU, and Human Rights Watch criticized and urged the 

Bahrain government to stop its security forces from using force.151

Statecraft is constrained by institutional and individual factors. In 

the early days of the 2011 Egyptian “Lotus Revolution,” the basic analytic 

assumption in the U.S. intelligence community was that the Mubarak regime 

was stable.152 For three decades, the United States has had excellent militaryto-military relations with Egypt providing it with $1.5 billion in annual 

military assistance, a hard power tool. Egyptian military leaders participated 

in the U.S. International Military Education and Training Program (IMET), 

one of whose purposes is to train an ethical military. The IMET program 

under the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency of DOD is a security 

assistance program that provides training on a grant basis to students from 

allied and friendly nations. Funding is appropriated from the International 

Affairs budget of the DOS. Overall objectives of the IMET program are: to 

further the goal of regional stability through effective, mutually beneficial 

military-to-military relations which culminate in increased understanding 
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JSOU Report 13-3

and defense cooperation between the United States and foreign countries; 

and to increase the ability of foreign national military and civilian personnel 

to absorb and maintain basic democratic values and protect internationally 

recognized human rights.

Just like the failure to foresee the Soviet collapse, the revolt in Egypt 

appeared to be a foreseeable event. The North African and Middle Eastern 

Arab countries in revolt were led by aging authoritarians entering a period of 

political succession. In Tunisia, the immolation of a despaired food peddler 

acted as the catalyst for suppressed anger and disaffection with the regime. 

Instability was particularly foreseeable in Egypt; to polarize the political 

system along the lines of his secular government party versus the Islamic 

Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak prevented secular opposition parties from 

organizing and operating freely for decades. It was also known that Mubarak 

planned to install his unpopular son Gamal as his replacement; and that the 

country had an uneducated, unemployed, impoverished, and restless youth 

bulge. These systemic problems signaled that trouble lay ahead despite the 

image of stability portrayed by the repressive apparatus. Neither the timing 

nor the magnitude of the eruption was knowable, of course, but a disruptive 

course of events was predictable and appropriate probabilistic scenarios and 

war gaming exercises should have been conducted well in advance.153

It is reasonable to assume that within the U.S. military and diplomatic 

community there was support for the undemocratic Mubarak regime. He 

was, after all, a staunch ally, a bulwark against Iran, and a key player in our 

war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the beginning of the crisis, a number 

of geostrategic reasons could be adduced in favor of a U.S. presidential statement supporting the regime and just asking it to exercise restraint. If confronted, the administration could have justified its stance by raising a host of 

reasons ranging from a national security interest in preventing a repetition of 

the 1979 Iranian Revolution to maintaining access to a vital chokepoint, the 

Suez Canal; from sustaining the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty to preventing 

contagion to other countries and avoiding another intervention in the Arab 

world. The initial tilt toward Mubarak based on faulty or absent intelligence 

was reflected in Secretary of State Clinton’s public statement on 25 January 

2011, that “our assessment is that the Egyptian Government is stable and 

is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the 

Egyptian people.”154
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

As millions of Egyptians took to the streets in Cairo, Suez, Alexandria, 

and other cities, however, democracy promoters insisted that the United 

States be “on the right side of history.” It would require supporting popular 

democratic movements; confirming the role played by the “new media” (e.g. 

Internet, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and cell phones) in informing and 

mobilizing the population; affirming a moral duty to oust a recalcitrant dictator; and setting an example of peaceful regime change for the youthful and 

restive Arab “street.” After all, it was added, this is what American policymakers had sought when they promoted democratic change. Was the Obama 

administration pursuing a freedom agenda through soft power means? Obviously, both sides had powerful arguments in support of their respective 

positions. It is also apparent that at some point, as events unfolded, the 

administration could not continue its middle-of-the-road strategy; it could 

not support Mubarak or tolerate a “Tiananmen Square” type of crackdown 

while at the same time supporting the pro-democracy demonstrations.155

A choice had to be made either to pressure the Mubarak regime to exercise “restraint” in the use of force, or to “refrain” from using force to save 

itself, or to give up power altogether. The administration appeared to adopt a 

position in support of an “orderly transition” from Mubarak to a new regime 

since the risk calculus had to consider as possible outcomes a significant 

loss of lives, loss or damage to important United States strategic interests, 

or both. Whether Mubarak would have resorted to ruthless violence, as 

Muammar Gaddafi subsequently did in Libya and Bashar al-Assad in Syria, 

had the U.S. acquiesced to it, is counterfactual. But after 30 years of deep ties 

with Mubarak’s military, the U.S. had sufficient knowledge of the Egyptian 

Army to consider it as a professional institution committed to the country 

that would not fire on the people.

The lack of a representative organized opposition party or group to negotiate with the Egyptian government, except for the Muslim Brotherhood and 

other Islamists, complicated the situation and raised the ante for those who 

favored a quick ousting of Mubarak. In the end, lacking a grand strategy 

and actionable intelligence to prioritize and guide a course of action, the 

administration struggled through this initial phase of the revolutionary 

process. The administration placed some hope that Mohammed El Baradei, 

the Nobel laureate and former head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, 

the International Atomic Energy Agency, would be able to attract enough 

support. The floundering performance suggested that a regional strategy 
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JSOU Report 13-3

was lacking as the opposition proactively used soft power tools while the 

U.S. administration was reacting to events.156 The instability of the Mubarak 

regime led to a readjustment of U.S. policy, 

the fall of Mubarak on 11 February, and 

to a greater appreciation of the role played 

by the new soft power tools in the Middle 

East and North Africa. The lesson learned 

is that new technologies offer new means to exercise influence, and that they 

are increasingly being used by popular movements in order to sway large 

portions of the population and challenge existing regimes.

Libya

On 15 February 2011, a few days after the fall of Mubarak, popular unrest 

broke out in Libya, Africa’s third largest oil producer. Long-standing dictator 

Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi reacted by brutally cracking down on the 

civilian demonstrators. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accused Libya 

of “firing on civilians from warplanes and helicopters” and killing thousands 

of protesters as paramilitary goons were set loose on the streets of Benghazi, 

the cradle of the revolt, and Tripoli.157 Vowing to die as a martyr, Gaddafi 

ignored the international community’s call for restraint. In disgust, high 

Libyan officials like the ambassadors to the United States, the UN, Malaysia, 

Australia, Indonesia, the Arab League, and India, resigned their posts, and 

the Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Younes al Abidi defected to the rebels. As 

Eastern Libya fell under rebel soldiers’ control, the dictator was accused of 

recruiting African mercenaries to put down the revolt. From Qatar, Muslim 

Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a fatwa asking Libyan soldiers not to shoot people but to 

kill Gaddafi.158 Meanwhile, U.S. policymakers struggled to find some leverage over the Libyan dictator. Gaddafi had been a rabid anti-American who 

provided terrorists with training camps and had to be bombed in 1986 by 

Ronald Reagan.159 Until 2003, Libya was on the DOS list of state sponsors of 

terrorism. After the 9/11 attacks and following Operation Iraqi Freedom, it 

was rumored that Gaddafi feared that he would be the next one facing an 

American intervention since Libya was close to developing a nuclear weapon. 

Libya had moved to achieve a rapprochement with the West since 1999 by 

accepting responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paying $10 million 

The lesson learned is that 

new technologies offer new 

means to exercise influence...
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

in compensation.160 President George W. Bush working with British Prime 

Minister Tony Blair sought to reintegrate Libya into the international community by lifting UN sanctions and obtaining a UN resolution demanding 

that Libya give up its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. Gaddafi 

complied by giving up Libya’s nuclear and chemical weapons programs and 

in exchange the DOS took Libya off its terrorist list. Unlike Egypt, however, 

the Libyan government only received a meager U.S. $1 million a year for the 

country’s disarmament program, and military-to-military ties were minimal. 

When the 2011 revolt began, U.S. leverage over the Libyan situation was practically nil. As a major exporter of high quality oil to Europe, and significant 

investor in countries like Italy, Libya also had a protective cushion against 

international economic sanctions. Yet, as noted below, Gaddafi’s ruthless 

approach to the uprising eventually led the U.S. and its NATO allies to act.

Secretary Clinton had sought to maximize the potential of new media 

technology in the development and practice of the civilian side of our foreign 

policy. In a foreign policy address to the Council on Foreign Relations on 15 

July 2009, she said, “We are working at the State Department to ensure that 

our government is using the most innovative technologies not only to speak 

and listen ... but to widen opportunities for those who are too often left on 

the margins.”161 Secretary Clinton brought along young entrepreneurs like 

Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation to the DOS, to launch the new technology-driven “21st century statecraft.”162 In early 2010, she announced the 

DOS “Internet Freedom” initiative, promising to make online freedoms part 

of the State Department’s 21st century statecraft. The Internet, she suggested, 

could be a powerful force in support of political freedom, and the United 

States “must put these tools in the hands of people around the world who 

will use them to advance democracy and human rights ... ”163 The difference 

between the 21st century statecraft and conventional diplomacy, she continued, was, “one of the things that we recognized since early in the Obama 

administration is that leveraging our digital networks, we can now engage 

government-to-people, people-to-people, and people-to-government.”164

A year later, in the midst of the revolutions in Egypt and Libya, the leaders 

of both countries responded to the freedom initiative by shutting down the 

Internet. Soon thereafter, in a second speech on Internet freedom at George 

Washington University, Secretary Clinton first downplayed its significance: 

“A debate is currently underway in some circles about whether the Internet 
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JSOU Report 13-3

is a force for liberation or repression ... I think that debate is largely beside 

the point.”165

Following the November 2010 WikiLeaks publication of classified DOS 

diplomatic cables, she acknowledged that there were limitations and that the 

Internet should not serve as a weapon of 21st century statecraft:

The Internet has become the public space of the 21st century – the 

world’s town square, classroom, marketplace, coffeehouse, and 

nightclub ... These spaces provide an open platform, and so does 

the Internet. It does not serve any particular agenda, and it never 

should.166

In addition to the need to protect classified information, there were at least 

two additional concerns: (1) that the new media could be used for political 

mobilization by atomized or networked individuals very effectively with 

minimal strategic or actionable foresight on the part of central governments; 

and (2) that foreign governments now have the capability to control the Internet and through it repress and harm people. At the same time, the Internet 

continues to be restrained in a myriad of ways. In China, the government 

censors content and redirects search requests to error pages. In Burma, independent news sites have been taken down with distributed denial of service 

attacks. In Cuba, the government is trying to create a national intranet, while 

not allowing citizens to access the global Internet. In Vietnam, bloggers who 

criticize the government are arrested and abused. In Iran, the authorities 

block opposition and media websites, target social media, and steal identifying information about their own people in order to hunt them down.167

Likewise, in Egypt and Libya the authoritarian leaders sought to use the new 

technologies as weapons of repression.

Something had happened to the “smart power” approach when confronted with a real world situation, for the new media tools were proving to 

be both a blessing and a curse. Why not turn to conventional diplomacy? 

While the U.S. had close relations with the Egyptian regime, it lacked direct 

access to Gaddafi. David Mack, a former senior U.S. diplomat who dealt 

with Libya, said, “As far as I know, President Obama has never even talked 

to Colonel Gaddafi.”168 Secretary Clinton tried a televised public appeal to 

Gaddafi—“Now is the time to stop this unacceptable bloodshed,” she said.169

Gaddafi disagreed with the timing, could not care less about what the U.S. 
33

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

found unacceptable, and did not stop the bloodshed. President Obama, who 

had made frequent public statements during the early days of the Mubarak 

overthrow, did not address the Libyan crisis for eight days. As civilian casualties mounted, Secretary Clinton became the public face of the USG on the 

Libyan crisis. The president’s delay in 

getting in front of the crisis was first 

explained as a scheduling conflict and 

later as a move to give American citizens and diplomatic personnel time to 

safely depart Libya. But some critics of 

the president found the explanations 

disingenuous claiming that the French, German, and British leaders had not 

only condemned Gaddafi’s actions while their citizens were still on Libyan 

territory, but that the Germans and the British had also sent special forces 

to retrieve hundreds of citizens from Libya. In his first speech on the Libyan 

crisis, President Obama said he was considering a “full range of options” and 

initiating multilateral conversations with European and African countries.170

The crisis was bringing to the fore the problem of identifying the conditions 

under which, and to what extent, military power should be employed.

Then Secretary Clinton again tried conventional diplomacy at the UN 

Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva by declaring, “It is time for Gaddafi to go—now, without further violence or delay.”171 Gaddafi dismissed the 

idea of ceding power.172 Since allowing the crisis to follow its own course was 

adjudged morally and politically unacceptable, the U.S. and its NATO allies 

turned to coercive options against Gaddafi and his followers. The options 

being considered ranged from freezing $30 billion in Gaddafi family assets 

as well as those of senior Libyan officials, banning weapons sales, asking 

the Saudis to supply weapons to the opposition, threatening prosecution 

for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court of Justice, 

to moving ships and aircraft to the Libyan coast, and establishing a no-fly 

zone over Libyan skies for a multilateral use of force with a coalition composed of European oil consuming countries and the African Union. Openly 

supporting al-Qaradawi’s fatwa was certainly out of the question but was 

not being discouraged. In other words, the U.S. appeared to be caught in a 

democratization trap, for no amount of text messaging, Tweeting, e-mailing, 

cell-phone calling, Facebook interacting, or any other sort of 21st century 

digital media tool could protect the Libyans from the bullets. Yet that very 

The crisis was bringing to the 

fore the problem of identifying 

the conditions under which, 

and to what extent, military 

power should be employed.
34

JSOU Report 13-3

set of tools had also kept them informed and helped coordinate these revolts 

and other previous protest movements like those in India (2009), South Korea 

(2008), and Chile (2006).

Secretary Clinton had originally supported a “no-fly zone” approach to 

the Libyan crisis but reconsidered following Secretary Gates warnings about 

it constituting an act of war. But the media soon reported that her position 

had shifted back after intense internal debate and pressure from National 

Security Council (NSC) senior directors Samantha Power and Gayle Smith, 

U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, and former DOS director of policy 

planning Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter.173 The “ghosts of Rwanda” appeared 

to haunt this group of former President Clinton officials. Rwanda was a 

tragedy that President Clinton has referred to as “the biggest regret of his 

presidency,”174 but in the Obama administration they were now in a position 

to overcome those regrets and influence events.

Intense diplomatic negotiations followed with UN Security Council members, the Arab League, and NATO allies, resulting in United Nations Security 

Council Resolution 1973 (2011), which approved a “no fly zone” over Libya 

and authorized UN Members under Chapter VII of the UN Chapter to use 

“all necessary measures” to protect civilians.175 On 19 March 2011, Operation 

Odyssey Dawn began against Gaddafi’s regime, confirming for some that 

democracies are more likely to fight wars against non-democracies than 

amongst themselves.176 It also marked a difference between Secretary Clinton 

and Secretary Gates over a strategic policy issue. In his 2009 Foreign Affairs 

article about a balanced strategy, Secretary Gates had explicitly asserted: 

The United States is the strongest and greatest nation on earth, but 

there are still limits on what it can do. The power and global reach 

of its military have been an indispensable contributor to world peace 

and must remain so. But not every outrage, every act of aggression, 

or every crisis can or should elicit a U.S. military response.177

The disparity in their approaches reflected fundamental differences not only 

over when to use force but whether the decision should be guided by valuebased interests or vital national interests. The core issue is that in any type 

of political system, whether democratic or non-democratic, “Vital interests 

are those which a nation deems to be essential, which it will not willingly 

forsake, and for which if necessary it will fight—diplomatically, politically 
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

and militarily.”178 When an interest is vital in nature it trumps lesser ones 

and leaders are also not willing to compromise.

In the case of Libya, however, President Obama was won over by the case 

presented by interventionists led by NSC senior aide Samantha Power179 and 

supported by Secretary Clinton, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and UN Ambassador 

Susan Rice, who lined up to push for the use of force to protect civilians as 

a “humanitarian value-interest.” This was in opposition to Secretary Gates, 

National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon, Counterterrorism Chief John 

O. Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who seeing 

no vital interest at stake and concerned about the preservation of national 

power, had urged caution.180 While the DOD leadership considered Libya as 

a non-vital, peripheral interest, the president’s decision elevated U.S. credibility in promoting democracy to the status of a vital national interest.181

The Larger Meaning of the Arab Spring and Operation 

Odyssey Dawn

The attributes of great leadership seem to be well-established, namely: vision, 

integrity, judgment, perseverance, courage, a hunger for innovation, and a 

willingness to take risks. In the business world, long inhabited by former 

military, there is one immutable attribute that is shared by great leaders—

contextual leadership.182 Contextual leaders possessed an acute sensitivity to 

the social, political, technological, and demographic contexts that defined 

their eras. Lawrence of Arabia considered temperament and judgment as the 

key to leadership.183 During the Arab crisis, the middle of the road approach 

between democracy promotion and resorting to regime change by force 

sent a mixed message. A critic pointedly asked, “How can the USG make 

promoting democracy its main priority without even mentioning the idea of 

vigorously promoting democracy in Iran or Syria or supporting the oppositions in those countries?184 An almost similar complaint had been raised 

by Senator Barak Obama in his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope when he 

wrote: “The United States still lacks a coherent national security policy ... 

Instead of guiding principles, we have what appears to be a series of ad hoc 

decisions, with dubious results. Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or 

Burma? Why intervene in Bosnia and not Darfur?”185

As noted, the decision to intervene also was intellectually influenced by 

the Center for a New American Security, where Anne-Marie Slaughter, Gayle 
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Smith, Susan Rice, and other Obama officials had previously collaborated in 

a project to prepare a strategic leadership framework, a roadmap for the next 

president.186 In the proposal, they recommended that despite the prevalent 

presumption that America must always be in charge, effective leadership is 

not always centered in Washington. At times, our interests are best served 

when others lead with us, or even take our place at the helm.187

This was clearly the policy approach adopted by President Obama toward 

Libya despite DOD’s denial that Libya was a vital or major U.S. interest. In 

the end, the president chose to hedge his bet by moving to enforce a no-fly 

zone over Libya while refusing to take the lead and committing the U.S. to 

play a supportive role in what became known as a “coalition of the leaderless.”188 Subsequently, Secretary Gates announced on 23 March that the 

United Sates would cede command of military operations to NATO and 

Germany, in disagreement, pulled forces out of the Libyan operation, sending the coalition into temporary disarray. The infighting did not involve the 

substantive issue of having U.S. troops serving under foreign command since 

U.S. Admiral James G. Stavridis was the NATO Supreme Allied Commander. 

The issue was that several European countries also believed that Libya had 

no relevance to their defense, that it did not involve a vital or major NATO 

interest.189

Michael Vlahos argues that while countries have entered wars to survive, a case can be made that “all of America’s wars are wars of choice.” As a 

result, he adds, “American wars must be sold to the public.”190 When making 

national security decisions of great importance, national leaders must recognize that the United States must act as a superpower by providing leadership, 

acting from a position of strength with clarity of 

vision. They must know that we have adversaries 

and cruel enemies who are searching for vulnerabilities, learning, and adapting their strategies, 

operations, and tactics as best suits them. On a 

global level, the Arab Spring is the battleground of a “world-spanning confrontation” against the international state system. In this confrontation three 

groups are engaged: the defenders, the seekers, and the enemies of the international system. The defenders are member states in good standing, such 

as the Gulf States, Israel, and Jordan. The seekers are states like Lebanon, 

Yemen, Egypt, and Iraq that are moving toward being members in good 

standing. The enemies are Libya, Syria, other oppressive regimes, and the 

American wars must 

be sold to the public.
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

non-state and anti-state actors like al-Qaeda set against the international 

state system itself.191 While the terror attacks of 9/11 triggered a military war 

of necessity in defense of the nation against al-Qaeda and its Taliban hosts, 

Operation Odyssey Dawn reflects a more hesitant American entry into the 

battleground.

Weaponization of the New Media and its Critics

The fusion of the neoconservative freedom agenda with new media “liberation technology” for international political action has been recently examined by political media experts.192 A participant in the “Internet Freedom” 

initiative warned about the perils of using Internet freedom as a weapon. 

Accordingly, the DOS was using an “instrumental” approach that concentrated on preventing states from censoring outside websites, such as Google 

or YouTube, and only secondarily on private or social uses of digital media. 

The instrumental approach was criticized for overestimating the value of 

broadcast media, access to information, and the importance of computers 

while underestimating the value of media that allows private communications, media tools for local coordination, and the importance of cell phones. 

