What Wins Respect for the United States

by Paul R. Pillar
Much gets said and written, mostly as rhetoric intended to criticize the Obama administration, about the standing of the United States in the world supposedly having declined.  To the extent such rhetoric gets linked to specific policy prescription, it most often amounts to an assertion that respect for the United States derives from throwing its weight around and particularly doing so with military power.  But one doesn’t have to look hard for reminders that this is not really the way the world works.
A word is in order about some of the sentiments involved and how they relate to each other.  Respect is not identical with liking, but even in everyday life positive sentiments toward someone else tend to go together, and so do negative ones.  It is hard to have respect for an authority figure such as a teacher or parent if one dislikes the person.  Dale Carnegie wrote a bestseller called How to Win Friends and Influence People and gave courses that encompassed both.  The clustering of sentiment is at least as true in international relations, where the goal is to influence the behavior of both people and governments.  Riding roughshod over the sensitivities and concerns of other peoples may engender fear, but does not yield either liking or respect.  Moreover, the opportunities for opposing the interests of even a superpower are sufficiently numerous  that the weight-throwing approach is not a good strategy for winning influence.  Positive approaches that exhibit respect for the concerns of even those with whom one has significant disagreements are more likely to buy the sort of influence one wants.  Respect engenders respect.http://lobelog.com/what-wins-respect-for-the-united-states/#more-36293