U.S. Global Leadership Coalition

Putting Smart Power to Work

March 23, 2009 | Tom Vogel

To mark the release of its new report, “Putting Smart Power to Work: An Action Agenda for the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress,” the Center hosted remarks by Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew and a high-level panel discussion moderated by Judy Woodruff of PBS’ “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” Panelists at the event included former Secretary of State General Colin Powell, Senator Bob Menendez, former Congressman Jim Leach, and Ambassador Wendy Sherman, who served as a Department of State Review Team Lead for the Obama-Biden Transition Project. To read a transcript of the event click here.

The report, “Putting Smart Power to Work,” synthesizes the recommendations of 20 major reports on how America can best advance our foreign policy and national security agenda. The Center’s analysis of these reports provides a roadmap of consensus priority action items for the Obama Administration and Congress and highlights issues and proposals that will require further debate. It is clear from this analysis a “smart power” approach to foreign policy will require augmenting a strong defense with greater investments in our civilian-led tools of diplomacy and development. The report will be made available at the event and afterwards at www.usglobalengagement.org.

Courtesy Federal News Service.

Now, today marks an important milestone for our organization. As I think many of you know, around two years ago, we launched a effort around the presidential initiative led by Madeleine Albright and Frank Carlucci that we called “Impact ‘08: Building a Better and Safer World.” And we traveled around the country bringing together Republicans and Democrats and business leaders and nonprofit leaders together around a single message. And the message was to call on the next president, whomever he or she would be, to elevate and strengthen our non-military tools of global engagement; in essence, to adopt what we called a “smart power agenda.”

People over the last two years often asked me how would we know if we were successful – what would we look at? And here’s how I answered: I said, first and foremost, that the president, as a candidate, would make significant commitments along the line to advance a smart power agenda. Then once the president came into office, they would surround themselves with individuals in key positions that shared the same passion and commitment. And ultimately, what would we look at? The first sign of any administration in terms of their priorities is their budget, and we would take a look at what was presented in the FY10 international affairs budget.

Thanks to all of your work and lots of people around the country, we believe Impact ‘08 was extraordinarily successful. President Obama and Vice President Biden laid out in the campaign one of the most far-reaching, detailed platforms on elevating and strengthening development and diplomacy, including calling for doubling of foreign assistance. President Obama appointed already a smart power Cabinet and team in the national security arena, secretary of state, defense, national security advisor and many others.

And just a little more than a week ago, we saw a budget that requested nearly a 10 percent increase for the FY10 international affairs budget. We applaud President Obama, Secretary Clinton and the administration for this smart and important investment in our non-military tools. We, on the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign side, will work very hard over the next several months to make sure that we strengthen the bipartisan support on Capitol Hill to support full funding for the FY10 international affairs budget.

Today, when we look at Impact ‘08, we talked a lot about the smart power approach, but we also talked about how you would implement a smart power strategy. We weren’t the only ones that looked at this. As many of you probably received over the last two years reams and reams of reports, commissions, articles around these same issues, looking at how to advance America’s policy throughout the world in foreign policy and national security. As we looked at it, we thought it would be useful, given how busy our friends on Capitol Hill and in the administration are, to help see if we could distill, if there are consensus points – to take a look at where there’s agreement and where there are differing views; in other words, to narrow the scope of the debate so the debate could, perhaps, stop on some points and we could begin putting smart power to work.

So on your chairs, each of you have received what we call the “Report on Reports,” taking a look at over 20 reports, commissions that – 2,000 pages, 500 expert contributors – that incredibly, came to a common, bipartisan view. And the view very strongly said in all the documents – the theme that runs through – is that Americans must strengthen its civilian capacity as a critical component to our national security. We found an impressive seven action steps that the U.S. can take to advance a smart power approach, starting first and foremost with developing a comprehensive national security strategy that looks at how you use civilian capacity.

Some have actually called for an independent global development strategy. Second was looking at substantial increase in resources, both human and programs. Third, to elevate and streamline our foreign assistance programs to make sure they are more coherent and coordinated. Fourth is to improve and reform congressional oversight, perhaps rewriting the Foreign Assistance Act to ensure appropriate monitoring and evaluation and accountability.

Fifth, to integrate civilian and military instruments to deal with weak and fragile states, which pose an increasing threat to our national security. Sixth, to rebalance some authorities on foreign assistance that have moved to Department of Defense and perhaps should move to civilian agencies. And finally, to look at how to strengthen our U.S. support for international organizations and international cooperation.

In the report that we released, we not only give the big principles, but we give specific recommendations where there are consensus. Now, not all the authors agree on every point, but what our hope is to create a roadmap – a roadmap for the administration and Congress that narrows the scope of discussion and focuses the debate on the remaining differing views. In our view, it’s time to put smart power to work, and we are very hopeful that today’s discussion, as well as the report, will be an important step forward. To begin our program, I’m delighted to call one of our U.S. Global Leadership Campaign board members, Asif Shaikh, president of the International Research Group (sic), to introduce our first guest speaker. Asif?

(Applause.)

ASIF SHAIKH: Thank you, Liz, and good morning. Like so many of the organizations represented here today, International Resources Group is honored to play a leadership role in supporting a robust international affairs budget. And today, I have the distinct honor of introducing our opening speaker, a friend of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign and Center, deputy secretary of state for management and resources Jack Lew.

Deputy Secretary Lew joined the Obama administration with a distinguished record of public and private service, and he is highly respected as an accomplished and skillful administrator. Our community first had the pleasure of working with deputy secretary Lew when he was serving as President Clinton’s director of OMB. Mr. Lew, at that time, worked tirelessly to secure funding for the international affairs budget, so we are delighted that deputy secretary Lew has returned to Washington after a stint in New York City as managing director and COO of Citi Alternative Investments.

We’ve already seen the power of this COO at State Department, as demonstrated by the administration’s strong FY10 international affairs budget. Deputy Secretary Lew, we are grateful to you, to Secretary Clinton and to President Obama for your outstanding leadership in this area and we look forward to working with you to ensure full funding by Congress. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew.

(Applause.)

JACOB LEW: Thank you, Asif, for that very generous introduction. And it’s a pleasure to be with all of you this morning. I’m honored to be opening a program where I’ll be followed by such a distinguished panel with a number of people whose collective contributions to diplomacy and public service deserve our collective thanks and respect. Secretary Powell, Senator Menendez, Ambassador Sherman, Congressman Leach, and the moderator, Judy Woodruff, who’s done so much to help all of us understand complex issues over these many years.