Cell phones, in particular, were of great importance as conduits for coordination purposes and as a means of documenting real-time actions through 

video streaming.193

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) was created by Congress 

in 1984 to train military and civilian personnel and, according to General 

Petraeus, to assist in “developing stronger unity of effort between civilian 

and military elements of government.”194 The USIP reports that in the case 

of the 2009 Green Movement in Iran, “new media helped to link disparate 

groups and individuals in the absence of formal organization or effective 

leadership.”195 One powerful image from the Green Movement, the dissident movement triggered by fraudulent electoral results in Iran, was a video 

of a young female bystander, Neda Agha-Soltan, being shot dead during a 

demonstration in Teheran. The incident became a rallying cry as the video 

went viral on the Internet and was Tweeted around the globe.196 The Iranian government, however, cracked down on the dissidents by detaining, 

arresting, and even torturing an undisclosed number.197 It confirms that 

governments have become much more sophisticated and effective in using 

the new media for control and repression. New media as a political weapon 
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in the war of ideas is therefore a double-edged sword and a dangerous one 

that may be a matter of life and death for political dissidents and activists in 

authoritarian regimes. In contrast to the instrumental approach, therefore, 

Shirky proposed an “environmental” view of Internet freedom. Under such 

interpretation, USG efforts should be directed toward the goal of developing 

a strong civil society before seeking positive changes, such as pro-democratic 

regime change, because real world statecraft demands a long-term approach 

that goes beyond short-term digital tactics.198

Two years after the Iranian Green Movement, as the popular uprisings in 

Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and other North African and Middle 

Eastern countries broke out, use of the new media as a soft power weapon 

appeared to produce both good and bad effects. It was mainly because new 

media can be “an agent of democracy and peace” or can “just as easily be 

used to radicalize, exclude and enrage.”199 The new information technologies may provide both capacities and constraints on institutional change 

within political systems. In effect, government decision makers in developing 

countries are facing a growing dilemma—they need the new communications technologies in order to accelerate economic development, but these 

technologies are being used by their opponents to undermine the political 

structures. Evgeny Morozov, who labeled the new media advocates “Cyber 

Utopians,” convincingly argues that the use of the new media may strengthen 

rather than weaken repressive regimes. He criticizes adherents of the “Google 

doctrine,” who hold a “fervent conviction that given enough gadgets, connectivity and foreign funding, dictatorships are doomed.”200

New media experts Shirky and Morozov, who are frequently on the opposite side when it comes to democratization, agree that the U.S. had “not 

merely done a poor job of establishing digital freedoms elsewhere in the 

world, but may in fact have damaged that cause.”201 Two reasons are given 

for that poor performance:

Washington undermined its claims to leadership when it allowed 

commercial firms like Amazon and PayPal to cut off payments to 

WikiLeaks with less due process than is required to get a firm on 

the terrorist list. The United States was likewise hypocritical when 

it responded to the recent persecution of Tunisian Internet activists 

with relative silence, after having so vocally objected to the suppression of free speech in Iran over the past year.202
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Lack of systematic thinking about the nexus between politics, violence, and 

new media lay behind the conundrums faced by U.S. policymakers during 

the Arab Revolution of 2011.203 The “Internet Freedom” agenda was meant 

to be a long effort while media democracy activists, drunk on the elixir of 

instant messaging by Twitter and other media tools, believed that regime 

change is easy and can be done in a short time. They underestimated the 

difficult problem of aligning U.S. democratic values of free speech, association, and press with important national interests such as stability, alliance, 

and partnership maintenance in the Middle East.

Furthermore, the Cyber Utopian emphasis on the power of media tools to 

affect political change ignored the impact of deeper socioeconomic and political cleavages within Arab societies that influenced the nature and timing 

of the uprisings. Nikolas Gvosdev points out that in April 2008 a popular 

movement in support of textile workers began in Egypt using Facebook 

to attract 70,000 Egyptian Internet users as virtual supporters. However, 

the group merely engaged in online debates followed by no offline action. 

In February 2011, the same media tools were given credit for initiating the 

Mubarak overthrow. So, what had changed in the virtual world that could 

explain the different outcomes in the real world? According to Gvosdev, 

nothing had changed in the virtual world, but it was what had happened 

in the “real world” that mattered. In Egypt, as well as Libya and Yemen, 

“Aging leaders got older, while stagnant systems remained unchanged, and 

undesirable succession options loomed.”204

An information expert asserts that “no democratic transition has 

occurred solely because of the Internet. But ... no democratic transition can 

occur today without the Internet.”205 As others have shown, this argument 

glosses over the increasing ability of governments to shut down Internet 

access and interfere with other modes of communication. In those cases 

where the new media acted as a tool of popular mobilization and organization democratizing the “Netizens,” lacking a clear vision or at least a 

contingency plan about how to harness and guide the popular forces being 

unleashed on the streets of North Africa and the Middle East, some might 

feel a degree of responsibility for the lives lost, physical destruction, and 

population displacement. The same moral burden attaches when dissidents, 

like Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, Belarusian Oleg Bebenin, and 

Cuban Yoani Sanchez, are encouraged by foreign interlocutors to use social 

media as political tools only to be tracked, identified, arrested, imprisoned, 
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tortured, and sometimes executed by their governments. In China, new 

media dissenters must not only fear repression by the world’s largest security service, but must overcome cultural fear of chaos as well.206 Today’s 

“liberation technology” movement is fueled by enthusiasts of connection 

technologies who still bear the burden of proving that in the long run their 

actions have done more good than harm.

During the Arab uprisings, the administration seemingly got caught in 

a vice grip of lending support to long-standing allies or supporting popular 

movements linked through the new media tools. Demands by human rights 

activists and democratizers for continued support had generated furious 

lobbying by Arab governments, Israel, and domestic groups who chastised 

the U.S. for sending mixed messages and failing to provide leadership. The 

leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, composed of Bahrain, Kuwait, 

Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, for example, 

initially pressured the USG to use Bahrain as a model to follow in bringing about reform without regional destabilization. The so-called “Bahrain 

model” of dialoguing with the full society to effect reforms was intensely 

debated within the administration during the regional crisis. Admiral 

Mullen and Secretary Gates in the meantime reassured the Saudis and other 

Arab allies that the U.S. remained a friend and “would live up to its security 

commitments.”207

Bahrain, home to the U.S. 5th Fleet, which is responsible for securing 

the western Indian Ocean, was designated a major non-NATO ally in 2003 

and has been the recipient of an estimated $100 million annual payment for 

military hardware.208 By 27 February 2011, the administration appeared to 

be promoting “regime alteration” based on the so-called Bahrain reform 

model. It meant that, “Instead of pushing for immediate regime change—as 

it did to varying degrees in Egypt and Libya—the United States is urging 

protesters from Bahrain to Morocco to work with existing rulers.”209 The 

national “interest” of maintaining stability appeared to be gaining over the 

democratization “value.” The goal would be to prevent regional destabilization and “help keep longtime allies who are willing to reform in power, even 

if that meant the full democratic demands of their newly emboldened citizens might have to wait.”210 The plan was partly driven by growing concern 

about the strategic dislocations from a potential Saudi invasion of Bahrain to 

prevent a Shiite takeover there, followed by instability in the Saudi kingdom 

itself. Unfortunately, the Bahrain model soon collapsed after fresh protests by 
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the Shi’a majority led to the deployment of 1,200 Saudi and 800 United Arab 

Emirates troops in Bahrain over U.S. objections. The government opposition called the foreign troops’ presence “an undeclared war” and a “blatant 

occupation.”211

The Libyan civil war, the potential destabilization of Bahrain and Saudi 

Arabia, increasing repression in Syria, the possibility of a Yemeni government collapse with the attendant spread of al-Qaeda affiliates, and increased 

Iranian influence throughout the region were alarming U.S. policymakers. 

The ad hoc planning had sought to slow the pace of upheaval and prevent 

further violence by following a country-by-country approach to reform.212 

It appeared that “the new 

technologies have helped 

to mobilize the populations 

to action in ways that might 

not have occurred 20 years 

go. But in the end, the political rules of the game, which predate the Internet, will remain in force.”213 The political rules of the game dictated that in 

authoritarian countries, like Libya and Ba’athist Syria, authoritarian leaders like Bashar al-Assad would seek to remain in power through repressive 

military force.

The indisputable fact was that the unrest in North Africa and the Middle 

East was complicating the SOF mission to fight global terrorism as the terrorist groups gained greater operational freedom.214 As Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine 

Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak lost their power, the remaining authoritarian 

leaders redirected their efforts and resources toward coping with their own 

domestic upheaval. As a result, critical intelligence sharing came to a halt 

or slowed down as the U.S. tried to identify, contact, and establish working 

relationships with the new players.215 The relationship between the United 

States and friendly Arab countries came under great stress as the U.S. was 

seen siding with the popular uprisings rather than supporting its authoritarian allies. As democracy-seeking revolts began to turn into sectarian 

Shiite-Sunni violent confrontations, the leaders of the Arab countries went 

into survival mode focusing on their ability to stay in power, not on the 

U.S.-led fight against terror.

Long-standing defense and intelligence partnership arrangements to 

“swap intelligence, interrogate suspects, train commandos or carry out military strikes” had been established after 9/11 with many of these allies. But 

...the new technologies have helped to 

mobilize the populations to action in ways 

that might not have occurred 20 years go. 
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the popular uprisings had “knocked out some counterterrorism allies from 

power, and left others too distracted or politically vulnerable to risk open 

cooperation with the United States.”216 For example, former Guantanamo 

detainees who had been released to their homes went missing because intelligence and security partnerships were disrupted.217 In Tunisia and Egypt, 

security agencies that cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 

were disbanded; in Libya, as the United States sought Gaddafi’s ouster those 

relationships were severed; and those with Yemen weakened as the government fought for its own survival. U.S. CT officials remained very concerned 

and alarmed as the murky situation exposed vulnerabilities in their system. 

In Yemen, for instance, President Saleh was so preoccupied with the popular 

unrest and his own survival that “he no longer uses all of his U.S.-trained 

counterterrorism forces against al Qaeda (sic)” even though the latter was 

seeking to overthrow the government by using the popular movements as 

cover for their activities.218

On 26 April, after three months of street confrontations, Saleh and opposition groups appeared to have reached an agreement, brokered by the Gulf 

Cooperation Council and supported by the U.S. and the EU, under which 

he would cede power to his vice president within 30 days in exchange for 

immunity from prosecution. General elections would be held 60 days after 

the transition of power.219

Fighting Extremists with the New Media

The new media is now a weapon in the CT toolkit. The role of the Internet, particularly blogs, as useful information operations weapons has been 

reviewed by Kinniburgh and Dennin, and it is not within our general purview.220 Recent media disclosures, however, have exposed how cyber warriors 

exploit the new media for proactive CT work, and this merits some attention. 

Cyber Jihadists have relied on the Internet and the new social network-based 

media to radicalize and recruit new members, provide training materials and 

information, disseminate propaganda, and organize operations. According 

to the New York Police Department, the Internet has shortened the “radicalization lifecycle” of homegrown terrorists from months to weeks if not 

days.221 In addition to the use of Internet websites, television, radio, films, 

and other familiar instruments of communication to conduct the “war of 

ideas” or ideological war, the extremists have been manipulating social media 
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sites. A recent report notes that the Salafi movement recently published the 

second edition of Inspire magazine as an Adobe Acrobat file with password 

security, entitled “Open Source Jihad.” It is presented as a resource manual 

for Muslim jihadists to train in bomb-making, guerrilla tactics, weapons 

training, and all jihadist-related activities at home without the risk of foreign travel.222 A recently disclosed U.S. classified operation seeks to develop 

software that allows the use of fake online identities or “sock puppets” to 

influence Internet conversations and spread strategic communications.223

According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Navy Commander Bill Speaks, “The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign language websites to enable CENTCOM to counter violent 

extremist and enemy propaganda outside the U.S.”224 When completed, the 

software would allow the U.S. to “respond to emerging online conversations 

with any number of coordinated messages, blogposts, chatroom posts and 

other interventions.”225 According to the statement, the original operation 

had been revealed in 2010 during oversight testimony by General Petraeus, 

then commander of CENTCOM, before the U.S. Senate Armed Services 

Committee. It was part of a vital CT and counter-radicalization program 

called Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), a psychological operations program 

to counter the al-Qaeda online narrative presence.226 In testimony before 

the Senate committee, General James Mattis, then CENTCOM commander, 

further explained that OEV sought “to disrupt recruitment and training of 

suicide bombers; deny safe havens for our adversaries; and counter extremist 

ideology.”227 What remains undisclosed is what metrics are used to establish 

success or failure in these operations. As the existence of this type of sensitive 

technology and its intended uses go viral, it will amount to an invitation to 

our adversaries and rivals to engage in similar uses, and/or adopt countermeasures, with unknown future consequences for us and the world at large.

The Critique of Soft/Smart Power

It is easier to criticize than to govern. The debate over smart/soft power 

phraseology masks the fact that despite ideological differences on domestic 

issues there is significant continuity among the Clinton, Bush ’43, and Obama 

administrations in the conduct of foreign policy. Despite the rhetoric, all 

three presidents are heirs of Wilsonianism, for they have been trying to make 

the world safe for democracy—by force, by persuasion, or by Tweet. In other 
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words, there is no clear distinction between soft and smart power, and both 

parties and administrations have employed it.228 Indeed, Nye himself clarified that the difference between the two is one of degree since the forms of 

behavior ranged along a continuum.229

As previously noted, the Kroenig study used three case studies to highlight the lack of empirical support behind the soft power theory.230 A systematic study by Schnaubelt criticizes soft power because it means different 

things to different people; it fails to meet the criteria for assessing a theory’s 

quality; and because when empirically tested against a hypothesized ability 

of newly elected President Obama to use his popularity to obtain more troop 

support from our NATO allies, it failed the test.231 A broader realist critique by Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, 

asserts that the five components of the soft power paradigm—ideas, values, 

culture, leadership, and persuasion—can foster or harm the application of 

power but do not represent power in the international realm.232

Accordingly, ideals tend to conflict with responsibilities and interests. 

Why didn’t the Clinton administration’s commitment to human rights and 

democratization translate into an international effort to prevent the Rwandan genocide? During his 25 March 1998 visit to Rwanda, the former president issued what is known as the “Clinton apology” for not acting quickly. 

But as Samantha Power has documented, the United States in fact did virtually nothing “to try to limit what occurred.” Indeed, she points out that 

staying out of Rwanda was an explicit U.S. policy objective because “most 

U.S. officials opposed to American involvement in Rwanda were firmly convinced that they were doing all they could—and, most important, all they 

should—in light of competing American interests.”233

Values, it is argued, “don’t travel well and are therefore difficult for governments to translate into power.” Since America does not possess a national 

consensus on values, “Whose values are to be exported ... ?” Furthermore, 

Americans “differ wildly among themselves about whether and how to foster 

these values abroad.”234 Even on fundamental values—e.g. individual freedom, 

democracy, rule of law, tolerance—there 

are vast differences among the American public. These differences have become more pronounced as the general 

population has grown more ethnically and racially diverse.235 

Since America does not possess a national consensus on 

values, “Whose values are to 

be exported...?”
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The argument that culture is a source and a means of exercising power 

seems far-fetched since the USG “does not wield music and movies” and 

many in this country and around the world do not even share the same views 

on multiculturalism and tolerance.236 Moreover, as Colin Gray notes, “culture, and indeed civilization itself, are dynamic, not static phenomena.”237 For 

instance, since the 1980s, the Kennedy administration late historian Arthur 

M. Schlesinger had warned about the dangers of multiculturalism and its 

contribution to the disuniting of America.238 In Europe, uncontrolled immigration, failure to assimilate minorities, and fears of homegrown extremism 

recently led the leaders of Germany, Great Britain, and France, to openly 

reject multiculturalism as a failed concept.239 Europe cannot tolerate as much 

diversity as the vaster United States, and because it also has a greater population density the rules must be different. The situation is more difficult when 

the attempts to extend the national culture to the immigrant populations is 

resisted and rejected. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s rejection of 

“state multiculturalism” and call for a “muscular liberalism” summarized 

the conundrum facing Europeans. The failure of Europeans in Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, for instance, to stand up for their own traditional values 

and national identity has led to the rise of opposing nationalistic right-wing 

and Islamist populist movements.240

As far as leadership is concerned, it can be inspirational and a popular 

president like Franklin D. Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan can produce power 

abroad.241 One aspect of then Senator Barack Obama’s successful campaign 

for president was raising expectations among his supporters that his personal narrative as the first biracial African-American president and personal 

charisma would translate into attractive soft power. It is too early to pass 

judgment on his presidency, but there are limits to charisma; as Gelb puts it, 

“Why should foreign leaders be swept off their feet by American presidents’ 

charisma any more than American presidents are carried away by the charm 

of foreign leaders?”242 Moreover, as the examples of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 

Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, 

Fidel Castro, and Mao Zedong demonstrate, charisma can be a strong force 

for both good and evil.243

Some have suggested that soft power appears to be a less useful tool of 

policy than popularly supposed, and the relationship between hard and soft 

power appears to be “mutually enabling” in the sense that “soft power flows 

to the owner of hard power.”244
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Defense, diplomacy, and development (the 3Ds) are means to the ends 

of statecraft as well as “channels by which governments press their agendas 

onto others.”245 They should not be confused with statecraft itself, which is 

about “managing reality, coupling ends and means in ways that advance a 

country’s interests.”246 It is the connection between ends and means that 

determines the character, extent, and manner of actions—whether coercive 

or persuasive—since they are complementary.
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3. American Power Constraints

The Quadrennial Defense Reviews

The Congress mandates the DOD to conduct a comprehensive examination of the national defense strategy, force structure, force modernization plans, infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of the defense 

program and policies of the United States every four years. There have been 

four Quadrennial Defense Reviews (QDRs) with the 2010 QDR being the 

second during wartime.247 The 2010 QDR was released amidst the country’s greatest recession that has undermined the economic security of many 

Americans and exposed the limits of the existing American social contract. 

The widespread hardship caused by double digit unemployment, job losses, 

stagnant wages, increasing health costs, and rising home foreclosures made 

it urgently necessary to establish domestic policies to create jobs and restore 

a sense of economic security. It was estimated that unless drastic economic 

measures were taken, by FY 2020 the federal debt would be near $26 trillion, 

or the equivalent of 100 percent of GDP.248 Defense spending is a target for 

reductions despite having grown at a lower rate than domestic spending in 

the last decade.249

QDRs are meant to be the DOD’s most important planning documents 

but have been criticized for having historical failings250 or for “utterly failing 

to do what it was intended to do.”251 The 2010 QDR, in particular, has been 

criticized by defense experts who believe that it is a “QDR for all seasons” 

that suffers from severe strategic limitations because it is not preparing the 

military to fight the most likely wars and conflicts of the future. In fact, it 

spent more time on “green energy” and fuel efficiency than on terrorism. 

252 Secretary Gates in his important January/February 2009 Foreign Affairs 

article sought to strike a balance in three areas:

Between trying to prevail in current conflicts and preparing for 

other contingencies, between institutionalizing capabilities such as 

counterinsurgency and foreign military assistance and maintaining 

the United States’ existing conventional and strategic technological 

edge ... and between retaining those cultural traits that have made 

the U.S. armed forces successful and shedding those that hamper 

their ability to do what needs to be done.253
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An analysis comparing the 2010 QDR with the three strategic balancing principles articulated by Secretary Gates argued that the 2010 QDR was “meant 

to translate Secretary Gates’s vision into capabilities and to “re-balance” 

the DOD “to address today’s conflicts and tomorrow’s threats.”254 But it was 

“unclear whether the United States has struck the right balance between winning today’s wars and preparing for future conflicts, between manpower and 

technology, and between what DOD will do and what the rest of the national 

security community will do to meet current and future challenges.”255

After reviewing the QDR, the bipartisan Independent Quadrennial 

Defense Review Panel, jointly appointed by Congress and the Secretary of 

Defense and led in 2010 by former Defense Secretary William Perry and 

former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, reported that current 

trends must be reversed because our military situation looks like a forthcoming “train wreck.”256 The reason for the harsh criticism is that the QDRs 

were intended to be long-term, comprehensive planning instruments that 

challenged existing thinking and examined long-term risks, capabilities, and 

resources to develop those capabilities. Instead, they became “explanations 

and justifications ... of established decisions and plans.”257

In mitigation, they remind us that the “latest QDR is a wartime QDR, 

prepared by a Department that is focused—understandably and appropriately—on responding to the threats America now faces and winning the 

wars in which America is now engaged.”258 There remains an urgent need to 

balance the short-term and long-term perspectives by addressing beyondthe-horizon threats, risks, and capabilities together with the short-term, 

ongoing wartime focus. The independent review panel felt that there will be 

an increased demand for U.S. hard power and increased need for the “various 

tools of smart power,” but an element of confusion is that for them, “diplomacy, engagement, trade, targeted communications about American ideals 

and intentions, development of grassroots political and economic institutions” are the tools of smart power, leaving one to wonder what became of 

soft power.259

An additional issue is raised by those who argue that emphasis on discrete 

military operations, or the use of just enough military force, to deal with a 

conflict by minimizing military and civilian casualties has led to more failures than successes. A recent study of 36 U.S. operations over the last two 

decades indicates that they achieved over half of their military objectives 

and less than 6 percent of their political objectives.260 In the case of Iraq, 
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for example, concerns still exist regarding the ability of the Iraqi government to secure the country and maintain its integrity after U.S. combat 

troops departed. Under the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement signed 

by the Iraqi Presidency Council on 4 December 2008, U.S. combat forces 

had to withdraw from Iraqi cities by 30 June 2009, and all U.S. forces had 

to be completely out of Iraq by 31 December 2011.261 As the DOD reduced 

its footprint in Iraq, the DOS ramped up to assume responsibility for a host 

of tasks previously discharged by the military. Budgetary constraints and 

lack of capacity constitute a serious challenge for DOS and U.S. Agency for 

International Development (USAID) as it is estimated that for each officer 

deployed there was a need for 16 private contractors.262

In his Foreign Affairs article, former Defense Secretary Gates, a Russian 

expert by training, did not write a “Mr. X” Kennan kind of article examining 

the nature of the enemy. Instead, its general purpose was to explain the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy and the reprogramming of the Pentagon. 

While crisscrossing the country to further elaborate on the strategy and its 

implementation, Secretary Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mullen sought to explain the rationale behind their proposed wartime 

reduction of the force and to define the proper use of the military by stressing the need to give soft power a chance to work in the war against radical 

extremists.263 Former USSOCOM Commander Admiral Eric Olson, for his 

part, addressed the necessity for a balanced approach to irregular warfare 

and also emphasized that “pure military skill is not enough.”264

If this concern about bureaucratic restructuring, military spending, 

policy, and strategy sounds familiar, it is because it harks back to the 1940s 

and 1950s debates in which Paul H. Nitze and George F. Kennan participated 

at the genesis of containment. On 8 April 2011, for example, Navy Captain 

Wayne Porter and Colonel Mark Myckleby, two active duty senior members 

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acting in a “personal capacity” consistent with the 

public positions of Gates and Mullen, issued a report entitled “A National 

Strategic Narrative.” Published under the pseudonym of “Mr. Y” as a takeoff 

on George Kennan’s 1946 “Mr. X” article, it sought to present a smart-power 

grand strategy.265 Like the earlier debate about containment, the report’s 

narrative revolves around issues of setting priorities, properly understanding and responding to the global and regional security environment, the 

U.S. domestic situation, nature of the enemy, reaching proper capacity, and 

balancing resources.
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Civil-Military Relations and Setting National Priorities: 

General McChrystal’s Departure

For some time now, civil-military relations have been a subject of debate 

among experts and academics. Democratic theorists agree on the fundamental principle of military subordination to civilian rule. Part of democratic 

governance of national security is “controlling the sword.”266 Likewise, it is 

commonly agreed that the civilian leaders should rely on military expertise 

and experience to make informed strategic and operational decisions particularly in times of conflict and during wartime.267

There are two theoretical camps in this area of study—professional 

supremacists and civilian supremacists. Professional supremacists, like 

Samuel Huntington, argue that “the primary problem for civil-military 

relations in wartime is ensuring the military an adequate voice and keeping civilians from micromanaging and mismanaging matters.”268 Civilian 

supremacists, on the other hand, argue that “the primary problem is ensuring 

that well-informed civilian strategic guidance is authoritatively directing key 

decisions, even when the military disagrees with that direction.”269 Balancing 

civil-military priorities is one aspect of the debates on grand strategy and 

statecraft as illustrated by the case of General Stanley McChrystal’s resignation and retirement under pressure and its aftermath.

