"If it's an election year, it must be time for Republicans to pull out the old playbook and again paint Democrats as too weak to protect America," writes Ilan Goldenberg. "Responding to these attacks is complicated, but ther'Soft Power' from the progressive vocabulary." Soft power, of course, is Joseph Nye's famous term for the foreign policy tools that let you "achieve desired outcomes through attraction rather than coercion." In other words, diplomacy rather than destruction, carrots rather than cluster bombs. It's a crucially important concept, with immense relevance to the particular and peculiar moment we're in. Only one problem. As Ilan says, "It is horribly named. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find a term that more effectively plays into all the negative stereotypes that the American public has about Democrats and national security." Now, he doesn't actually offer an alternative term for the suite of foreign policy stratagems that don't involve widespread slaughter, but surely you guys can think of something. Someone suggested "smart power" to me, which has some appeal, but isn't quite there. So c'mon folks, Channel your inner-Lakoff. Extra points if you can find a somewhat more derisive term for hard power, too.
