Just as there are people that believe in alien abductions and anal probing there are non-Americans that believe that the US stands for "Liberty" and "Freedom". Most people on the other hand don't feel liberated when their country is bombed into gravel and occupied.
So let's hope that this is simply a disingenuous attack on the Obama administration rather than a sign of a Republican agenda after 2012 (assuming they win the election).
Just to repeat and clarify for any neocons out there: torture, destruction, death and chaos does not equal freedom and liberty.

Finding fault is easy; more difficult is articulating a positive strategy.

Rather than just griping next time, Dr. Schake, please tell us what specific approach you advocate.

I'm sorry... did someone just wake you from a 60 year coma?

Eisenhower is no long alive. And our foreign policy since than has been... ...unfortunate.

"hopes of millions who consider us an ally and a champion of liberty"

Uh, not many people think that anymore. Who are you again? Where were you educated?

while the US should be a world leader, we should also stick to some of our ACTUAL founding values. which, surprisingly or not, seem to mirror what secretary Clinton is doing. Staying out of foreign entanglements, and letting others deal with their own problems is not only smart, it's ultimately empowering for many countries when they achieve freedom more or less on their own. Meddling in others affairs will only cause rifts within their society, and create disunity of purpose. Thus dooming whatever liberation movement is underway. Take a look back at history, and show me the success stories that involved massive intervening military action by foreign powers. I doubt you will find many.

I don't care what Mrs. Clinton wants tell her to Bill My Parents

President Obama inherited an economic, and military quagmire from which there still seems to be no end in sight. The US power and leadership Mr. Schake speaks of, has been greatly diminished by past botched interventions in the name of freedom and democracy. Sadly and needless to say, we don't have to look that far in time to find the latest one. I applaud the Obama administration for showing a little more restraint before trying to use what little credibility the US still maintains as a world leader on a more hardline stance.

So Clinton deregulated, and Bush cronies ran with it, 9/11 panicked and enable the war industry, the banks sucked us dry, and there's a dead economic battery and the tow truck isn't coming. Hope we can flag down China and get a jump, but they're gonna charge us to save us.

In the 1920s and may be up till 1950s, it was the corporate imperialism, which military intervention was the the norm against some banana republics to collect some debt on the behalf of some large US corporations who can not collect large fee from the natives or to enforce some semi-legitimate business deal. Toppling banana republics was a cake walk.

In the 1960s/1970s it was anti-communist ideology to assassinate any leftie leaders who do not conform the long term strategic interest to stem communism tide. . Killed few leftties and keep some rightwing dictators in power was dirty and easy.

Clinton Globalism mostly benefited high end business to expand all over the world and rack up huge profit by investing oversea/offshore outsourcing. It was thought rising tide lifted all boats, and corporate profits soar would benefits everybody in this country. I remembered there was a time in 1990s when Wall Street type opinioned that manufacturing did not matter as corporate profits soar, and more foreigners became propersous would come to invest their money in US stocks, and lifted them higher and higher.

Military Intervention in ME was simply based on some ill-coneived ideology, that mere US military presence in that country would magically turn that country into huge democracy, but most serious fanatsy enteratined by NEOCONs was simply for some handpicked natives to be installed there will automatically toe the NECON lines and follow their foreign policy dictates. No such leaders ever materialized, trillions investment down the drain??

Allan Greenspan/Ben Bernake easy money policy encouraged speculation in housing based security coupled with large foreign investment on US debts, created unrealistics credit bubles which bursted in 2008.

Democrats/Obama doubled down the bet to accelerate the rising national debts level. When Banks were bailed out in 2009, some Wall St type argued that bailout saved the world economy, and soon to happen recovery will make eveything back to normal again. All Fed QEs only serve to shore up big banks balance sheets, and failed to jack up stalled economy which never recover espcially at local level. People are hurting everywhere.

Now what?? more stimulus, more debt? debase the dollars/continue huge deficit spending to the point that debts became astronomical? how long to wreck national economy through easy money policy to punish all savers/honest workers to prop stock prices, and there is no way out except monetizing the debt? and the whole world is sinking slowing,and when the inflection point will occur that everybody crash,
some will land harder & hurt more than others

whatever soft power , foreign policy based on checks writing/giving more foreign aids and tossing few miliatry assistances packages to go too, will result in any benefits when the worldwide standard of living is lowering everyday and chaos everywhere,and

THE CHECKBOOK IS ALREADY IN THE RED, and THERE IS OVERDRAFT PROTECTION ANYMORE.

Soft Power isn't the problem in this scenario: it's Clinton's favoritism towards a disastrous combination of hard and soft power used to create what she refers to as "smart power." Nothing the Obama Administration has done can really be considered a major shift in US foreign policy. The Dubya Administration adopted its own failed method of strategic soft power via nation-building. As for blaming the Obama Administration for the failing states in the Middle East, this revolution actually has very little to do with US political foreign influence. US foreign policy has changed so little over the past 50+ decades, it isn't that these leaders solely distrust the Obama Administration, it's that they distrust America as a whole. There are too many outside factors, such as growing unemployment rates creating civil unrest within these nation-states to say, "look, the Middle East wasn't even this bad when Bush was in office!"
As for criticizing Secretary Clinton for saying that Turkey an Saudi Arabia wield more power and influence in this issue, um, newsflash, they do! In the most logical sense that natural allies/enemies are created by neighboring states or at least regional states, what those countries have to say about the matter does hold a greater impact. In fact, I would think as the author complaining about Clinton's use of soft power, you would not reprimand her for being more realistic and lessening the extent of the Team America: World Police rhetoric, but rather encourage it. It does not make a difference that she said those things, because they would be true regardless. It seems this article really focuses on bashing failures that for the most part cannot be attributed to the Obama Administration (though the failures in foreign policy are there, no doubt) and then criticizing Hillary alone for stating the obvious.