On 23 July 2010, at the retirement ceremony of General McChrystal, fourstar former commander of U.S. and International Security Assistance Forces 

(ISAF) in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Gates heaped praise on him “as 

one of America’s greatest warriors,” a consummate Ranger who “possessed 

one of the sharpest and most inquisitive minds in the Army.”270 Gates did not 

hold back his admiration and appreciation for the retiring officer’s career:

Over the past decade, no single American has inflicted more fear and 

more loss of life on our country’s most vicious and violent enemies 

than Stan McChrystal ... Commanding Special Operation Forces 

in Afghanistan and Iraq, Stan was a pioneer in creating a revolution 

in warfare that fused intelligence and operations.271

Yet, a month earlier, President Obama accepted General McChrystal’s resignation and replaced him with his superior at CENTCOM General Petraeus, 

who accepted the demotion in position. McChrystal was not forced into 
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retirement due to policy or strategic differences or poor performance. The 

cause was due to derogatory comments attributed to him and his staff 

about the president and civilian counterparts in Afghanistan, ambassadors 

Richard C. Holbrooke and Karl W. Eikenberry, considered by some to be 

insubordination.272

McChrystal was the second commander in charge of the Afghanistan 

campaign to depart the job since Obama won the 2008 presidential election. 

General David McKiernan had been relieved by the president on 12 May 

2009, and replaced by McChrystal at the request of Defense Secretary Gates 

and then Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Admiral Mullen allegedly because 

McKiernan was too conventional, and new thinking and approaches were 

needed in Afghanistan.273 McChrystal was credited with the death of Abu 

Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and represented the desired 

new unconventional thinking. President Obama could have chosen to censure or issue a gag order to McChrystal, just like President Truman had 

originally done with General McArthur, but having General Petraeus at hand 

as an alternate field commander made it both politically and strategically 

easier for him to allow the general to resign.274

In the United States, the doctrine of civilian control over the military is 

an established constitutional process by which the professional military is 

subordinate and responsible to the authority of the elected civilian political 

leadership.275 The media and the general public rightly focused their attention 

during the McChrystal situation on the American constitutional principle of 

civilian control over the military under Article 2 Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, on the career-ending actions of McChrystal and his lieutenants, 

as well as on the issues associated with the practice of embedding reporters 

with the troops. The need for proper handling of the media by the military 

was emphasized by a subsequent order, issued in an unclassified memo on 

“Interaction with the Media,” by Defense Secretary Gates, establishing that 

military officials will need Pentagon clearance for interviews and other dealings with reporters. The order had been in the works before the McChrystal 

situation, but its issuance was accelerated by the Pentagon’s unhappiness 

with the content of the Rolling Stone interview and its lack of advanced 

knowledge. The memo requiring top DOD officials to tell Assistant Defense 

Secretary Douglas Wilson’s office before interviews “or any other means of 

media and public engagement with possible national or international implications,” was soon leaked to The New York Times and its contents confirmed 
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by Douglas Wilson and press secretary Geoff Morrell.276 The main debate at 

home was over whether the prevailing “population centric” COIN strategy 

advocated by both Petraeus and McChrystal was the right approach to the 

war in Afghanistan. As previously noted, in Afghanistan COIN operates on 

the belief that if the counterinsurgents are able to provide security, development aid, and links between the Afghans and their central government, the 

insurgents will be denied support.

The restrictive (rules of engagement) were put in place because of 

modern COIN doctrine’s central tenet: The way to succeed is to win 

over the population. Because the ‘people are the prize,’ the theory 

goes, they must not be unduly offended or harmed. This fundamental 

imperative is intended to drive all other aspects of the campaign 

... Despite the increasingly restrictive ROEs (rules of engagement), 

there were reports that civilian deaths actually increased in 2010 

and June and July 2010 were the deadliest months for US forces in 

the nine-year war.277

The subsequent drop in coalition-caused civilian casualties showed that 

they in fact stemmed from increased restrictions on airstrikes and the use 

of heavy weapons, while the actual increase in civilian deaths was due to the 

Taliban using larger explosives and resorting in much greater numbers to 

assassinations, including public killings of women and children.278 According to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, in the first six months of 

2010, 1,271 civilians were killed and 1,997 were wounded. The single biggest 

cause of the increase in civilian casualties was insurgent bombings, including both suicide bombings and homemade bombs, which the military calls 

improvised explosive devices. Together they caused 557 deaths.279

The controversy over population-centric COIN in Afghanistan versus 

a target-centered CT approach in Afghanistan reflected the internal policy 

debates among the American foreign policy elites and a general dissatisfaction among the informed public over the apparent lack of an exit strategy. 

One critic points that “the real story should not be the change in personnel 

but the continuation of a failed policy.”280 An associated critique came from 

those who believed that the United States and its allies were taking a onesize-fits-all approach against terrorism and that in Yemen and Somalia, for 

instance, both the CT and COIN strategies had fueled radicalism and turned 

wide swathes of the population against the West.281
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The Afghanistan debate was also indicative of the problems generated 

by divergences between events on the ground and conceptualizations. The 

COIN approach, lest one forgets, is not a grand strategy at all but rather a 

subset of our national security strategy. As applied during the Iraqi “surge,” 

it is the patient tactical implementation of an operational “clear, hold, and 

build” approach dependent on having “more boots on the ground” and combining fighting the enemy (kinetic operations) with winning the people’s 

“hearts and minds,” building civil institutions while providing civilians with 

the development aid and security needed to carry on with their daily lives. 

To some realists, however, it seemed that from the beginning U.S. forces 

were fighting terrorists less and nation-building more.282 As discussed in the 

next section, there is a still ongoing controversy over the real role of the Iraqi 

surge.283 Nonetheless, the “surge” established General Petraeus’s reputation 

and convinced his supporters, collectively known as the “COINistas,” that 

a similar approach would also work in the neglected Afghanistan theater 

of operations.

The Military-Civilian Debate over Counterinsurgency and 

Counterterrorism

General David H. Petraeus, a soldier-scholar with significant combat experience, a doctorate from Princeton, and recognition as a “Top Global Thinker 

of 2010” by Foreign Policy magazine, had been put in charge of the Army 

Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas from late 2005 through 

February 2007 following a second tour of duty in Iraq. It was in that capacity, 

and with the cooperation of Marine Lieutenant General James Mattis, who 

became his replacement as commander of CENTCOM, and retired Army 

Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Crane, that he had gathered a team of experts 

including Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl and Lieutenant Colonel David 

Kilcullen. Relying heavily on David Galula’s Algerian experience, the team 

helped produce the 2006 U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field 

Manual, FM 3-24.284 Released in December 2006, FM 3-24 is the official doctrine for U.S. COIN operations and the first field manual ever to be reviewed 

by The New York Times becoming a national bestseller. The manual specified 

that COIN is those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, 

and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency.285
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In 2007, with the level of violence increasing the Bush administration 

faced a tough decision in Iraq, but General Petraeus convinced the administration that a COIN approach with a “surge” in troops could lead to success. Two goals were being sought—one military and the other political. The 

military goal was to reduce the unabated violence by increasing force levels, 

creating tactical alliances with Sunni groups, using COIN tactics against 

insurgents, and focusing on protecting the population. The political goal was 

to promote and bring about national reconciliation so Iraq would become a 

stable ally in the war against extremism.286 Whether the surge had actually 

worked in Iraq to stop the violence remains a subject of heated debate since it 

was the basis for the surge strategy in Afghanistan. Among defense analysts 

there are those who believe that the Iraqi surge accomplished the first goal,287

while others are skeptical about whether the surge itself was responsible 

for the decline in violence,288 or about its permanence.289 A majority agrees 

with the conclusion that the second and most important political goal has 

not been achieved.290

Similarly, not everyone within the military establishment shared a commitment toward institutionalizing COIN as a global strategy based on the 

Iraq or Afghanistan experience. Secretary Gates noted that “The United 

States is unlikely to repeat another Iraq or Afghanistan—that is, forced 

regime change followed by nation building under fire—anytime soon.”291

Colonel Gian Gentile, an active duty Army colonel who teaches at West 

Point and is one of the harshest critics of COIN-oriented nation building, 

believes that the “COINistas” suffer from a form of group-think.292 On 8 

April 2011, an oversight review by the Inspector General of the Defense 

Department disagreed with the conclusions of the U.S. Army Inspector 

General Agency investigation of the Rolling Stone case and found no proof 

of wrongdoing by General McChrystal and his military aides and civilian advisers.293 McChrystal has described the adaptations and innovations 

adopted after he took command of COIN operations in Iraq. He summarizes them in the phrase, “it takes a network.”294 Accordingly, when he first 

assumed command of a U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF) 

in October 2003, a review of the enemy and our military forces revealed that 

“we initially saw our enemy as we viewed ourselves.”295 His planners had 

begun to map the enemy, al-Qaeda in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 

using the model of a traditional hierarchical military structure. But they 

realized that the model did not fit because the enemy was a decentralized, 
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

flat organization. As he put it, “Over time, it became increasingly clear ... 

that our enemy was a constellation of fighters organized not by rank but on 

the basis of relationships and acquaintances, reputation and fame ... the 

network is self-forming.”296 What to do? According to General McChrystal, 

an insight came during a visit to a Special Forces team in Mosul while the 

city was under the command of then Major General David Petraeus.

During the visit he drew an hourglass on a yellow legal pad. The 

top half of the hourglass represented the team in Mosul; the other 

represented our task force [headquarters]. They met at just one 

narrow point. At the top, our team in Mosul was accumulating 

knowledge and experience, yet lacked both the bandwidth and 

intelligence manpower to transmit, receive or digest enough information either to effectively inform, or benefit from, its more robust 

task force headquarters ... The sketch from that evening—early in a 

war against an enemy that would only grow more complex, capable 

and vicious—was the first step in what became one of the central 

missions in our effort: building the network. What was hazy then 

soon became our mantra: It takes a network to defeat a network.297

In other words, based on a SOF unit’s operational experience in the battlefield, General McChrystal and his headquarters drew up a new top-down 

interagency organizational model to fight the enemy. The challenge was to 

transform a traditional pyramidal military structure “into a flexible, empowered network.”298 The special operations forward team of 15 men supported 

by a single intelligence analyst that McChrystal visited in Mosul was, like 

all the rest distributed throughout Iraq, weakly connected to headquarters; 

it had “limited bandwidth.”299

The first adaptation was to create a network by fusing analysts and operators from multiple units and agencies and their institutional cultures by 

placing them side by side in order to accelerate how intelligence traveled 

between headquarters and the forward teams. But this was linear thinking 

and only resulted in the creation of a partial network. This second insight 

led to another adaptation to build “a true network by connecting everyone who had a role—no matter how small or geographically dispersed, or 

organizationally diverse they might have been—into a successful COIN 

operation. We called it, in our shorthand, F3EA: find, fix, finish, exploit, 
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and analyze.”300 Eventually, the “network to defeat a network” model sped 

up the cycle of COIN operations by combining those who found the enemy 

and those who fixed the target, with the combat teams who finished the 

target by capturing or killing him, specialists who exploited the intelligence 

yielded by the raid, and the intelligence analysts who turned the raw data 

into usable knowledge.301 The resulting collaborative warfare by high value 

target teams of military personnel working with diverse intelligence organizations and interagency cross-functional teams were the so-called “secret 

weapon” described by Bob Woodward.302

The Rand Corporation’s John Arquilla had earlier suggested that only a 

networked military could defeat terrorist networks. For him, terrorist cells 

could share precise information on a need-to-know basis without a hierarchical structure, thus providing them with the ability to disperse and then 

“swarm” as in the 9/11 attacks.303 The new organizational model was tactically 

successful but had no great strategic impact until it was combined with a corresponding conventional forces bottom-up experimentation with interagency 

teamwork. Innovative field commanders like Task Force Freedom in Mosul 

(2004-05) under Major General David M. Rodriguez and Colonel Robert 

Brown; the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar (2004) under Colonel 

H.R. McMaster; and the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division in 

Anbar Province (2006) under Colonel Sean MacFarland began to integrate 

interagency high value targeting with COIN principles.304 General Petraeus 

and Ambassador Chester Crockett even collocated themselves in order to 

operate as an interagency high-level command team, and when they “used 

collaborative warfare more broadly in pursuit of a consistent counterinsurgency strategy, the situation in Iraq turned around dramatically.”305

In Afghanistan, General McChrystal was given extraordinary leeway 

in handpicking his corps of subordinates, who were committed to rotate 

between the United States and Afghanistan for a minimum of three years, 

and had sought to focus on COIN techniques. His plan was to replicate the 

Iraq innovations combining the interagency network-centric approach and 

“fighting like the Taliban” while conducting COIN operations.306 The press 

published unconfirmed reports that in the Afghan/Pakistan battle space, 

USSOCOM had been operating drones and conducted “snatch and grab” 

and other sensitive operations against high value targets.307 Nighttime raids 

had led to complaints about civilian casualties and seemed to be interfering 

with the COIN attempt to protect and win over the population. Following 
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an unfortunate operation in the village of Kathaba on 11 February 2010 that 

led to civilian deaths, McChrystal moved to “direct the realignment of all 

SOF” to his command.308

In December 2009, despite some criticism from war opponents and following a lengthy debate within the administration, President Obama announced 

his decision to partially meet General McChrystal’s request for 40,000 more 

troops to surge in Afghanistan by sending 30,000 additional troops. However, the president was also committed to establishing a withdrawal timeline 

and established the start date for that withdrawal for July 2011. Subsequently, 

timetables would be set for transfer of responsibilities to the Afghans and the 

total withdrawal of U.S. forces. COIN is by definition a long-term human and 

material capital-intensive approach to asymmetric warfare, and its essence is 

patience. It requires a whole-of-government approach in which civilian, military, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) work in a collaborative 

manner. The Obama administration’s announcement to initially surge but 

subsequently withdraw American fighting forces from Afghanistan starting 

in July 2011 raised the possibility of a weakened COIN approach. Domestic 

politics associated with the midterm election were obviously playing a role as 

the climbing casualty rate weakened public support; and with the 

country in the midst of its worst 

recession ever, here was also talk 

of reducing military expenditures. 

More importantly, the timetable 

was criticized for giving the enemy an incentive to wait out the United States 

and a disincentive to our allies to continue fighting.309 In fact, on 31 July 2010, 

the Netherlands was the first NATO ally to withdraw from Afghanistan, thus 

setting the stage for other allied countries to begin their own departures.

Vice President Biden’s Intervention and Counterterrorism

During the 2009 internal policy debate on Afghanistan-Pakistan Vice President Joe Biden, skeptical of a purely COIN/hearts and minds approach succeeding in Afghanistan, had publicly opposed the Petraeus/McChrystal 

strategy and advocated for a CIA-led CT approach. Counterterrorism is 

defined as “operations that include the offensive measures taken to prevent, 

deter, preempt, and respond to terrorism.”310 Biden supported a Pakistan-first 

COIN is by definition a long-term 

human and material capital-intensive 

approach to asymmetric warfare and 

its essence is patience. 
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JSOU Report 13-3

approach with a small footprint in both countries, special operations decapitation raids against high value targets, strikes with unmanned aerial systems 

(e.g. Predator drones), while avoiding nation-building activities. As he put 

it, “We are in Afghanistan for one express purpose: Al-Qaeda ... Al-Qaeda 

exists in those mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We are not 

there to nation-build. We’re not out there deciding we’re going to turn this 

into a Jeffersonian democracy and build that country.”311 Biden preferred 

conducting effects-based intelligence operations by the CIA and special 

mission units because there was some empirical evidence that leadership 

decapitation can help to achieve military and political goals.312 The military 

leadership persevered by combining the successful CT interagency high value 

targeting and COIN into a hybrid approach. 

As the COIN campaigns in Marja and Kandahar seemed stalemated by 

the end of summer 2010, Biden’s view seemed to regain attention within 

the administration as the media reported that the CIA continued to create 

havoc among the enemy by successfully killing terrorist leaders with drone 

attacks. According to The New York Times, the administration’s apparent 

shift in thinking was allegedly reflected in the public remarks of various 

officials such as incoming commander General James N. Mattis, an advocate 

of hybrid warfare and supporter of FM 3-24, who when asked whether the 

July 2011 drawdown date implied a shift from COIN to CT confirmed it by 

plainly answering, “I think that is the approach, Senator.”313

CT operations seek to provide a secure environment for governance and 

development. General Petraeus was well aware of the connection and on 1 

August 2010 issued a 24-point guidance entitled “COMISAF’s Counterinsurgency Guidance” for the service members and civilians of NATO ISAF and 

U.S. Forces-Afghanistan.”314 It built upon McChrystal’s guidance of November 2009, reinforcing the combined COIN/CT approach while emphasizing 

the need to “help confront the culture of impunity, identify corrupt officials, 

and be a good guest.”315 In addition, both publicly and privately Petraeus lobbied against the reduction in the number of troops. As reported in The New 

York Times, while the president’s party was pressing for a substantial troop 

withdrawal, the military leadership asked for more time and flexibility to 

make the full civil-military COIN campaign succeed.316
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When to withdraw from Afghanistan?

The controversy over seemingly conflicting timetables was derived from 

the “two-year rule” presented by Secretary Gates during the review of the 

Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy. As reported, Gates had argued that “in any 

particular location you should be able to ‘clear, build, hold and transfer’ to 

the Afghan forces within two years” once troops were in place. The two-year 

clock is said to have initially started in June 2009 when 20,000 additional 

troops arrived in Afghanistan. However, since U.S. Special Forces operations in the Marja and Kandahar areas had begun later, for them the clock 

would not stop until 2012.317 Unforeseeable events intervened, however, that 

rendered that timetable malleable. First, the 23 June resignation of General 

McChrystal and his replacement by General Petraeus as commander of the 

NATO-led ISAF introduced a new dynamic. General Petraeus, a bright, 

articulate, and politically astute officer with a reputation as a savvy bureaucratic infighter, by accepting the demotion from head of CENTCOM would 

now see his own Petraeus Doctrine be put to the test in Afghanistan under 

very difficult conditions. He therefore had a tremendous incentive to succeed, 

but in order to accomplish it he first had to find a way around the July 2011 

deadline to start withdrawing troops.

Second, the results of the November 2010 midterm elections provided 

the U.S. military with the political opening as President Obama headed to 

Europe for a NATO meeting. At the two-day NATO summit in Lisbon 19-20 

November, the war-weary NATO allies accepted General Petraeus’s plan 

for a troop drawdown starting in July 2011 with the gradual withdrawal of 

combat troops ending in 2014. The U.S. and its NATO allies adopted a “clear, 

hold, and hand over” common goal of transferring the lead in the battle 

against the Taliban to local forces by 2014 and retaining a military presence 

in the country beyond that date.318 So it has become a race against the clock. 

Third, Afghan leaders also balked at the idea of a quick withdrawal in July 

2011 for fear that it might start a civil war and allow the Taliban to regain 

control.319 The fragility of the Afghanistan mission after a decade is related 

to a number of factors such as: a resilient Taliban able to operate and recruit 

among ethnic Pashtuns who are convinced that foreign forces will soon 

leave; the weakness of the developing Afghan forces due to high levels of 

illiteracy, corruption, and untrustworthiness, as shown by incidents of rogue 

soldiers and police turning their weapons against their ISAF mentors; and 
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diminished political support for the state-building effort due to excessive 

corruption in the system.320

American policy toward Afghanistan is to prevent it from again becoming a haven for terrorism while strengthening the central government to 

keep the Taliban from taking over. General Petraeus during his 15 March 

2011 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, acknowledged 

that “significant progress” had been made in Afghanistan toward completing 

the “clear, hold, and hand over” NATO transition plan, but that while the 

security progress achieved over the past year is significant, it is also “fragile 

and reversible.”321 Reasons for the fragility are the return of al-Qaeda training camps, Taliban resilience, and the pervasiveness of corruption and the 

drug trade.322

Another reason is the tense relationship between the United States and 

the regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The late Ambassador Richard 

Holbrooke, for example, had face-to-face verbal clashes with Karzai over 

his regime’s failure to fight corruption and the influence of drug traffickers 

that were turning Afghanistan into a narco-state.323 Corruption in Afghan 

society goes beyond the drug trafficking to include foreign influences like 

Chinese brothels in Kabul and drinking bars that offend the Muslim faithful and defeat soft power efforts by diminishing the appeal of Western cultural values.324 In April 2011, Karzai replaced the ministers of defense and 

finance because he saw them as being too close to the U.S. and its allies.325 

General Petraeus expressed his concerns about maintaining a future presence in Afghanistan before the Senate Armed Services committee—adding 

that NATO had already signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with 

Afghanistan and the U.S.—expected to have a bilateral accord in order to 

remain involved in Afghanistan post-2014.326 The implication is an increase 

in U.S. civilian involvement in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, during the military 

drawdown.

