Posted by Dayuhan,
All too often these determinations are reached with grossly insufficient understanding of the complex interplay of factions, interests, competitions, and infinite detail that prevails in the environments we seek to influence. Above all we suffer from an apparently overpowering urge to see what we want to see and believe those who tell us what we want to hear. As a result, Americans are often stupidest when we seek to be smart.
This statement is brilliant! I always shocked at the number of folks in the beltway that now advocate so called smart or soft power. This implies that prior to this outstanding idea we were advocates of stupid power?

Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but it seems to me that our ego causes considerable problems. In military units you hear our leadership state we're better than we ever were, "we" (read I) fixed the broken army of the Vietnam era, etc. Yet a more careful reading of history may reveal that the Army we had in Vietnam (prior to the large anti-war movement that undermined our force) was superior in many ways to the Army we have today.

Furthermore do we have more less power today as a nation (and as the West in general) than we did during the Cold War?

Diplomacy is now defined by a perverse set of political correct rules that have little to do with reality or our national interests. One simple case in point the West's reaction to Sri Lanka's victory over the Tamil separatist movement, which they won with military power. Now the West is questioning if their methods were perhaps too harsh? Of course it is much more humane to drag a conflict out for years, because militarily decisive solutions are obviously not smart or soft, just effective (at times).

Information is an area where we should excel, but for reasons unknown we disbanded the highly effectively Voice of America program, and we have developed a bureaucratic process for approvals of messages that have in effect left our forces (across the spectrum, diplomatic, military, etc.) paralyzed in this fight. Messages approved in the beltway are so watered down or altered they have lost all credibility or have completely missed the intent in the first place.

Military power should need no further explanation, we can't effectively use it to deny safehaven to the enemy, or to wage a war of attrition even if we desired to (in addition to using other methods that some now call soft power, funny how much more effective soft power can be when you carry a big stick). In fairness there are good reasons in many cases (not all) that the military is constrained, but it is a fallacy in my opinion to simply assume that a more aggressive application of military power can't be effective in some situations.

Economic power has eroded because we have seemed to lost the art of applying it effectively. This warrants a separate post, but we also need to understand we're no longer the only competitor, and one thing that has changed (based on my limited knowledge of history), this is the first time that a non-state actor (except for perhaps the Catholic Church) has had this much economic power based on donations from the Sunni community at large and funds from organized crime.

More later, gotta run....