The task that all of you have undertaken couldn’t be more important. For too long, the case for more resources for foreign assistance was a lonely voice in Washington. The importance of the undertaking that we’re involved in at the State Department and that all of you are involved in, in your respective organizations has everything to do with the security of the United States, the stability of our role in the world and our ability to make a difference. I’m delighted that today, you’re going to be going through the process of going through these 2,000 pages and many reports.

I, like many of you, have tried mightily to read through them, to digest them. I think I have a preliminary understanding of many of them, but the process of going through them, looking for where there are points of agreement, where there are issues that are matters that require more thought, is extremely helpful to us and, I’m sure, to our colleagues across town on the Hill as we all go through, trying to understand more carefully what the recommendations are and how to take the best next steps forward.

You know, coming into the State Department just a few weeks ago, there really was not very much time to kind of gear up and get into speed. My own experience was, I was sworn in at 5:00 in the afternoon and our pass-back from OMB came while I was getting sworn in. (Chuckles.) So I proceeded to keep my staff there all night on my first day in the office – not what I try to do as a manager – but that was what the pace of the schedule called for. And frankly, the staff at State – the team – did an extraordinary job in a very short period of time to go through and work with the Office of Management and Budget to make the case for the resources we need.

The secretary was engaged, I was engaged and the result is one that we are very proud of. Obviously, the details are not going to be released until April, so what we’re able to talk about now is at a fairly high level, but nonetheless, that high level gives us the ability to point in a direction, and the direction is a very significant one. It stays on the path of doubling foreign assistance that President Obama committed to in the campaign. Importantly, that means increasing funding for USAID, which I know that many people in this room spend much of their time concerned with, as do we.

The increased resources for State Department, foreign service officers, civil servants is critical. We can’t ramp up the effort on foreign assistance if we don’t have the people to run the programs. The two have to go together; we have to fix what is a diminished State Department in order to mount the effort. As Secretary Powell made so much a part of his time at the State Department, without the people able to go out there and do the work, we can’t get the job done. So the two have to go hand-in-hand; it’s not one or the other.

You know, the three Ds of foreign policy – it’s critically important that diplomacy and development be right up there with defense. They are complementary. In the long run, the more effective we are at development and diplomacy, the less we need to turn to defense. We always need to have defense there as the important partner and third D, but we need for diplomacy and development to take their proper role as the other two Ds.

The budget is obviously an important first step. It will enable us not just to increase resources in a general way, but in quite specific ways, to make a mark in areas that are so important – in the areas of food security, in health, in development, and in keeping our commitments. One of the things that we’ve thought was very important – and for me, this is going back to something I was engaged with as OMB as well – paying our bills, being a member of the international community that is current in its payments to the United Nations and international organizations.

We have to have the United States in a position to take the role that I think we need to take, with leadership. And coming with leadership is responsibility, and that means that we have to be there with people, with support – with financial support – and keeping our commitments. I think that if – looking at the agenda in these many reports, as all of you have, and as we are doing, it starts with resources but it doesn’t end with resources.

There’s a widespread sense that there’s a need for better coordination amongst the different parts of our foreign policy apparatus. I know that I’ve talked to many of the people in this room – and this room is full of many old friends and new friends – and my own view is that before one gets to organizational issues, one has to ask the question, what do we need to be doing? And I tend to look at these things in relatively simple terms.

We need to be able to look at a country, we need to look at a function, and have a horizontal view to see everything that the United States government is doing in that area. So if the issue is health care or if the issue is development, we need to know if we have two or five or six different parts of the federal government on the ground. And then it’s our responsibility to coordinate and to make sure that they work together. It doesn’t mean that you merge them into one; it means that, just like we have a military that has an Army, a Navy and an Air Force, you deploy your resources in a way where you know where everyone is and you understand what the whole is so that the whole should be greater than the sum of the parts.

I’m optimistic that we’re going to be able to make significant progress in that area. I’ve talked with many of our friends on the Hill, and while it is important to have a conversation about the legislative issues, we also need to get moving, given the law the way it is today and get to work doing as much as we can in real-time. So we have to be able to work in multiple tracks simultaneously. We have to be able to take the tools that we have to make the State Department, working with the other agencies that are involved in foreign policy, more coordinated. And we have to look ahead at, how do we have a set of authorizations that really put us in the best place for the 21st century. Those are totally consistent objectives, and we, I think, can’t make a choice to do one or the other.

As far as the road ahead, everyone in this room knows, and I certainly know from my own past experience, that the effort to win resources for international funding is not a short or an easy one. We’re in the most difficult domestic economic times or our lifetimes. The fact that we were able to get the kind of commitment of resources in the president’s budget just underscores how important an issue this is to the administration. But unless we’re successful in the Congress, we won’t be able to implement the program.

You know, we’re rolling up our sleeves, working with the House and the Senate already. I know that many in this room are doing the same, and for that, we’re grateful. The case, I think, has to be a simple one: That it is no less important – it is equally important – for the American people that we’re successful in this effort as it is that we restart our economy – that the United States’ role in the world is essential to both the economic future and the peaceful future of the American people. And working together, I’m confident that when we look back in a short number of years, we’ll be able to see both a more effective foreign policy and a more robust set of tools that the president and the secretary are able to use.

Now, let me close by just, you know, kind of echoing something that Liz said. The president appointed a team that has a remarkable history of commitment to issues like development. Secretary Clinton brings to the State Department a passion for these issues. There will be no shortage of attention on the seventh floor of the State Department to these issues of smart power. It’s not an accident that we call it smart power and not soft power; we don’t think it’s soft, we think it’s the backbone. And we intend to be there every day working hard to try and make what we’re proposing a reality, and I think that, in the end, it is a most important thing, both for the American people and for the future of world peace. So thank you very much.

(Applause.)

NANCY DORN: Thank you, Jack. And we wish you the best and hope to work with you as you go forward past the first month or two of the administration. Good morning. I’m Nancy Dorn, the vice president for corporate and government relations for General Electric. We are one of the companies who have gathered to support the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, along with many of our friends from the non-governmental world. As Jack alluded to, I think it is this partnership that is going to have to come together to bring bipartisan and widespread support for the effective and robust funding for foreign affairs.

My job this morning is to introduce our moderator, Judy Woodruff, who is senior correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Many of you know Judy from her long work in Washington, both as a White House correspondent for NBC and as an anchor of the CNN Inside Politics show. She’s one of the news people in Washington that has really brought an insightful and thoughtful approach to an area that many in the news media tend to underreport or under-understand. So we are most grateful for Judy’s work in this field and her participation in panels like this. So Judy, welcome to the program, and would the panelists please come up as well?

(Applause.)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you, Nancy, and I think everybody – we think all of our microphones are turned on. I want to say how glad I am to be here with all of you and to say that when I got the phone call from Carolyn Reynolds, who’s the managing director of the Center for Global Engagement, I immediately said yes, because she said we didn’t have to talk about the stock market this morning.