Bing West calls the COIN strategy being used in Afghanistan a “franchise business and the variations among the franchises is enormous.”327 The 

strategy being followed, West says, is based on “gratitude theory” or winning hearts and minds, the idea that “if we build enough hospitals and pave 

enough roads, the Afghan people will stop supporting the Taliban and throw 

their weight behind the government.”328 Gratitude theory rarely works and 

most likely it will not in Afghanistan. However, it is also not a characteristic 

of the present U.S. CT doctrine, and the phrase “hearts and minds” only 
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appears in an appendix of FM-3-24, written by David Kilcullen and explains 

the true meaning of the approach.329

The Modern Solarium “Movement”—Structured Deliberation 

as a Solution to Civil-Military Issues?

Is it possible to better integrate the art of statecraft with strategic leadership, 

planning, and implementation? Can we find a better way to avoid America’s 

“chaotic road to war?”330 The Eisenhower-era Project Solarium exercise is 

still considered the model for grand strategy development through a process 

of formal planning and is relevant to current national security challenges. 

Government declassified documents and subsequent oral histories with 

participants revealed that in 8 May 1953, a top secret competitive analysis 

exercise began with three task forces of specialists. Task forces A, B, and C 

were created and each assigned to examine and propose a separate strategy. 

They were given access to all available intelligence and asked to study the 

most likely threats based on a set of assumptions about Soviet capabilities 

and intentions different from that provided to the other two groups.331

George Kennan was made chairman of Task Force A (containment scenario) and assigned to modify, propose new initiatives, and make the best 

possible argument for Truman’s policy of containment. In other words, after 

being forced out by Secretary of State John F. Dulles, Kennan was called 

back into government service by Eisenhower to perfect the very strategy that 

he had fathered. Task Force B (line in the sand) was headed by Air Force 

Major General James McCormack and tasked with preparing and drawing 

a perimeter line of U.S. global security interests. His group would argue 

for making an announcement to the USSR and its allies that crossing the 

line would constitute an act of war. The United States and its allies would 

respond with an all-means massive retaliation. Task Force C (“rollback”), 

led by Vice Admiral Richard L. Connolly and with General Goodpaster, a 

strong advocate of nuclear deterrence as a group member, was to propose 

active measures short of war along the whole political, economic, diplomatic, 

and covert spectrum to dislodge Soviet penetration of the West and weaken 

Soviet control over Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself. In short, it 

was a “rollback” scenario that Paul H. Nitze had earlier proposed, and Ronald 

Reagan would revisit decades later, to halt and reverse Soviet occupation of 

territory.332 Eisenhower sought to establish a balanced and integrated strategy 
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for the uncertain future through the Solarium exercise, so going forward it 

is significant that the circumstances faced then parallel the challenges being 

faced by today’s leaders and strategists. The new Solarium movement was led 

at DOD by then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flournoy, 

and at DOS by Anne-Marie Slaughter. Prior to joining the Obama administration, both had cooperated in a study of U.S. national strategy drawing 

inspiration from Eisenhower’s Solarium. The main problem identified in 

the study was that the United States was “lacking both the incentives and 

the capacity to support strategic thinking and long-range planning in the 

national security arena.”333 U.S. leaders did not have interagency processes 

that allowed them to look over the horizon to identify threats, opportunities, 

and get the whole picture, so ad hocism prevailed; “America’s most fundamental deliberations are made in an environment that remains dominated 

by the needs of the present and the cacophony of current crises.”334 Solarium 

exercises were proposed not just to improve interagency cooperation but 

with the end goal “to institutionalize a process for strategy formulation by 

introducing discipline and systematization to guide statecraft.”335 The expectation was that beginning with the Obama administration, the White House 

would practice better statecraft by using all the tools in the toolbox more 

holistically and efficiently.

Since the Eisenhower years, the report continued; strategic planning had 

declined in subsequent administrations due to three trends:

First, the special assistant to the president for national security affairs 

evolved into a powerful political player who, in turn, has helped push 

the NSC staff to a dominant position in the foreign policy process. 

Second, informal methods of presidential decision-making ... have 

tended to eclipse the more structured and formal mechanisms that 

were once equally valued and prominent in the process. Finally, as 

presidential administrations have focused on crisis management 

and daily operations, outside entities, such as Congress, other government agencies, and think-tanks, have attempted to address the 

strategic planning deficit, with varying results. These trends run 

deep in the currents of national security policy and process and 

have greatly influenced American foreign policy development over 

the last fifty years.336
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

At the heart of the issue was how to deal with the extant institutionalized 

groupthink mentality within the foreign policy establishment. To address 

the problem set a strategic planning process was proposed with three key 

elements: conduct a quadrennial national security review (QNSR), establish 

an interagency threat assessment process to support the QNSR, and establish 

a resource allocation process. In addition, three process-oriented solutions 

are suggested within the ambit of organization theory.337 Flournoy’s study 

focused on interagency processes and the need to institutionalize Solariumtype exercises, but the weakest link was the main player—the chief executive 

and commander in chief. The main driver of the Eisenhower Solarium was 

Eisenhower himself, a president with the experience, commitment, judgment, and skills set to get the job done; but since then no president has sought 

to perform a similar role.338

General Douglas MacArthur allegedly had once said that Ike “was the 

best clerk he ever had,” thereby leaving the false impression that Eisenhower, 

albeit a great planner, did not have the wherewithal to be a grand strategist. 

But the record is clear that by the time he assumed the presidency, Ike had 

amassed a tremendous amount of experience as a strategic leader in both 

the military and civilian arenas. He had indeed served as chief of staff in the 

Philippines under General MacArthur, but had also gone from being 64th in 

his graduating class at West Point to first in his class at the elite Command 

and General Staff School and eventually supreme commander of one of the 

greatest military operations—Operation Overlord, the invasion of Europe 

through Normandy (D-Day) that began on 6 June 1944. After the war, he 

served as president of Columbia University, and as U.S. president he socially 

transformed America by creating the interstate highway system and enforcing U.S. Supreme Court desegregation orders in the South. He was, in fact, 

a diplomat/soldier, a statesman, and man of intellect, extraordinary talent, 

and character.339 Unfortunately, even though Ike introduced the Solarium 

process, he did not institutionalize it at the highest level of government. It 

was a loss to the future of the country because as he warned in his farewell 

address, it was necessary to achieve a proper balance between the civilian, 

military, and economic sectors of the government. As the Cato Institute 

reminds us: 

Some of the most acrimonious debates within the Eisenhower administration pitted the president against his former colleagues in the 
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uniformed services. Eisenhower’s attempts to adapt military force 

structure to a new national security strategy became highly politicized, and ultimately failed. Eisenhower was especially worried that 

future presidents, lacking his military credentials and deep knowledge of national security matters, would be even less willing and 

able to confront the military. Historically, it raises an important 

question in the civilian-military relationship regarding whether a 

commander-in-chief lacking military experience can prevail over 

uniformed officers who are national figures in their own right?340 

One expectation was that with Flournoy and Slaughter serving in the Obama 

administration in key policy positions a formal Solarium process might be 

institutionalized to provide a president lacking military experience with a 

roadmap to prevail over uniformed officers who are national figures and 

use the tools for foreign policy and national security policymaking—i.e. to 

craft a grand strategy. The resignation of McChrystal, the firing of his predecessor, and the deployment of Petraeus to Afghanistan might have been 

part of Obama’s attempt to prevail over the “uniforms” by showing them 

who is boss.341 Unfortunately, it is apparent from insider reports leaked to 

the media that the Libyan crisis was handled in the same ad hoc way criticized by Flournoy. Referring to the coalition differences over who in NATO 

should take the lead in the Libyan military operation, Secretary Gates said, 

“This command-and-control business is complicated, and we haven’t done 

something like this kind of on-the-fly before.”342 But, flying by the seat of 

the pants is not what we would expect if the U.S. had structured a process 

to implement a grand strategy.

Balancing strategy: The DOD and DOS Relationship and 

Smart Power

The absence of an executive-driven, institutionalized Solarium interagency 

process was mitigated by the collaborative partnership between Secretary 

Gates at DOD and Secretary Clinton at the DOS. Secretary Gates’s emphasis 

on achieving a balanced strategy refers to the issue of lack of capacity at both 

DOS and USAID that has led to a corresponding “militarization of foreign 

policy.”343 The main concern was that military personnel were performing 

tasks for which their civilian counterparts, with greater training and reach 
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back to civilian agencies, could perform much more effectively.344 Secretaries Gates and Clinton displayed an unusual unity of effort that filtered 

down to their two departments. Their personal relationship was paralleled 

by the relationship that existed between Michelle Flournoy and Anne-Marie 

Slaughter. The two had previously worked together at the Princeton Project 

on National Security and at the Center for a New American Security. As 

a result, the DOD gained a key interagency partner in the DOS and vice 

versa. One consequence is that Congressional funding to increase capacity in spending and hiring of foreign service officers by the DOS and the 

USAID has been encouraged and supported by Secretary Gates and the 

Pentagon chiefs. The move to strengthen the foreign policy civilian arm of 

the government had actually begun under the direction of President Bush 

and Condoleezza Rice’s “transformational diplomacy,” but it continued in 

earnest under Secretary Clinton.345

Secretary Gates proposed that the two departments adopt a “pooled 

resources” approach when responding to situations where their missions 

will overlap. Testifying on 16 and 17 March 2011 before the House and Senate 

Armed Services Committees respectively, he and Admiral Mullen presented 

a new proposal to fund security sector assistance and stabilization.346 A new 

Global Security Contingency Fund was proposed as a way for the DOD to 

coordinate better with the DOS on civilian support for overseas operations. 

The fund was to prepare for emerging threats or unforeseen problems and 

would be seeded with $50 million from the DOS’s budget and supplemented 

with a request to transfer $450 million from the DOD if authorized by Congress.347 The balanced strategy proposed by Secretaries Gates and Clinton 

focused on the global environment which had to be stabilized and shaped 

to make it inhospitable to violent extremism. This would be a populationcentric approach focusing on the root causes of global problems and their 

interconnections. To promote a hospitable environment, the strategy would 

engage the world using the 3Ds. The balanced strategy would be an integrated 

DOD/DOS effort using two approaches: a direct and an indirect approach. 

The direct would be used to isolate the threat in order to defeat it and prevent 

its reconstitution or reemergence. Isolation of the threat means disruption of 

violent extremist organizations (VEOs) and denying their access to and use 

of WMDs. The indirect approach was the preferred method, and it would 

seek to increase friendly freedom of action and reduce enemy freedom of 

action by enabling partners while deterring and eroding support for VEOs.348
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The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review: Building Capacity in the DOS

One change at the DOS, following a 17-month review of U.S. development 

and diplomacy policies, is the production of the first QDDR.349 Modeled after 

the DOD’s QDR, the DOS-QDDR is a planning guide that seeks to build 

American civilian power and provide funding, guidance, and the authorities 

for DOS and USAID participation in “whole-of-government” activities in the 

exercise of national power. To a large extent, the QDDR is an overly ambitious attempt to institutionalize the soft power approach by putting more 

DOS and USAID “wingtips on the ground.”350 Dr. Slaughter also co-directed 

the DOS new plan to fulfill its role as the diplomatic and civilian arm of the 

government in foreign policy. A renowned advocate of using international 

relations theory in the application of international legal theory, it is unclear 

in what manner and to what extent her preferences in this area are reflected 

in the QDDR.351 The United States’ investment in blood and treasure both 

in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whatever rebalancing of military and civilian 

tasks and budgets may be in the pipeline, are being affected by the mass 

turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa. Moreover, some of the main 

players changed roles or left office—Senator Chuck Hagel replaced Leon 

Panetta in early 2013 as Secretary of Defense. Panetta had replaced Robert 

Gates in 2012. Additionally, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral 

Mullen retired at the end 2011, and Secretary Clinton was replaced by Senator 

John Kerry in early 2013. So efforts to balance DOD and DOS and collective plans to balance the military and civilian sectors of the government are 

entering a severe time of testing.352
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4. USSOCOM and Soft Power

USSOCOM and the War Against Terror353

In the global confrontation against terrorist networks, radical extremists, 

transnational criminal organizations, and other non-state and state adversaries, SOF are at the tip of the spear. USSOCOM was activated on 16 April 

1987 at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, in response to the Congressional 

Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 and the Nunn-Cohen 

Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 1987 (P.L. 99-661). 

To carry out its mission, Congress provided USSOCOM with specific authorities and responsibilities under Title 10 of the U.S. Code. Under the statute, 

“The principal function of the command is to prepare special operations 

forces to carry out assigned missions.”354 Congress mandated a new fourstar command with service-like authorities and unique responsibilities for 

a unified command. USSOCOM is almost like a fifth service; it has its own 

acquisition authorities to develop and purchase special operations-specific 

equipment, supplies, and services.355

USSOCOM is a unique unified supported and combatant command to 

plan, synchronize, and execute antiterrorist strategy and operations. The 

unified command plan has two missions—as a force provider and as the 

lead combatant command for planning, synchronizing, and as directed, 

conducting DOD operations against terrorist networks. It serves “in many 

ways as an extension of the Joint Staff, in some ways as an extension of the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense.”356 It is composed of the headquarters and 

the force. Headquarters is the strategic center for determining how special 

operations ought to be developed and used. In other words, USSOCOM 

“organizes, trains, and equips Special Operations Forces ... provides those 

forces to the geographic combatant commanders under whose operational 

control they serve,” and the command “also develops special operations 

strategy, doctrine and procedures ... and develops and procures specialized 

equipment for the force.”357

Throughout U.S. military history, elite troops and special mission teams 

have been recruited, trained, and organized on an ad hoc basis during wartime to perform special tasks and missions. SOF and their predecessors 
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were not given top priority for most of their history and underwent ups and 

downs, being underused or misused, valued or underappreciated.358 For 

example, during World War II the Army Rangers, tracing their ancestry 

to the Robert Rogers’ Rangers of the American Revolution and established 

along the tradition of British Commandos, first entered and distinguished 

themselves in combat, while the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the military predecessor of the CIA, was tasked to conduct espionage and special 

operations. At war’s end, as the country demobilized, most of these units 

were disbanded and/or their members returned to their parent services. The 

OSS, for instance, was split on 20 September 1945 by President Harry S. Truman’s Executive Order #9621 (Order effective 1 October 1945) between the 

DOS and the Department of War.359 Therefore, the creation of USSOCOM 

was a sea change in SOF history as it became a permanent headquarters for 

special operations with a dedicated budget, a command that provides the 

wherewithal for SOF to develop and operate their missions and roles. 

Before 9/11, USSOCOM’s primary focus was “on organizing, training 

and equipping special operations forces and providing forces to support 

the geographic combatant commanders ... it also supported U.S. ambassadors and their country teams.”360 The operational force deployed about 25 

percent of the time serving in 120 to 140 countries around the world. These 

deployments, however, were by small units and of a short term. Early in the 

George W. Bush administration, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 

had sought to modernize and transform DOD, among other things, by 

linking “‘stove piped’ processes into 

a system-of-systems using a Training Transformation program.”361 The 

institutional changes began to accelerate in 2004, with SOF heavily engaged 

in both Afghanistan and Iraq, when 

Rumsfeld expanded USSOCOM’s responsibilities to include synchronization 

of DOD’s planning for global operations against terrorism. Synchronization 

meant that USSOCOM would be a force provider synchronizing the planning of operations, while the geographic combatant commanders would 

synchronize, or be responsible, for carrying out the operations.362

In 2008, DOD further expanded USSOCOM’s brief by designating it as 

the joint “proponent” for security force assistance (SFA). Proponent means 

...USSOCOM would be a force 

provider synchronizing the 

planning of operations while the 

geographic commanders would 

synchronize, or be responsible, 

for carrying out the operations.
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that the command helps policymakers by prioritizing requirements regarding “which potential partner nations the U.S. military ought to work with, 

in what priority, and in what manner ... and make recommendations to the 

Joint Staff regarding which special operations forces, which general purpose 

forces or which combination of forces are most appropriate ... ”363 SFA is an 

expansion of USSOCOM’s foreign internal defense mission based on a mix 

of SOF, conventional forces, and other relevant agencies.364 This was followed 

by DOD Directive 3000.07 (4) (a) of 1 December 2008, that recognized “that 

[irregular warfare] is as strategically important as traditional warfare.”365

USSOCOM has capitalized in this new way of thinking to increase and firm 

up its institutional position, roles, mission, and budgets.

Former USSOCOM Commander Admiral Olson oversaw the rapid 

expansion of SOF while managing a DOD Major Force Program-11 (MFP11) budget with a request for $10.5 billion in FY 2012. The MFP-11 is provided to the commander of USSOCOM to address requirements that are 

“SOF-peculiar” in nature.366 On 5 May 2008, in his first public statement 

as commander of USSOCOM, Admiral Olson had noted that SOF were so 

heavily engaged in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that they were spread 

thin and unable to fully perform traditional roles elsewhere. The Spanish 

language proficient U.S Army 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), based 

in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for instance, whose area of focus is Latin 

America, had taken two of its three battalions to the Middle East, leaving 

them “underrepresented in Latin America.”367 Before 9/11, 20 to 25 percent 

of the force was deployed to the Middle East, but since March 2003, about 80 

percent of the forces were deployed to the CENTCOM region.368 The Arab 

Spring upheavals in Northern Africa and the Middle East, coupled with the 

decision to intervene in the Libyan civil war, suggest that SOF deployments 

in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) area of responsibility (AOR) will 

grow, but the imbalance toward the CENTCOM AOR probably will continue for the foreseeable future even as conventional forces depart Iraq and 

Afghanistan. As a result of the increased missions and roles, USSOCOM’s 

budget doubled between 2001 and 2005 and was set to increase by 50 percent 

under the 2006 QDR.

The 2006 QDR included a number of decisions that affected the nature 

and composition of the force. In particular, it sought to remedy the SOF 

personnel problem by increasing its size by 13,000 (33 percent) over a fiveyear period and instituting the 18X program under which qualified recruits 
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were allowed to enter directly from civilian life.369 During Admiral Olson’s 

tenure, SOF grew in numbers and was in such high demand that it raised a 

new set of challenges. By 2011, the force totaled about 60,000 people with one 

third composed of “careerists,” or those who have been “selected, trained and 

qualified to earn the Military Occupational Specialty or skill code identifier 

of a SOF operator.”370 Half of the force was added since 9/11 with an average 

age of 30, of which 70 percent are married. Under a DOD pilot recruiting 

program called Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI), 

visa holders with two or more years of residence in the U.S. and medical, 

foreign language, or cultural skills essential to national security were eligible 

to expedite naturalization by enlisting in the Army. One third of the applicants thus recruited expressed an interest in joining SOF.371

USSOCOM’s primary focus prior to 11 September 2001 was on organizing, 

training, and equipping SOF and providing forces to support the geographic 

combatant commanders, but over the past decade SOF grew in “manpower, 

budget allocation, (and) overall capacity by virtue of their expanded force, 

work volume, and level of achievement.”372 SOF’s innate capabilities, skills 

set, and force structure were exceptionally suited to engage the globally 

diverse, networked, technologically savvy, astute, asymmetric adversaries 

of the United States. Growth when properly managed is desirable, but it has 

a downside; the increased volume of work, for instance, may lead to overuse 

or misuse, raising issues of force depletion, desertion, or preservation of 

standards to remain mission proficient.373

Such a rapid growth also seemed to violate the SOF Truths that “SOF 

cannot be mass produced” and “quality is better than quantity.”374 USSOCOM 

headquarters was therefore left with the challenge of implementing the 

unprecedented growth through proper recruitment, assessment, selection, 

and arduous training of the new personnel while managing force sustainment—i.e. force rotation and regeneration while sustaining an operational 

presence—at a high operational tempo and maintaining SOF-unique qualities and capabilities.375 Nonetheless, according to Admiral Olson, “retention 

rate is higher than it has ever been; recruiting is pretty good; we are growing 

... all at an unprecedented rate,” but “our ability to absorb growth is limited 

to the 3 to 5 percent range because of our internal structures and our need 

to not lose our soul in the process of growth.”376

SOF have a worldwide mission, and the extended deployments to the 

CENTCOM AOR reduced capacity in the other geographic combatant 
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commands leaving 6 percent in the U.S. Pacific Command, 4 percent in 

AFRICOM, 2 percent in the U.S. European Command, 2 percent in the U.S. 

Southern Command, and less than 1 percent in the U.S. Northern Command AOR.377 The intensive deployment and growth of SOF has been of 

such unprecedented size, duration, and repeat rotation that SOF have been 

operating with conventional forces for extended periods of time and are 

increasingly unable to meet the new global demand for their services without 

the enabler and logistics support provided by the conventional forces. Conventional forces, for example, provide SOF with “basing, messing, fuel, motor 

pools, medical facilities, ammunition resupply, and base security.”378 Admiral 

Olson confirmed this mutual interdependence by resurrecting the fifth SOF 

Truth that “Most special operations require non-SOF support.”379 As a result, 

the 2010 QDR report directed an increase of key enabling assets, maintaining 

approximately 660 special operations teams, increasing civil affairs capacity, 

and several other changes aimed at supporting the command.380

Direct and Indirect Approaches in USSOCOM

USSOCOM’s core special operations tasks or activities within DOD include 

direct action, CT, counter-proliferation of WMDs, unconventional warfare, 

foreign internal defense, SFA, civil-military operations, military information 

support operations, information operations, COIN, special reconnaissance, 

and the catch-all, “other activities as may be specified by the secretary of 

defense of the president.”381 The DOD campaign strategy in countering violent extremism (CVE) is a Concept Plan (CONPLAN) 7500 supported by 

regional plans by each of the geographic combatant commanders. Admiral 

Olson has sketched CONPLAN 7500 as establishing two interdependent 

approaches to CVE: the direct and the indirect. Direct actions are:

Short duration strikes and other small-scale offensive actions 

conducted as a special operation in hostile, denied, or politically 

sensitive environments and which employ specialized military capabilities to seize, destroy, exploit, recover, or damage designated 

targets. Direct action differs from conventional offensive actions 

in the level of physical and political risk, operational techniques, 

and the degree of discriminate and precise use of force to achieve 

specific objectives.382
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According to Admiral McRaven, they are “precision, highly kinetic strike 

force” missions.383 Direct actions are mostly urgent, necessary, chaotic, 

kinetic, quick, and measurable fighting missions to interdict, kill, or capture 

terrorists, their facilities, their organizations and destroy their support networks. In the public’s mind, direct action is traditionally associated with the 

work of commandos. The U.S. military is in the lead on the direct approach, 

and the effects are “almost always near-term and short-lived.”384 While the 

direct approach seeks to isolate the threat, the indirect approach refers to:

The application of military and non-military action by, with and 

through partner nations to influence, neutralize or defeat an 

enemy by shaping the physical and psychological environment 

in which he operates. It may include kinetic actions at the tactical 

level to kill an enemy and/or disrupt his plans and operations. The 

indirect approach requires whole-of-U.S. government effort in its 

application.385

The indirect approach seeks “to shape and influence the environment.”386

People, units, and capabilities cannot be categorized as being one or the 

other, but on the indirect approach, as Admiral Olson plainly put it, “the 

United States military is, to a large degree, pushing from behind.”387 The 

two approaches are mutually supportive with the strike capability providing 

space and time for indirect efforts to work.388

The Indirect Approach

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2005, Section 1208, is a key 

tool that provides the authorities and funds for the training and equipping of regular and irregular indigenous forces to conduct CT operations.389

Unlike the indirect approach, the direct approach is seldom by itself decisive.390 According to Admiral Olson, “enduring results come from indirect 

approaches.”391 The indirect approach involves a complex set of activities 

that include identifying and recruiting the appropriate indigenous persons 

that can be leveraged by SOF to increase their understanding and effectiveness in working within the local environment. It means organizing parallel 

organizations to compete with existing terrorist networks with the collaboration of interagency, multinational, and/or nongovernmental partners—

i.e. a whole-of-government approach. It also means engaging in proactive 
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intelligence collection392 through a deep sociocultural understanding and 

social penetration of terrorist networks that operate in “plain sight” as well as 

eliminating the environment in which terrorists are produced and recruited. 

