Will “Smart Power” Work in Pakistan?

Select ratingGive it 1/5Give it 2/5Give it 3/5Give it 4/5Give it 5/5

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Feb. 24, 2009. Photo by Tim Sloan/Newscom

The first test of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deployment of U.S. “smart power”—coupling “hard” military power with economic and political aid, cultural exchanges and imaginative forms of public diplomacy—could be Pakistan. Certainly, that country will be among its severest tests.

A bill now before Congress, the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, proposes to triple nonmilitary aid to Pakistan and extend $7.5 billion over five years for development projects. In a conversation with Jayshree Bajoria of the Council on Foreign Relations, the woman who first coined the term “smart power”—Suzanne Nossel, now COO of Human Rights Watch—discusses the initiative with Jonah Blank, chief policy adviser for South Asia on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Listen to the discussion between Nossel and Blank here, courtesy of the Council on Foreign Relations.