Of course, the economy does have bearing on what we’re going to be talking about, and at the same time, the fact that international issues of the type we’re going to be touching on this morning – the fact that any of this has squeezed itself, if you will, into the headlines in the last few weeks and the last month is a reminder of how important this subject is.

The economy is number one in people’s minds, no question about it, but the issues that we’re going to be talking about are equally important in the minds of the American people when you consider the interests people have, whether it’s the Middle East, Asia – people are increasingly aware that we live in a global economy and what happens over there affects what happens in this country. So we are going to be, this morning, as you’ve already heard, looking at the priorities for this administration and, in particular, looking at this concept of smart power as how this country addresses its biggest international challenges.

We have a high-level panel here with me to talk about all of this. And I’m going to introduce them, but I first just want to say to everybody, we’re going to talk among us for about 40 minutes, and then we’re going to take questions from you. You each should have, in your seat, a piece of paper where you are – we’d welcome and encourage you to write down a question and those will be gathered after about half an hour and sent up here. And I’m going to try to spend the last 15 minutes or so of our conversation addressing those.

So let me now introduce our panel. To my left, the Honorable Colin Powell. You’ve already heard him introduced this morning. Of course, he was secretary of state from 2001 to 2004. He, of course, before that was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, as has been mentioned, is the honorary chairman of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign. To my right, Senator Robert Menendez, who has served as a senator from the state of New Jersey since 2006. He’s chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection. Before that, of course, he served in the House of Representatives.

To his right, the Honorable Jim Leach, who is currently visiting professor of public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He served for 30 years as a Republican member of Congress from the state of Iowa. And let’s get him some water right now. (Laughter.) Is there some? Good. And he is recognized as a longtime leader on international aid issues. He chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee, the subcommittee on Asian and Pacific affairs, and the Congressional Executive Commission on China.

And finally, to my left is Wendy Sherman – the Honorable Wendy Sherman. She currently serves as principal of the Albright Group. During the Clinton administration, she was counselor to then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as North Korea policy director with the rank of ambassador and assistance secretary for legislative affairs. And most recently, she led the State Department review team for the Obama/Biden transition. So thank you all for being with us.

We’re going to get right to the subject, and the first question I want to pose to all of you – and I’ll begin with Secretary Powell – is, what does it mean when we talk about smart power? What does this term actually mean, and how does it apply to anything that the United States is dealing with today? Thank you.

GENERAL COLIN POWELL: Well, first of all, let me congratulate the center for pulling this together, and I appreciate the “Report of Reports,” which summarizes the efforts of 20 different groups. I think the term smart power is a significant improvement over the terms we’ve been using in the past – soft power and hard power – that really didn’t describe what we’re all about.

But I’m not entirely comfortable with smart power because the term “power” suggests that there’s some kind of conflict going on and instruments of power being applied. I think what we ought to talk about is smart influence. How can the United States do a better job of helping the rest of the world, of presenting to the rest of the world the image of a nation that is compassionate, that is outgoing, that is trying to help the lesser citizens of the world achieve a better life and, at the same time, through those efforts, improve our standing in the world and improve our position in the world.

As was mentioned by Judy, it is a globalized environment. Maybe the world isn’t as completely flat as Tom Friedman says, but it’s certainly flattening rapidly. With the ability to move capital and information and knowledge and risk around the world at the speed of light, the world is fundamentally changed. America has to be a part of that world and I think what we’re talking about here is smart power, smart influence, is to use the real tools and strengths that we have as a society – our compassion for the rest of the world. You know, the report that was done by my colleague, Rich Armitage and Joe Nye, talked about what’s smart power and the first thing they said: health. Give the people of the world a better chance at having a healthy life for themselves and for their children; the alleviation of poverty, the alleviation of hunger, all of these are things the United States can do – and by so doing, we influence the world to move in a better direction and we improve our standing in the world.

Shouldn’t we do a better job on immigration policy to show the rest of the world that we still are the America that is a welcoming, outgoing place: Come to us and look at the example of what we have done here in our country. And so we need to make sure that these sort of instruments of power and influence are used and enhanced. But it takes money.

When I became secretary of state, I had 20 reports waiting for me. And my staff said, let’s – I don’t want to be offensive here – my staff said, let’s have a summary of the reports. And I said, no, we’re not going to do any more reports, we’re not going to summarize anything; we’re going to go up to Congress and fight like dogs to get money because we could have a lovely chat here about all of this stuff, but I’m telling you, it comes down to trench warfare with the Congress. (Laughter.)

I’m sorry, it’s trench warfare because these gentlemen who are up on the Hill trying to accommodate all of the needs of all of the departments – and if you look at the president’s budget, almost every department got some kind of increase. Very few – I’m sure quite sure how we’re going to reduce the deficit – all of them got increased.

State did better than most and I’m proud of that and I’m glad for that. But, at the end of the day, that’s just a budget proposal. Now it takes people like Jack Lew and others to go up there and fight tooth and nail to get the money. I know how this is done. I had to do it for the four years I was secretary and for the four years that I was chairman.

And so lots of nice talk – we all know what’s right. We all know we ought to be moving in this direction. We all know we ought to increase the size of the Foreign Service and the civil service of the State Department. We know we ought to be doubling development assistance. We ought to be improving our immigration policy, fixing our information programs and significantly increasing the size and capability of AID and working more closely with the other instruments of government, the other departments of government. But, at the end of the day, you’ve got to go get the resources.

And you’ve got to get the resources in two different ways: First you’ve got to appeal to the American people and get them to buy into the importance of these efforts. We haven’t done a good enough job. The American people still think that foreign assistance, development assistance, is something we just give away to the rest of the world with no return on investment.

The answer is, there is an enormous return on investment when the rest of the world looks to America for inspiration and for help dealing with their problems. So, first and foremost, a better case to the American people and, if you make a better case to the American people, guess what? They tend to influence the American Congress as to how to fund it.

But then you get down in the trenches. You put your helmet on, your flak jacket and you go testify before eight committees, as I used to do every year. (Laughter.) It’s painful. I’m supposed to be out doing diplomacy. No, I’m up on Capitol Hill doing hearings. And the next thing we have to do is to persuade our friends in the Congress to sustain and support our efforts, support the increases the president has asked for and knock off all of the earmarks that constrain the ability of the secretary of state to use these resources in a sensible way.

I’ve had some painful experiences where an authorizer and an appropriator had a difference of opinion as to how I was supposed to spend one little $10 million account. Both threatened to have me impeached if I didn’t do it their way. Well, being a smart man, I went with the appropriator because he’s the one that signs the check. (Laughter.)

