Hillary Clinton and the Rise of Smart Power

The Iraq war costs at least one trillion dollars and still counting until most U.S. soldiers leave around Christmas and Afghanistan costs 2 billion dollars a week as long as there are U.S. troops there in the numbers they are presently. Since the U.S. is for all intents and purposes bankrupt, one wonders how this can continue no matter how much good the War in Afghanistian might accomplish.

However, now there is a new model. We have the model of Libya, where a coalition of NATO counties and Arab countries decided that they could not stand by and watch the massacre of Libyan civilians any longer. This model was fostered by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State of the United States and many other diplomats of mostly European and Arab nations as a way to protect the civilians from massacre in Libya. Unfortunately, because of serious and likely disastrous ongoing Shia and Sunni rivalries throughout the Arab world in regard to Syria, no nation in europe or even the U.S. can step in and do the same for Syria without the potential of igniting a serious Sunni Shia bloodbath that could envelop the Arab world for years and cut the whole world off from its oil necessary for world economies to properly function. But still, I think Arab countries understand that they can't let Syria spin out of control any further than it has already. So, the Arab nations are demonstrating Smart Power themselves as they place more and more biting sanctions against Syria to the point where the Government of Syria likely could collapse from the strain within 1 to 5 years.


So, basically you have Iraq becoming a democracy at a cost of at least 1 trillion dollars or more and then you have the new "Smart Power" model based upon international mutual co-operation which cost the United States only 1 billion dollars (mostly in cruise missiles) and logistics and technical support with not one  American soldier killed (as far as we know) in regard to Libya. Which model makes more sense with the U.S. this close to bankruptcy as a nation?

If you want to read more about Smart Power and Hillary Clinton please read the November 7th 2011 Time magazine starting on page 26.