'Multi-partner world' strategy desirable, but not a panacea

If you bought the buzz on Hillary Clinton's major foreign-policy speech at the Council on Foreign Relations last week, she was trying to regain her waning clout in the Obama administration.

But the media's focus on Clinton's level of job satisfaction distracted attention from the meat of her speech, which laid out the administration's foreign-policy doctrine: using every means to persuade other countries (and civil societies) to cooperate on issues that concern us most.

Clinton looked great in a deep-blue suit and talked forcefully. Her recently broken elbow, which kept her from joining President Barack Obama on his Moscow trip, was out of its cast. And no one asked her about the now famous Daily Beast column in which Tina Brown said: "It's time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa."

Indeed, Clinton seemed comfortable in the role of team player in an administration where Obama sets the foreign-policy tone. "Our approach to foreign policy must reflect the world as it is, not as it used to be," she said — a dig at the phraseology of Donald Rumsfeld. She consigned to history's dustbin the following strategies: the 19th-century concert of great powers, the 20th-century U.S.-Soviet balance of power, Cold War containment and the unilateral exercise of U.S. power.

Instead, she said, the United States will attempt to strengthen old alliances in Europe and Asia, and it will encourage new global powers, such as China, India, Russia, Brazil and Turkey, to work together on shared problems. These include non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, terrorism, economic growth and climate change.

"We will lead by inducing greater cooperation," Clinton said, and by promoting "a multi-partner world."

If this sounds jargony to you, I sympathize. Many of the ideas in the speech come from academia, such as the "smart power" concept of Harvard professor Joe Nye. He argues that America needs to make the best use of all available tools — economic, diplomatic, innovative, etc. — in our foreign policy. (Nye held senior posts in Bill Clinton's administration and was Hillary Clinton's pick for ambassador to Japan; the Obama White House chose someone else.)

Another source of ideas was Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former dean at Princeton University and now director of policy planning at the State Department. She has written a book, "A New World Order," on the importance of global networks to foreign policy.