I rest my case, right, Bob, Jim? (Laughter.) But it’s painful. And I shouldn’t be having to do that. I should have greater flexibility. And I hope it’s part of the increased resources; we will find a way to give the Cabinet officers greater flexibility, some money that is not earmarked, that is not even necessarily for a particular purpose: increased contingency accounts so when an emergency comes along, you have the resources to do something about that emergency without stealing from another account.

Increase the size of the force that we have within the department: Foreign Service, civil service, Foreign Service nationals, same thing with AID, do a better job in information. And there’s one other aspect to this and it’s part of another group I belong to, the Initiative for Global Development: We have enormous resources in our private sector. So this isn’t just the United States government reaching out. Real money for investment exists in the private sector and we have to do a better job of mobilizing the private sector to help us with the influence that we need around the world and increasing that influence.

And we’ve got the Bill Gates of the world; we’ve got the Bonos of the world. We’ve got all kinds of people. We’ve got companies that are doing business all over the world and they have to be brought into this smart power, smart influence concept. And I’ll stop right here.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, in his inimitable way, Secretary Powell has already anticipated all of the questions I was going to ask – (laughter) – but that’s good, that’s all right; you’ve gotten the discussion off to a robust start. Senator Menendez, just to hone in on what we mean by smart power, what does it mean? I mean, do you subscribe to the definition from Secretary Powell? What would you add?

SENATOR ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ): Well, Judy, first of all, let me thank the center for their engagement and their involvement. It makes someone who is – for a decade-and-a-half between the House and the Senate – been an advocate of greater foreign assistance and development assistance, your collective effort makes an enormous difference. And I am already feeling the smart power, the smart influence of Secretary Powell here as he laid out some of the great things that I largely agree with.

But let me just say, you can have – as we do – a most highly sophisticated, the best advanced military in the world and they can defeat a combatant enemy, but they cannot necessarily alleviate poverty. You can have that same fantastic military advance troops and/or even logistics, but it cannot advance education and health care. You can have that military provide security in different parts of the world, but it cannot provide for human rights and good governance.

And so the smart power that we talk about is all of those other tools of diplomacy: which is our development assistance, our foreign assistance, in general, our Peace Corps, our surrogate broadcasting in the world. It’s all of those different elements that are in the military power that we have in pursuit of the national interest and the national security of the United States. And what has happened, in my view, over the last significant period of time, I mean, if you think about it, USAID, during the Vietnam War, had 15,000 employees. It now has around 2,000-some-odd employees. It has largely been, in my view, decimated in its ability to provide both institutional ability and I think this is also about institution-building. We talk about institution-building in the world. We need some institution-building in our own efforts here as well.

So it is harnessing all of those other elements that we have: our diplomacy, our ability to work with international organizations more robustly, our ability to do development assistance, our ability to provide information to people in the world that have closed societies, our Peace Corps volunteers, our exchanges. It’s all of this harnessed together and, of course, examples of what that really means at the end of the day.

If we are debating immigration in this country consistently, well, why do people leave their countries to come to the United States, as great as this country is? It is because either they have dire economic necessity or civil unrest. And so if in fact you are using your smart power to help people in this hemisphere and elsewhere be able to have a greater standard of living, you will do several things: You will stem the tide of undocumented immigration; you will create new markets for the United States services of goods and products; you will create greater stability in those countries; you will create a greater demand for democracy and transparency as people economically rise.

And so you have a perfect example of smart power being used in a way that deals with some of the critical issues that we’re talking about in the United States. If you want to deal with the Arab street, it will not only be about the resolution of the Middle East and Israel and a Palestinian state, it will also be about the economic opportunities of those young people who, right now, get hold that it is more glorious to die than to live.

It is so many different dimensions of how we meet some of these challenges in the world. And to do that, I do want to commend the president for his significant increase in this budget. But Secretary Powell is right: We will have – I sit on the Budget Committee as well as on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I’ve chaired hearings of the subcommittee on all of our foreign assistance and development. The reality is, we’re going to have a great challenge in the midst of healthcare reform, in the midst of continuing economic challenges, in the midst of financial institutions that still have to be steadied in this country.

And that will be an enormous competition for resources, all for relatively good reasons, obviously, but it will be enormous competition for resources. So your work has certainly not ended at the end of the day, neither for those of us who advocate for this. It will be a challenge in the budget debate and moving on the floor of the Senate and the House to ensure that the president’s increase is actually realized.

And the final point I’d make on that, I’m looking forward to the detail of that increase as well because if there are outliers on Iraq and Afghanistan and MCC and PEPFAR, those are all great and necessary things, but the core development assistance which has dramatically been reduced and the human capacity to deliver that development assistance will not be there. So we hope that actually the increases are in areas that will give us the opportunity to use the smart power and smart influence that, in fact, can make a difference in our leadership in the world and pursue our national interest and our national-security interests.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, let’s plunge into this question of resources and the fight over – the trench warfare that Secretary Powell described. I want to ask both Wendy Sherman and Jim Leach, at a moment when the country is worrying, staying up late at night – if not all night long – worrying about where we stand as an economy and how we’re going to pay for all of these things, how do you inject greater foreign assistance into that debate? How does that happen?

AMBASSADOR WENDY SHERMAN: Well, Judy, you anticipated actually my answer to your first question because I think, really, what we all need to do here is to speak to the American people. And you’re absolutely right: Right now, people are worried about their own pocketbooks, their own family economies, their ability to hold their job, to hold onto their house and their thoughts about spending money abroad are really – are you kidding?

And so we need to help people understand the connections. And I actually think the economy and the economic crisis provide an opportunity to demonstrate those connections. I think most Americans know that what happens to our economy has great impact overseas. And they’re about to see that overseas impact bounce back here to the United States.

So first we had a financial crisis. Then we are facing an economic crisis in our jobs, our pocketbooks, whether we can afford our health care, our children’s education. But we are about to see Eastern and Central Europe face enormous problems. We’re about to see Asia face enormous problems. That means their markets dry up for American goods. That means fewer jobs, tougher times back at home.

And so I think one of the things that we have, unfortunately, a very sad opportunity to do, is to help people see that we are all interconnected, that we are in a globalized economy, we are in a globalized world, that in fact this economic crisis is likely, according to the World Bank, to put another 100 million into poverty, just in the short run, which means the issues are greater.

We know that if you put one map on top of the other, if you put a map of poverty on top of a map of where there’s likely to be drought because of global climate change, where there are health crises in the world, you are also going to see the areas of the world where there are the greatest conflicts in the world.

