As far as the first component of the proposed plan is concerned, none of the 18 representatives of an independent commission established a year ago by the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies specially to develop the concept of ”smart force”, has no questions. In any case America should remain a sole military and economical superpower in the world that not only prescribes the rules of game for all other participants or subjects of international relations, but also exercises vigilance supervising over their abidance. Existence of numerous respectful and recognized international organizations and entities as well as contractual agreements stipulating the legal norms of their relations should not mislead anybody. Everything is permitted, justified and expedient if it corresponds to the national objectives and defends “vital” interests of the United States including military interventions in Grenada and Somali, bombardments of Libya and Yugoslavia, war threat to Iran and occupation of Iraq.
The practice confirms, that the major problems in promotion of the American “democratic values” worldwide are associated with the “soft” or humanitarian component of the policy. The authors of the concept believe that the steady loose of US image worldwide is caused inter alia by excessive concentration of the United States to day on the war on terror, and lack of obvious success in this war that might attract the world to the American side. “We cannot beg the world to love us if our conduct fails to arouse this love… instead of unintentionally provoking the clash of civilizations, America should aim at promoting and increasing the status of civilizations and individuals”, the report says.
In order to rectify the situation in the relations of the USA with other world, and implement the concept of “smart force” it is proposed to set up a kind of a nongovernmental organization directly under the US Secretary of State to be involved in image-improving and information work overseas, and to assign to this entity a task to pursue the public diplomacy, as well as to establish a position of coordinator in the National Security Council at the President of the USA. In so doing, the key objectives of this new organization will include to deepen understanding of foreign audiences through interviews and other social surveys, to improve mutual understanding through dialogues and exchange of views, to assist with advices to state officials through provision of expert analysis results, and to manipulate foreign audience attitude towards the USA through “communication strategies”, the report emphasizes.
The US concern with its image becomes quite clear even because according to the public opinion survey conducted by Gallup in this October, Americans themselves consider that their own country poses a greater threat for the entire world than Russia. Been questioned what country in their opinion “poses the greatest threat for the entire world”, 8% of Americans answered – the USA, and only 4% answered – Russia. In so doing, Iran ranks No.1 been considered as “the greatest threat for the entire world” by 35% of Americans, then followed by China (19%), North Korea (10%) and Iraq (9%).
The spice of the situation relating to the efforts of the USA to improve its image is in the paradoxial logic of arguments and actions of a significant part of the American ruling establishment. For example, during hearings at the US Congress, Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman said word-for-word: " We support territorial integrity in relation to Transdniestria and Abkhazia, but we stand for self-determination of Kosovo. Some might say we are inexplicably inconsistent, but I would say we are very consistent: we take anti-Russia position in all these three conflicts. We reflexively take anti-Russia position. The majority of US foreign policy establishment formed in the Soviet era, when they dealt with developing a strategy to surround, weaken, and humiliate Russia. We have done our best to generate hostile attitude to the Russian State”.
It’s rather difficult to dialogue with a partner, say, whose one hand does not know what the other hand does. In so doing, the American leaders in no way want to understand that the attitude of the world community to the United States mainly depends on the policy and particular practical steps taken by Washington, and in the lesser degree on the fact whether the concept of “smart force” or any other concept is implemented or not. Due to the massive ideological brainwashing and propaganda every citizen in the world has an idea how much the democracy, freedom and equal opportunities mean for the United State, and expects that Washington in real life would be governed by these principles. And if the US policy is in conflict with the declared objectives and tasks, the people feel rather explainable disillusion in the fully formed stereotypes and transfer this disillusion on the state in general.