It also includes preparation of the environment in Phase 0 or “non-war” and 

“preventive war” situations by engaging in activities associated with soft 

power approaches.393

The strategy of indirect approach is attributed to B.H. Liddell Hart who in 

1929 under the title The Decisive Wars of History included it in the preface to 

his Strategy of the Indirect Approach.

394 As he later explained, “The true aim 

is not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic situation so advantageous 

that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its continuation by a battle 

is sure to achieve this.”395 For Liddell Hart, the strategic objective should be 

to take the initiative from the enemy by dislocating the organization of his 

attack, disrupting his scheme of maneuver, and neutralizing the power of 

his forces.396

The Liddell Hart indirect approach strategy is in fact a Western adaptation of Sun Tzu’s Art of War call for armies to advance along the lines of least 

expectations against the enemy’s line of least resistance. Sun Tzu emphasized 

that the greatest virtue was defeating your enemies indirectly because you 

could protect your resources while depleting those of your adversary. Ralph 

D. Sawyer’s excellent work breaks down Sun Tzu’s fundamental principles 

into four contemporary basic themes that address the direct and indirect 

approaches: fundamentals, command and control, important strategies and 

methods of warfare, and tactical principles.397 It is in the third theme of 

strategies and methods that Sun Tzu more directly addresses the indirect 

approach in terms of selecting the most advantageous terrain, deceiving 

your enemy by hiding your true intentions, and using all the elements of 

power (e.g. military, diplomatic, economic) to build alliances and influence 

the people’s will.398 The objective was to direct the major efforts toward the 

points of least resistance to capture the weakest links.

Major General Bennet S. Sacolick, then-commander, John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, wedded the indirect approach to 

President Obama’s foreign policy when he said, “I believe that a strategy 

of global engagement employing Special Forces soldiers, may be our best 

bet at winning this War. Terrorist organizations like the Taliban, Al-Qaida 

(sic), Hamas, and Hezbollah must be defeated at the local, grass roots-level 

by a combination of development, diplomacy and defense, hence global 
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engagement.”399 Using the Army Special Forces indirect activities in Afghanistan as an example, Sacolick adds:

Less than 8 percent of our overall force structure belongs to a Special Operations Task Force. In one recent six-month rotation, these 

Special Operators conducted hundreds of operations, engaging and 

killing thousands of Taliban insurgents. However, what is most 

noteworthy is that they also medically treated more than 50,000 

Afghanis, delivered over 1.4 million pounds of aid, and established 

over 19 radio stations. They also distributed 8,000 radios, so the 

country’s populace can now listen to an Afghani voice of reason as 

opposed to extremists ranting of anti-American, Taliban rhetoric.400

A recent study by Thomas H. Henriksen examined several cases where the U.S. 

has used the indirect approach and cautions against applying a universal model 

for an indirect approach to COIN. In Vietnam, the indirect approach consisted 

of training and equipping Montagnard tribes for local self-defense and as surrogates in strike operations against the Vietcong/North Vietnamese forces. But 

ethnic and cultural differences and antagonism between the Montagnards and 

the South Vietnamese interfered with their integration into the central government forces. Similarly, in Somalia the indirect approach relied on using local 

warlords as surrogates against VEOs to seize or assassinate suspects. The result, 

however, was a decline in the legitimacy of COIN efforts among the population 

due to U.S. association with unsavory groups. In contrast, the indirect approach 

has succeeded in the Philippines government COIN campaign against Abu 

Sayyaf and other insurgents. In that theater of operations, SOF have worked 

with the government, first, in an indirect support capacity to rescue hostages; 

and later, by training and mentoring Philippine forces while avoiding direct 

combat participation with the insurgents. The lesson learned from the Philippine experience was that due to the unique historical, political, and social 

characteristics of the country, the experience could not be readily transferred 

to other conflicts. In other words, the application of the indirect approach is a 

command decision that requires a wise case-by-case implementation.401 

This command decision aspect is critically important since it is the current 

view that the indirect approach ultimately leads to decisive effects on the battlefield while the direct approach only buys time.402 Yet, according to Malvesti,
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Many policymakers at all levels of government lack an understanding 

of the full range of SOF capabilities ... they tend to equate special 

operations with ... the direct approach—almost exclusively with, 

kind of, the snatch-and-grab missions, efforts to rescue hostages, 

takedowns, other kinetic-type operations. And they tend to be 

unaware of the SOF warrior-diplomat role ... the unique, culturally attuned capabilities that special operations forces bring to bear, 

particularly in working with relevant populations. And this really 

is a missed opportunity.403

The Democratic Republic of the Congo: SOF as Armed 

Humanitarians Advancing a Global Social Agenda?

An example of how the new global agenda challenges SOF capacity is found 

in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, a state in 

Central Africa. The DRC has the potential to be one of the richest countries 

in the world due to the vastness of its natural resources. It has more arable 

land than the PRC, and possesses diamonds and minerals like tin, tungsten, 

tantalum, and gold that are essential to manufacture cell phones, laptop 

computers, digital cameras, and other products.404 From August 1998 to July 

2003, the country was devastated as nine African nations—Rwanda, Libya, 

Sudan, Burundi, Tanzania, Angola, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—and 

dozens of armed tribal and ethnic groups fought the “Great War of Africa” 

or “Second Congo War” within its territory. It was the largest war in African 

history and the deadliest since World War II with over 5.5 million people 

dead from the hostilities, disease, and starvation while millions more were 

displaced or forced to migrate.405

The DRC is a key to stability in the central African region because it 

borders nine different states. Since 2003, international humanitarian and 

development efforts led by the Country Assistance Framework of the United 

Nations and the World Bank have followed.406 In FY 2010 alone, the U.S. 

provided $306 million in bilateral assistance programs through the DOS and 

USAID to support economic growth, education, health, and other critical 

sectors.407 The DRC remains challenged by a host of structural, socioeconomic, and governance problems. Tribal and militia fighting, corruption, 

and institutional weakness limit the government’s ability to tackle the 

trade in conflict minerals, human trafficking, children armies, illiteracy, 
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malnutrition, and rape. Violent groups like the Liberation Forces for the 

Liberation of Rwanda continue to operate within Congo. A sort of limited 

war has also raged for 23 years in the DRC with the Lord’s Resistance Army 

(LRA), a militia group that fled Uganda and moved to the border area with 

the DRC. Known for committing atrocities, the LRA was confronted by the 

Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) who were sent 

to garrison the area. Unfortunately for the people of the region, due to indiscipline, instead of protecting the population the soldiery allegedly also began 

committing acts of mass and individual rapes. Police and private citizens too 

were accused of participating in the thousands of violent rapes that occur 

in the country every year. As U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

State Donald Yamamoto has testified, there are “numerous instances when 

state security forces are the ones who commit abuses against Congolese civilians.”408 According to a senior official at the UN, the DRC is the “rape capital 

of the world.”409

During a 2009 visit to Congo, Secretary Clinton met with rape victims 

and was so emotionally touched that she pledged $17 million in assistance to 

prevent sexual and gender-based violence. She promised to bring American 

power to bear on the culture of rape. At the time, critics felt that she had 

responded with a “soft” approach to the problem by unveiling a minimalist 

plan to build health clinics and supply rape victims with video cameras to 

document the violence. Later on, she concluded that only the military could 

address an issue of such magnitude and turned to the successful securitysector development approach being used by the U.S. military in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. The goal of a security sector approach is to rebuild the local 

army and police forces and then have so-called “advise and assist” brigades 

be temporarily assigned to help the local brigades formed by the U.S. over 

the years. With the cooperation of Secretary Gates, Secretary Clinton made 

a commitment to provide Congo with a similar program. Soon thereafter, in 

December 2009, the commanders, staff officers, and noncommissioned officers of a new light infantry battalion began training in Kisangani, Congo.410

AFRICOM, through its special operations component, Special Operations Command - Africa, provides on-the-ground oversight of the training 

program taught by U.S. military personnel and DOS contractors.411 Before the 

Libyan intervention, AFRICOM had taken the task very seriously and made 

the program a priority item. American military instructors had the tall order 

of learning new skills like rape-prevention and integrating sexual-violence 
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prevention into the training of Congolese forces. What makes it a tall order 

is that, first, they had to get rogue elements of the Congolese Army itself to 

stop raping, and then send them to protect civilians from groups such as the 

LRA.412 Next, they had to “train the trainers” before deploying them to work 

with the rest of the force. The U.S. Special Forces and DOS personnel will 

seek, among other things, to bring about military reform by training a model 

light infantry battalion of 750 Congolese soldiers to conduct internal security 

operations and seed the rest of the Congolese Army with Western values 

regarding sexual violence, protection of civilians, and respect for human 

rights and international law. On 17 February 2010, during the welcoming ceremony at Kisangani, Ambassador William Garvelink, U.S. Ambassador to the 

DRC, stated, “The United States of America and the Democratic Republic of 

Congo are committed to a partnership to train and professionalize a FARDC 

battalion that will respect and protect the Congolese people.”413 Another issue 

is that Congo is categorized by the DOS as a “Tier 3” country, or one whose 

government does not fully comply with U.S. minimum standards for the 

elimination of human trafficking, and is not making significant efforts to 

do so. Therefore, without also raising the social status of women throughout 

Congolese tribal and ethnic society, any efforts to protect them from institutionalized rape by seeding a discrete military sector might prove ephemeral.414

This Congo mission is obviously different from traditional military missions to advance American interests by strengthening alliances, building 

partner capacity, and providing humanitarian relief. For example, in the 

Western Hemisphere, the U.S. Southern Command and the U.S. Navy’s 4th 

Fleet in the past years have executed a mission program entitled Operation 

Continuing Promise (OCP). A Bush administration initiative, OCP is a highly 

successful program of humanitarian and civic assistance to provide access to 

quality health, dental, and veterinary care at no cost, while sharing healthcare 

knowledge and best practices with local healthcare providers in eight Caribbean and Latin American countries. It is a limited, time-constrained operation that does not expose American military personnel to kinetic encounters 

or direct combat operations and has a multiplier effect in terms of goodwill.415

The Congo mission, by comparison, has not resulted in a major turnaround. 

A forthcoming study in the American Journal of Public Health reports that 

1,152 women are raped daily in the Congo—or the equivalent of 48 per hour. 

In a 12-month period between 2006-2007 the total number of rape victims 

reached 400,000.416
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In sum, in the DRC under the rubric of smart power, SOF are deployed 

as “armed humanitarians” not to fight or to help build partner-nation capacity or to combat terrorist networks but rather to handle an endemic social 

problem.417 The lack of capacity in the DOS and USAID has meant that the 

DOD has borne the brunt of these types of missions. This “militarization of 

foreign policy” is bound to continue due to recent cuts in DOS and USAID 

funding that will cement their lack of expeditionary capacity. By virtue of 

identifying universal human rights as being similar to national interests, the 

U.S. risks turning peripheral interests into vital ones.418

Whether using the military to conduct social engineering as a form of 

foreign policy (i.e. smart power) generates goodwill and acceptance rather 

than resentment and more insecurity for the American people at home,419

or whether the warrior ethos can be maintained as combat training time 

is traded for tackling poverty, bridging divides, serving children in crisis, 

changing cultural norms and values, building institutions, and a host of 

other civilian missions remain open questions.420 As discussed in the next 

section, these issues of capabilities and cost-benefit concerns take the form 

of calls for a balanced strategy.

A Question of Balance

Balanced warfare is therefore the way SOF are combating terrorism and the 

guiding principle behind the DOD’s CONPLAN-7500 to combat global terrorist networks. It calls for the careful balancing of the direct and indirect 

approaches. Admiral Olson, commenting on balanced warfare, has said, “It 

is easy on paper but difficult in practice.”421 While the direct approach seeks 

to capture, kill, interdict, and disrupt terrorists and their networks, the indirect approach is made up of those actions in which SOF support and enable 

partner nations to fight VEOs. As expressed by Lieutenant General David 

P. Fridovich, U.S. Army, retired, former USSOCOM deputy commander:

We contribute to our partner-nation’s capabilities by advising, training, equipping, transferring technology and combat monitoring 

the partner nation’s military forces. The indirect approach includes 

efforts ... where a government is either unwilling or unable to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries ... The indirect approach requires a wholeof-government effort to attack the underlying causes of terrorism.422
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SOF are operating on “an unprecedented scale across the globe ... but are not 

yet optimized for success.”423 In addition to the challenges presented by more 

than nine years of sustained combat operations and the growth experienced 

across the board—ranging from larger budgets and a wider spectrum of 

missions to a larger force—USSOCOM faces challenges associated with the 

lack of a national grand strategy that guides and prioritizes the use of force, 

in particular the use of SOF, in order to achieve strategic effects.

Split the Force?

The ongoing debate over conventional military forces becoming more “SOFlike” overlaps another about the institutional arrangements for the direct and 

indirect approach to warfare. The two debates need to be briefly addressed 

and distinguished, for they may remain on parallel tracks or converge in the 

future. First, regarding the direct and indirect approach, the argument has 

been made that units that specialize in the indirect approach play second 

fiddle to those specializing in direct action. The complaint was that those 

units had been shortchanged in resources because USSOCOM’s leadership 

was drawn from direct action components. These leaders allegedly have been 

trying for decades to overcome the embarrassment of the Desert One failure 

by focusing on the direct action capabilities to the detriment of the indirect 

action units. Since the Army Special Forces are not only the largest component of USSOCOM but also the ones who work “by, with and through” 

indigenous forces, it should be no surprise that they were the main source 

of discontent.424

Two former civilian administrators in the DOD and DOS have been the 

main proponents for splitting USSOCOM into two four-star commands—

one for direct action and another for indirect action forces.425 They argued 

that a new indirect action command was needed to build up a new capability, 

a separate cadre of specialists on traditional networks. These would be Warrior diplomats trained in foreign languages and cultures who would serve 

about three tours of duty working and living abroad, immersing themselves 

in the local cultures. The Warrior diplomats would be key advisors if American forces need to deploy to their country or region; they would “serve as 

eyes and ears in places that U.S. and even local officials seldom visit ... places 

where things of interest to the United States happen.”426 The leadership of 

USSOCOM and many SOF opposed the idea of creating a new command 
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with separate leadership and budgets, however. As one former officer put it, 

“every time the secretary of defense says, ‘I want to talk to my SOF guy,’ two 

four-stars show up. It’s an administrative and 

management nightmare.”427

Admiral Olson responded to the idea by 

announcing that the USSOCOM mission to 

“deter, disrupt and defeat terrorist threats” was 

being advanced by turning USSOCOM’s indirect 

action forces into “3D Operators.” They would be 

career, multidimensional operators adept in the 

3Ds.428 He also spoke of Project Lawrence, along 

the model of Lawrence of Arabia, to find and train individuals with language 

skills, grounded in the local culture, diplomatically astute, and experts in 

specialized tactical skills.429 The development of the indirect action units is a 

work in progress since in his last Posture Statement testimony as USSOCOM 

Commander, Admiral Olson noted that USSOCOM must “better understand 

the people and conditions in the places we go, whether to assist or fight.”430 

One way to meet these needs is by recruiting qualified foreign-born residents 

who already meet the language and cultural qualifications who are incentivized to join the force by a process of accelerated citizenship status. One 

practical concern, of course, is that this recruitment pathway exposes the 

force to penetration by adversaries and must be met by a corresponding new 

emphasis on properly vetting the force and conducting counterintelligence. 

Admiral McRaven also believes in the use of indirect action.431

In the meantime, the push to make conventional forces more SOF-like 

was reinforced by Admiral Mullen’s statement at a congressional hearing. 

As he put it, Admiral Olson’s guidance for 2010 had struck him and Secretary Gates and, “I believe our whole military has to be looking at the kind 

of characteristics—swift, agile, lethal, engaging—all those kinds of things 

that are a part of our Special Forces as we look to the future for our conventional forces.”432 Movement along this track is driven not only by tighter 

budgets but also by the extant “new normal” interpretation of the current 

and future operational environment that guides prioritization of resources 

and capabilities.

The “new normal” global security environment is viewed as increasingly globalized, complex, and chaotic. Increased demand for natural 

resources, not solely oil, drives population movements and regional and 

...they would “serve as 

eyes and ears in places 

that U.S. and even 

local officials seldom 

visit...places where 

things of interest to the 

United States happen.”
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

global competition. Global communication, financial, and trading networks 

increase connectivity and interdependence of regional economies, cultures, 

and societies. During the Cold War, the security environment was more 

predictable and less complex because nation-states, and in particular the two 

superpowers, managed global friction and exerted control over information, 

which gave them primacy over their peoples.

The Westphalian state-system is being subjected to friction from transnational crime, violent extremism, and migrations that compete with the 

nation-state for influence and access throughout the world. In essence, the 

nation-state system itself is challenged by super-national and non-state 

actors as internal domestic controls erode and sovereignty is contested or 

violated. An era of persistent conflict exists where individuals may identify 

less with the state and more with tribal groups, returning to ancestral territorial boundaries and familiar cultural norms. These factors are destabilizing 

and create opportunity for crime and extremism to flourish. Most of these 

trends are taking place in what Admiral Olson identified as the world’s “unlit 

spaces” which have served as a point of reference for SOF missions since 

2001.433 The unlit spaces are mostly found in what geopolitical and social 

scientists call the global “South.”

The Decisive Conventional Force Soldier and the SOF Operator

In the “new normal” global environment, the demand for more SOF is 

expected to increase to the point where they alone cannot respond in a timely 

manner without enabling support. One solution is to increase the number 

of SOF, but their highly selective entrance requirements has led to the belief 

that SOF-like units that do not meet the strict standards of recruitment, 

and selection might be just as effective. The Army, for instance, believes 

that in future conflicts it will continue to bear most of the casualties and the 

brunt of deployments, and therefore its dismounted soldiers, jumping from 

ground combat vehicles or dropping from Black Hawks, will need to operate in smaller units in hostile environments. To succeed, they would need 

to have “over-match” capability to fight the guys hiding behind the rocks. 

So the Army is searching to develop the soldier as a “decisive weapon.”434 

According to Malcolm “Ross” O’Neill, Assistant Secretary of the Army for 

Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, the new concepts include stealth and 

agility. The decisive dismounted soldier would be a technologically savvy 
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operator who would be carrying something beyond a rifle, such as guided 

bullets or active sensors.435

The SOF-like dismounted soldier would work in small elements, bearing 

lighter loads in order to move quicker, and trained and equipped with more 

precise weapons in order to engage hostiles. Additionally, the small unit 

members would need better armor and have a greater capacity to communicate.436 As explained by Lieutenant General Michael A. Vane, director of 

the Army Capabilities Integration Center and deputy commanding general 

for Futures at the U.S. Army TRADOC, decisive soldiers need to be physically and mentally tough, resilient, able to display strength of character and 

develop keen social skills to engage populations other than combatants, and 

develop respect for cultures other than their own. In sum, as he put it, “The 

direction we are headed in is to make our soldier more protected, connected 

and lethal on the battlefield.”437

The Army emphasis on the decisive soldier as an adaptable field asset has 

led to the renewal of the debate over what makes SOF special. Major General 

Sacolick, a career special operations officer, for instance, endorsed the concept that America’s conventional military forces, need to be more SOF-like. 

In his view, in a persistent conflict global environment, access is needed 

to troubled countries, as provided by the Obama administration policy of 

global engagement, or “the strategic use of development, diplomacy, and 

defense to advance our political agenda in areas like economic prosperity 

and international cooperation.”438 Sacolick’s support for SOF-like expansion, 

however, is limited by his belief that the Army Special Forces, the Green 

Berets, are America’s only trained Warrior diplomats, the only force we have 

that intuitively understands the balance between diplomacy and force, and 

the only force that possesses the judgment to determine which actions are 

most appropriate in any given situation. Special Forces soldiers understand 

that the key to success is through the indirect approach.439 Hence, SOF-like 

conventional forces and SOF needed to be complementary. 

