Ernest Wilson Smart Power Summary

A nation- state’s approach to foreign power and relationships can be defined in three ways: hard power, soft power, and smart power. The article written by Ernest Wilson explores the use of these powers by the United States. Wilson called attention to the use of both hard and soft power in the nation’s past. He expressed his opinion that soft power is “politically naive” and has shown inconsistencies in the United States political history. In comparison, he evaluated hard power as being “politically and institutionally powerful”. However, this argument is countered by his comparison of the Bush administration’s military driven hard power tactics to “China’s Peaceful Rise”; what he considers as smart power. Wilson praised China’s peaceful approach, …show more content…
In the article, he mentioned institutional, conceptual, and political challenges to the idea of smart power. One of the shortcomings of his argument was his answers to many of the counter arguments. He repeatedly mentioned refining the definition of smart power or changing political institutions as an answer to multiple counter arguments. By neglecting to fully address the counter arguments he lost validity of his prior statements. Another shortcoming of this article was the lack of objectiveness. From the very beginning, Wilson made it known that he thinks that the other powers are inferior to smart power. His bias clouds the clarity of his argument because he spends most of the argument explaining the flaws of hard and soft power rather than elaborating on smart power. Wilson’s argument also lacked persuasion towards the end of the article. When he stated problems with hard and soft power in the United States government, he did not explain ways to address them in a government that uses smart power. Therefore, his argument makes smart power seem like a nice idea rather than a logical approach to foreign policy. Despite his lack of evidence to support smart power Wilson argument remains somewhat persuasive. Wilson was not selective in providing evidence to support smart power but he was very selective when providing evidence to

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