And those conflicts draw American resources, American soldiers, American treasure, American lives. And so I think we need to help the American people know that we really are in an era where an ounce of prevention will save enormous money down the road, that if we are to help people grow their middle classes, those middle classes, as Senator Menendez said, create markets for our jobs, for our growth, for the ability of American families to have a stronger checkbook.

So I think we should take this economic crisis and make it an opportunity to show those interconnections and why it’s in any American’s family’s interest to spend $1 overseas.

One last thing I’ll say before sending it over to Congressman Leach. There is always an enormous pressure on members of Congress not to travel. Besides my good friend Al Kamen – (laughter) – always putting them in his column, and there are some members that do abuse the privilege, I can’t think of something that would be more important then everybody here and every editorial page endorsing members of Congress travelling overseas, particularly to see the things that all of the people on this podium have seen: what it means when a child does not know where their next meal is coming from; to stand in a high school, as I did in Ramallah, and know that all of those young people truly didn’t understand what the heck I was doing there because they didn’t think I understood their lives every day whatsoever; to know that one bed net, one bed net for $10, could save a child’s life forever because they wouldn’t get malaria.

And that child might grow up, get a microloan, have a good job, be able to not only export, but begin to use our goods. So I urge members of Congress to travel and for us to all support them to do so.

MS. WOODRUFF: So, Congressman Leach, is that a message the American people are ready to listen to now and in the near, medium term? And is it something that members of Congress are receptive to?

JAMES LEACH: Well, let me change the framework slightly. It is true that foreign aid is always controversial. It’s also true that America has a great long history of a brother’s keeper philosophy. And it’s also true that the alternatives, as Wendy has indicated, can be far more expensive. And so the case for foreign aid is real.

Now, having said that, if you go to this issue of smart power, I think it means many different things that go beyond money. And there’s a concentration on money this morning, but let me emphasize that what we’re really also looking at is this whole notion of American engagement. And the way I look at it is the need to professionalize American foreign policy, the need to amateur-ize America’s rule in the world and not ideologically bend it.

And what I mean by both of these is that for ideologues to want to manage foreign policy, which in an aberrational sense occurred in the last administration, the first war that was declared was against the United States Department of State. And by that, I mean, Colin, you had a group of people in the White House that would go around and assert that those striped-pants people couldn’t understand anything because they understood the gut of America.

And you had “gutsmanship” rather than statesmanship. And there was an effort to undercut the State Department from the very beginning even though the State Department was advancing the foreign policy of the United States, even though it didn’t totally agree with all of it.

Now, having said that, smart power, to me, means citizen power. There’s a citizen diplomacy in America that goes beyond civilian diplomacy that’s being described here as governmental. And there is no greater spokesman for the United States than the American citizen. Government is a small part of our society. And so, as a society, what we really want to have is an engaged America. And that involves the private sector, it involves American culture, it involves many, many different things.

But the thing to be apprehensive about is an ideological approach to government. I don’t know of an administration that has more adopted a thematic approach more consistent with a group of progressive recommendations than this one, both in terms of ideas and in terms of extraordinary people being appointed to significant positions of governance. And this really bodes well for the United States of America today.

But it isn’t just the idea of a little bit more money. It’s the idea of America engaging the world. And this engagement has to be of a very different ilk than we’ve had in recent times. But the arc of our history is one of tremendous progressivity, but we have exceptions to that arc and we’ve gone through an exceptional period in which the exception has been to the disadvantage of our country.

And the whole point is to have a new thrust. I think, Jack, you reflected it in his address today representing the new State Department. I think every aspect of these panel approaches do, but I just want to emphasize: Money is important, but it’s a small part of it.

MS. WOODRUFF: Secretary Powell, and I want to ask you to expand on this notion of department versus department in any administration.

GEN. POWELL: There are always areas of competition – I’ll put it as gently as I can – between departments. And I’ve lived through this – sort of my 20 years of recent experience in Washington. And trench warfare, as Jim pointed out, was not always just between me and the Congress; there were others in the administration who had different views. However, we did succeed in doubling development assistance in the Bush administration. We came up with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, we came up with PEPFAR. We quadrupled assistance to Africa during our time and we made significant increases in the size of the Foreign Service, a total of perhaps 2,000 to 2500 Foreign Service officers over the attrition level.

So, not withstanding some of the disagreements that existed between the State Department and others in the administration or with Congress, there was significant progress. And I think that should be taken into account. But I have never been in a presidency – and I’ve been at a senior level in four of them – where there wasn’t tension between departments because we all get down to fighting for resources and protecting turf. And that is a bureaucrat imperative, frankly.

I’m very pleased the Secretary Gates and others in the Defense Department structure have been saying the right kinds of things with respect to the use of non-military means of influence and power. And I think this is very helpful. I don’t know if they’ve written a check yet. (Laughter.)

MS. WOODRUFF: Not quite.

GEN. POWELL: From the Defense Department to give to others: That’s where the rubber meets the road. I don’t want to seem petty here, but, at the end of the day, notwithstanding what my dear friend Jim Leach said – and I agree with everything he said – at the end of the day, you’ve got to come home with the bacon if you want to fry it. (Laughter.) And that’s what you have to do.

MS. WOODRUFF: So how do you – in terms of organizing government, should the State Department be the principal agency overseeing what we’re talking about here this morning? Should more power be given to AID? What would you all add to the discussion at this point, Senator Menendez, about where decisions ought to be made?

SEN. MENENDEZ: Well, I think there’s definitely a re-balancing that has to take place from the activities that the Department of Defense has been pursuing. And I agree – that I appreciate what Secretary Gates has said, what Admiral Mullen has said and others. The question is seeing transference of those duties to a State Department and building up the human capacity to be able to deal with that because while there’s no question that money is important, you also have to have the human capacity to do that effectively. Otherwise you have a USAID that largely was a contracting organization at this point. And there’s nothing wrong with some elements of that but, at the end of the day, I think you need the human capacity to deal with that.

You need a strong – I’m disappointed at one thing: that we do not have a USAID director yet. And we need a strong director who has management experience but also has a good sense of what development is all about in the world. When Jack came to see me before his confirmation, I asked him, in the context of being the broad portfolio that he has, he’s also going to have to be the most significant advocate, in addition to the secretary, within the department itself as that internal budget squabble goes on about development assistance. And was he going to be that voice? And he assured me that he would.

So it seems to me that we need a reprogramming and a rebalancing from the Defense Department. We need to build up the human capacity of the State Department and AID and then – and its related elements. And then we are headed down the right road.