The closing of the gap between SOF and conventional forces in operational capabilities compelled Michael G. Vickers, Under Secretary of Defense 

for Intelligence and the top DOD civilian advisor on CT strategy, to say 

that what makes SOF special is not necessarily “their tactical virtuosity and 

the skill of the individual operator,” but rather it is their “strategic employment as a decisive instrument and their impact on the war that makes them 
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special.”440 It is this focus on the strategic use of SOF that drives the current 

plan to build a global CT network focusing on “high priority” countries.441

In this context, the need to balance direct and indirect approaches is 

best understood by distinguishing between using SOF for strategic effects 

or strategic performance. As James Kiras explains, “The nature of special 

operations is derived from their conduct and character as they are unorthodox tactical actions for strategic effects that rely on exploiting an adversary’s 

vulnerabilities to compensate for one’s own small numbers.”442 Kiras associates achieving strategic effects with what USSOCOM describes as the direct 

approach. But strategic “effect” is not the same as strategic “performance.” 

Strategic performance is:

The cumulative effect of numerous disparate special operations, 

working toward a common goal in conjunction with conventional 

forces, is the attrition of an adversary’s key moral and material 

resources. This psychological and physical erosion, combined with 

improving the strategic performance of one’s own conventional 

forces, is how special operations contribute towards improving 

strategic performance. The challenge in special operations is to do 

the impossible not once but repeatedly.443

In other words, strategic performance is the result of repeated SOF direct 

action combined with an indirect approach to the enemy during an extended 

attrition-warfare campaign. In this sense, the best use of SOF for strategic 

performance is within an attrition-based strategy or interlinked series of 

engagements, rather than as an annihilation approach to warfare—annihilation meaning the attempt to eliminate the adversary by a “shock and 

awe,” single, decisive engagement.444 The key to success in the war against 

VEOs, therefore, requires a balanced approach in which SOF are used in an 

integrated and coherent strategy that deprives the enemy of “not only their 

leaders and key logistical elements, but also the moral hub that fuels recruitment and sustains the will to continue: their ideology.”445

But direct actions may affect strategic performance. Thus, following the 

Osama bin Laden direct action operation, Secretary Gates opined, “I think 

that there’s a possibility that it could be a game changer,”446 meaning that it 

could lead to strategic performance. For example, cooperation in the war 

against terror became an organizing principle for Russian foreign policy 
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with the United States, China, Europe, and India. The demise of bin Laden 

and the potential breakdown of al-Qaeda and its affiliates may change that 

landscape. Likewise, “If it brings about a change in Pakistani policies, then 

it would be a game changer,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.447

Training SOF operators as Warrior diplomats for balanced warfare is not 

an easy task given the cultural differences and recruitment practices between 

DOD and DOS. The military is organized to wage war, while the diplomat 

is trained to employ peaceful means to advance the national interest and 

goals. Both sets of tasks ought to be complementary, but they become less so 

when performed by the same individual under combat conditions. As Anton 

Smith has noted, “The U.S. military, acting under plans in which everything 

is delineated in black and white fashion, generally follows orders. Diplomats, 

functioning in a zone where almost everything is gray, see themselves as 

interpreters of national policy.”448 Jessica Turnley compared the two roles in 

one aspect of the Warrior diplomat model by examining the competencies 

involved. One insight from her study was the “highly unequal distribution 

of cross-cultural competency across the special operations community.”449 

But even if attainable, one should recall Henriksen’s cautionary advice that 

the indirect approach has inherent limitations and must not be viewed as a 

one-size-fits-all solution to insurgency.450

Summary

Admiral McRaven confirmed Admiral Olson’s views regarding USSOCOM’s 

growth in force and the increased operational tempo issues. Congressional 

support is being sought for initiatives to increase “days at home” that would 

permit operators to spend more time with their families between deployments. One initiative seeks to diminish the “time away from home” factor 

by finding training facilities nearer to the operators’ home stations. Lack 

of nearby training facilities means that operators need to “travel to train” 

away from home between deployments. It increases family and personal 

stress that could be remedied by either providing additional local facilities 

or allowing SOF priority access to existing local facilities. Land availability 

and environmental regulations are two obstacles that must be surmounted 

before SOF can build their own dedicated facilities.451 Balanced warfare in 

an age of declining budgets remains a work in progress driven by facts on 
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the ground, interagency collaborations issues, and conflicting theories of 

insurgency and COIN. Admiral Olson was absolutely right when he said 

it was difficult for SOF to balance the direct and indirect approaches when 

fighting a war of attrition. The balancing occurs not just among U.S. forces, 

capabilities, resources, interagency partners, and nongovernmental organizations, but also with indigenous partners and allies, as well as between 

competing perspectives on warfighting among the political and military 

elites. The success of the Osama bin Laden raid, however, might disprove the 

idea of short-lived effects of direct action. As previously noted, the possibility 

exists that the Osama bin Laden takedown achieved strategic performance. 

For example, if Afghanistan and Libya are “strategic distractions” from more 

critical concerns like the domestic economy, North Korea, a nuclear Iran, 

and the rise of China, then the bin Laden takedown will join the list of special operations, dating back to the Trojan Horse, that changed the destiny 

of nations.452 While advocates of the indirect approach sing the praises of 

the good works being accomplished in Afghanistan, and others complain 

about turning the troops into “armed humanitarians” doing social work453

or creating a “giant Peace Corps,”454 the main questions remain unanswered. 

What is our grand strategy for the changing global order? What constitutes 

victory in 21st century warfare? General Petraeus understood the situation 

well years ago in Iraq when he asked Washington Post reporter Rick Atkinson 

the fundamental question of the Iraq war: “Tell me, how does this end?”455

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5. Conclusion

With good judgment, little else matters. Without it, nothing else 

matters. – N. Tichy and W. Bennis456

This study examined several themes associated with statecraft and power 

that bear on the roles and missions of SOF. There is no dominant theory 

that guides the policymaker in determining when and how to best use SOF 

as the military instrument of choice in pursuit of strategic ends. Absent of 

grand strategic vision linking means and ends, it becomes a judgment call 

based on ad hoc political considerations, ambiguous conceptualizations, or 

idiosyncratic interpretations of what constitutes the national interest, and/

or how the world works or ought to work. Yet, there are times when military 

action is called for regardless of who happens to occupy the Oval Office. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt could not have gotten away with failing to declare 

war against Japan after Pearl Harbor. However, the daring Doolittle raid on 

Tokyo was great statecraft that lifted American morale. To this day, students 

of World War II debate why President Truman decided to authorize the 

bombing of Hiroshima—arguably the most important decision ever made. 

As the saying goes, you are where you sit. Instead of sending cruise missiles against abandoned buildings, why weren’t SOF used by policymakers 

against al-Qaeda before the events of 9/11? Richard H. Shultz, Jr. listed nine 

“showstoppers” or self-imposed constraints that kept SOF from being used 

against the terrorists, ranging from treating terrorism as a crime, to risk 

aversion, to big footprints.457 A different president might have chosen not to 

give the go ahead order when it came to the operation that killed Osama bin 

Laden. No matter what type of institutional process might be established, 

whether a Solarium type of exercise, muddling through, or a roll of the dice, 

in the U.S., when it comes to high politics decisions it all comes down to the 

judgment call of one person—the commander in chief, the president of the 

United States.

Leaders are remembered for their best and worst judgment calls. The 

same can be said about the individual SOF warrior sent on a risky mission 

where he is trusted to behave as trained, because the team’s survival depends 

on his individual judgment and ability. It is at that point of the spear that 
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the man in the Oval Office who gave the order and the operator executing 

it become one. Does judgment differ from common sense or gut instinct? 

Is it a product of luck or smarts? Is there a process for making consistent 

good calls? Tichy and Bennis studied how winning business leaders make 

great calls and identified the attributes of leaders who make successful judgments. Among them are: scanning the environment to find best practices, 

building good relationships, having character and courage to make a call 

based on values, measuring result of their judgment calls, and having the 

self-confidence to be wrong.458

In the political arena, those attributes of leadership may be fully present or partially absent among our policymakers. Americans tend to be 

pragmatic, not ideological people who elect pragmatic leaders regardless of 

political labels. Pragmatism, the living philosophy of the American people, 

might be one reason for the absence of a grand strategic vision. Nursed to be 

guided by practical experience and observation rather than theory, Americans appear culturally handicapped when strategizing for the long term.459 

But we must plan for an uncertain future. One should recall the impact of 

newly disclosed information every time historical records are unsealed or 

declassified. Most of the time they have led to major rewrites of history, as 

when the English double-cross system during World War II was revealed460 

or the Intrepid operation461 or the Venona files.462 In this digital age, perhaps 

people just sit and wait for the next batch of WikiLeaks.

The inability of civilian leaders to provide a grand organizing principle 

like the Cold War containment policy to guide us into an uncertain future 

has led to the belief that maybe our military leaders should provide those 

principles. But even the military appears to be afflicted by cultural limitations since, “The proper practice of strategy is the most significant challenge confronting senior leadership in the American military today.”463 One 

recent effort flowing from the ranks of 

the military is the recently proposed “A 

National Strategic Narrative” penned 

under the pseudonym of “Mr. Y” and 

published by the Woodrow Wilson 

Center at Princeton University.464 The 

piece is not a household item, but it deserves close attention for several reasons. First, the preface is written by Anne-Marie Slaughter. As the DOS main 

strategist, she also co-directed the first QDDR. As previously noted, the 

The proper practice of strategy 

is the most significant challenge 

confronting senior leadership in 

the American military today.
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QDDR embodied the DOS’s 21st century new statecraft and the administration’s vision of the 3Ds. It is a commitment to a soft/smart power approach 

and sought authorities and funding to build the DOS expeditionary capacity 

that would help demilitarize American foreign policy.

Secondly, it was the DOD that released the report on 8 April 2011, and 

“Mr. Y” is the pseudonym for two military officers—Navy Captain Wayne 

Porter and Marine Colonel Mark “Puck” Mykleby—who served under Admiral Mullen, a supporter of soft power approaches. Third, the article ambitiously seeks to match Kennan’s “Mr. X” article by attempting “to move 

beyond a strategy of containment to a strategy of sustainment (“sustainability”); from an emphasis on power and control to an emphasis on strength 

and influence; from a defensive posture of exclusion, to a proactive posture 

of engagement.”465

Their narrative is grounded on Nye’s soft power and smart power conceptualizations and echoes his recent complaint about a “war on soft power” as 

the United States goes through another round of “declinism.”466 It seeks to 

promote “smart growth” at home before exporting smart power abroad.467 

The authors believe that the U.S. reliance on the military for global engagement needs to change and propose a new 21st Century National Prosperity 

and Security Act along the lines of the National Security Act of 1947 and 

NSC-68. Undoubtedly, a direct connection exists between the timing and 

nature of the article: the reshuffling of President Obama’s national security 

staff and the forthcoming budget cuts that threaten to derail the administration’s 3Ds national security strategy announced by Secretary Clinton 

on 27 May 2010. Implementation of the QDDR is threatened by the fourth 

“D” of deficits that drive the budget cuts, in the amount of $8.5 billion, that 

Congress is set to impose on the DOS. Since both former Secretary Gates 

and Admiral Mullen supported increased funding and capacity for the DOS 

and USAID, the proposed new narrative reflects their thinking. It is one 

that, albeit supportive of the administration’s foreign policy, seeks to refocus 

on our sources of strength while shrinking the defense budget to prevent 

an American collapse. So the study contains a not so subtle message to the 

Congress from the DOD itself that it should cut the defense, not the DOS 

and USAID budgets. The direct impact of the national deficits on foreign 

policy execution is already being felt, for instance, in the U.S. involvement 

in Libya where the U.S. was accused of leading from behind, and seeking 

multilateralism and/or burden sharing from our NATO partners and allies.
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The issues and debates highlighted in this study suggest that SOF leadership must sustain a strong effort to convey to senior policymakers the 

message that SOF are a high-value, low-density asset with a high return on 

investment. In the absence of a grand strategy to guide policymakers, the 

SOF community should seek to develop and submit one for consideration. 

To have a continuous and sustained impact, the SOF community requires 

further integration into the national decision-making process so it can educate on its best use. SOF leadership should attempt to maintain direct access 

to senior policymakers to provide guidance on how to achieve strategic end 

goals while demonstrating that its special capabilities are not easily turned 

into modules for the entire military system. USSOCOM’s accelerated growth 

in the last decade, albeit a welcome development, created an imbalance in 

relationship to other AORs as the force and resources were expanded and 

deployed as well as diverted from other areas to the CENTCOM AOR. This 

situation needs to be corrected as our global priorities change. Additionally, 

one question that needs to be addressed regarding growth is “growth to do 

what and to be where?”468
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

6. Epilogue, the Destruction of Troy—

1183 B.C.

The Greeks, after laying a fruitless 10-year siege to the city of Troy during 

the 12th century B.C. Trojan War, decided to hide special forces inside a 

huge and beautifully carved wooden horse.469 It was a direct action operation 

with strategic impact that led to the fall of Troy and later to the founding 

of Rome by descendants of the surviving Trojan Prince Aeneas. The Greek 

leaders had approved a plan, drawn by Odysseus, the clever King of Ithaca, 

relying on deception, disinformation (“Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts”) and 

knowledge and understanding of the enemy, its culture, religious beliefs, and 

practices. It was a logistic feat that required the Greeks to embark their entire 

army and supplies on ships that would sail to a hiding place to await the 

attack signal. In those days, the politically correct thing to do after admitting 

defeat was to leave a gift. The Greeks decided to leave the Trojans the gift of 

a work of art. The 30 special operators inside the Wooden Horse were at high 

risk, and to achieve surprise had to move with speed, secrecy, under tight 

security, and with a clear purpose. It is unknown whether they rehearsed 

the operation, but it was a one-shot deal that had to be done with precision. 

The key to the success of the entire operation was one man, Simon, the strategic communications special operator left behind on the beach to perform 

the critical task of convincing the Trojans that the Greeks had indeed sailed 

away and the Trojans should take the horse into their city as a gift offering 

to their gods. Simon, the individual unit of action, could have been killed on 

the spot had the Trojans listened to the entreaties of the distrustful Laocoon 

and Cassandra. What might have been the fate of the men inside the horse? 

But the war weary and psychologically vulnerable Trojans were ready to 

believe Simon, particularly following the fateful sudden death of Laocoon. 

So believing they had won the war, the Trojans took the beautiful Wooden 

Horse into their high-walled city, partied well into the night, drinking themselves into a stupor—and the rest is history.

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Endnotes 

1. Samuel P. Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower: the new dimension of power,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 1999, Vol. 78, #2, last accessed on 1/15/2011 at http://www.

foreignaffairs.com/articles/54797/samuel-p-huntington/the-lonely-superpower.

2. On Russia see Peter Zeihan, “The Russian Resurgence and the New-Old Front,” 

Geopolitical Weekly, Stratfor, Monday, September 15, 2008. Fareed Zakaria, “The 

Rise of the Rest,” Newsweek, May 3, 2008; accessible at http://www.newsweek.

com/2008/05/03/the-rise-of-the-rest.html.

3. “Putting ‘Smart Power’ to Work: The Report on Reports,” Center for U.S. Global 

Engagement, Washington, DC, March 4, 2009; accessible at www.usglc.org/2009/03/04/

putting-smart-power-to-work-report-release.

4. Paul Joseph Watson, “Report: US Special Forces Arrive in Libya,” Infowars.com, March 

1, 2011; accessible at www.infowars.com/report-us-special-forces-arrive-in-libya.

5. “China As No. 1? Give us a Break,” Investor’s Business Daily, 25 April 2011, p. 

1. See also “Davos elites see global economic shift East, South,” Breibart.com, 

January 26, 2011, http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.beec3d7690e44a9b7cb55c470f8c4b.181&show_article=1 (last accessed on 1/27/11); and Jonathan Holslag, “Trapped Giant: China’s Military Rise,” The International Institute 

for Strategic Studies, New York: Routledge, 2010.

6. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Power, New York, Random House, 

1987. For a critical review of declinism see Alan W. Dowd, “Declinism,” Policy 

Review, No. 144, August 1, 2007; accessible at www.hoover.org/publications/

policy-review/article/5864; for an anti-declinist view see Henry N. Nau, The 

Myth of America’s Decline, New York, Oxford University Press, 1991.

7. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, New 

York, Basic Books, Inc., 1990; Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Power, 

New York, Random House, 1987.

8. Osama Bin Laden, “Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the 

Land of the Two Holiest Sites,” 1996, translated by Counter Terrorism Center 

(CTC) at West Point Military Academy; accessible at http://en.wikisource.org/

wiki/Osama_bin_Laden’s_Declaration_of_War (last accessed on October 23, 

2010).

9. Wan Guang, Meiguo de shehui bing (American Social Diseases) Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1997, pp. 1-5 in Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the 

Future Security Environment, Washington, DC, NDU Press, 2000, pp. 87-88.

10. Jeff Gannon, “Clinton Predicts America’s Decline,” Talon News, May 5, 2003; 

last accessed on 1/26/11 at <http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/newswire/nw03/

talonnews/0503/newswire-tn-050503d.htm> Clinton himself has been severely 

criticized for contributing to China’s military ascent. His open-door foreign 

policy promoting “multipolarity” allowed defense contractors to sell China 
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technology that helped modernize its nuclear strike force. Ron Brown, Clinton’s 

secretary of commerce and the alleged contact with the Chinese, was under 

investigation for corruption when he died in a mysterious 1996 plane crash in 

Croatia. Clinton allegedly helped China by appointing as head of the Department of Energy anti-nuclear activist Hazel O’Leary who favored “leveling the 

playing field” by declassifying millions of pages with data on U.S. nuclear weapons. Under her leadership, security at American weapons labs was loosened as 

revealed by the Wen Ho Lee nuclear espionage case. For more see, “Report of 

the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China” (The Cox Report) redacted, declassified version, U.S. House of Representatives, May 25, 1999, accessible at <http://

www.house.gov/ coxreport/> See Steve Wampler, “The Johnny Chung story,” 

Infowars, accessible at <http://www.infowars.com/jchung.html>; Richard Pope, 

“The Idiot’s Guide to Chinagate,” <www.richardpoe.com/column.cgi?story=125>.

11. Gideon Rachman, “Think Again: American Decline: This time it is for real,” 

Foreign Policy, January/February, 2011 pp. 59-63.

12. Joseph P. Nye, Jr. “The Future of American Power,” Foreign Affairs, November/

December 2010, Vol. 89. No. 6, pp. 2-12.

13. Jonah Goldberg, “America’s China Syndrome,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 19, 

2011, accessible at www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberghu-20110118,0,1017628.column.

14. This argument is advanced by none other than Paul Kennedy who originated the 

debate on decline. See Paul Kennedy, “Back to Normalcy: Is America really in 

decline?” The New Republic, December 21, 2010, last accessed on 1/27/11 at http://

www.tnr.com/article/magazine/79753/normalcy-american-decline-decadence.

15. Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009.

16. See, for instance, William C. Wohlforth, “Shifting from a Unipolar to a Multipolar World?” Rethinking US Grand Strategy and Foreign Policy Seminar Series, 

21 January 2010, accessible at https://outerdnn.outer.jhuapl.edu/videos/012110/

wohlforth.pdf.

17. See National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed, 

Washington, DC, NIC, November 2008 www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.

html.

18. William J. Antholis and Martin Indyk, “How We’re Doing Compared to the Rest 

of the World,” Washington: DC, The Brookings Institution, February 15, 2011, 

accessible at http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2011/0213_recovery_renewal.

aspx?p=1.

19. Dale Jorgenson as quoted in Mark Felsenthal, “Economists foretell of U.S. decline, 

China’s ascension.” Reuters, 9 Jan, 2011; available at http//www.reuters.com/

assets/print?aid=USTRE7082BL20110109.

20. “Admiral Mike Mullen: “National Debt is Our Biggest Security Threat’,” Huffington Post, 25 June, 2010; accessible at http://politifi.com/news/Adm-MikeMullen-National-Debt-Is-Our-Biggest-Security-Threat-858639.html.
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Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

21. Walter Alarkon, “Clinton says deficit is national security threat,” The Hill, 

September 8, 2010; accessible at http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/

budget/117723-clinton-us-deficit-sends-qmessage-of-weakness-internationallyq.

22. United States Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt, “The debt to 

the penny and who holds it.” TreasuryDirect, December 2010. Retrieved on March 

2, 2011 from http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np.

23. Fred Kaplan, “The Transformer” Foreign Policy, Sept/Oct. 2010 accessed on 

December 20, 2011 at www.foreignpolicy.con/articles/2010/08/16/the_transformer.

24. Larry J. Korb, “Alarmist Defense Cuts Won’t Help the Deficit,” Center for American Progress, accessed on 8/10/10 www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/08/

gates_announcement.html.

25. Arthur Herman, “The Re-Hollowing of the Military,” Commentary, September 

2010 accessed on 8/12/10 at www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/

the-re-hollowing-of-the-military-15498.

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73. Ibid.

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99

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98. Ibid., 90-91.
100

JSOU Report 13-3

99. See Video: “World Insight 11/02/06 China’s image abroad” at http://english.cntv.

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104. Ibid., See also Robert M. Morgenthau, “Morgenthau: The Link Between Iran 

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101

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

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116. Ibid., 414-425.

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at http://mountainrunner.us/2009/12/whatissc.html#comment-5196. Strategic 

communications (SC) is being replaced by “communications synchronization” 

in the DOD lexicon per OASD Memorandum for Commanders of the Combatant 

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the earlier study.

125. Kroenig, op. cit., pp. 29-30.

126. Ibid.

127. Ibid., 28-29. See also by point of comparison Secretary Gates 2008 speech at 

NDU, op. cit.
102

JSOU Report 13-3

128. Suzanne Nossel, “Smart Power,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2004, Vol. 83, No. 

2, pp. 131-143.

129. Ibid., 134.

130. Ibid., 134-35.

131. Ibid., 138.

132. Ibid., 136-42.

133. Joseph P. Nye, “Get Smart-Combining Hard and Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs, July/

August 2009 accessible at www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65163/joseph-s-nye-jr/

get-smart.

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136. http://csis.org/publication/smarter-more-secure-america.

137. Ibid.

138. “CSIS Commission on Smart Power—A Smarter, More Secure America,” CSIS, 

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org/files/media/csis/pubs/071106_csissmartpowerreport.pdf.

