The American Imperative
Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power
Daniel F. Runde
Bombardier Books, New York, 2023, 280 pages
Book Review published on: November 10, 2023
The United States has a “soft power” problem. For decades, particularly since the end of the Cold War, the United States has struggled to adequately conceive, formulate, and implement whole-of-government national security strategy that utilizes all the “tools” of statecraft. This persistent challenge is well-documented in books, special reports, congressional studies, and testimonies going back to the 1960s. In fact, the United States has consistently overrelied on military influence, actions, and options to achieve its national security objectives, causing a long-term atrophy in strategic diplomatic and comprehensive, international development policy, and planning capability.
In the book The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power, author Daniel Runde, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, reengages these issues in the context of the twenty-first century and America’s great power competition with China and Russia. Asserting that America’s global leadership will not and should not be asserted on the battlefield, he investigates how the United States must engage equally with all elements of national power. This cannot be accomplished through polarized partisanship and short-term thinking, planning, or budgeting, but through a long-term, marathon approach that reinvigorates America’s alliances, strengthens the international economy, improves state governance, and ultimately, restores America’s global standing.
A major hurdle that the United States must first overcome, according to Runde’s assessment, is restoring and supporting internal civic education and training that develops leaders and civil servants that understand the importance of diplomacy, development, and a “soft power” approach to national security policy. For far too long, a “soft power” approach to national security issues has been undervalued and underutilized by American policymakers, regardless of political persuasion. As evidence, Runde provides examples of shrinking diplomatic and development budgets, and just as importantly, the diplomatic and developmental workforce, particularly under the Trump administration.
In the vacuum of U.S. global leadership, Russia and particularly China have stepped in to assert influence and control over exceptionally critical and strategic domains that include international development, international institutions, and key, strategic, international resources and terrain. After laying out the issues in his global assessment, Runde sets about recommending how the United States utilizes the full spectrum of statecraft tools to achieve greater global prosperity, more effective international institutions, better state governance, and a tipped scale that favors and highlights American higher education, jobs, and leading innovation.
Overall, the book is a quick read and a reminder of American exceptionalism. It emphasizes the critical need for rebuilding U.S. institutions other than the military, and the need to improve the professional development of its diplomatic and development workforce. This is imperative to stanching the atrophy of strategic thinking among foreign service professionals, political appointees, civilian leaders, and elected officials. Overreliance on the military to achieve national security objectives in the twenty-first century is dangerously short-sighted and myopic. If America is to remain a relevant actor in the decades ahead, it needs to hone its ability to expertly exercise all elements of national power in the affairs of state.
Book Review written by: Col. Todd A. Schmidt, PhD, U.S. Army, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas