The
“Big Idea” Workshop
How to Wield "Smart Power"
By Daniel Rose
“Power”
is usually defined as the ability to influence the behavior of others, with
“force” and “persuasion” the two conventional methods.
Nicolo
Machiavelli (whose chief lesson from the Bible, he noted in The Prince, was that “all armed prophets
have been victorious and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed”) is the
protagonist of the first, known as “hard power.” “The end justifies the means” and “It is better to be feared
than loved” are other Machiavelli messages.
Dale
Carnegie, the gracious author of How to
Win Friends and Influence People,
is the spokesman for the second approach, known as “soft power.” “Talk in terms of the other person’s
interests.” “Show respect for the
other person’s opinions.” “Be a good listener.” “Let the other person feel the
idea was his.”—these are some of Carnegie’s rules.
Variations
on these themes are common. Robert
Moses used his form of hard power to create a staggering array of New York’s
bridges, parks, highways and beaches, while Jane Jacobs used her form of soft
power to prevent him from extending Fifth Avenue through Washington Square Park
or from putting an east-west expressway through lower Manhattan.
In
today’s world life is more complex; modern thinking focuses not on hard or soft
but on “smart power”—the application of the full range of tools available to
achieve one’s goals, with wisdom in considering strategy and shrewdness in
selecting tactics. Foreign affairs
challenges in a multi-polar world, for example, require diplomatic, military and
economic resources and astute use of alliances, partnerships and institutions
of all sorts. In the world’s
military academies, along with Clausewitz’s classic On War, Sun Tzu’s 2000 year old The
Art of War—with its sophisticated balance of psychology and armament,
deception and threat, short term tactics and long term strategy—is on every
reading list. Generals Colin
Powell and George C. Marshall felt that the thoughtful, balanced perspectives
and insights of Thucydides, the ancient Athenian general, were as applicable
today as when they were written 2,500 years ago. (If George W. Bush had known of the Athenian experience in
Sicily he might have thought twice about a land war in Iraq and Afghanistan.)
In
America’s current partisan political climate—with the “legalized bribery” of
political campaign contributions, with massive expenditures on television
commercials and newsprint advertising, with “public relations” the single art
form in which we excel today, the ability to influence the behavior of others
is more devious than ever, but results vary, depending on the cards you are dealt
and the skill with which you play them.
Lyndon
Johnson’s ability to pass a Civil Rights bill that John Kennedy could not is an
interesting lesson, and the differing approaches to gun control legislation of
Barack Obama and Bill Clinton may provide a rerun of a similar script.
President
Obama, an eloquent idealist, has proposed sweeping measures that Republicans
have pledged to defeat. The
National Rifle Association, with vast lobbying sums at its disposal, is
marshaling powerful forces in opposition.
Public opinion polls show that the public is now ready for appropriate
measures.
Bill
Clinton, an astute political operative, points out that passing the 1994
federal assault weapons ban “devastated” more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers
in the 1994 mid-term elections, including then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley,
who lost his job and his seat in Congress. Speaking to Obama’s National Finance Committee during this
second inaugural weekend, Clinton advised fighting the gun control battle by
“using the combination of technology, social media and personal contact the way
the Obama campaign won Florida, won Ohio.
Really touch people and talk to them about it.” Taking a page from Dale Carnegie’s playbook,
Clinton said, “Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by
looking down your noses at them. Don’t underestimate the emotional response gun
controls evoke from people in rural states,” Clinton warned; “I know because I
come from this world.”
Lyndon
Johnson came from the anti-civil rights south, and the story of how he passed
the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 is brilliantly told in Robert Caro’s new
book The Passage of Power.
How
he kept Judge Howard Smith, Chair of the House Rules Committee, from keeping
the legislation bottled up indefinitely in committee (the south’s traditional
strategy); how he played on Senator Harry Byrd’s weaknesses (taxes) and used
his strengths, while coopting Senator Richard Russell; how he gave Martin
Luther King, Jr. a list of specific Republican congressmen to be worked on; how
he brazenly used Brown and Root’s deep-ocean drilling project called “Mohole”
as a hostage; how the Steelworkers Union’s 33 lobbyists worked at his behest with
those of the Electrical Workers and the Auto Workers; how Roy Wilkins was asked
to repeat openly “the NAACP’s intention of purging congressmen who voted
against it”; how he pleaded, bullied, threatened—until on December 24th
at 7:00 AM (so congressmen could get home for Christmas) Lyndon Johnson got the
crucial vote he needed.
Will
effective gun control legislation be passed soon? It could depend on how the “mechanics” are handled, and if
President Obama’s team follows the suggestions of President Bill Clinton and
the approach of President Lyndon Johnson.
California’s
anti-gun Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has submitted to the Senate a
stringent “winner take all” bill, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said
last week that an assault-weapons ban could not pass the Senate. Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the only
Democrat with an A plus rating from the NRA, suggests strengthening existing
gun laws effectively before tackling more stringent ones.
Given
public sentiment, it seems clear that a deal can be made—if it is handled with
political deftness. This is not
always the case. Early in Bill
Clinton’s first presidential term, I had lunch with an apoplectic Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had just received from Ira Magaziner (known as
“Hillary Clinton’s Rasputin”) a report from Hillary Clinton’s
secretly-conducted Task Force to Reform Health Care. “This must be passed,” said Magaziner to Moynihan, “without
changing the dotting of an “i” or the crossing of a “t.” Moynihan (in favor of a health bill)
nearly wept when he said “Not a chance; not a chance.” Pat had just agreed with Republican Bob
Dole on a major, but more modest, measure that would have been widely
acceptable. As a result of
Magaziner’s (and Hillary’s) intransigence, it was two decades before a major
health care bill again was presented.
New
York’s wonderfully effective Mayor Michael Bloomberg has achieved many important
things for the city he loves, but “Congestion Pricing” was not among them. Had the new revenues from cars coming
into Manhattan been specifically designated and promoted to improving mass
transit in the outer boroughs (with extended subway lines, better bus service),
a constituency in support of the bill could have been created. As presented, the proceeds flowed to
the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which refused to reveal how the new funds
would be used. The public
reaction: “Just another tax and
the Hell with it.” And much
desired congestion pricing was never passed.
In
the cases of Hillary Clinton’s health care bill, Mike Bloomberg’s congestion
pricing proposal and current gun control legislation, it would be worthwhile to
contemplate what Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and Thucydides might have advised.
For
ordinary folks who want to influence public policy but who can’t make vast
political contributions like the Koch brothers, who can’t snag the headlines
Donald Trump can, who can’t imply “followership” (real or imaginary) as Al
Sharpton or Jesse Jackson do—what can and should they do?
The
answer is: be active rather than passive, join groups of kindred spirits,
writing, speaking, communicating with public officials. As a centrist who is appalled by the
extreme views of Tea Party types on the right and Occupy Wall Streeters on the left, I acknowledge
their impact and can only hope that the moderate groups I espouse—“No Labels,”
“Common Cause” and others—will be heard over the extremist din.
Effective
activities must have messages and messengers—specific agenda items and vehicles
to promulgate them.
Whether
on macro issues such as immigration, health care or climate change, or on micro
issues affecting your town or borough, your local school or local zoning, your
trade or professional concerns, the basics are the same:
A)
Become
well-informed on the issues—not on just the headline
generalities but on the specific details;
B)
Think through
carefully your long term goals, intermediate term goals
and your short term goals;
C)
Know, and relate to,
your allies—actual or potential, and cultivate them;
D)
Understand the
goals, strategies and “levers of power” of your adversaries, especially their
strengths and their weaknesses;
E)
Confer, consult,
seek advice and support from your kindred spirits, being prepared to modify
your specific views when necessary to strengthen the general case;
F)
Prepare concrete
plans of action that are subject to revision as unfolding events dictate. (Clausewitz worried about “the fog of
war.”)
G)
Persist, persist, persist;
H)
Invite me to your
victory celebration.
(Daniel
Rose’s talks may be found on www.danielrose.org)
Rose Associates, Inc.
n
Friday, while CNN was making constant reference to the Tsarnaev
brothers' attempt "to go out in a blaze of glory," a micro-meme lit up
social media: didn't Leo Tolstoy have a novel about Chechnyan rebels,
called Hadji Murad? He does: it was his last, a thin book that everyone
should read. While it offers few overt parallels to a case of 21st
century terrorism, Tolstoy's novel sets the stage for the Chechen
grievance-and tribal dysfunction. But what is more piercing, when
Dzokhar Tsarnaev's image is haunting the public eye, is Tolstoy's
insight into the dire symbiosis between heroic desires and boyish
innocence.
