At the suggestion of a friend, I recently started reading Mitt Romney’s book No Apology. I was excited to read the book because I thought I’d disagree with it before I even began. (I’ve said before that I think everyone should spend a lot more time listening to or reading those they disagree with.) The first few chapters didn’t let me down—I had a couple pages full of notes about what was wrong with his ideas. The basic premise of the book is the need for America to remain a world superpower. I have no problem with America being a strong nation, but in general feel like our efforts to stay on top actually increase the threats against us and reduce our global influence. Thus, I’m generally opposed to the kind of rhetoric in Romney’s book. He warns of the threats from Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, China, and terrorism and tries to convey the idea that if America isn’t the dominate force in the world these threats will destroy liberty across the globe. I am not ignorant of the significant dangers we face in the world, but think the, “we are the force for good in the world and must stay stronger than everyone else” mentality is counterproductive. I think most Americans want our country to be powerful, as do I; but we need to understand what powerful means and realize there are different ways to achieve it. Being powerful is about maintaining the ability to influence outcomes around the world. There are times when maintaining that influence requires us to have and be willing to use overwhelming force. There are also times when a posture of overwhelming military force and intimidation can unite our enemies and undermine our influence – and it’s my opinion that we’re currently in one of those times. But enough of that, I’m actually writing this article to agree with and offer praise for one of Romney’s ideas.

Foreign policy isn’t just about military strength and diplomacy. Economics, development, negotiation, international institutions, public opinion, and several other factors are not only important, I believe they are becoming increasingly important as the world becomes more interconnected. Dennis Ross, an experienced negotiator in the Middle East, wrote a compelling book called Statecraft and How to Restore America’s Standing in the World. The general idea I took from that book is the complexity of each foreign policy issue we face and the need to carefully craft solutions for each with all the available tools. Romney seems to understand this need to bring multiple tools to bear on foreign policy issues in an idea he first put forth in a Foreign Affairs article during his campaign and expands upon in his book. His idea is basically to create a position in each region of the world with exactly that responsibility – to use multiple tools to pursue our interests. He builds upon our current military organization and the ideas in Thomas Barnett’s book The Pentagon’s New Map. The military currently has regional combatant commanders tasked to unite all our military efforts in a particular area. Romney suggests mirroring this position with an individual tasked to unite our political, economic, diplomatic, and military efforts in a particular area. Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us that securing our interests in a region can’t be accomplished just with military strength: we need a focused effort of economic development and aid, humanitarian work, and diplomacy. The problem is that no person or organization currently has the resources and accountability for that task. Who exactly is responsible for ensuring we build a stable economy and government in Afghanistan? Is it the military? If so we’re asking too much of them, that’s not what they’re trained to do. Is it USAID or the State Department? If so, why don’t they have accountable representatives standing next to General Petraeus testifying to Congress about the progress in Afghanistan? And who is responsible for uniting our efforts to prevent future conflict in other regions? Romney points out that Hamas and Hezbollah enjoy public support in their regions because they unite their military and humanitarian efforts. Romney talks about our failure to efficiently use our “soft power” in fundamental ways, something our adversaries have done much more successfully. Polls show an alarming low approval rating of the US around the world, but what are we doing about it? (Popularity isn’t the end goal of foreign policy, but international support makes it drastically easier to influence outcomes.) We need to be using our soft power resources to improve our image and influence so we aren’t forced into a position to use hard power. The need to more efficiently use soft power is not a new idea, Joseph Nye has wrote extensively about it (a good summary in this article), but Romney’s idea is the most concrete I’ve seen for actually implementing it and improving our ability to influence outcomes. Though I don’t appreciate his rhetoric, I think his fundamental idea in this area is extremely promising.

Just as an example, imagine a regional envoy to South America, mirroring the military’s United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM). This envoy would have a budget set by Congress and would deploy economic aid, humanitarian efforts, intelligence gathering, diplomacy, and military force if necessary to secure our interests and discourage and resolve conflict in the region. It would be staffed with regional, national, and language experts familiar with the people, culture, and history of the region. The envoy would be the primary extension of our foreign policy, bringing to bare not just diplomatic or military means, but the full range of tools necessary to execute true statecraft – with the ultimate goals of promoting democracy and human rights, avoiding conflict, encouraging economic development, and securing US interests. With such a system in place, we would greatly increase our ability to influence outcomes and would find ourselves much more prepared for future crises. We don’t necessarily have to be bigger and stronger than the rest of the world, but we do need to be efficient with our resources and get much better and applying leverage in the right place at the right time.