We should find the problematic errors of US foreign policy strategy when Mrs. Clinton says things like "we have...a strategy for transition that we are following. And it is based on, frankly, the decision that President Obama made upon taking office that we had lost momentum to the Taliban. When he came into office, the situation that we found was not very promising. And so he did order additional troops. I ordered and fulfilled the more than tripling of the civilians on the ground from 320 to more than 1,125. We put in a lot of effort to try to stabilize and then reverse what we saw as a deteriorating situation." Nothing in that statement reflects the usage of this soft power, reinforcing the idea that the Obama Administration is not all that different from the Bush Administration when it comes to handling these matters.

This is the most important part of her whole speech, I noticed how some words were conveniently left out, so I thought whoever is interested might like to read the full paragraphs: "
If you look at Libya, this is a case for strategic patience, and it’s easy to get impatient. But I think when you realize that this started in March, there was no opposition, there were not institutions, there was nothing that – there was no address even for trying to figure out how to help people who were attempting to cast off this brutal dictatorship of 42-plus years. The distance they have travelled in this relatively short period of time, the fact that for the first time we have a NATO-Arab alliance taking action, you’ve got Arab countries who are running strike actions, you’ve got Arab countries who are supporting with advisors the opposition. This is exactly the kind of world that I want to see where it’s not just the United States and everybody is standing on the sidelines while we bear the cost, while we bear the sacrifice, while our men and women lay down their lives for universal values, where we’re finally beginning to say, “Look, we are by all measurements the strongest leader in the world, and we are leading. But part of leading is making sure that you get other people on the field.” And that’s what I think we’re doing.

And similarly, as I told Frank in Syria, it’s not going to be any news if the United States says Asad needs to go. Okay. Fine. What’s next? If Turkey says it, if King Abdullah says it, if other people say it, there is no way the Asad regime can ignore it. We don’t have very much going on with Syria because of a long history of challenging problems with them. So I think this is smart power, and I talk a lot about smart power, where it’s not just brute force, it’s not just unilateralism, it’s being smart enough to say, “You know what? We want a bunch of people singing out of the same hymn book, and we want them singing a song of universal freedom, human rights, democracy, everything that we have stood for and pioneered over 235 years.” That’s what I’m looking for us to be able to achieve."

If you want to see where areas of soft power are going to succeed, then look at areas where there is no military intervention. The US used soft power to its benefit when it aided Haiti, Japan and now as it addresses famine in the Horn of Africa. But soft power has not been the strategic focus for the most part in the Middle East when it comes to past dealings between that region and the US. It has mostly been a strategy of hard power, which Hillary did not truly seem to deny.

These types of articles are dangerous b/c they are short, easy to read and very convincing to ignorant people who read them. Ignorant people=the majority of american voters, meaning ignorant to world affairs and do not follow politics or world affairs. This article is appealing to nationalism and is written with the presumption that Western-Style Democracy works perfectly in every nation in the world--we have seen clearly from the attempts in Iraq and Afghanistan that it does not. This new approach to foreign policy not only allows nation's internal fights to develop further before the U.S. ends all internal led change, but once an international plan to act has been formed, the Western world is to blame if it does not work, not just the U.S.-like we are being blamed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. needs to get comfortable with not being the only jacked guy in the gym anymore.

Kori Schake-
During President George W. Bush's first term, she was the director for Defense Strategy and Requirements on the National Security Council.

As the global canvas becomes ever larger, the power of the US directly to engineer and guide events diminishes and its purposes become increasingly achievable more through response than manipulative effort. What Clinton is recognising is a stage in this process. It is an enlightened recognition but it is also idealistic and abstract and far from easy to implement in the real world with so many powerful interests reluctant to let go the tiller.

Hillary simply wants to be the star of the show...

What I failed to read in this article is exactly what the author proposes that the US should do. Invade Syria, aerial bombing, special forces insertion? What can be done except for an act of war, possible escalation and then what?
After 8 years of unilateralist adventurism I am pleased with the use of soft power.

What's being left out of the discussion is the option of arming of the rebels when their rulers use their militaries against their own people. Arming the rebels (such as with anti-tank weapons) wouldn't cost anywhere near as much as using direct US force. It would be clear support for the legitimate aspirations of the people for freedom. It would only seem fair since the dictator has superior weapons which it is using against his people. Also, knowledge that his people could be armed at any time might make a dictator more willing to adopt true reforms early on and not attempt the slow kill approach which Assad is doing. Also, the dictator's military would earlier get to the point where they would begin to doubt whether they were fighting a lost cause. Finally, the victory would still primarily be that of the locals who risked their own lives to overthrow the dictator.

The fact that Obama (especially with Libya) hasn't supported the rebels by giving them money for weapons indicates to me that he ans his administration really don't value the freedom of oppressed people. If they get their freedom, OK. But if the dictator crushes the revolt by using superior force, then that's condemnable but not something to do anything real about. I find that troubling.

. . . the desperate thrashings of a hegemonic power being reduced to irrelevance.

Sad to say, this is my country. But we've earned this outcome by arrogantly stepping on people for decades.

The neocons and their never ending wars. How many people must this country slaughter to reach our utopia? Do any these neocons actually make a sacrifice in their wars or do they profit off of death? Maybe we should worry about the home front before the empire rots from within and we end up with a French Revolution. What is homeland security really for? This country is broke, we cannot afford another one of your adventures, if you want a war lead the charge and you pay for it. Don't take away the common mans butter for another war. Forget this left right stuff didn't Obama have Libya bomb without congressional approval? Can we afford that side show?

I applaud the Obama administration for showing home_renovations a little more restraint before trying to use what little credibility the US still maintains as a world leader on a more hard line stance.