By Herbert Wulf
Donald Trump may be a good campaigner, but his government policy in the first few months is characterized by chaotic and irrational decisions: “Dangerous and dumb”, according to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
At the end of March, immediately after the gaffe of including a journalist on a Signal chat exchange of what should be classified war plans, Ms Clinton wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times criticising Trump’s policy not just for the hypocrisy, but primarily for its stupidity. She herself had argued for the use of “smart power”. The terms “soft”, “hard” and “smart power” are used in international political science and refer to instruments, especially foreign policy tools, allowing governments to exert influence in different ways.
“How much dumber will this get?”
The soft and smart use of power was the trademark of American foreign policy during Obama’s first term, when Clinton was Secretary of State, as she reminds us in the New York Times. Referring to Trump’s first two months in office, she asks: “How much dumber will this get?”
Joseph Nye, a well-known American political scientist, politician and author, introduced the concept of soft power in the 1980s. He used the term to describe the ability of a government to co-opt friendly or hostile countries, partners or opponents, instead of making them submissive through coercion or even the use of the military. Soft power relies on cultural exchange, global cooperation, development cooperation and the strengthening of common values. If Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, wants to popularize yoga in the world, he is using India’s soft power to make India popular as well. Pop music and Hollywood films are certainly hallmarks of America’s soft power because they are popular.
The US has rarely shied away from using its hard power. Not only the Korean War and the Vietnam War bear witness to this. The Bush administration practiced hard power politics with its intervention in Iraq. During the Cold War, the Europeans may have benefited from American deterrence with nuclear weapons in the bloc confrontation between East and West, but many countries in the Global South were often helplessly exposed to American hard power. The numerous military coups supported by the United States in Latin America and the increasing international criticism led, among other things, to popularizing and using soft power as a more acceptable and sustainable instrument in foreign policy.
Far from being a benign hegemon
“Smart power” became common much later than soft power. The United Nations, for example, introduced “smart sanctions” against Iraq in the early 1990s. Smart power is a combination of soft and hard power. Clinton, for example, unabashedly propagates this in her article, writing: “As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power.”
Throughout its history, the United States has been far from being an exclusively benign hegemon, the good-natured and selfless leader of the West who ensured the functioning of the global order. America’s own interests were always pursued, often at the expense of friendly countries and often at the expense of the breach of self-propagated international values and rules. Occasionally, the rules of the game were changed for their own benefit. Obama’s foreign policy was undoubtedly an attempt to give a high priority to soft power, to promote human rights, to strengthen the rules of international law, to foster values such as individual freedom, democracy and freedom of the press. At the same time, however, Obama’s term of office saw the expansion of drone operations to hunt down and kill terrorists. These extrajudicial executions, the arbitrary killing of people without due process, violated national law and international humanitarian law. Smart power combines, as Hillary Clinton describes it, the friendly face of diplomacy with the hard power of the American military. It is therefore a hybrid approach, the combination of hard and soft power.
However, the smart use of power does not necessarily fall back only on the use of force and the military. If the EU develops diplomatic initiatives and combines them with economic incentives to promote these initiatives around the world, or responds to Trump’s tariff policy with reciprocal tariffs, then this can also be described as smart power. If China combines its assertive foreign policy in many countries with its economic assistance, this can also be called smart power.
The use of dumb power is a feature, not a bug
Trump’s policy is a completely different approach, never before observed in this consistent format. The current policy of the USA is the exact opposite of soft or smart power. It can certainly be described as “dumb”. It harms others, sometimes even itself, and is in a certain way blind to the consequences or accepts them approvingly.
If the USA wants to annex Canada as the 51st state of the USA, then this is of course directed against international law. When American government representatives visit Greenland uninvited with a lot of fanfare and threaten to take over Greenland, then of course this can be described as a brazen and stupid use of power.
- Firing hundreds of employees responsible for the security of nuclear weapons is dangerous and dumb.
- Cancelling demonstrably effective health programs against Ebola and HIV/AIDS is inhumane and dumb.
- Writing letters to European companies asking them to implement Trump’s cancellation of anti-discrimination programs within five days is naïve and dumb.
- Harassing judges, scientists and the media, or firing generals for speaking out against Trump in the past, is malicious and dumb.
- Depriving reputable research institutions of funding is self-harming and dumb.
- Firing thousands of secret service employees is short-sighted and dumb.
- Imposing tariffs on a large scale harms global trade and certainly also the American economy. This policy is irrational and dumb.
Hillary Clinton speaks of “shredding our soft power”. Trump’s policies so far may not sound like a well-designed grand strategy, but implementing dumb policies by draconian means does not necessarily mean missing the desired results. Applying dumb policies does not mean that they are doomed to fail.
Some of the absurd-sounding Trump decrees can be quickly revised, such as the safeguarding of nuclear weapons. Others, such as the harassment of Greenland, are seen worldwide as hurtful and illegal. But with economic and military means, the Trump administration has the instruments in its hands to assert itself against the Greenlanders, the Danish government or the European allies, if the president sets out to do so. The American military could probably enforce control of the Panama Canal within a few days.
Trump does not pursue “dumb” power in its purest form. He also combines his ridiculous-sounding policies with economic power. He does not shy away from blackmail, i.e. hard power, as in the case of Ukraine. Extortion of protection money without offering protection. Although he repeatedly emphasizes that he will not start new wars, his Gaza plans, as well as the bombing of Houthi positions in Yemen, show that Trump has no qualms about using the American military or enabling others to continue a war indefinitely through military aid and arms deliveries, as in the case of Israel. He can also, as in Ukraine, withdraw support and possibly present the country with fatal consequences vis-à-vis Russia.
Will Trump continue to pursue his concept of disruption, shredding established relations internally and externally, in order to start a golden age on the rubble, at least for America? How successfully he can practise this disturbing path depends not least on potential counterforces, both within society in the USA and globally.
Source:https://toda.org/global-outlook/2025/the-shift-from-smart-to-dumb-power.html