139. Ibid, 1.

140. Coit D. Blacker, “Director’s Letter,” in The New Global Agenda: Tackling Poverty, 

Bridging Divides, Building Institutions, Annual Report 2010,Freeman Spogli 

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141. Gates, Landon Lecture, op. cit.

142. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, DC, January 13, 2009; accessible at http://www.state.gov/

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144. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/fs/2009/122579.htm.

145. www.mitre.org/tech.smartpower.

146. Derek Henry Flood, Jamestown Foundation Conference on Middle East and 

Africa, Washington, DC, Wednesday, April 20, 2011.

147. Dina Shehata, “The Fall of the Pharaoh: How Hosni Mubarak’s reign came to an 

end,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90, No 2, May/June, 2011 p. 28.

148. James Cowie, “Egypt Leaves the Internet” January 27, 2011, Renesys Blog, accessed 

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103

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

149. Matt Richtel, “Egypt Cuts Off Most Internet and Cell Service,” The New York 

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com/2011/01/29/technology/internet/29cutoff.html.

150. Joe Gandelman, “Obama Tells Egypt’s Beset Mubarak That He Must Keep His Promises,” The Moderate Voice, January 28, 2011, accessed on 2/19/11 at http://themoderatevoice.com/99639/obama-tells-egypts-beset-mubarak-that-he-must-keep-his-promises/.

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stakes_1_isa-al-khalifa-bahrainis-king-hamad?_s=PM:US.

152. Christina Shelton, “The Roots of Analytic Failures in the U.S. Intelligence 

Community,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 

24: 6237:655, 2011.

153. For a claim that we missed the Arab revolts due to old fashioned American 

stupidity see M.G. Piety, “Why the U.S. Didn’t Foresee the Arab Revolts?—The 

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154. Bradley Klapper, Associated Press, Star Tribune, Minneapolis-St Paul, MN, 25 

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155. Fred Kaplan, “Mubarak’s Bombshell,” Slate, February 10, 2011, accessible at http://

www.slate.com/id/2284669/.

156. Jonathan Broder,” Lawmakers Concerned About Egypt,” Congress.org, 

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lawmakers_concerned_about_egypt.

157. Nancy A Youssef. Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobe, “Khadafy pressed to 

stop violence,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 2011, p. A3.

158. “Top Sunni cleric says army should kill Kadhafi” Feb. 21, 2011; access at http://news.

yahoo.com/s/afp/20110221/wl_mideast_afp/libyapoliticsunrestfatwa_20110221212046.

159. “Some of the Key Events in Moammar Gaddafi’s Rule,” Los Angeles 

Times, Sept. 4, 2005; accessible at www.latimes.com/news/printedition/

la-fg-uslibyachrono4sep04,0,2259746.

160. Steven Emerson and Brian Duffy, The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie 

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AR2009082000545.Html.

161. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/july/126071.htm.

162. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “Remarks on Internet Freedom,” The Newseum, 

January 21, 2010; accessible at http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135519.

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163. Ibid.
104

JSOU Report 13-3

164. Alec Ross, “21st Century Statecraft Background,” January 20, 2010 at http://www.

state.gov/statecraft/rm/135545.htm.

165. Secretary Clinton’s Speech on Internet Freedom, Real Clear Politics, February 

15, 2011; accessible at http://www.reealclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/02/15/secretary_clintons_speech_on_internet_freedom_108920.html.

166. Ibid. (See also David Leigh and Luke Harding, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s 

War on Secrecy, New York: Public Affairs, 2011).

167. Clinton’s Speech on Internet Freedom, op. cit.

168. Mary Beth Sheridan and Scott Wilson, “U.S. struggles with little leverage to 

restrain Libyan government,” The Washington Post, Tuesday, February 22, 

2011; accessible at www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2011/02/21/

AR2011022105003.html?nav=rss_email/components&sid=ST2011022105046.

169. Ibid.

170. “Obama says U.S. readying full range of options on Libya,” Reuters, February 23, 2011; accessible at http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/23/

us-libya-usa-obama-statement-idUSTRE71M76T20110223.

171. Nancy A Youssef, Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobe, “Gaddafi pressed to 

stop violence,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 2011, p. A3. 

172. Ibid.

173. See for instance, Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers, “Obama Takes Hard 

Line With Libya After Shift by Clinton,” The New York Times, March 18, 2011; 

also Josh Rogin, “How Obama Turned on a Dime Toward War,” Foreign Policy, 

March 18, 2011 accessible at http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/18/

how_obama_turned_on_a_dime_toward_war.

174. Andrew Young Presents, “Rwanda Rising,” Andrew Young Foundation, 8 February, 2007; accessible at OperationHope.org.

175. UN Department of Public Information, New York, 17 March, 2011 http://www.

un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10200.doc.htm.

176. Thomas Risse, “Democratic Peace—Warlike Democracies; A Social Constructivist Interpretation of the Liberal Argument,” European Journal of International 

Relations, Vol. 1, (1995), No. 4, pp. 491-518.

177. Robert M. Gates, “A Balanced Strategy,” op. cit., p. 39.

178. Elmer Plischke, Foreign Relations: Analysis of Its Anatomy, New York: Greenwood Press, 1988, p.54. See also Christopher D. Carey, “The Changing Nature of 

Credibility: From Interest to Instrument to Vital Interest, or How I Learned to 

Stop Worrying and Love “The Box,” Washington, DC, NDU-U.S. National War 

College, 26 April 1999.

179. For a recent analysis of Power’s role see Jacob Heilbrunn, “Samantha and Her 

Subjects,” The National Interest, No. 113, May/June 2011, pp. 6-15.

180. Cooper and Myers, “Obama Takes Hard Line” op. cit.; General Clapper had 

testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 10, 2011, that 
105

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

the better-equipped Gaddafi armed forces over the longer term would prevail. 

Accessible at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20041688-503544.html.

181. David Jablonsky, “The Persistence of Credibility: Interests, Threats and Planning 

for the Use of American Military Power,” Strategic Review, Spring 1996, pp. 7-15.

182. Anthony J. Mayo and Nitin Nohria, In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders 

of the 20th Century, Cambridge: Mass, Harvard Business Press, September 2005.

183. Charles Hill, Grand Strategies, op. cit., p. 257.

184. Barry Rubin, “No Wonder Hillary resigned,” The Rubin Report, 18 March, 2011, 

http://www.Rubinreports.blogspotcom; see also Daniel Henninger, “The Collapse 

of Internationalism,” The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2011.

185. Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, New York: Crown Publishers, 2006, p. 

302.

186. J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security, New York: Columbia University Press, 1992 and Annick T. R. 

Wibben, “Feminist International Relations: Old Debates and New Directions,” 

Brown Journal of World Affairs, Winter/Spring 2004, Vol. X, Issue 2.

187. Anne-Marie Slaughter, Gayle Smith, James B. Steinberg, Ivo H. Daalder, Susan 

Rice, et.al. “Strategic Leadership: A Framework for a 21st Century National Security Strategy,” Center for a New American Security, Washington, DC, July 2008.

188. James Kitfield, “Libya: Coalition of the Leaderless,” National Journal, 21 March, 

2011; accessible at http://security.nationaljournal.com/2011/03/libya-coalitionofthe-leaderl.php.

189. “Who’s in charge? Germans pull forces out of NATO AS Libyan coalition falls 

apart,” Daily Mail, 23rd March, 2011, p. 1.

190. Steven Metz and Phillip Cuccia, “Defining War For the 21st Century,,” SSI Annual 

Strategy Conference Report, Carlisle: PA, U.S. Army War College, February 2011, 

p. 12.

191. Charles Hill, Grand Strategies, op. cit., p. 283.

192. Supporters of the new global agenda at Stanford University have initiated a 

prototypical Program on Liberation Technology: “Lying at the intersection of 

social science, computer science, and engineering, the Program on Liberation 

Technology seeks to understand how information technology can be used to 

defend human rights, improve governance, empower the poor, promote economic development, and pursue a variety of other social goods.” See http://

liberationtechnology.stanford.edu.

193. Clay Shirky, “The Political Power of Social Media,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 90, No. 

1, January/February 2011 pp. 31-38.

194. General David Petraeus quoted in J. Robinson West, “We Are Actively 2011; 

accessible at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487033734045761486

01662888050.html#articleTabs percent3Darticle.
106

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195. Sean Aday, Henry Farrell, Marc Lynch, John Sides, John Kelly and Ethan Zuckerman, “Blogs and Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics,” Peaceworks No. 

65, US Institute of Peace, 2010, p. 19.

196. Twitter is a website owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social 

networking and micro-blogging service, enabling its users to send and read 

messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default. http://

en.wikipedia.org/wiki.Twitter.

197. World Report 2010,” Human Rights Watch, New York: NY, 2010; accessible at 

http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2010.

198. Shirky, op. cit., p. 4. See also Nikolas Gvosdev “The Realist Prism: Politics vs. 

Social Media in the Arab Uprising,” World Politics Review, March 4, 2011. 

Accessed on March 4, 2011 at http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8089.

199. Ibid., 26.

200. Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, New 

York: Public Affairs, 2011.

201. Evgeny Morozov, “Freedom.gov,” Foreign Policy, January/February 2011, pp. 

34-35; Clay Shirky, “Netizens Unite,” Foreign Policy, March/April 2011, pp. 14-15.

202. Ibid.

203. Shirky, op. cit., p. 41.

204. Nikolas Gvosdev, “The Realist Prism: Politics vs. Social Media in the Arab Uprising,” World Politics Review, March 4, 2011. Last accessed on March 5, 2011 at 

http://worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/print/8089.

205. Philip N. Howard, “The digital Origins of dictatorship and Democracy,” Presentation at the CDDRL, PGJ, Program on Liberation Technology, Stanford 

University, March 10, 2011.

206. “Challenges to Dissent Inside China,” Stratfor, February 24, 2011; 

accessible at http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/185854/

analysis/20110223-challenges-dissent-inside-china.

207. Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Wavers on ‘Regime Change,’” The Wall 

Street Journal, March 5/6, 2011, p. A6.

208. Ibid., A1.

209. Ibid.

210. Praveen Swami, “Saudi Arabian troops sent to Bahrain as protests escalate,” The 

Telegraph, Monday, March 14, 2011; accessible at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

news/worldnews/middleeast/bahrain/8381034/Saudi-Arabian-troops-sent-toBahrain-as-protests-escalate.htm.

211. Entour and Barnes, “U.S. Wavers,” op. cit.

212. Nikolas Gvosdev, “The Realist Prism: Politics vs. Social Media in the Arab Uprising,” World Politics Review, March 4, 2011; accessible at http://worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/print/8089.
107

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

213. The war officially stopped with the signing by all Congolese stakeholders of 

the 2003 Global and Inclusive Agreement on the Transition. See “DDR in the 

Democratic Republic of Congo: Program Update,” World Bank, September 

2009; and “Second Congo War,” http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/

Second_Congo_War.

214. Daniel Byman, “Terrorism After the Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 90 

No. 2, May/June 2011, pp. 48-54.

215. Julian E. Barnes and Adam Entous, “Upheaval in Mideast Sets Back Terror War,” 

The Wall Street Journal, 17 March, 2011, p. A1.

216. Ibid.

217. Ibid.

218. Ibid.

219. Iona Craig, “Yemen president to step down in a month under deal,” USA Today, 

April 26, 2011, p. 1.

220. Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Blatt, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown 

Threat, NYPD: NYPD Intelligence Division, 2007. Available at http:/tinyurl.

com/2de6qmq.

221. Jeffery S. Barding “Cyber Jihadist Use of the Internet: What can be done?” Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies, Vol. 18, No.1,Fall/Winter 2010, p. 31.

222. Nick Fielding and Ian Cobain, “Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates 

social media,” The Guardian, 17 March, 2011; accessible at www.guardian.co.uk/

technology.2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks/print.

223. Ibid.

224. Ibid.

225. Ibid.

226. Ibid.

227. The White House, “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on 

Libya,” 28 March, 2011, www.whitehouse.gov.the-press-office/2011.03/28/

remarks-president-address-nation-libya.

228. Joseph P. Nye Jr., The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 176 note 

#31.

229. Kroenig et.al. “Taking Soft Power Seriously,” op. cit.

230. Christopher M. Schnaubelt, “The Illusions and delusions of Smart Power,” in 

Christopher M. Schnaubelt ed. Towards A Comprehensive Approach: Integrating 

Civilian and Military Concepts of Strategy, Rome: Italy, NATO Defense College, 

2011, pp. 23-52.

231. H. Gelb, Power Rules, New York: Harper Collins, 2009, p. 39.

232. Samantha Power, “Bystanders to Genocide,” The Atlantic, September 2001, accessible at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/bystanders-toDevil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, New York: Da Capo Press, December 

21, 2004.
108

JSOU Report 13-3

233. Gelb, Power Rules, op. cit., pp. 40-41.

234. The 2010 Census reported 308,745,538 residents in the U.S., the third largest in 

the world. Racially, the U.S. has a White American majority. Minorities compose just over one-third of the population (102.5 million in 2007), with Hispanic 

and Latino Americans and Black Americans as the largest minority groups, 

by ethnicity and race, respectively. Accessible at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Demographics_of_the_United_States.

235. Gelb, op. cit., p. 41.

236. Colin S. Gray, “Hard Power and Soft Power: The Utility of Military Force As 

an Instrument of Policy in the 21St Century,” Carlisle: PA, Strategic Studies 

Institute-NDU, April 2011, p. 35.

237. Arthur M. Schesinger, The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural 

Society, Revised and enlarged edition, New York: W.W. Norton, 1998.

238. Nicolas Sarkozy joins David Cameron and Angela Merkel view that multiculturalism has failed,” Daily Mail, February 11, 2011; accessible at http://www.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1355961/Nicolas-Sarkozy-joins-David-CameronAngela-Merkel-view-multiculturalism-failed.html#ixzz1FctmQFpl.

239. Paula Neuding, “The Cultural Contradictions of Multiculturalism,” Project 

Syndicate, February 24, 2011; accessible at http://www.project-syndicate.org/

commentary/neuding1/English.

240. Gelb, op. cit., p. 41.

241. Ibid., 42.

242. “Charismatic Authority,” Wikipedia; accessible at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Charismatic_authority#cite_note-0. Max Weber described charisma as “a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from 

ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least 

specifically exceptional qualities or powers” Maximillan. Weber, “The Nature of 

Charismatic Authority and its Routinization” in Theory of Social and Economic 

Organization, translated by A. R. Anderson and Talcott Parsons in 1947 was 

originally published in 1922 in German under the title Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft and is available online in German at http://www.textlog.de/7415.html.

243. Gelb, op. cit., p. 42.

244. Angelo M. Codevilla, “Tools of Statecraft: Diplomacy and War,” Foreign 

Policy Research Institute, January 2008; accessible athttp://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1301.200801.codevilla.statecraftdiplomacywar.html.

245. Ibid.

246. http://globalr2p.org/media/pdf/UNResolutionA63L.80Rev.1.pdf.

247. Mark Knoller, “National Debt to Top 100 percent of GDP,” CBSnews.com, 23 July 

2010; accessible at www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011546-503544.html.
109

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

248. During the Reagan years the defense budget peaked at 6 .2 percent of GDP while 

the baseline defense budget as of first quarter 2011 is currently at 3.6 percent of 

GDP. In fact, the active-duty military is two-thirds its size during the 1980s.

249. Paul McLeary, “The Failed History of the QDR,” Aviation Week, September 4, 

2009; accessible at http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/.

250. Tom Donnelly, “Kill the QDR,” AFJ-Armed Forces Journal, February 1, 2006, 

accessible at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/02/1813832.

251. Roy Godson and Richard H. Shultz, Jr., “The Pentagon is not Preparing for the 

Most Likely Conflicts, Small Wars Foundation,” 2010; last accessed on November 

14, 2010 at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/496-godson.pdf.

252. Robert M. Gates, “A Balanced U.S. Military Strategy,” Vol. 88, No. 1 Foreign 

Affairs, January/February 2009, p. 28.

253. Thomas G. Manhnken, “Striving for Balance in Defense,” Proceedings Magazine, 

U.S. Naval Institute, June 2010, Vol.136/6/1, p. 288.

254. Ibid.

255. A.C. Brooks, E.J. Feulner and W. Kristol, “Peace Doesn’t Keep Itself,” Wall Street 

Journal, October 4, 2010, p. A 25.

256. Joint Statement of William J. Perry and Stephen J. Hadley Before the House 

Armed Services Committee, on the “Quadrennial Defense Review Independent 

Panel,” Washington, DC, 29 July 2010; accessible at www.usip.org.

257. Joint Statement of Perry and Hadley, op. cit.

258. Ibid.

259. Ibid.

260. Micah Zenko, Between Threats and War: U.S. Discrete Military Operations in the 

Post-Cold War World, Palo Alto: CA, Stanford University Press, 2010.

261. The official title of the SOFA is “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from 

Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.percentE2percent80percent93Iraq_Status_of_Forces_Agreement.

262. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (UT) chairman, U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and 

Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense & 

Foreign Operations, Opening Remarks, “U.S. Military Leaving Iraq: Is the State 

Department Ready?,” Public Hearing, March 2, 2011.

263. Admiral Mike Mullen, “The Proper Use of the Military,” Aviation Week and 

Space Technology, March 22, 2010; Landon Lecture Series Address, Kansas State 

University, Wednesday, March 3, 2010 www.jcs.mil/speech.aspx?ID=1336.

264. Admiral Eric. T. Olson, “A Balanced Approach to Irregular Warfare,” The Journal 

of International Security Affairs, Spring 2009, No. 16; last accessed June 5, 2010 

at www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2009/16/olson.php.
110

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265. Mr. X, “A National Strategic Narrative,” Princeton: New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson 

International Center for Scholars, 2011.

266. Bruce Russett, Controlling the Sword, Cambridge: Mass. Harvard University 

Press, 1990.

267. Peter D. Feaver, “The Right to Be Right: Civil-Military Relations and the Iraq 

Surge Decision,” International Security, Vol. 35, No.4, (Spring 2011), p. 93.

268. Ibid., 89.

269. Ibid., 90.

270. Michael J. Carden “McChrystal Retires Amid Praise for Career,” American Forces 

Press Service, DOD, 23 July , 2010. Accessible at http://www.defense.gov./news/

newsarticle.aspx?id=60157.

271. Ibid.

272. Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, June 22, 2010 accessed at 

www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-runaway-general-20100622 See also “Top 2 

Civilians Face Rockiness in Afghan Shift,” The New York Times, Thursday, July 1, 2010, 

p. A1. In an interesting twist, soon thereafter some recommended that McChrystal 

be put in charge of overseeing the troop drawdown in Iraq. See Christopher Hitchens 

“One More Mission” Slate, 5 July , 2010; accessible at www.slate.com/2259431.

273. The Washington Post, “Pentagon Worries Led to Command Change,” August 

17, 2009; last accessed on Aug. 4, 2010 at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/

content/article/2009/08/16/AR2009081602304.html.

274. Fred Kaplan, “McChrystal: Gone and Soon Forgotten,” Slate, 23 June, 2010. Accessible at www.slate.com/id/2257956/pagenum/all.

275. Samuel P. Huntington’s classic The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics 

of Civil-Military Relations, New York: NY, Belknap Press, 1957.

276. Thom Shanker, “Gates Tightens Rules for Military and the Media,” The New 

York Times, July 2, 2010 at www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/world/03pentagon.

html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. See also “Military officials will need OK 

before nterviews,” accessible at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100703/ap_on_

go_ca_st_pe/us_gates_media_rules. (Last accessed on Sat. Jul 3, 2010).

277. Celeste Ward Guenter, “Why US soldiers in Afghanistan are so frustrated,” The Christian Science Monitor, June 30, 2010, accessed on January 12, 2011 at http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0630/

Why-US-soldiers-in-Afghanistan-are-so-frustrated.

278. See Rod Norland, “U.N. Reports Rising Afghan Casualties” The New York 

Times, August 10, 2010 www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/world/asia/11afghan.

html?_r=1&hp.

279. Ibid.

280. Hugh Gusterson, “Against counterinsurgency in Afghanistan,” Bulletin of the 

Atomic Scientists, July 1, 2010. Accessible at http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/

columnists/hugh-gusterson/against-counterinsurgency-afghanistan.
111

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

281. James M. Dorsey, “U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy Boomerangs in Yemen, Somalia,” 

World Politics Review, October 26, 2010; accessed on 10/27/2010 at www.worldpoliticsreview.com articles/6826/u-s-counterterrorism-strategy-boomerangs-in-yemen-somalia.

282. Gary T. Dempsey, “Old Folly in a New Disguise: Nation-Building to Combat 

Terrorism,” Policy Analysis No. 429, Cato Institute, March 21, 2002.

283. For a political analysis of the Bush administration decision making during the 

surge debates see Peter D. Feaver, op. cit., pp. 87-125.

284. John A. Nagl, Foreword, “The Evolution and Importance of Army/Marine Corps 

Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency in The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Chicago, Ill, U of Chicago Press, 2007. David Galula 

(1919-1967) was a French military officer and scholar who wrote books about 

counterinsurgency in Indochina, Greece, and Algeria. He served as a military 

attaché in China but did not participate in the Indochina war.

285. Joint Publication (JP), Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, April 2001 (as amended through 31 October 2009) and available at 

www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02pdf.

286. Jim Garamonte, “Iraqi Surge Was Keystone to Iraq,” The New York Times 11 

September, 2008; accessible at http://www.nyjtimes.com/cover/09-11-08/IraqiSurgeWasKeystone.htm.

287. Kimberly Kagan, The Surge: A Military History, New York: Encounter Books, 

2008.

288. Thomas E. Ricks, “Iraq: The Unraveling?,” Foreign Policy, 30 March 2009, accessible at http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/30/iraq-the_unraveling.

289. Lee Hamilton as quoted in David Corn, “Petraeus and the Myth of the Surge,” 

Mother Jones, 23 June, 2010, accessible at http://motherjones.com/mojo/ 2010/06/

petraeus-surge-afghanistan-iraq.