And, you know, if Congress – Secretary Powell mentioned earmarks and it’s interesting there are some in this very group that are strongly opposed to earmarks and some who are the biggest promoters of some earmarks. So I hope you’ll get it together at some point. But – (laughter) – in that respect I think you’ll find the Congress more willing if there is a sense of engagement on the broader policy, if there is transparency, if as those who are fiduciaries to the American taxpayers there is upfront information when it’s asked for. And then I think you’ll find a greater seating of that opportunity with working with the State Department and the administration to do those things.

MS. WOODRUFF: Congressman Leach, I know you said a minute ago it’s not all about money. And it obviously is not. But having said that, is there receptivity, do you think in Congress – which you only recently left – to some of the changes that we’re talking about this morning? Because as you shift resources from one department, one agency to another, Congress has to be on board with that.

MR. LEACH: I think the likelihood is partly because of people like Senator Menendez, that there’s going to be receptivity.

But I would like to stress something a little different than again relates to money. The Congress of United States at points in our history has been very unhelpful. At other points it’s been ahead of the administration. And I want to stress a couple examples of each.

Unhelpful at the beginning of this century, at least in the late teens and early ’20s; a Senate turned back a League of Nations. Unhelpful in the late 1990s after nine administrations had advanced a comprehensive test ban, the United States Senate turned it down; absolutely bizarre.

On the other hand, on the very helpful side, let me give a couple of conservative examples. A very conservative member of this House of Representatives named Frank Wolf advanced as an earmark the notion that the Congress had not been overseeing the Iraq policy very well and so he established by earmark, unknown to virtually every member of Congress, a commission that became the Hamilton-Baker Commission. That’s a very progressive thing to do.

Another very conservative member of Congress, a man named Chris Smith who stands for right to life in this country, is the leading advocate in the world of problems related to female trafficking. All liberals and all conservatives endorse this. The United States government had not stood up to common sense responsibilities.

On the liberal side, a very – what was perceived to be radical in American politics named Ron Dellums stood up and pushed the Congress of the United States against a concept called apartheid. It was progressive and it was the right thing to do and our State Department objected. And so there are times that the Congress leads.

If you take the issue of AIDS – and I want to say that Secretary Powell has been fabulous on this issue. But the Congress was ahead of President Clinton, way ahead in pushing for AIDS support. The Bush administration did extremely well and George Bush, of all the things at the end of his administration that he is to be complemented for, is a progressive attitude towards much of – a series of African issues, led by a great secretary of state. But I want to say that Congress can sometimes lead.

And finally I’m going to end with an issue that is going to be a perspective that nobody agrees with. (Laughter.) But in the late ’70s and early – well, in the early ’80s a new government that we now think of as a consensus government – certainly wasn’t viewed that way then – led by President Reagan, was the most anti-arms control government in the history of the country. And a movement started that sprung across the country involving American citizens led by many in Congress pushing concepts like the SALT treaty – which meant Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty.

And then suddenly, in the second Reagan administration, this administration moved to be exceptionally progressive and totally preempted the alleged progressions in Congress and advanced a START treaty – which means Strategic Arms Reduction. Well, this was a movement started in Congress that a president preempted. And all I’m saying is that Congress can lead as well as follow.

And my final point – and this is going to be a little bit surprising because we’ve had the administration that seemed to have preempted foreign policy – I’m convinced in the future the role of Congress is going to be far larger in foreign policy than it’s ever been before because the American people are becoming more involved. And as a public, they go see their congressman and their senator; they don’t go see their Foreign Service officer. And so you are going to see a very active Congress and so one of the challenges is will Congress advance this administration’s agenda? And I hope it does. And then when it is progressive, will the administration follow along and when it’s a regressive will the administration hold it back? And that’s a continual challenge.

GEN. POWELL: I don’t disagree at all.

MR. LEACH: Oh.

(Laughter.)

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. I do have questions from the audience. But before I do, I want to ask Wendy Sherman to weigh in on this question of organizing the government, whether we have responsibilities where they should be. And you can throw in the Foreign Assistance Act as a –

AMB. SHERMAN: Sure.

MS. WOODRUFF: – as an adjunct to all this.

AMB. SHERMAN: Sure. President Obama made it very clear that he wanted diplomacy to return to the center of American national security and foreign policy and that diplomacy should lead with development rather than leading with our very fine and totally to be admired military capability. And I think that in everything he has done and with everyone he has appointed he has made good on that commitment that diplomacy should be the first resort, not the last resort; and that force really should exist in service of diplomacy because no one wants to send American men and women to fight unless we absolutely have to. We all know the very famous Powell doctrine that if you’re going to go, go with all your force; but don’t go unless you really have to go. It would be better to have our fine and superb military training all the time and not having to go anywhere.

That said, I think that what Senator Menendez, what Congressman Leach has said is true about we have to build civilian capabilities that if they ever did exist in the U.S. government don’t exist now. One of the things that was very clear during the transition is not only has USAID been eviscerated but the capabilities need to be recreated.

Congressman Leach just talked about SALT and START. We had someone lead the undersecretary-ship for arms control non-proliferation and international security who was quite ideological and many of our experts in arms control fled the State Department and that has to be rebuilt. So we have capacity that needs to be rebuilt. We have Foreign Service officers who operate in PRTs in units both in Iraq and now in Afghanistan that are trying to put civilian capabilities on the ground, help build infrastructure, work with the field commanders to do that, and they never really learned program management skills and how to do that.

So we do have to work very hard to build the capabilities within government, to hold government accountable for those capabilities. Congress has to have the assurance that money is going to be well spent to get this increase that’s in the FY10 budget. I think all of that can be done. I know that the president, Secretary Clinton are committed to getting that done. But it does take the hard work of everybody in government and the hard work of everybody in this room.

There are a lot of extraordinary NGOs in this room but you have to look to what you bring to the table as well. Are you trying to get an earmark because it’s the way for your organization to continue your life? And does that against the grain of giving the secretary the flexibility she needs to get the job done? So we all have to be as honest as we possibly can about what we have, what we need, how to build it, how to hold ourselves accountable for the work that we do, because only in that way are we going to be able to win the trench warfare that Secretary Powell so absolutely accurately describes.

MS. WOODRUFF: Secretary Powell, question from the audience. How do you minimize what they call the understanding gap between USAID and State, between short – the short- and the longer-term perspective, diplomacy versus development?

GEN. POWELL: That’s a tough one. First what I try to do – and I think is happening now at the new administration – is to bring the director of USAID right into my seventh floor empire. He was there every single morning at my staff meeting. And USAID has to take a longer term view. It’s got to be investing in clean water and poverty alleviation and development and those kinds of things. But there also has to be the capacity for USAID and other parts of the State Department to respond to the emergency, to respond to something that just happened and nobody was expecting it to happen but there it is, whether it’s a tsunami or whether it’s a post-conflict situation.

