The power to persuade

                The political commentator and presidential advisor Richard Neustadt once said that the power of the President is “the power to persuade and the power to bargain.” As a long-time observer of American politics, there is in my opinion much veracity in this famous comment. A successful President must be able to convince others to support a particular course of action. This requires a mastery of the dark arts of persuasion in which he must wield an iron fist inside the velvet glove. One should include both hard power and soft power (Nye, 1990) here because no President can be successful without the ability to use brute force and tactful diplomacy. As the twenty-sixth President Theodore Roosevelt once said; the POTUS should always “speak softly and carry a big stick.”

                The President of the United States holds considerable hard power on the world stage. For instance, he has an extraordinary level of military arsenal at his disposal. As commander-in-chief of the world’s foremost military force; the President can wield significant power within international relations. However, the possession of force does not necessarily mean that the United States can always get its own way. The limitations of America’s military power were graphically brought home to people’s living rooms via CNN and other media sources during Vietnam. The Vietnam syndrome remains a scar upon the collective consciousness of our country, and has repeatedly shaped America’s response to various conflicts ever since. Time and time again, America has sought allies in whatever capacity we can when serious consideration has been devoted towards military intervention (Steward and Knaus, 2011). Presidents from both parties have sought to build coalitions of the willing rather than engage in unilateral military action. Despite what many critics of American foreign policy would claim, we have been eager to gain support from the international community wherever it has been practical and reasonable to do so.

                America also possesses a significant degree of soft power. The promise of more open trade and/or greater levels of aid from the United States can be a strong bargaining chip for the President. Whilst he must forge alliances in Congress to deliver such promises, the POTUS can still utilize considerable economic resources at his disposal to persuade other countries to agree with a particular course of action. Indeed, the use of economic aid and sanctions can be a highly effective tool of persuasion. America’s diplomatic resources could also be considered here, as in the case of the deal struck with Iran during January 2016.

                To adopt the language of the Italian political theorist Vilfredo Pareto, a successful President needs to be both a cunning fox and a forceful lion. In recent times, President Obama has demonstrated his diplomatic skills when dealing with our allies and in threatening action against hostile leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and General Bashar al-Assad of Syria. His success in the area of foreign policy has thus far been somewhat mixed. Whereas Obama managed to hold together a number of countries over Libyan airstrikes in 2011, he failed to gain enough support from NATO allies over proposed military action against the Assad regime. He has since admitted that Libya remains his biggest foreign policy regret.

                Any proper assessment of the President’s ability to persuade within the field of international relations requires us to consider the broader framework of public opinion and congressional funding. Support for military action amongst the public is based upon mood rather than ideological substance. Whilst the US remains committed to the defense of freedom, it no longer faces anything like the same ideological opposition of say Communism or Fascism. As such, the American public does not have the same attachment to the loosely-defined war against terror as they had during the cold war or the Second World War. This makes it all the more difficult for the President to rally the country behind him when American interests might best be served by the use of force. On a related point, America can longer afford to act as the world’s policeman and must inevitably seek to identify ways in which it can reduce military spending. After a massive increase in military expenditure during the Bush administration, the emphasis under the Obama presidency has been upon attempts to reduce the level of military spending.

                The power of the President to persuade members of Congress will always be limited. He cannot offer anything comparable to the same incentives that a party leader could in a parliamentary system. Indeed, even the promise of promotion to the Cabinet is hardly an enticing offer for those on the Hill. Moreover, the President does not enjoy the same level of party discipline that would be the case in the United Kingdom. The President may also face an opposition party being in control of Congress, who may be ideologically hostile to his plans. Due to all these factors, his ability to persuade congressional members is heavily constrained.

                It is an inevitable fact of political life that some Presidents are more successful at persuading members of Congress than others. It must also be noted that the ability of the Head of State to reach out beyond the aisle has become much more difficult due to the trend towards ideological polarization. In the case of the current occupant, Barack Obama has found it difficult to reach a consensus in favor of foreign policy action due to the obstructionist tactics of the GOP. Many Republicans in the House are instinctively opposed to the liberal interventionism of the Obama administration. Bipartisanship remains the ‘holy grail’ for modern Presidents, fated only to surface on a fleeting basis when the national interest is at stake.