澳门六合彩

In this excerpt from The Leverage Paradox, Robert M. Hathaway discusses how the current administration can look to history for lessons on how to move forward with U.S.-Pakistan relations.聽 You can download the full book or request a hard copy on our website.

In the real world, as Bush and Cheney found in dealing with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Cuba, and other problematic actors, toughness and bald efforts to wield U.S. power produce decidedly uneven results. Indeed, leverage is generally most effective when the target country barely recognizes it is being leveraged.

Paradoxically, leverage should be as much about seduction as compulsion鈥攄rawing upon relationships, fostering a sense of shared purpose, creating obligation, making the other side want to satisfy you. In other words, the tasks of diplomacy. One ought not draw too sharp a distinction between leverage and diplomacy. Leverage is a component of diplomacy, not a substitute for it.

Not all diplomats feel comfortable with the term leverage. One Asian diplomat has insisted that Pakistan is not strong enough to leverage the United States. Rather, he argues, the United States from time to time places itself in a position where Pakistan can manipulate Washington.33 Other diplomats prefer the seemingly less coercive term influence.

But the terminology doesn鈥檛 in any fundamental way negate the idea of leverage. Most of the time, the two concepts鈥攄iplomacy and leverage鈥攂leed together, in friendly and adversarial relationships alike. In their candid moments, diplomats will tell you that the calculations of leverage鈥攚ho has it, how it can be used or deflected鈥攊s an everyday aspect of their profession. As one retired U.S. ambassador observed while talking about his chosen profession, 鈥淟everage is literally in the atmosphere. It鈥檚 part of how you breathe in the job of diplomacy.鈥�34

To achieve maximum impact, however, leverage should be employed subtly, even seductively. This maxim is nothing more than a recognition of human nature. 鈥淪ubordination is an uncomfortable mental state, and an increasingly unacceptable one in an age in which equality and justice are dominant political values,鈥� two leading political scientists have observed. 鈥淔or this reason, power has to be masked in order to be effective.鈥�35 Soothing language and a willingness to offer face-saving concessions are as important as coercion in exerting leverage. This is also where the appeal of soft power plays a role. While leverage can be about muscle, it can also be about attraction.

But not always, or under all circumstances. If the core interests of the two parties cannot be reconciled, a non-confrontational approach will achieve no better results than brute force. If the two sides have fundamentally different conceptions about the nature of the world they face and the threats that world poses, the skillful exercise of leverage is not likely to bridge that chasm. More than any other reason, that reality explains why the United States, for all its power, has so frequently experienced frustration in working with Pakistan. The leaderships of the two countries simply weren鈥檛 operating, intellectually and emotionally, in the same world. Their perceptual maps didn鈥檛 align.

Henry Luce and Donald Trump

In February 1941, Henry R. Luce, arguably the most influential publisher in America, penned an editorial for the mass-circulation magazine Life that heralded 鈥淭he American Century.鈥� Luce called upon Americans 鈥渢o accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world and in consequence to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.鈥�36

Luce鈥檚 exhortation constituted a stirring summons for America to take up the task of global leadership. Some may find Trumpian themes in Luce鈥檚 cri de coeur, with its conviction of American exceptionalism and its confidence in the sufficiency of American power to shape the world in accordance with American purposes. Yet, Luce鈥檚 essay spoke to the needs of an earlier era, and even then badly overestimated the potency of U.S. strength.

Today the United States possesses greater power than Luce鈥攚riting before the destructive force made manifest at Hiroshima and the creative force demonstrated by the internet and the smartphone鈥攃ould ever have imagined. Even so, Trump鈥檚 America finds itself constrained in its ability to use its power to effect national purposes. So, too, the world鈥檚 other strong nations. The costs of wielding power are often too high, the ways in which weaker states can deflect power too numerous. Moreover, many of the threats facing the modern world鈥攃limate change, cyberwar and cybercrime, resource scarcities, environmental degradation, the sense of isolation and alienation that fosters terrorism鈥攄o not readily lend themselves to traditional solutions that rely on the mobilization of power.

In dealing with Pakistan in the years ahead, the United States, quite properly, is not going to use much of the power at its disposal, particularly its military power. So the apparently huge power differential between the two countries is far smaller than a simple reckoning of the assets on each side would suggest. 鈥淧ower resources are not power in themselves,鈥� political scientist Barbara Elias reminds us. In comparing the power of two countries, one must also factor in how committed to and dependent on the relationship each party is.37 In recent years, as the war in Afghanistan ground on and on, Washington鈥檚 commitment to the Pakistani connection and dependence upon Pakistan has handed Islamabad huge leverage over its far stronger partner.

In a world where standard measures of power based upon wealth, size, and resources do not count as heavily as they once did, diplomacy鈥攁nd the leverage that invariably forms part of diplomacy鈥攚ill be an even more important component of a country鈥檚 strength and influence. This is equally true whether the purpose is to advance the national interest or to take on the global challenges common to all nations. But in such a world, leverage is often more apt to arise from persuasion and attraction than from crude coercion.

America鈥檚 considerable power should give it considerable leverage in the years ahead鈥攂ut only if the target government is prepared to be leveraged. In the days following the Abbottabad raid that killed bin Laden, some commentators predicted that an embarrassed Islamabad would now be on the defensive. This, Reuters speculated, could give the United States substantial leverage over Pakistan. But as a Western diplomat based in Islamabad shrewdly noted, 鈥淭he important point . . . is that it takes two to tango. And it would take the Pakistani side to respond positively to United States鈥� assertion of leverage and its laundry list of requests.鈥�38 As we have seen, Islamabad鈥檚 response in the months after Abbottabad was, from the U.S. perspective, anything but positive. With sufficient commitment, almost any state can avoid being leveraged by a stronger country.

Americans, then, should be more modest in their expectations for leverage, and understand that there are limits to the leverage that even great power provides. Paradoxically, recognizing these limits is the first step toward maximizing U.S. leverage and using American power effectively. In the hard world of global politics, power matters, but it does not decide all matters. It is good to have on one鈥檚 side, but by itself is insufficient to ensure success. Both the Old Testament and the Quran tell the story of David and Goliath,39 where the callow youth, bearing only a slingshot, felled the fearsome giant. It鈥檚 a cautionary tale that strong states, not least the United States, would do well to remember.

You can download The Leverage Paradox at the Asia Program's website.听听To request a hard copy, please email asia@wilsoncenter.org.

Click here to read Doubling Down on Pakistan by Robert M. Hathaway on our blog.

Notes

33 Interview with a Southeast Asian ambassador, May 2015.
34 Interview with retired U.S. diplomat, Mar. 2016.
35 Reich and Lebow, Good-bye Hegemony!, 180.
36 Henry R. Luce, 鈥淭he American Century,鈥� Life, Feb. 17, 1941, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mlassite/discussions261/luce.pdf.
37 Elias, 鈥淎merica鈥檚 Missing Leverage in Afghanistan and Pakistan,鈥� 1393-94.

The views expressed are the author's alone, and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government or 澳门六合彩.聽 Copyright 2018, Asia Program.聽 All rights reserved.