So for this reason I think, as you have heard from Senator Menendez and from Congressman Leach, we really do have to rebuild USAID so it has that kind of long range and immediate crisis response capacity. It has devastated. Just like I believe USIA’s elimination in retrospect was a terrible mistake. But, I mean, these are the pressures that existed in the ’90s and late ’80s to eliminate USIA, fold it in the State Department and to go from 16,000 after the end of the Vietnam period down to about 2,500, 3,000 now in the USAID. And all that capacity has to be recreated. And it isn’t easy, but that’s what I think we have to do. And the USAID has a long range as well as a short range – a short-term crisis response capability that has to be rebuilt.

MS. WOODRUFF: I want to ask Senator Menendez to comment on that. But also, this is a question from the audience: “Are you in favor of a major revision of the Foreign Assistance Act which dates back to the 1960s? And what major elements do you feel are most in need of revision?”

SEN. MENENDEZ: What’s the next question? (Laughter.) No. You know, Howard Berman, who I served with in the House and is now the chair of the House committee – is very much in line to try to seek a rewrite. And I applaud him for it. I think it’s important.

I heard Jack Lew say, however, that we’ve got to deal with what we have right now. I don’t know that such a rewrite, which will be enormous undertaking in nature, will get done in a time in which we are dealing with all of the critical issues we are talking about right now. How do we have this rebalancing from the Defense Department back into the State? How do we build human capacity? How do we make the smart power actually go to work? And don’t know that that can wait for a rewrite.

So I applause, you know, Congressman Berman for pursuing it. We certainly have been holding at the subcommittee level a series of hearings. I look forward to working with Senator Kerry, who’s our chair of the full committee. And we’ll see what can be done. But in the interim I don’t want to lose opportunities in critical decision making waiting for a rewrite of the overall authorization.

MS. WOODRUFF: Does anybody else want to comment on that?

AMB. SHERMAN: I quite agree with Senator Menendez in the sense that it would be fabulous to have a rewrite of the Foreign Assistance Act. It would be fabulous to have a state authorization bill. Both of these things well done could make real all of the things that we are discussing up here: create the flexibility, create the accountability, create the focus, create the fundamental basis for the kind of restructuring we are all discussing that is crucial to the 21st century. But we have to proceed to try to get as much flexibility, to try to achieve those objectives now or we will lose an enormous amount of time. So we need to be working on all tracks at the same time but not let one be dependent on the other.

MS. WOODRUFF: Congressman Leach, I’m going to – this picks up on several things we’ve already heard. It says, “Secretary Powell talks about the constraints of earmarks and yet earmarks for HIV/AIDS, for Child Survival and other programs also attract public support for foreign assistance. How do you balance flexibility with targeting programs that people and Congress support?”

MR. LEACH: Well, it’s a very difficult thing and sometimes you can have an overriding provision that allows some discretion of the secretary, which isn’t the worst thought. But certainly all aspects of all budgets involve setting priorities.

And then you have this question of what is an earmark? Normally in domestic affairs you think of an earmark as a bridge for a congressional district. In foreign affairs it’s often what are your priorities? And one of the problems that a little bit develops is, just like in domestic affairs, most programs are fairly positive, and the trouble is how do you put them in perspective? In foreign affairs, any individual member can come up with a really good idea and then if they put it in statute and apply all sorts of resources to it then you kind of lose the whole. And so it’s how you keep the whole in balance. But there has to be a give and take.

And certainly if you take the AIDS issue, which is not only a brother’s keeper humanitarian issue but it also implies self-defense at home because when you think of disease, there’s no borders. And so America then is dealing with disease abroad is also dealing with disease at home in a way that’s a little greater than might be suspected.

In fact, in my lifetime – and I began in the United States Department of State in the arms control arena – I always thought war and peace was the greatest issue in the history of man. It’s conceivable it’s the second greatest; that is, that the greatest is going to be disease control. And if you look statistically, for example, all the deaths in Iraq and then you equate them to certain diseases in the world, whether they be AIDS or malaria or other kinds of diseases, it suddenly should dawn on us that dealing with the human issue of disease is pretty paramount. Likewise, there was a reference earlier to water. I mean, we forget the basics. When we have general basics at home we forget the basics abroad.

So I’m not against the idea of Congress being interested in parts of issues and trying to expand budgets in certain issues as long as there is a recognition that there’s an overall too.

GEN. POWELL: And I could just say a word about earmarks: My resistance to earmarks isn’t because there’s something wrong with the attention or the program. It’s just that after eight congressional hearings every year and with a process that’s supposed to be deliberative so that things are competed against one another, and you go through this whole process and suddenly things that were not competed against one another to see which is better suddenly just show up.

And frankly, both for domestic and foreign assistance earmarks, the growth in these earmarks over the last 20 years has been astonishing, from maybe a couple of thousand 20 years ago to I think a high water mark was something like 14,000 a few years ago. Now it’s started to drift down again. That can’t be good management. That can’t be good budgeting. And so I would hope that the Congress would find a way through their deliberative process of hearings and subcommittee hearings to measure these things and compete them one against another as opposed to them just showing up as a particular project of a member and in it goes. And we already see in this current budget process that President Obama is having some difficulty with them again.

AMB. SHERMAN: There’s one other –

MS. WOODRUFF: Yeah. Quick. Yeah.

AMB. SHERMAN: – one other element, Judy, that we can’t get through this morning without mentioning which is crucial to that flexibility. And that is commanders in the field have a fund in the military that they can use to get a water pump, to help build a bridge, to deal with a tribal leader’s needs in a village. And they don’t have to come back to Washington to get permission to use those funds; they can just do it. Which is very good diplomacy, very useful for that community, creates a better relationship with the United States. But they often turn to the AID worker or the Peace Corps worker or the PRT State Department person to find out how to do it. And that money should be in the hands of the AID worker, of the U.S. ambassador, of the State Department person in that PRT.

And so I would urge Congress, while they’re looking at earmarks – and I agree with General Powell; you need that flexible aid. And I also agree with Congressman Leach; there’s real life that one has to deal with. That we also look at allowing U.S. ambassadors, allowing State Department personnel and USAID personnel and Peace Corps personnel to have the same kind of flexibility the field commander has in the field that relies on the expertise of those other folks.

GEN. POWELL: In the last few years there’s been a migration of control over these kinds of funds from the State Department to the Defense Department. And I would hope that this would be looked at and migrated back.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. We have about five minutes left and I want to use this time to broaden it out and look at smart power from the standpoint of given the crises that face this administration right now, what should be the priorities for this administration over the next few months – whether you want to say the second half of the first 100 days or whatever timeframe you want – to advance smart power? Secretary Powell, let’s start with you.

