The U.S. Military and Public Diplomacy

Abstract

Can and should the U.S. military, which wields the tools of “hard power,” engage in “soft power” initiatives such as the practice of public diplomacy? The U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) mission is to organize, train, and equip the nation’s military forces to prevent war and protect the security of the country. However, the geopolitical realities of a long asymmetric war against extremism, and the emerging threats from ungoverned and undergoverned areas around the globe, pose important challenges for protecting U.S. national security. Ensuring national security is no longer merely a matter of defending borders and patrolling oceans and skies, but requires reconstruction and stabilization efforts, building partnerships, and improving the U.S. image abroad. Moreover, the traditional tools of hard power are insufficient to meet the foreign policy demands of the twenty-first century, and soft power is reemerging as a vital component of foreign policy. Indeed, the challenge is to integrate hard and soft power—“smart power”1—to achieve foreign policy goals.