290. Ibid.

291. Robert M. Gates, “A Balanced Strategy,” op. cit., p. 28.

292. Gian Gentile “Exposing Counterfeit COIN,” accessed on Feb. 16, 2011 at http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2009/05/06/gian-gentile-exposing-counterfeit-coin/.

293. Michael S. Child, Sr. “Memorandum for the Inspector General, Department of 

the Army,” Inspector General Department of Defense, Foreign Policy, April 8, 

2011; accessed at www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_documents/110419_

ROI508.pdf.

294. Stanley A. McChrystal, “Becoming the Enemy” Foreign Policy, March/April 

2011, pp. 66-70.

295. Ibid., 67.

296. Ibid., 68.

297. Ibid., 69.

298. Ibid., 69.

299. Ibid.
112

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300. Ibid.

301. Ibid.

302. Bob Woodward, “Why Did the Violence Plummet? It Wasn’t Just the Surge,” The 

Washington Post, September 8, 2008.

303. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, “Networks and Netwars: the future of terror, 

crime, and militancy,” Santa Monica, CA, RAND Corp., 2001. On swarming see Sean 

Edwards, “Swarming on the Battlefield,” Santa Monica: CA, RAND Corp., 2000.

304. Christopher J. Lamb and Evan Munsing, “Secret Weapon: High Value Target 

Teams as an Organizational Innovation,” Strategic Perspectives #4, INSS-NDU, 

March 2011, p.28.

305. Ibid., 3.

306. McChrystal, “Becoming the Enemy,” op. cit.

307. Jeremy Scahill, “The Secret US War in Pakistan,” The Nation, 7 December, 2009.

308. Julius Cavendish, “US Military offers sheep in apology for Afghanistan deaths,” The 

Christian Science Monitor, 8 April 2010; Spencer Ackerman, “McChrystal Consolidates 

Control of Special Forces in Afghanistan,” 16 March, 2010 http://washington independent.com/79343/mcchrystal-consolidates-control-of-special-forces-in-afghanistan.

309. Dov Zakheim, “What can we expect from James Mattis,” Shadow Government, July 

12, 2010; at http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/category/topic/afghanistan?page=1.

310. Joint Publication 1-02, p. 130.

311. Interview in “Today” on NBC, Thursday July 29, 2010.

312. Patrick B. Johnston, “Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation in 

Counterinsurgency Campaigns.” In 11th Annual Triangle Institute for Security 

Studies New Faces Conference. Chapel Hill, NC, October, 2010, p. 29.

313. Helen Cooper and Mark Landler, “Targeted Killing is new US focus in Afghanistan,” The New York Times, July 31, 2010; last accessed on August 1, 2010 at www.

nytimes.com/2010/08/01/world/asia/01afghan.html.

314. www.usacac.army.mil/blog/blogs/coin/archive/2010/08/02/general-petraeusissues-new-comisaf-coin-guidance.aspx.

315. Ibid.

316. “U.S. Military Seeks Slower Pace to Wrap Up Afghan Role,” The New York Times, 

August 11, 2010; accessible at www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/world/asia/12policy.

html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hpw.

317. Ibid.

318. Daniel Dombey and Matthew Green “US troops set for longer Afghan stay” 

FT.COM, February 17, 2011. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a89214ac-3ac4-11e0-9c1a00144feabdc0.html#axzz1ELRn0mgK.

319. NATO Afghan exit could mean civil war, Kandaharis say,” Reuters, Nov. 28, 

2010; accessible at http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/11/28/10/

nato-afghan-exit-could-mean-civil-war-kandaharis-say.
113

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

320. “Clear, hold, hand over,” IISS, op. cit.

321. Statement of General David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army Commander, International 

Security Assistance Forces NATO Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 

15 Mar 2011, p. 3.

322. Matthew Rosenberg and Julian E. Barnes, “Al Qaeda Makes Afghan Comeback,” 

The Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2011, p. 1.

323. On the DOD permissible ROEs on drugs see James Rissen, State of War, New 

York: Free Press, 2006, p. 157.

324. Peter L. Bergen, The Longest War, op. cit., p. 179.

325. Maria Abi-Habib, “Karzai to Replace Two U.S.-Favored Ministers,” The Wall 

Street Journal, Friday, April 8, 2011, p. A7.

326. U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, 15 March, 2011, Archived Webcast, 

accessible at http://armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=5058.

327. Michael Few, “The Wrong War: An Interview with Bing West,” Small Wars 

Journal, February 21, 2011.

328. Bing West, The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan, New 

York: Random House, 2011.

329. Andrew Exum, “In Afghanistan With Our Warrior Elite,” The Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2011.

330. Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, “America’s Chaotic Road to War,” The Washington 

Post, Sunday, January 27, 2002, p. A01.

331. The Solarium results were presented by each team on July 16th, 1953, at a special 

meeting of the NSC with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the NSC Planning Board, and 

the Service Secretaries. After listening to each presentation, Eisenhower himself 

summarized and commented on each and all of them before announcing his 

preference for the findings of team A. He ordered the NSC Planning Board to 

integrate common features of the three presentations and recommend actions 

needed for immediate implementation. The result was NSC-162/2—the institutionalization of the Truman-Kennan policy of containment. See William B. 

Pickett, editor, George F. Kennan and the Origins of Eisenhower’s New Look, 

Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University, 

2004, accessible at http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~pickett/Solarium.pdf; See also 

Project Solarium, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/stories/Project-Solarium.

htm.

332. Ernest R. May, ed. American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC-68, New York: 

St. Martin’s Press, 1993.

333. Michele A. Flournoy and Shawn W. Brinley, “Strategic Planning for U.S. National 

Security: A Project Solarium for the 21st Century, The Princeton Project Paper, 

2006 accessible at www.princeton.edu/~ppns/papers/interagencyQNSR.pdf.

334. Ibid., 4.

335. Ibid.
114

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336. Ibid., 10.

337. Ibid., 14-17.

338. Tyler Nottberg, “Once and Future Policy Planning: Solarium for Today,” The 

Eisenhower Institute, accessible at http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/about/

living_history/solarium_for_today.dot.

339. John S.D. Eisenhower, General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence, New York: Free Press of 

Simon & Schuster, 2003. Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union 

that began on 22 June, 1941, was the largest military operation in human history.

340. “The Military-Industrial Complex at 50: Assessing the Meaning and Impact of 

Eisenhower’s Farewell Address: Panel 1. The Wars Within: Thoughts on the State 

of Civil–Military Relations” in 2011, Cato Institute, Washington, DC, January 

13, 2011; htpp://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=7604.

341. President Obama said McChrystal’s conduct “undermines the civilian control of 

the military ... ” Robert Burns, “Pentagon probe clears Gen. McChrystal,” San 

Francisco Chronicle, April 19, 2011, p. A4.

342. Leon Mangasarian and Viola Gienger, “U.S. Says Libyan Campaign to Ease 

as No-Fly Zone Is Secured,” Bloomberg, 22 March, 2011; accessible at www.

bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-22/allies-control-of-airspace-in-libya-putsqaddafis-ground-forces-at-risk.htm. Secretary Gates was in an official visit to Moscow 

when he made his remarks.

343. Gates, Landon Lecture, op. cit.

344. Hans Binneendijk and Patrick M. Cronin, ed. “Civilian Surge: Key to Complex 

Operations,” Center for Technology and National Policy, National Defense University, Washington: DC, 2009, p. 5.

345. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “Remarks on Transformational Diplomacy,” January 18, 2006, Washington: DC Georgetown University in Justin 

Vaisse “Transformational Diplomacy,” Chaillot Paper, No. 103, Paris: France, 

European Union Institute for Security Studies, June 2007, Annex A.

346. Admiral Mullen retired 30 September 2011, replaced by General Martin E. Dempsey.

347. Lisa Daniel, “Gates: U.S. Must Consider Sustainability of Afghan Forces,” American Forces Press Service, February 17, 2011 accessible at http://www.defense.gov/

news/newsarticle.aspx?id=62857.

348. Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, “A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming The Pentagon For a New Age,” Foreign Affairs, January 2009 and Hillary 

Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State, Testimony before the Senate Appropriations 

Committee, Washington , DC, April 2009.

349. The First Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR): Leading 

Through Civilian Power, U.S. Department of State, December 2010; accessible 

at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/153142.pdf.

350. Ibid.

351. Her full resume is at www.princeton.edu/~slaughtr/Admin/SlaughterCV2.pdf.
115

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

352. David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, “Obama is Set To Redo Team on War Policy,” 

The New York Times, 7 April 2011, p. A1.

353. This section draws heavily from the CRS Report for Congress, “U.S. Special 

Operations Forces (SOF); Background and Issues for Congress,” by Andrew 

Feickert and Thomas K. Livingston, CRS 7-5700, RS21048, March 28, 2011.

354. 10 U. S. Code, Sect.167 (a).

355. USSOCOM accessible at www.socom.mil/SOCOMHome/Pages/USSOCOM.aspx.

356. Col. David Gurney and Dr. Jeffrey D. Smotherman, “An Interview with Eric T. 

Olson,” Joint Forces Quarterly, Issue 56, 1st quarter 2010.

357. Posture Statement of Admiral Eric T. Olson, USN Commander United States 

Special Operations Command,” before the 112th Congress, Senate Armed Services Committee, March 1, 2011.

358. Charles G. Cogan, “Desert One and Its Disorders,” The Journal of Military History Vol. 67 No. 1, 2003, pp. 201-216.

359. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services.

360. Admiral Eric Olson, “USSOCOM: Function and Focus,” Center for Strategic and 

International Studies (CSIS), Transcript by Federal News Service, Washington, 

DC, April 1, 2010, p. 3.

361. Mr. Gearing, “The Chairman’s Joint Training System,” Horizons, Issue 4, 

Summer, 2011, p. 31.

362. Olson, CSIS, op. cit.

363. Ibid.

364. “An Interview with Eric T. Olson,” op. cit.

365. DODD 3000.07, December 1, 2008; accessible at http://www.dtic.mil/. whs/directives/corres/pdf/300007p.pdf.

366. Posture Statement of Admiral Eric T. Olson, 112th Congress, Senate Armed 

Services Committee, March 1, 2011.

367. Admiral Eric T. Olson, Speech on 3 March 2008 delivered at the Willard Hotel, 

Washington, DC.

368. Ibid.

369. Testimony of Michael G. Vickers, “SOCOM’S Missions and Roles,” U.S. House 

of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Terrorism, 

Unconventional Threats, and Capabilities, June 29, 2006.

370. Olson, “2011Posture Statement,” op. cit.

371. Admiral Eric Olson, “USSOCOM: Function and Focus,” Center for Strategic and 

International Studies (CSIS), Transcript by Federal News Service, Washington, 

DC, April 1, 2010.

372. Michele Malvesti, “USSOCOM: Function and Focus,” CSIS, Ibid.

373. Mike Ryan, The Operators: Inside the World’s Special Forces, New York: Skyhorse 

Publishing, 2008, p. 205.
116

JSOU Report 13-3

374. Michele L. Malvesti, “To Serve the Nation: U.S. Special Operation Forces in an 

Era of Persistent Conflict.” Center for a New American Security,” Washington, 

DC, June 2010.

375. Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Roger D. Carstens, U.S. Army Special Forces, “Special 

Operations Forces: Challenges and Opportunities,” Testimony Before the House 

Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional 

Threats and Capabilities, U.S. House of Representatives, 3 March 2009, p. 14.

376. Olson, CSIS, April 1, 2010, op. cit.

377. Malvesti, op. cit.

378. Ibid.

379. The original author of the SOF Truths was retired Army Colonel John M. Collins who as a Congressional Research Service analyst wrote “United States and 

Soviet Special Operations,” CRS-Library of Congress, April 28, 1987, Washington: DC U.S.G.P.O. 87-271-P. For a history see www.shadowspear.com/vb/

threads/5th-sof-truth-added-re-inserted.4748.

380. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 2010.

381. Olson, CSIS, op. cit., pp. 5-6.

382. Joint Publication 1-02, DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms 12 

April 2001, as amended through 16 October 2006.

383. Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, September 22, 2011.

384. Olson, “USSOCOM; Functions and Focus,” CSIS, op. cit.

385. USSOCOM, Limited Objective Experiment (LOE) 13-16 July 2010, p. 68.

386. Admiral Eric T. Olson, “A Balanced Approach to Irregular Warfare,” The Journal 

of International Security Affairs, Spring 2009, No. 16.

387. Admiral Eric T. Olson, “USSOCOM: Function and Focus,” CSIS, op. cit.

388. Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, op. cit.

389. Section 1208 of P.L. 108-375, the FY 2005 National Defense Authorization Act.

390. Olson, “A Balanced Approach,” op. cit.

391. Admiral Eric T. Olson, Commander USSOCOM, 2010 Posture Statement, House 

Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense, HAC-D, 18 June 2010.

392. Major General Michael T. Flynn, Capt. Matt Pottinger and Paul D. Batchelor, 

“Fixing Intelligence: a Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan,” CNAS, Washington, DC , January 2010.

393. USSOCOM, Research Topics 2011, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa: Fla., Joint 

Special Operations University.

394. Basil Henry Liddell Hart, The Strategy of the Indirect Approach, London: UK, 

Faber and Faber Limited, Digital publication 5/19/25. http://www.archive.org/

details/strategyofindire035126mb.

395. B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1967; Signet Books, 

1974, p. 352.
117

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

396. B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy: The Indirect Approach, New York: Praeger, 1954, p. 

339.

397. Ralph D. Sawyer, The Complete Art of War: Sun Tzu, Colorado: Westview Press, 

1996.

398. Ibid., 15-36.

399. Bennet Sacolick, “What’s so Special About Special Forces?” available at www.

sfa20.org/Documents/Whats percent20so percent20special percent20about percent20SF.pdf.

400. Ibid.

401. Thomas H. Henriksen, Afghanistan, Counterinsurgency, and the Indirect 

Approach, JSOU-Report 10-3, JSOU Press, 2010.

402. Eric T. Olson, CSIS, op. cit.

403. Michelle Malvesti, CSIS, op. cit.

404. See Dena Montague and Frida Berrigan, “The Business of War in the Democratic 

Republic of Congo”, Dollars and Sense magazine, July/August 2001, reproduced 

in Third World Traveler at www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Africa/Business_War_

Congo.html. 

405. The DRC’s Country Assistance Framework: A ‘Big Tent’ built from ‘Big Ideas’?” 

Joint UN-Bank Review of the DRC CAF, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO); The World Bank Group, 30 May 2008.

406. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Donald Yamamoto, Testimony 

before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, and Human Rights, March 8, 2011; accessible at http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/112/yam030811.

407. Ibid.

408. “UN officials calls Congo ‘rape capital of the world’” BBC NEWS, 28 April 2010, 

accessible at htpp://news.bbc.co.uk/ /2/hi/8650112.stm.

409. Nicole Dalrymple, “U.S. and DRC in partnership to train model Congolese battalion,” www.army.mil, February 18, 2010.

410. Ibid.

411. David Axe, “The Limits of Smart Power,” The American Prospect, November 29, 2010; 

accessible at www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article= the_limits_of_smart_power.

412. Ibid.

413. U.S. Department of State, “Trafficking in Persons Report, 2010”; accessible at 

www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010/142747.htm.

414. During the Libyan revolt the USS Kearsarge, OCP’s main vessel, was dispatched 

to the Mediterranean to provide humanitarian relief in the rebel-held Eastern 

part of the country.

415. “48 Women Raped Every Hour in Congo, Study Finds,” The Associated Press 

(AP), 11 May, 2011.
118

JSOU Report 13-3

416. Nathan Hodge, Armed Humanitarians: The Rise of the Nation Builders, New 

York: Bloomsbury, 2011.

417. Michel G. Roskin, National Interest: From Abstraction to Strategy, Carlisle, PA: 

Strategic Studies Institute, 1994, p. 16.

418. Michael Mandelbaum, “Foreign Policy as Social Work,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75, 

No.1, 1996, pp. 16-32.

419. Coit D. Blacker, The New Global Agenda, op. cit.

420. James Kinnigburgh and Dorothy Denning, Blogs and Military Information 

Strategy, JSOU Report 06-5 Hurlburt Field: Fl, The JSOU Press, June 2006.

421. Author’s conversation with Admiral Olson during “Sovereign Challenge VI 

Conference,” El Paso, Texas, November 9, 2010.

422. Jeff McKaughan, “Q & A: Lieutenant General David P. Fridovich,” SOTECH, 

Volume 8 Issue 4, June 2010.

423. Michelle L. Malvesti, “To Serve the Nation: U.S. Special Operations Forces in an 

Era of Persistent Conflict,” Center for a New American Security, June 2010.

424. Sean D. Naylor, “Support grows for standing up an unconventional warfare 

command,” Armed Forces Journal, September2007; accessible at www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/09/3049653.

425. David Tucker and Christopher J. Lamb, “Restructuring Special Operations Forces 

for Emerging Threats,” Strategic Forum, Institute for National Strategic Studies, No. 219, January 2006. pp. 1-6. See also their book length elaboration David 

Tucker and Christopher J. Lamb, United States Special Operations Forces, New 

York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

426. Ibid., 3.

427. Naylor, op. cit.

428. Admiral Eric T. Olson, 2010 Posture Statement, p. 5.

429. Admiral Eric T. Olson, Testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on 

Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Committee on Armed Services, Washington, DC, June 18, 2009.

430. Posture Statement of Admiral Eric T. Olson, Before the 112th Congress, Senate 

Armed Services Committee, March 1, 2011. 

431. Written testimony of Vice Admiral William H. McRaven, USN Commander 

Designate, USSOCOM to the Senate Armed Services Committee, June 28, 2011, 

pp. 18-19.

432. Admiral Michael Mullen, USN, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hearing 

of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Federal News Service, Washington, 

DC, February 2, 2010.

433. Karen Parrish, “SOF focus on world’s ‘unlit spaces,’” USSOCOM, www.socom.

mil/SOCOMHome/newspub/news/Pages/Specialoperationsunlitspaces.aspx.
119

Wong-Diaz: Smart Power and U.S. National Strategy

434. Major Paul Edwards, “Making Soldiers and Small Units More Decisive,” TRADOC Public Affairs, 25 February 2011; accessible at www.army.

mil/-news/2011/03/01/52609-making-soldiers-and-small-units-more-decisive/.

435. “Interview with Dr. Malcolm Ross O’Neill,” Assistant Secretary of the Army for 

Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, Army AL & T, January-March 2011, p. 3.

436. Major Paul Edwards, op. cit.

437. Ibid.

438. Bennet Sacolick, “SOF vs. SOF-like,” Small Wars Journal, 30 April 2009; available 

at http:// smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/04/sof-vs-SOF-like/.

439. Ibid.

440. Speech by then U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Vickers, “Building 

the Global Counterterrorism Network,” The Washington Institute for Near East 

Policy, Washington: DC, October 24, 2008.

441. Ann Scott Tyson, “Sorry, Charlie, this is Michael Vickers’ War,” The Washington 

Post, 28 December, 2007.

442. James D. Kiras, Special Operations and Strategy, New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 113.

443. Ibid.

444. Ibid., 114.

445. Ibid., 117.

446. Rachel Martin, “Will Bin Laden’s Death Affect Afghan Insurgency?,” NPR Morning Edition, May 12, 2011; accessible at http://www.cnas.org/node/6349. 

447. Ibid.

448. Anton K. Smith, “Turning on the DIME: Diplomacy’s Role in National Security,” 

Carlisle: PA, Strategic Studies Institute, U. S. Army War College, October 12, 

2007.

449. Jessica G. Turnley, Cross-Cultural Competence and Small Groups: Why SOF are 

the way SOF are, JSOU Report 11-1, March 2011, JSOU Press, p. 45.

450. Henriksen, Afghanistan, Counterinsurgency, and the Indirect Approach, op. cit.

451. Andrew Feickert, “U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) Background and Issues 

for Congress,” CRS 7-5700, Report RS21048, July 15, 2011, pp. 8-10.

452. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations called Afghanistan a “strategic distraction” (“Let’s Un-Surge in Afghanistan,” The Wall Street 

Journal, December 20, 2010). He later called Libya another “strategic distraction” 

(“Let’s Keep out of Libya,” The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2011).

453. Nathan Hodge, Armed Humanitarians: The Rise of the Nation Builders, New 

York: Bloomsbury, 2011.

454. Bing West, “The Way Out of Afghanistan,” Military Review, March/April 2011, 

pp. 89-95.

455. Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search 

for a Way Out of Iraq, New York: Public Affairs, 2008.
120

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456. Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis, Judgement: How Winning Leaders Make 

Great Calls, New York: Penguin, 2007, p. 5. 

457. Richard H. Shultz Jr, “Showstoppers: Nine reasons why we never sent our Special 

Operations Forces after al-qaeda before 9/11” The Weekly Standard, January 26, 

2004, Vol. 9. N0. 19; last accessed on May 15, 2011 at http://www.weeklystandard.

com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/613twavk.asp?page=3.

458. Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis, Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make 

Great Calls, New York: NY, Penguin Group, 2007, p. 369.

459. Pragmatism as a philosophical movement began in the United States in the 1870s. 

Its overall direction was determined by the thought and works of Charles Sanders Peirce William James, and Chauncey Wright (members of The Metaphysical 

Club) as well as John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. See http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Pragmatism.

460. John Cecil Masterman, The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945, 

Australian National University Press, 1972.

461. Sir William Stephenson, A Man Called Intrepid, New York: Ballantine Books, 1978.

462. John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona, Yale University Press, 1999.

463. Harry R. Yarger, “How Do Students Learn Strategy?”, op. cit.

464. Mr. Y, “A National Strategic Narrative,” Woodrow Wilson International Center 

for Scholars, Washington, DC 2011.

465. Ibid., 5.

466. Joseph S. Nye, Jr. “The War on Soft Power,” Foreign Policy, April 12, 2011.

467. Mr. Y, op. cit., p. 10.

468. Michelle Malvesti, “USSOCOM,” CSIS, op. cit.

469. For a modern analysis see Barry Strauss, The Trojan War: A New History, New 

York, Simon and Schuster, 1st ed., 2006.