GEN. POWELL: I would say that the president should continue to speak out for his international assistance budget. He should use the very capable members of his team to take this case to the American people and to take it to the Congress. And just be pressing ahead on. I mean, there are so many priorities out there and the president’s going to have his hands full.

And the American people right, the only thing that they see as their priority one is the economy. We’ve got to fix the economy and everything else is secondary to that. And the president and his foreign affairs team, his national security team, have to kind of rise above that and convince the American people that this kind of budget that we’re looking at is in our interest and will help us economically and will help us in terms of our national security position. And if we do smart power right, if we get this done right, then maybe we can spend less on defense in the years ahead.

MS. WOODRUFF: Can you add anything with regard to crisis points like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, North Korea?

GEN. POWELL: And there are others coming that we don’t even know about yet. It’s always the case. Nobody ever knew what war they were getting into when they came into office.

I think the administration and the Congress has to be very sensitive to the fact that many more resources are going to be needed for Afghanistan than I think anybody has thought about yet. I think that’s the difficult conflict. Iraq I think with the withdrawal of troops over time, where 16 or 19 months – it really doesn’t make much difference – and the ability of the Iraqi government to start to take control of its own destiny and its own future, the focus is going to be on Afghanistan.

And we have to be able to put money into places like Pakistan which affects Afghanistan. You can’t separate. We’re putting more hard power – if I can go back to those old terms – in the form of 17,000 troops into Afghanistan. But if Pakistan’s economy collapses because we haven’t helped them and supported them, you’ve got an even bigger problem than you had before. And so you have to go on both tracks at the same time and make sure you get both hard power done well, soft power done well, smart power, smart influence, whatever you choose to call it.

MS. WOODRUFF: What would you add to that? I mean, how should the – how can the administration get it right in terms of priorities given all this?

SEN. MENENDEZ: Well, I think that when you see that the National Intelligence Estimate says to you that in fact the greatest challenge – security challenge – is the economic crisis before us, that’s a pretty overarching set of circumstances. So the president is going to have to argue for his budget provisions her to build up the State department and the development capacity. He’s going to have to argue for it pretty strongly. He’s going to have to convince the American people, who I get letters from all the time back home in New Jersey, tell me that I’m crazy for having assisted our financial institutions so that they didn’t collapse; who tell me that they don’t particularly know if the stimulus package that we passed is going to really make a difference in their lives.

Right now, they are fixated on their own personal and economic security. And so making the case for this would be a difficult proposition at any given point in time. Making it right now will be all the more so. Now, he is a great communicator, and right now the American people solidly support him. He needs to use that political capital to make it happen. He needs to have – we need the Secretary – and I know she’s got so much on her plate – we need to get a competent AID administrator in as soon as possible. And then I think we also need – something that he can do internally is this rebalancing of the Defense Department’s resources for non-defense purposes into the State Department’s ability. Those are all things that he will need to do and some of which he can do internally that I think would be very helpful.

MS. WOODRUFF: Congressman Leach, priorities over the next few months to advance smart power.

MR. LEACH: I think you begin with what you have. And America has today a president that possibly has the finest set of instincts of any president I’ve ever known at any particular moment in time. He also has an instinct for professionalism. And so we have on three of the issues, special envoys of the highest distinction.

We also have the greatest set of problems we’ve had in modern times and led, as Senator Menendez says, by the economy. And the crucial thing to me is not necessarily the ability to communicate in a flip or glib sense, but the capacity to make it clear that we’re all in this together – American citizens of all walks of life; citizens of Africa, Asia, Europe; all in it together in that we all have a common plight and common approaches that can be developed. And so this capacity not to be the bully but to be the leader is something that we have to craft, and I don’t know any president that’s off to a better start.

MS. WOODRUFF: And internally, Wendy Sherman, what needs to be done behind the scenes as well as out front over the next few months?

AMB. SHERMAN: Well, behind the scenes certainly every member of the administration has to be fighting in the trenches, as Secretary Powell said, to get what will still be only 1.4 percent of the entire budget. So we also should be clear that we’re not talking about a staggering amount of money, and the international security budget, the 150 account, will only be about 6.8 percent of the national security budget. So we are talking about a very small amount of money. It takes everyone in this room to make the case. It takes making the case over the airwaves to the American public, who as I said from the very beginning, are understandably focused on the economy.

But I remember, Judy, when – I’m old enough to remember when there was one reporter who covered economics who would come on the evening news, and most people paid absolutely no attention to him and didn’t understand what he was talking about. And then, American citizens got their own 401(k) plans and began to understand what investment was about, and began to understand what savings was about. And today, unfortunately, they know that those savings in those investment plans can get invested overseas as well as invested here and create great opportunity for them, and create great challenges for them.

And so the point that Congressman Leach made, that we are all in this together, is absolutely crucial. And that is true of this small amount of money that makes an enormous difference in people’s lives; that allows them to move up to the middle class, that creates markets for American jobs, that will come back to strengthen our own country and our own families.

MS. WOODRUFF: Although 1.4 percent of a trillion-and-a-half (dollars) is more than 1.4 percent of whatever budget used to be.

AMB. SHERMAN: That’s true.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Wendy Sherman, thank you very, very much. Secretary Colin Powell, Senator Menendez, Congressman Jim Leach, we appreciate it. Thank you, all four of you.

(Applause.)

MS. SCHRAYER: To close our program, a couple quick announcements. I want to add to Judy Woodruff. This was an extraordinary treat for everybody in this room and our live webcast that has been tracking this, along with the press that’s here. Each of you have added to this agenda that I have to return – refer to as “smart influence,” and we will – we will use that more and more, and thank you for adding that to the conversation. But again, thank you to all four of our magnificent panelists and Judy Woodruff, yourself, for leading a magnificent conversation.

I also want to acknowledge in your book there are some people that put a lot of hard work into this. Our primary author, Mike Signer; our incredible researcher, Nate Wright; and our producer of the whole report on reports, Carolyn Reynolds; I thank each one of you as well as the staff and many of the board members sitting in front who helped edit and proof and draw out the analysis that you have in front of you.

But mainly I want to thank the authors and the contributors – over 500 people who over the last few years have been thinking about these issues, some of whom are in this room today, who have really contributed to the intellectual thought that we debated here today about how to put smart power to work.

So before the administration and Congress, we present this road map. And we believe, as we’ve talked about today, that there is much more agreement than disagreement, and it really is time to put smart power to work. We hope that we have helped narrow the scope of discussion. We look forward to not just talking about smart power as a slogan, but making smart power – or again, maybe we should say smart influence – a reality.

Thank you again for joining us. Thank you to our panelists and Judy Woodruff.

(Applause.)

(END)