Smart Power

Hendrick Hertzberg explores the emergence of what is being called Smart Power:

Thesis: Hard Power…All about blood and guts. Antithesis: Soft Power…Movies, books, songs. Ideals, diplomacy, moral authority. All about hearts and minds. Synthesis: Smart Power…(Hillary, at her confirmation hearing,) “the full range of tools at our disposal—diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural—picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation.”

Although, Hertzberg doesn’t think the middle of the road is necessarily virtuous.  Last week, he agreed with Yglesias on the dangers of adhering to a dogma of centrism.  In sum,

Dogmatic centrism not only puts you at the gravitational mercy of whichever side is prepared to move furthest toward its own extreme, it also obliges you to reject certain ideas automatically, without any analysis except spectrum analyses.

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