33 herself shies away from the Cineplex imagery in favor of the notion of “smart power.” “Smart power’ is the use of American power in ways that would help prevent and resolve conflict—not just send our military in,” she says. “Smart power’ is closer cooperation between our development experts, our diplomats, our military leaders.” Hillary offers an example: in Afghanistan, the Pentagon has a fund that allows a young American officer to take $100,000 in discretionary funds and rebuild a school on his own authority. By contrast, a diplomat or development expert trying to rebuild a school would spend months filling out forms, Hillary says, and probably still wouldn’t get the money out of Congress. “We need a more agile civilian power,” she concludes. Hillary draws a distinction between focusing on relations with governments (the locus of diplomacy for hundreds of years) and stimulating change in societies, where the results are less controllable but ultimately more profound. She clearly wants to try both at once, but that intention can break down under the stress of a crisis. In the debate over the bombing of Libya, the “society” policymakers were the hawks. Their argument was caricatured by critics as purely humanitarian but was in fact strategic. The thinking here was that the U.S. must “get on the right side of history” and connect to the aspirations of young people in the region. By contrast, the Old Guard focused on nervous allies like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Jordan. Seeing the upheaval through the lens of stability, they were doves on the question of bombing Libya, which they thought might detract from the larger aim of containing Iran. Their mantra was “Beware unintended consequences.” While the Pentagon was clearly opposed beforehand, the other power centers in the government were more conflicted. It wasn’t State versus White House, much less women versus men or old versus HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_024990