"Standing does not matter."
Dead wrong. During the Cold War, the United States was anxious that its reputation for protecting its allies, especially those in Europe, be seen as credible by both Soviet leaders and Europeans. As Lyndon Johnson explained to Martin Luther King, Jr. in early 1965, "If I pulled out [of Vietnam] ... I think the Germans would be scared to death that our commitment to them was no good, and God knows what we'd have in other places in the world."
More recently, the Bush Doctrine was reversed in Bush's second term in part due to falling support abroad -- involving both credibility and esteem -- that made it harder for the United States to get what it wanted.
Of course, many other factors affect foreign-policy success and we should not delude ourselves that standing is the critical factor. Moreover, standing should never be the sole consideration behind U.S. foreign policy. There will inevitably be trade-offs between other pressing interests in particular situations; for example, the United States may need to act to protect itself from an imminent threat, and this action may diminish its standing among some audiences.
It is important, however, to acknowledge more explicitly the costs and benefits of maintaining standing in policymaking. For decision makers under pressure, it is tempting to focus only on what is concrete and immediate and has short-term impact. But just as it is dangerous for business leaders to focus only on quarterly profits and ignore their firm's long-term health, so too must U.S. leaders consider the nation's stock of credibility and esteem.
U.S. standing affects other nations' willingness to offer it the benefit of the doubt. Moreover, U.S. credibility and esteem help to mold Americans' sense of unity and collective purpose. Standing is easy to neglect, but wise policymakers should consider its impact and sometimes protect it even when there are short-term costs.
Managing standing requires using different tools for different jobs. Standing is a nuanced phenomenon that varies across regions, between foreign elites and the publics, and between partisans in the United States. Policymakers must attend to those distinctions in specific ways. And the United States must heed the bond between power and standing by providing public goods through effective leadership that coordinates other states and shares costs.
Improving standing requires moving beyond public diplomacy. The problem is not just communication, but policy execution. As Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently put it, "Each time we fail to live up to our values or don't follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are."
Finally we need better data and analysis on U.S. standing. The United States supports periodic National Election Surveys at home; questions about standing should be added to the survey and public funds for other indicators -- such as foreign media analysis -- are needed.
The dynamics of U.S. standing are complex, and we grasp only imperfectly the sources and impact of U.S. credibility and esteem in the world. Yet standing matters for U.S. foreign policy, and American leaders must pay attention to it or face real-world consequences.
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